http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2602069_pf.html

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; 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.


© 2005 The Washington Post Company

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/feat...ts.html#a004692

Covert Operative: Sen. Roberts Uses the Cover of the Senate to Flame Plame

07.25.2005 Arianna Huffington

Covert Operative: Sen. Roberts Uses the Cover of the Senate to Flame Plame
Sometimes it’s not the crime or the cover-up that does you in. Sometimes it’s the counter-attack.

Plamegate (aka the Rove-Libby-Gonzalez-Card scandal) is truly opening a window on the soul of the Republican Party… and it’s not a pretty view. We've seen the GOP attack machine in action many times before. But this time, the targets of the smears are intertwined with national security concerns -- putting the attackers in the tricky position of having to choose which comes first, their country or their party.

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas has clearly chosen the latter. No longer is the smear campaign confined to the surrogates on the margins, now Roberts has opted to use the Senate to do his dirty work. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has decided to hold hearings on whether the CIA’s definition of undercover is too broad. Hmm... I wonder why he’s doing that?

Speaking about the Plame case on CNN, Roberts said “I must say from a common-sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don’t know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert. But, generically speaking, it is a very serious matter.” But not so serious that the Roberts’ committee will be taking testimony on the Plame leaks… just on the question of how, you know, secret a secret agent has to be before, generically speaking, outing that agent should be considered a bad thing.

Josh Marshall nails it when he says that Roberts “is a shame to the office, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the White House political operation.” If you've come to a place in your political career where you can look at the Plame case and decide that the real culprit in the matter is the C.I.A.'s definition of covert -- and that the best course of action for is you is to attack Valerie Plame -- you really need to rethink why it is you went into politics in the first place and whether this is really what you want to be doing with your life.

My guess is that one person who won't be testifying at Senator Roberts' hearings is Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst who has spoken out on Plame’s behalf. Too bad, because it turns out he's got a very solid grasp of the concept of “undercover” and might be able to enlighten chairman Roberts. You know, generically speaking…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20050726/...HNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Rep. John Conyers: What About the Ten Week Gap? Rep. John Conyers
Tue Jul 26, 3:40 PM ET

Going back a couple of years, I wrote two letters on September 29, 2003 about Treasongate. The first was a public letter (pdf) -- to the Department of Justice asking for a Special Prosecutor (I think I was the first Member of Congress to ask, but I have no illusions that my letter forced their hand).

The second (pdf) was not a public letter. It was to Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet. I was troubled by reports that the DOJ was, to put it mildly, being less than responsive to the CIA concerns about the leak. The response I received (pdf), reported way back then by Josh Marshall of Talkingpointsmemo on a Friday night (it is amazing how I always get the most valuable responses to my letters on Friday nights), added some stunning detail to the Justice Department's footdragging. Mr. Marshall reminds us about the story today.

The letter indicates that the Central Intelligence Agency was repeatedly stonewalled by the DOJ and, in fact, couldn’t even get their letters answered or calls returned. Here are some details:

-- On July 24, 2003, a CIA attorney left a phone message for the Chief of the Counterespionage Section of the Department of Justice noting his concern with recent stories apparently exposing the identity of Valerie Plame, an employee of the agency working under cover. There was apparently no response from the Department.

-- On July 30, 2003, the CIA reported to the Criminal Division of the DOJ a possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. There was apparently no response from the Department.

-- The CIA again transmitted their concerns by facsimile on September 5, 2003. There was no response.

-- On September 16, in accordance with the Agency’s standard practice in these matters, the CIA advised the Department that it had completed its own investigation of the matter, provided a memorandum setting forth the results of the investigation and requested that the FBI undertake a criminal investigation of the matter.

-- Finally, on September 29, 2003–sixty-seven days after the initial concerns were expressed by CIA employees–the DOJ responded and advised the CIA that the Counterespionage Division had requested that the FBI initiate an investigation of this matter.

Recently, it was revealed that the White House was given a 12-hour “heads up” from the Department of Justice about the investigation at the request of then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Media reports gave the White House an even earlier forewarning. This, of course, runs counter to every other prosecution I have followed. Typically, and most recently during the Enron investigation, once it is determined that the White House is in possession of relevant information or documents, an immediate notification is sent to the Counsel’s office and the Counsel’s office, in turn, sends an immediate notification to the White House staff to preserve all documents and records. That didn’t happen here.

Why? And what did the White House do during those 12 hours anyway?
Collectively, these disclosures appear to demonstrate that on at least two separate occasions, DOJ personnel acted to permit delays in the investigation, which may have resulted in the loss or destruction of critical evidence. That is why I, and nine of my Judiciary Committee colleagues, have written today to the Department’s Inspector General asking for an immediate investigation to examine the extent that this course of conduct and other delays by the Department are consistent with standards of prosecutorial conduct and integrity. The letter (via Rawstory) is here.

A final twist: Congressional oversight. The Republican Majority in Congress has been absurdly lax in investigating misdeeds by this White House, including this emerging scandal. Yesterday, the Chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees announced they would be holding hearings on this. It appeared the Congress would begin doing the real work needed on this. Maybe they would look at the Justice Department's footdragging on this.

Then I read the fine print (via DailyKos):

“[Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record) (R-KS) spokeswoman Sarah] Little said the Senate committee would also review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.”

First, it was an attack on Joe Wilson. Then, they attacked his wife. Then, they attacked the press for covering the story. Now, it appears the Republican attack machine has set its sights on the prosecutor.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/feat...ts.html#a004738

Hillary's 'American Dream': Stuck in the Middle With You
Arianna Huffington

July 27, 2005
07.27.2005 Arianna Huffington

Hillary’s ‘American Dream’: Stuck in the Middle With You
So there's a fight brewing in the Democratic Party. And it has nothing to do with John Roberts. Instead, it was prompted by Hillary Clinton assuming her role as head of the DLC’s “American Dream Initiative” and immediately calling for a “ceasefire” in the fight over the direction the party should be taking.

Right. Sure. I believe a little translation is in order. Because in almost every instance where a politician or political group calls for a "ceasefire," or "a stop to the mud-slinging," or "unity," what they’re really saying is: "I'm calling on the other side to stop disagreeing with me, so we can move forward in the only right way. Which is my way."

That’s exactly the tack taken by John Sweeney in trying to keep the AFL-CIO under his sway, calling on workers to maintain “a united labor movement”. But Andy Stern and James Hoffa didn’t take the bait -- and are moving forward with their efforts to remake the labor movement. And does anyone doubt that it will be for the better -- both for working people and for the country -- to have a reinvigorated union movement instead of a united status quo that, over the last 50 years, has gone from representing 35 percent of working people to representing 12.5 percent?

The same holds true for the Democratic Party. What better time to have a battle for the soul of the party than now, when it is faced with the prospect of becoming a permanent minority party -- and still over a year before the 2006 midterms?

According to the DLC, Democrats need to show their willingness to fight terror...by capitulating to the Republicans on pretty much every front. In fact, what the Democrats need is to ignore the siren songs urging them to move toward the victors and, instead, reclaim the Party’s true identity and challenge the GOP head-on on its disastrous pursuit of the war on terror.

It’s hard to have an “American Dream Initiative” headed by someone whose every recent move has been driven by triangulating calculation.

“I have always tried to strike a balance,” Hillary once said. “I think you have to view the world as it is, not as you would wish it to be.” That's a long, long way from RFK’s famous line (quoting Shaw): "Some men see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

Remember, Hillary is the one who, before the 2004 election, cited the president as someone “we owe a debt of gratitude” to for capturing Saddam. Which is playing right into the GOP’s hands. The Democrats will never return to power so long as they allow Republicans to present themselves as the party best suited to keep us safe from terror, instead of exposing all the ways in which they have actually left us much more vulnerable and unsafe than before.

The good news is that the DLC’s disingenuous call for unity was a bust… except in the way it united the progressive blogosphere. Because if there's one thing that can bring progressive bloggers together, it's another clueless call by the DLC for capitulation "unity."

Long gone are the days when the DLC was the only game in town. Now the pushback was instant, with bloggers tearing into the DLC, each sounding different notes but together creating a clear chorus of dissent.

Among the highlights:

HuffPoster David Sirota, nailing the fact that following the DLC path hasn’t exactly paid big dividends at the ballot box over the last 10 years.

Pandagon pointing out that Democrats have been "moving to the center" since 1992. And that, as an electoral strategy, it's failed since 1993!

Markos on the disingenuousness of the "ceasefire" language.

Steve Gilliard making the killer point that “a drunk monkey could have made a mockery of the GOP’s claims to any sort of stewardship on national security."

Oliver Willis dressing down the DLC for playing the blame game while ignoring the major errors of their electoral approach.

Athenae from First-Draft offering the DLC's Will Marshall some loving advice: “What we have to do, Will my love…”

And Chris Bowers at Mydd advising potential Hillary primary opponents that taking her on now means taking on the DLC.

In other words: No, DLC, your call to show how tough we are by capitulating to the Republicans has not gone over well. If the blogs have any say -- and they increasingly do -- we're going to show how tough we really are by being... tough. And progressive.

Ready to rumble?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/feat...ts.html#a004734

Senate Dems: Weaker by the Moment
Doug Heller

Senate Dems: Weaker by the Moment
Given the opportunity to take on President Bush's (and big business's) nominee to head the Securities & Exchange Commission, at Tuesday's confirmation hearing, Senate Dems decided to take a pass. The nominee, Rep. Chris Cox, is about as anti-investor as they get, but for some reason, the Democrats don't seem to have the stomach for this fight. Is there no one on the Hill willing to put Bush's laissez-faire ideologue nominee on the spot, even if the calculation is that Cox will get the appointment? How can you live to fight another day, if you don't fight in the first place?


To get a comedic take on this nomination, watch the video with Greg Germann (Ally McBeal) giving a corporate crook's praise for Cox at stopcox.org.

When President Bush nominated Congressman Chris Cox to head the SEC, he gave Democrats the opportunity to hit one out of the park. We're talking about putting Americans' nest eggs in the hands of a guy whose anti-regulatory credentials should have made him an impossible choice in the wake of Enron, WorldCom and the like. Pensions, 401Ks, college funds: these are things that matter, right?

But instead the Dems struck out today, or, rather, hardly came up to the plate. Senators Schumer and Feinstein fawned over this "colleague on the Hill," whose bottom of the barrel record on investor and consumer issues and top of the heap fundraising from businesses he would regulate at the SEC make him a nominee who could and should be blocked. And none of it compares to his work as a private attorney when he misled regulators about an investment scheme that was used by William Cooper to swindle seniors and other small investors out of $130 million (see the LA Times reporting on this).

But apparently these things don't matter to the Senators interviewing a guy set to become the regulator of the world's largest stock markets.

The truth is, this is bread and butter material -- and the average American is getting toasted.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-0...ning-iraq_x.htm

Poll: USA doubts Iraq success, but not ready to give up
By Susan Page, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most Americans don't believe the United States will succeed in winning the war in Iraq or establishing a stable democracy there, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.
But an ambivalent public also says sending troops to Iraq wasn't a mistake, a sign that most people aren't yet ready to give up on the war.

"There's a lot of conflicting impulses here," says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. A Pew poll last week also showed crosscurrents in attitudes toward the Iraq war. "People are giving bleak assessments on the one hand, and on the other hand (they're) saying maybe it was still the right thing to do."

The bombings in London this month also have roiled public opinion, intensifying a not-yet-settled debate among Americans about whether the Iraq war has made the United States safer from terrorism.

Strong fears that a family member might become a victim of terrorism spiked in the survey, rising to their highest level since October 2001, just after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Iraqi officials continued to draft a constitution, due Aug. 15. Proposals to make Islam the main source of legislation in Iraq has prompted debate and opposition from groups concerned with women's rights.

In the poll:

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration's credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.

By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won't be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.

About one-third, 32%, say the United States can't win the war in Iraq. Another 21% say the United States could win the war, but they don't think it will. Just 43% predict a victory.

Still, on the question that tests fundamental attitudes toward the war — was it a mistake to send U.S. troops? — the public's view has rebounded. By 53%-46%, those surveyed say it wasn't a mistake, the strongest support for the war since just after the Iraqi elections in January.

"I think the American people understand the importance of completing the mission," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said when asked about the poll results. "Success in Iraq will help transform a dangerous region."

"Elizabeth Edwards" <elizabeth@OneAmericaCommittee.com> just sent me an eMail, I like to post to the attention of all of you!
Get Involved: Raising The States

--------------------
Bill Shielding Gun Makers From Suits Gains Support
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Proponents say the Senate could pass the NRA-backed legislation this week. Opponents contend that it would set a disturbing precedent.

By Mary Curtius
Times Staff Writer

July 27 2005

WASHINGTON — In a sign of the changing politics of gun control, the Senate appears poised to pass a top priority of the National Rifle Assn. this week, legislation that would shield the gun industry from lawsuits arising from the misuse of its weapons.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrat...05/07_26/ba.asp

Bush orders FBI to launch National Security Service for domestic intelligence

BACKGROUNDER: Compiled by Bill Gertz


Bush orders FBI to launch National Security Service for domestic intelligence

The FBI has been ordered to create a new domestic intelligence branch to better deal with terrorists and foreign spies.


FBI Director Robert Mueller, left, CIA Director Porter Goss, center, and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, right., listen as President Bush delivers his remarks on the war on terrorism during a visit to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., on July 11. AP Photo/Susan Walsh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Bush announced last week the creation of a new National Security Service within the FBI.
The new NSS will "more completely integrate the bureau's work with the intelligence community," Bush said during a speech.

"The purpose of this change is to strengthen the FBI so it not only investigates terrorist crimes after they happen, but the FBI can be more capable to stop the terrorist acts before they happen," Bush said.

In the past the FBI has resisted efforts at reforms aimed at strengthening its intelligence-gathering capabilities. An intelligence division was created under recent reform legislation, but it is limited to analyzing intelligence and has no authority to task FBI agents or other U.S. intelligence collectors to gather information.

Many FBI agents oppose dedicated intelligence work because they view it as contrary to the bureau's law enforcement mission. The new service will require increased training for intelligence work and a dedicated cadre of counterintelligence and security agents.


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Myers rejects China-led group's call for U.S. pullout from Central Asia

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has rejected calls from a Beijing-backed organization for the United States to set a timetable for the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.
"Central Asia is important to the United States for lots of reasons, not just for operations in Afghanistan," Myers told reporters last week. "It's important to us for lots of reasons. Security and stability in Central Asia is an important concept, and those that can bring security and stability ought to be welcome in Central Asia."

Myers said the United States has "no territorial design" on Central Asia.

"Part of why we're there is, yes, we need some of the support for Afghanistan," he said.

Myers said a recent statement from the Shanghai Communiqué Organization calling for a U.S. deadline on troop withdrawal was not "particularly useful." The organization is led by China and includes Russia and representatives of Central Asian nations.

"It looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries. That's how I view it," he said.

China opposes the U.S. stationing of forces in states near its western border, fearing the bases could be used in a future conflict to conduct operations against China.


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Rumsfeld calls moderate Muslims key to winning ideological war against terror

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that he does not know if new terrorists are being created to replace those being capture or killed in the global war on terrorism.
"No one knows. We know that there are elements to the global war on terror, against the battle — the struggle that's taking place within that religion by extremists versus the moderates."

Moderate Muslims represent an overwhelming majority and extremists are a relatively small but lethal cadre.

The best strategy is offensive, he said, and requires going after terrorists by blocking safe havens where they plan, train and organize attacks on innocent men, women and children.

Also, efforts are needed to make sure that "there are not large numbers of people being brought in to the intake of this terrorist apparatus and network that exists in the world," he said.

"And that battle ultimately is going to be won by people within that religion, by the moderates overcoming the extremists," Rumsfeld said. "Anything that the rest of the world can do to encourage that and to support that — and to see that it succeeds over time — is important. But there's no way for anyone to know what is happening all across the globe among that extremist element that is financing, recruiting, training and then deploying murderers."

Violent Islamists are seeking to reestablish the Caliphate around the globe. "Their purpose is to destroy free people so that they can no longer function as free people and have to change their way of life dramatically, then they are a serious problem for the world. And they are a serious problem for the world," he said.

"I believe progress is being made, but I wouldn't think there's anyone who could answer the question," he said. "It continues to be a question that I think about and worry about."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


U.S. to seek sanctions on Hizbullah

The U.S. government recently drew up a proposal for the UN Security Council to impose an international arms embargo on the terrorist group Hizbullah.
The goal of the embargo will be to prevent arms from reaching Hizbullah terrorists operating in Lebanon.

London's Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al Awsat, quoting French government sources in Paris, said the proposal has been conveyed to U.s. allies, including Britain and France.

The goal would be to disarm Hizbullah in Lebanon, which is moving toward democracy.

Iran is Hizbullah's main arms supplier, along with Syria, which has provided key logistic support for the arms to the Shi'ite terrorist group, which has been blamed for numerous bombings and attacks in the Middle East and around the world.

The report said the French group agreed with disarming Hizbullah but opposed an embargo as inappropriate at the present time.


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Polish link to London bombings

Polish authorities are investigating a British national of Pakistani origin who lives in Lublin, Poland for possible connections to the July 7 London terrorist bombings.
A spokeswoman for the Internal Security Agency, known as ABW, told the official Polish news agency that the suspect was an active member of an organized crime group. No charges were filed against the man.


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Russia alerts jet fighters against intruding jetliner

Russian jet fighter interceptors and surface-to-air missiles were put on alert last week in response to the intrusion into Russian airspace by a Vietnamese civilian jetliner.
The Boeing 767 violated Russian airspace early July 12, a military spokesman told Interfax.

"The 5th air army and air defense units immediately spotted the plane. Its flight was qualified as a violation of flight regulations. Two fighters, three missile units and other forces were prepared for use in the Urals and Moscow air defense zones," Russian Air Force Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Mikhailov said.

The jet, owned by a Vietnamese transport service, was enroute from Hanoi to Russia. Its flight plan was not filed with Russian air traffic control..


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Syrian agents arrested in Iraq

Two Syrian government agents were arrested in Iraq recently and revealed they had dispatched 1,000 terrorists into northern Iraq.
The Irbil newspaper Jamawar reported July 11 that the two men, a former colonel and a former lieutenant colonel, were arrested July 7 near Kask. Both had worked for Syria's Mukhabarat spy service.

The two men had organized the dispatch of terrorists from the Syrian city of Halab to Iraq, particularly Mosul. The terrorists were sent to counter the Iraqi security forces' Lightning operations, which focused on rooting out insurgents in northern Iraq.

Most of the terrorists sent from Syria are Syrians, Egyptians and Sudanese nationals.

NASA Looking At Debris From Shuttle Launch

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=E5BF50:2F72C9D

Video images showed debris falling away, but it wasn't immediately
clear if the spacecraft's sensitive outer skin had been jeopardized
The space shuttle Discovery successfully blasted into orbit Tuesday
morning, but there are questions about some debris which fell from the
spacecraft on take-off.

Discovery and its seven-member crew lifted off Tuesday morning from
the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, more than two years after NASA
grounded shuttle missions due to the Columbia disaster.

As the shuttle roared into orbit on its 12-day mission, video images
showed debris falling away. But it wasn't immediately clear if the
spacecraft's sensitive outer skin had been jeopardized.

At a news conference late Tuesday, NASA officials said a piece of tile
may have come off during liftoff. Tiles have been lost on take-off
during previous flights, without causing any trouble during re-entry.

Dozens of cameras taped Tuesday's launch for any signs of flying
debris, such as the kind that damaged Columbia's wing on its launch
two-and-a-half years ago. The damage led to Columbia's burn-up while
re-entering the atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.

NASA officials say they will study the tapes carefully to see if the
spacecraft sustained any damage.

Republicans Call for Iraq Exit Plan; Pentagon Confirms Need to Bring Troops Home Says Peace Action

7/27/2005 2:44:00 PM


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk and Defense Reporter

Contact: Scott Lynch, 301-565-4050 ext. 330 or 703-725-5680 ©, Paul Kawika Martin, 301-565-4050 ext. 316, or 951-217-7285 (cell), pmartin@peace-action.org, Jon Rainwater, 510-849-2272 ext. 106, 510-469-3700 ©

WASHINGTON, July 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Peace Action applauded U.S. Army Gen. George W. Casey, head of Multinational Force Iraq today for stating that the U.S. could bring home a "fairly substantial" number of the 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq beginning as early as next spring. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, confirmed at a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that it is time to send U.S. troops home by stating, "we desire speed in that regard."

"President Bush stated that he would bring U.S. troops home when the Iraqi government asked Washington to do so. The Iraqi Prime Minister, over 120 Iraqi Parliamentarians(see note one), Republican congressmen and the American people are asking for a plan to bring U.S. troops home as soon as possible. When will President Bush provide a plan?" asked Paul Kawika Martin, Organizing and Political Director for Peace Action.

Representatives Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.) introduced "Homeward Bound" H. J. RES. 55 calling for the Bush Administration to provide an exit plan by the end of this year and to start implementing that plan no later than October 2006. Several Republicans have signed on to this bipartisan resolution including Representatives Wayne T. Gilchrest (Md.), James A. Leach (Iowa) and Ron Paul (Texas).

"Not only do we need a plan to bring our troops home, we need to leave no permanent bases and work with the international community to help the Iraqi people rebuild their country that the U.S. devastated," remarked Jon Rainwater, the Executive Director of California Peace Action, which has over 30,000 members in California.

Peace Action is the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization with over 100,000 members nationwide and nearly 100 chapters in thirty states. http://peace-action.org

(note 1) Notes to editors: An original copy and translation of the Iraqi Parliamentary letter available upon request.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

/© 2005 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

Pelosi: CAFTA is a Step Backward for Workers' Rights

Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

WASHINGTON, July 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders held a news conference this morning after the weekly Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which the House is scheduled to debate late tonight. Below are Pelosi's opening remarks:

"I am excited about what I hear from my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus. What I hear from them is that they understand the ramifications of CAFTA. This is a small bill economically, but it is a big bill in terms of its impact.

"My colleagues Charlie Rangel and Ben Cardin, who are here with us, will explain some of the aspects of the bill more specifically, but the one point I want to make is that it is a step backward for workers because it removes the requirement that these countries have to abide by international labor standards.

"How could that be the right way to go? We had the opportunity to come together for a CAFTA that would have respected workers' rights and respected the environmental principles as part of a labor agreement, as a trade treaty. The President decided to go another route, a partisan route.

"More than 90 percent of our Caucus is enthusiastically opposed to this, but Democrats stand ready to come together to support a CAFTA that respects labor and environmental principles.

"But if the President wins this vote, he will have expended enormous resources to do so. He has all the power of the presidency, and all we have on the House Democratic side is the fact that we are right. So if the President wins on this, and I do not know that it is certain that he will, it will be a Pyrrhic victory for him, because we will take our message to the American people that we are the ones looking out for them.

"Under the President's Administration, we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs. He is still in the net loss column for manufacturing jobs. So as our manufacturing base erodes, as our industrial base erodes, we have a President who is contributing to the further erosion of that base.

"The American people deserve better. The American people will know in a clear way the difference between how the Democrats are working for them, and how the Republicans are ignoring their aspirations."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

-

22 Years For Millennium Bomb Plot CBS News
The man convicted of plotting to blow up the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium was sentenced Wednesday to 22 years in prison. Ahmed Ressam's sentence reflected his cooperation in telling international investigators about the internal workings of terror camps in Afghanistan. "There is no doubt about it. With this sentence, Ressam caught a bit of a break from this judge, mostly because the would-be bomber DID help the feds as an informant for many years following his arrest," said CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen. "I think the judge wanted to reward that behavior and he probably did." But Ressam, 38, could have received a shorter sentence had he not stopped talking to investigators in early 2003. Prosecutors argued that his recalcitrance has jeopardized cases against two of his co-conspirators. "This still isn't a light sentence but it is not nearly as long as a lot of people expected. Essentially, the judge gave Ressam time off in advance for his good behavior over many years of providing good information to the feds following his arrest and conviction," Cohen said. Ressam was arrested in Port Angeles in December 1999 as he drove off a ferry from British Columbia in Canada with a trunk full of bomb-making materials. Prosecutors recommended a 35-year sentence; Ressam's lawyers asked for 12 1/2 years. "I'm sure prosecutors are disappointed but they surely shouldn't be surprised," Cohen added. Ressam had been scheduled for sentencing in April. After more than two hours of arguments, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour called it off, giving Ressam three more months to resume cooperation. Coughenour and federal prosecutors want Ressam to testify against his two co-conspirators, Samir Ait Mohamed and Abu Doha, who are awaiting extradition from Canada and Britain, respectively. Coughenour said he hoped to balance the United States' resolve to punish potential terrorist acts with Ressam's cooperation, while reflecting the government's pretrial offer of 25 years. He also said he hoped to send a message that the U.S. court system works in terrorism cases. "We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely or deny the defendant the right to counsel ... our courts have not abandoned the commitment to the ideals that set this nation apart," the judge said in court.
'Millennium bomber' gets 22 years CBC British Columbia (Audio)
Ressam scheduled to be sentenced this morning Seattle Times
CBC News - CTV - Seattle Post Intelligencer - Los Angeles Times - all 422 related »

Why jihadists target the West
Experts differ over whether recent terror is driven by 'who we are' or
'what we do.' By Howard LaFranchi
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0728/p01s01-usfp.html?s=hns


Five-year negotiations lead to modest energy bill
The legislation covers oilfields, the power grid, and daylight savings
time. By Brad Knickerbocker
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0728/p01s02-uspo.html?s=hns


Struggle for a British Islam
A reformist movement aims to counter the radical ideology behind the
7/7 and 7/21 bombings. By James Brandon and John Thorne
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0728/p01s04-woeu.html?s=hns

Rick Santorum
The Senate's third-ranking Republican discusses his reputation and
Washington politics. By David T. Cook
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0728/p20s02-usmb.html?s=hns

Are Stupid White Men Really Stupid?

By Dom Stasi

We must wake up and regain our country from the criminals, fools, and traitors who’ve assumed it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9573.htm

http://snipurl.com/gion

Frist pulls defense bill to elude votes on handling captives:

The unusual move came after senators, including several leading Republicans, beat back an effort by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to block amendments setting standards for military-prisoner interrogations and delaying base closings scheduled for approval later this year.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctime...ld/12233735.htm

http://snipurl.com/gjq9

Fewer early sign-ups as Army struggles to recruit soldiers:

The Army, which expects to miss its 2005 recruiting goal by about 12,000, already is falling behind for next year.
http://snipurl.com/gjqe

Roberts's Right to Vote against Roe Is Defended:

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. will be free to vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision if he is appointed to the high court, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/072705Z.shtml



White House denies access to Roberts' tax returns:

The Bush administration will not give Senate investigators access to federal tax returns of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., White House and congressional officials said Tuesday, a break with precedent that could exacerbate a growing conflict over document disclosure in the confirmation process.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050727/1040375.asp

http://snipurl.com/gjr7



The GOP is Certain to Win in 2006 — Unless...:

Here’s the very bad news: the Democrats will almost certainly lose in 2006 and again in 2008.
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-p/certainwin.htm

http://snipurl.com/gjr9



U.S. stands apart from other nations on maternity leave:

Out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-0...ity-leave_x.htm

http://snipurl.com/gjrd



Correction: CNBC story on Julian Robertson:

What did he really say?
http://www.andongkim.com/articles/2005/07/...onandongkim.htm

http://snipurl.com/gjrf

Rice Asked if Bolton Testified in Leak Case By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A Democratic opponent of John Bolton asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday whether the nominee for U.N. ambassador had testified to a grand jury about the leak of CIA operative's identity.

Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee say they want to determine whether Bolton was truthful when he wrote on a questionnaire for his confirmation hearing that he has not been interviewed in any recent investigations.

In a letter to Rice, Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., referenced an MSNBC report from July 21 that Bolton was among State Department undersecretaries who "gave testimony" about a classified memo that has become an important piece of evidence in the leak investigation.

Biden asked Rice to tell the committee "whether Mr. Bolton did, in fact, appear before the grand jury, or whether he has been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special prosecutor or his staff in connection with this matter."

Several Bush administration officials have been interviewed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in his quest to determine who leaked the covert identity of Valerie Plame to reporters and whether any laws were broken.

Plame is the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of President Bush's Iraq policy.

A message left with the State Department was not immediately returned on Wednesday.

California Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has asked the State Department for two different versions of the memo from its bureau of intelligence and research that discussed Plame, a congressional aide said. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because of the investigation's sensitivity.

The memo could have been the way someone in the White House learned — and then leaked — the information that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in sending Wilson to Africa to explore whether Iraq was interested in obtaining uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

Part of the questionnaire Bolton filled out in March asked him whether he was "interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), congressional or grand jury investigation within the past five years."

"He indicated in his form that he had not," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.

She said it is unclear whether Bolton lied on his questionnaire because senators do not know if he testified before or after he signed the document — or at all.

The latest Democratic request to the administration for information about Bolton comes just two days before Congress is scheduled to leave Washington for a monthlong break.

With the Senate out of session, Bush could sidestep Congress and install Bolton in the U.N. post on a temporary basis.

Democrats have blocked Bolton's nomination for months. They have demanded that the administration turn over certain information about Bolton before they allow his nomination to proceed.

Republicans have twice attempted — and failed — to break the Democratic filibuster. There has been no sign of a breakthrough since the second attempt in June.

The White House has ruled out withdrawing Bolton's name.

07.27.2005 Arianna Huffington

Judy Miller: Do We Want To Know Everything or Don't We?
Not everyone in the Times building is on the same page when it comes to Judy Miller. The official story the paper is sticking to is that Miller is a heroic martyr, sacrificing her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity.

But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has "manipulate[d]" and "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn't the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives. Which Novak did.

This version of events has divided the Times into two camps: those who want to learn everything about this story, and those who want to learn everything as long as it doesn't downgrade the heroic status of their "colleague" Judy Miller. And then there are the schizophrenics. Frank Rich is spending his summer in the second camp, while at the same time writing some of the most powerful and brilliant stuff about the scandal: "This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit… is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped up grounds… That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war."

But this unmasking -- if it is to be complete -- has to include Judy Miller and the part she played in the mess in Iraq. Of course, the division over Miller is nothing new… it predates her transformation into media martyr by many months. For an early look at this riff, check out Howard Kurtz' May 2003 reporting on the way Miller ferociously fought to keep Ahmad Chalabi, her top source on WMD, to herself and the anger it caused at the paper. And also the paper's extraordinary mea culpa from May 2004, in which its editors admitted that the Times' reporting on Iraq "was not as rigorous as it should have been" -- yet steadfastly refused to even mention the less-than-rigorous reporter whose byline appeared on 4 of the 6 stories the editors singled out as being particularly egregious. "It looks," the Times' public admission concluded, "as if we, along with the administration, were taken in." And yet just two month earlier, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller called Miller, who was one of the main reporters "taken in" a "smart, well-sourced, industrious and fearless reporter." Nothing about her less than "rigorous" reporting. Nothing about her reliance on Chalabi being less than "well-sourced."

Any discussion of Miller's actions in the Plame-Rove-Libby-Gonzalez-Card scandal must not leave out the key role she played in cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq and in hyping the WMD threat. Re-reading some of her pre-war reporting today, it's hard not to be disgusted by how inaccurate and pumped up it turned out to be. For chapter and verse, check out Slate's Jack Shafer. For the money quote on her mindset, look to her April 2003 appearance on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, where, following up on her blockbuster front page story about an Iraqi scientist and his claims that Iraq had destroyed all its WMD just before the war started, Miller said the scientist was more than a "smoking gun," he was the "silver bullet" in the hunt for WMD. The "silver bullet" later turned out to be another blank -- and the scientist turned out to be a military intelligence official.

Amazingly, however, even as her reporting has been debunked -- and her sources discredited -- Miller has steadfastly refused to apologize for her role in misleading the public in the lead up to the war. Indeed, in an interview with the author of Bush's Brain, James Moore, she, in the words of Moore, "remained righteously indignant, unwilling to accept that she had goofed in the grandest of fashions", telling him: "I was proved "expletive deleted"ing right."

As recently as March 2005, in an appearance at Berkeley, she stubbornly refused to express regret. Indeed, she showed that she shares a key attitude with the Bush administration: an unwillingness to admit mistakes when faced with new realities. She even compared herself to the president, saying that she was getting the same information he was getting… and suggested that since he hadn't apologized, why should she? Maybe she's angling for the Tenet treatment: promote faulty intel, get a Medal of Freedom. Miller also echoed the words of Don Rumsfeld ("You go to war with the Army you have") when she justified her flawed reporting on WMD by saying "You go with what you've got". Really? Wouldn't it be better to wait until what you've got is right?

It's nice that Bill Keller is visiting Judy in jail giving updates about how hard this is for her, having to be away from her family and friends. But it would be even nicer if we'd had some acknowledgement from Miller of her complicity in sending 138,000 American soldiers away from their family and friends. And, unlike Miller, they won't be returning home in October. Indeed, as of today, 1,785 of them won't be returning home at all.

This story gets deeper with every twist and revelation, including the reminder (via Podhoretz) that Fitzgerald had a previous run in with Miller over her actions in a national security case, and the speculation (via Jeralyn at Talk Left) that Fitzgerald is considering seeking to put Miller under criminal contempt, rather than the civil contempt she's now under.

But one thing is inescapable: Miller -- intentionally or unintentionally -- worked hand in glove in helping the White House propaganda machine (for a prime example, check out this Newsweek story on how the aluminum tubes tall tale went from a government source to Miller to page one of the New York Times to Cheney and Rice going on the Sunday shows to confirm the story to Bush pushing that same story at the UN).

So, once again, the question arises (and you can't have it both ways, Frank): when it comes to this scandal, do you want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or do you want the truth -- except for what Judy Miller wants to keep to herself?

Posted at 08:17 PM

Gutknecht votes against CAFTA Miami Herald
Rep. Gil Gutknecht voted against the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement early Thursday, making him the only Republican from Minnesota to oppose the deal.
UPDATE 2-US House passes Central American trade pact Reuters
House narrowly passes free-trade pact USA Today
Washington Examiner - CNN - St. Petersburg Times - Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) - all 954 related »

Bush seals nail-biter trade deal Australian
US President George W.Bush, in a rare piece of political theatre, walked the corridors of the US Congress yesterday to personally lobby Republican members of the House of Representatives to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Mr Bush's direct action proved the clincher, as the free trade agreement was passed 217 votes to 215, the narrowest of margins but a victory the President hopes will signal renewed momentum for his second-term agenda. The first big free trade bill since US Congress overwhelmingly approved a free trade agreement with Australia last year, CAFTA's approval in the house was always going to a nail-biter, given increasing protectionist talk in Congress prompted by the rise of China and the loss of US manufacturing jobs to it and other developing economies. Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Trade Representative Rob Portman joined Mr Bush in Congress yesterday in a closed-door caucus meeting of 231 Republicans in the house, where Mr Bush urged them to approve CAFTA. Usually a president calls congressmen and women to the White House for a bit of arm-twisting, but yesterday's moves on Capitol Hill indicated how important a win was for Mr Bush. CAFTA will reduce trade barriers between the US and six countries: Guatemala, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. While the trade pact is not big in terms of economic impact for the US -- the six countries involved have a combined economy about the same size as New Zealand's -- the deal is seen by its proponents as an important signal of the US commitment to free trade ahead of the Doha round of global trade talks later this year. Despite a history of protectionist talk out of Congress, US congressmen have not rejected any trade deal negotiated by an American president for almost 40 years. A defeat would have been a big blow to Mr Bush, who has already seen his second term legislative agenda stall. Only about half of the house Republicans had openly pledged their support for the bill and at the final count, just after midnight Washington time, 202 out of 231 Republicans and 15 Democrats voted for the agreement. The US Senate approved the bill last month. Democrats had opposed CAFTA, saying it would not only lead to a loss of jobs but would also do little to prevent the exploitation of Central American workers. Several Republicans from textile- and sugar-producing states also opposed the deal. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said: "Under the President's administration, we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs. He is still in the net-loss column for manufacturing jobs. So as our manufacturing base erodes, as our industrial base erodes, we have a president who is contributing to the further erosion of that base." Mr Bush's sales pitch on CAFTA has shifted in recent months. He had championed the deal on national security grounds, arguing it would help shore up Central America's shaky democracies. But to win the day, Mr Bush has also offered protection to the sugar and textile industries, redolent of the concessions made to US manufacturers to ensure success for the Australian free trade agreement. "Trade creates jobs and lifts people out of poverty," house Speaker and Republican Dennis Hastert said at a news conference yesterday. "And there's nothing like a stable society to fight terrorism and strengthen democracy, freedom and rule of law." The Wall Street Journal yesterday had urged Congress to pass the deal, saying "killing CAFTA would signal to the world that America is afraid of competition and in retreat, both commercially and politically".
CAFTA wins vote in House Chicago Tribune
US House Approves Central American Trade Agreement Bloomberg
Seattle Post Intelligencer - USA Today - BusinessWeek - The Age (subscription) - all 1,169 related »

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2005, Issue No. 71
July 28, 2005


** THE RUIN OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER
** KENNEDY ON SECRECY
** SOME MORE CRS REPORTS


THE RUIN OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

The rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan
Project to develop the atomic bomb and later had his security
clearance revoked, is among the most compelling political dramas
of the twentieth century.

The story is brilliantly retold in a new book by Priscilla
Johnson McMillan entitled "The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer."

The Manhattan Project, with its enormous secret budgets, its
compartmentalization and cover stories, was the matrix for the
cold war secrecy system that remains with us today.

If Project leader Oppenheimer was the "father" of the atomic
bomb, who did more than any other individual to ensure the
success of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, then the 1954
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) hearing which resulted in the
loss of his security clearance was an oedipal revolt writ large.

Of course, the story is complicated and enriched by Oppenheimer's
human failings, as well as his real security infractions and his
admitted pre-war membership in "nearly every fellow-traveling
organization on the West Coast" (though he denied being a member
of the Communist Party).

In Priscilla McMillan's account, based on two decades of
interviews and archival research, secrecy is integral to the
story at every stage, from the internal government debates over
the pursuit of a hydrogen bomb to the illegal monitoring of
Oppenheimer's conversations with his attorney.

"In the case of Robert Oppenheimer," writes Ms. McMillan, "the
deviations from what we consider basic rules of our democracy
were so egregious that even today, half a century later, the
story still stirs our consciences and makes us wonder what it
was all about. It was about many things. One of them was our
government's decision to move to a new and deadlier level of the
nuclear arms race without telling the American people."

"This book is a look at the people and events that led to the
destruction of J. Robert Oppenheimer."

"There are stories like it today."

"The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern
Arms Race" by Priscilla J. McMillan has just been published by
Viking. See:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067...1261678-4756712

Priscilla McMillan is a Harvard historian, a former FAS Council
member, a Secrecy News colleague since the secrecy battles of
the early 1990s, and author of the enduring classic "Marina and
Lee" about the JFK assassination.


KENNEDY ON SECRECY

"We need to return to our core values of openness and
accountability," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) on the
Senate floor yesterday.

Sen. Kennedy took the better part of an hour during the Senate
debate on a gun liability law to lambaste the Bush White House
for its secrecy policies, covering everything from
overclassification to the CIA leak case to the Vice President's
Energy Task Force, and much more.

"Under the Bush administration, openness and accountability have
been replaced by secrecy and evasion of responsibility. They
abuse their power, conceal their actions from the American
people, and refuse to hold officials accountable."

Sen. Kennedy made at least two commonplace errors when he stated
that "Last year, a record 15.6 million documents were classified
by the Bush administration."

According to the Information Security Oversight Office, there
were 15.6 million classification *decisions* in FY 2004, which
does not translate directly into 15.6 million classified
*documents* (it could be much more). And though this represents a
huge increase over recent years, it is not a record high number.
The ISOO reported more than 22 million classification actions
in FY 1985.

See Sen. Kennedy's July 27 remarks on secrecy here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/s072705.html


SOME MORE CRS REPORTS

Recent reports of the Congressional Research Service include the
following.

"Pakistan-U.S. Relations," updated July 26, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB94041.pdf

"Pakistan: Chronology of Events," updated July 25, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21584.pdf

"Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of the President,
Judiciary Committee, and Senate," updated July 6, 2005:

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/50146.pdf

"Women in Iraq: Background and Issues for U.S. Policy," updated
June 23, 2005:

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/50258.pdf

"D-Day: The French Jubilee of Liberty Medal and the 60th
Anniversary Commemoration on June 6, 2004, and Events for June
6, 2005," updated May 27, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS20900.pdf

"Navy Trident Submarine Conversion (SSGN) Program: Background and
Issues for Congress," updated May 25, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS21007.pdf

"Republic of the Marshall Islands Changed Circumstances Petition
to Congress," updated May 16, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32811.pdf

"Sri Lanka: Background and U.S. Relations," updated May 16, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL31707.pdf

"Exemptions from Environmental Law for the Department of Defense:
An Overview of Congressional Action," May 16, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22149.pdf



_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.

Bush team wants to play down military aspects and focus on the 'struggle against violent extremism.'

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0728/dailyUpdate.html

Shuttle Docks with Space Station

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=E5F3E7:2F72C9D

But NASA grounds shuttle fleet after large piece of insulating foam
broke off Discovery's external fuel tank during launch, raising fears
problem that doomed Columbia in 2003 could happen again

Space shuttle Discovery prepares to dock with International Space
Station, July 28, 2005The U.S. space shuttle Discovery has docked with
the International Space Station, but it will be the last time a
shuttle visits the outpost for a while. The space agency NASA is
grounding the shuttle fleet because a large piece of insulating foam
broke off Discovery's external fuel tank during Tuesday's launch,
raising fear that the problem that doomed the orbiter Columbia in 2003
could happen again.

Discovery eased very up under the space station and closed in on its
target very slowly.

Shuttle pilot Jim Kelly confirmed the connection to mission control in
Houston.

"Houston, Alpha-Discovery, we have contact and capture. The shuttle is
in free drift."

The shuttle's seven astronauts will spend eight days with the
station's three-man crew resupplying the space laboratory and hauling
out two-and-a-half years worth of accumulated trash.

It has been that long since a shuttle has connected to the station
because of the flight moratorium after Columbia disintegrated in
orbit. Now, in a major setback to America's manned flight program,
NASA has grounded all shuttle flights again.

It acted after launch photographs showed that a sizable chunk of hard
insulating foam fell away from Discovery's external fuel tank during
lift off on Tuesday. This was the very problem NASA spent two years
and one billion dollars to correct. It was such a piece of foam that
punctured a hole in Colombia's wing upon liftoff, causing it to burn
up in the searing heat of re-entry and killing all seven astronauts on
board.

Shuttle program manager Bill Parsons says the debris in the latest
launch does not seem to have damaged Discovery in any way, but he and
other mission managers put shuttle launches on hold so engineers can
pursue further fixes.

"Until we're ready, we won't go fly again," he said. "Now, I don't
know when that might be. So, I'll just state that right up front.
We're just in the beginning of this process of understanding. This is
a test flight."

High-resolution space station cameras photographed Discovery's
underside as it neared the outpost to look at a pit believed to have
been made by debris in a protective surface tile during Tuesday's
launch. The images should give engineers a closer look at any
potential damage, according to deputy shuttle manager Wayne Hale.

"Are we concerned about this? We are treating it very seriously," said
Mr. Hale. "Are we losing any sleep over it? Not yet."

Mr. Hale says NASA officials will spend the next few days coming up
with a plan either to have the astronauts try to repair the heat tiles
or to return to Earth on schedule August seventh with things the way
they are.

Bush Wins Major Victory on Central America Trade Vote

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=E5F3F0:2F72C9D

There were sharp exchanges between Democrats and Republicans over
legislation which aims to eliminate trade barriers between US and six
Latin American countries After some of the most heated Congressional
debate ever on a trade issue, the House of Representatives has
narrowly approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement - 217 to
215 - giving President Bush a major victory. There were sharp
exchanges between Democrats and Republicans over the legislation which
aims to eliminate trade barriers between the United States, and six
Latin American countries.

In the final hours, President Bush made an unusual visit to Capitol
Hill trying to persuade still undecided members of his Republican
Party to vote for CAFTA.

That is a measure of how important the agreement is to the president
and members of his Republican Party, who call the accord critical to
the U.S. economy and to stabilizing fragile democracies.

Eighty percent of goods from Central America already enter the United
States duty free. CAFTA would eliminate or gradually phase out
remaining tariffs with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
and Nicaragua and includes a separate pact for the Dominican Republic.

CAFTA nations import about $15 billion in American goods. The Bush
administration says the agreement will increase U.S. agricultural and
manufactured exports to the region by at least $2 billion

Debate pitted the most fanatic of free-trade advocates against
lawmakers who see CAFTA as a giveaway to multinational corporations,
and a disappointment in the area of labor standards.

Congressman Bill Thomas, Republican chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee, accused Democrats of arrogance.

"As you make the arguments that you make so shamefully, so
disrespectfully and so arrogantly about the governments, freely
elected [and] supported by their people, just remember they want a job
too," he said. "They love their children. They are respectful of you.
Be respectful of them."

That brought this response from Democrat Charles Rangel.

"Arrogance? How can we have a bill say that we're helping these people
to make certain that they stave off Communism and that they become
indeed a Democratic country and, at the same time, exclude them from
participating?" he said. "Yes they want CAFTA; yes the Dominicans want
to have a Dominican free-trade agreement; but they want to be a part
of it and they want their people protected."

The Bush administration made significant progress in the final hours
leading to House debate, persuading Republicans from key
textile-producing states who had been wary about negative effects of
CAFTA.

After Mr. Bush's visit to Congress, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
accused Democrats of politicizing the debate over a crucial trade
agreement:

"The president is looking out for the national interest. And it is in
the national interest that CAFTA passes," he said. "It is good for our
national security, in supporting these fledgling democracies at our
back door. It is good in our effort against illegal immigration. It is
good for our economy."

Opposition Democrats say CAFTA contains weaker standards and
enforcement provisions on worker's rights and was negotiated by the
governments, over the objections of indigenous labor, human rights and
other groups.

Republicans contend the agreement contains provisions aimed at
ensuring adherence to and strengthening of domestic labor laws.

Congressman David Dreier accused Democrats of twisting the facts. "The
Democratically-elected parliaments in El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras all have had votes on this issue," he said. "It was 49 to 30
in the democratically-elected parliament of El Salvador, 126 to 12 in
the democratically-elected parliament of Guatemala, and 100 of 128
legislators in Honduras were supportive of CAFTA."

China's growing influence in Western Hemisphere trade was a key part
of the debate. Supporters insist CAFTA will help slow growing Chinese
economic influence in the hemisphere. Opponents maintain it will lead
to more job losses and worsen the U.S. trade deficit.

Earlier, the House approved a Republican-backed bill aimed at stepping
up pressure on Beijing over its trade practices - a move designed in
part by Republicans to ease the way for a successful vote on CAFTA.

The U.S. Senate approved CAFTA at the end of June, voting 54 to 45 in
favor of the accord.

US, Five Asia-Pacific Nations Announce Partnership to Curb Pollution

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=E5F3F1:2F72C9D

Partnership to develop new energy technologies to reduce pollution and
curb global warming without hurting economic development The United
States and five major Asian nations have announced a partnership to
develop new energy technologies to reduce pollution and curb global
warming without hurting economic development. The plan was officially
unveiled Thursday at a ministers' meeting in Laos.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced the
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development. He says it will develop
and disseminate clean energy technologies among some of the biggest
polluters in the developing and the industrialized world.

"We all recognize the Asia-Pacific region's increasing energy needs.
We all recognize the fundamental importance of economic development,"
he said. "And we all recognize the importance of addressing
environmental issues."

The partnership brings together the world's two largest polluters -
the United States and China - and four other major Asian economies:
Japan, India, Australia and South Korea. Together these six countries
contribute more than one-half of the world's so-called greenhouse
gases that contribute to global warming.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick says the partnership
will allow industrialized partners to gain a better understanding of
the challenges facing developing nations.

"We have to listen to our developing country colleagues about some of
their particular problems," he said. "India and China in particular
both have huge development challenges, of which energy is a critical
component."

Mr. Zoellick underscores that the new partnership is not meant to
replace or undermine the Kyoto Protocol, but complement it.

The Kyoto Protocol requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by five percent by the year 2012. The United
States and Australian governments have refused to ratify the treaty
because it does not mandate pollution curbs in developing nations like
China and India.

The new partnership is voluntary, does not have deadlines or pollution
reduction targets and cannot enforce compliance.

Despite this, India's Foreign Minister Raoul Inderjit Singh says the
partnership will encourage environmental policies that do not hurt
economic growth in less wealthy nations.

"The vision statement refers to the Delhi Declaration which made a
significant departure from previous declarations by emphasizing the
importance of sustainable development and the need for looking at
development when considering any climate change approach," said Mr.
Singh.

Environmental activists were quick to criticize the six-nation pact as
lacking. They say strict targets are needed to cut pollution, which
harm the eco-systems around the world.

Meetings Signify a Shift in Approach to Talks
(Glenn Kessler, Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5072702002.html

Thursday, July 28
During a flight to Africa two years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met with President Bush to discuss the crisis over North Korea's nuclear programs. A key point was that the State Department's chief negotiator at disarmament talks needed to be able to talk one on one with North Korean officials. Powell ultimately won permission for one brief meeting, on the side of a room filled with officials from other countries. But Powell's negotiator, James A. Kelly, was permitted only to say the same thing to any question raised by the North Koreans: Go back and read my prepared statement.

But now, almost unnoted, an important shift has taken place in the Bush administration's approach to North Korea: The ban on genuine one-on-one talks has been all but abandoned. "Secretary Rice has implemented a subtle but important shift in U.S. policy," said Joseph Cirincione, director of nonproliferation policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no question that the lack of flexibility for the negotiators precluded any possibility of getting a deal for the past three years. Clearly, we are now in a period of give-and-take and genuine negotiations."

North Korea Seeks U.S. Aid Before It Halts Its Nuclear Program
(Jim Yardley, New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/internat...ia/28korea.html

Thursday, July 28
North Korea on Wednesday criticized an American plan to defuse the nuclear crisis, saying the proposal demands too many steps toward dismantling the country's nuclear program before providing any corresponding aid or energy assistance, a senior United States official said in a background meeting with reporters.

North Korea's criticism of the American plan, first proposed in June 2004 before the talks broke off, was not unexpected, noted the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the discussions. But it underscored the "fundamental differences" between the countries as participants in the six-nation nuclear talks took on the difficult task of finding common ground to resolve the crisis, now in its third year.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1000999479


'NY Times' Explores Role of Miller and Pincus in Plame/CIA Case

By E&P Staff

Published: July 28, 2005 7:45 AM ET

NEW YORK In its regular coverage of the Valerie Plame/CIA leak affair, The New York Times has not probed deeply into the involvement of its own jailed reporter, Judith Miller. Thursday, however, the paper offers some new details in a story by Douglas Jehl that mainly focuses on another oft-ignored figure, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus.

But Jehl didn't get much cooperation from his own paper.

Miller has refused to reveal her source. Pincus testified to the grand jury, but has not publicly revealed his source in the Plame leak.

Jehl reveals that at the time of the Plame leak, "Ms. Miller was working primarily from the Washington bureau of The Times, reporting to Jill Abramson, who was the Washington bureau chief at the time, and was assigned to report for an article published July 20, 2003, about Iraq and the hunt for unconventional weapons, according to Ms. Abramson, who is now managing editor of The Times.

"In e-mail messages this week, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, and George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of the newspaper, declined to address written questions about whether Ms. Miller was assigned to report about Mr. Wilson's trip, whether she tried to write a story about it, or whether she ever told editors or colleagues at the newspaper that she had obtained information about the role played by Ms. Wilson."

The rest of the Jehl article seems to have been sparked by an article in the summer issue of the Nieman Reports. In it, Pincus "makes clear that his source had volunteered the information to him," something that people close to Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby have said they did not do in their conversations with reporters.

Jehl observes that while Pincus has not identified his source to the public, a review of his own accounts "and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/politics...html?oref=login

Case of CIA Officer's Leaked Identity Takes New TurnCase of C.I.A. Officer's Leaked Identity Takes New Turn

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: July 28, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 26 - In the same week in July 2003 in which Bush administration officials told a syndicated columnist and a Time magazine reporter that a C.I.A. officer had initiated her husband's mission to Niger, an administration official provided a Washington Post reporter with a similar account.

The first two episodes, involving the columnist Robert D. Novak and the reporter Matthew Cooper, have become the subjects of intense scrutiny in recent weeks. But little attention has been paid to what The Post reporter, Walter Pincus, has recently described as a separate exchange on July 12, 2003.

In that exchange, Mr. Pincus says, "an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention" to the trip to Niger by Joseph C. Wilson IV "because it was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, an analyst with the agency who was working on weapons of mass destruction."

Mr. Wilson traveled to Niger in 2002 at the request of the C.I.A. to look into reports about Iraqi efforts to buy nuclear materials. He later accused the administration of twisting intelligence about the nuclear ambitions of Iraq, prompting an angry response from the White House.

Mr. Pincus did not write about the exchange with the administration official until October 2003, and The Washington Post itself has since reported little about it. The newspaper's most recent story was a 737-word account last Sept. 16, in which the newspaper reported that Mr. Pincus had testified the previous day about the matter, but only after his confidential source had first "revealed his or her identity" to Mr. Fitzgerald, the special counsel conducting the C.I.A. leak inquiry.

Mr. Pincus has not identified his source to the public. But a review of Mr. Pincus's own accounts and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed.

Mr. Pincus's most recent account, in the current issue of Nieman Reports, a journal of the Nieman Foundation, makes clear that his source had volunteered the information to him, something that people close to both Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have said they did not do in their conversations with reporters.

Mr. Pincus has said he will not identify his source until the source does so. But his account and those provided by other reporters sought out by Mr. Fitzgerald in connection with the case provide a fresh window into the cast of individuals other than Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby who discussed Ms. Wilson with reporters.

In addition to Mr. Pincus, the reporters known to have been pursued by the special prosecutor include Mr. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003, was the first to identify Ms. Wilson, by her maiden name, Valerie Plame; Mr. Cooper, who testified before a grand jury on the matter earlier this month; Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief of NBC News, and who was interviewed by the prosecutor last year; Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic reporter for The Post, who was also interviewed last year, and Judith Miller of The New York Times, who is now in jail for refusing to testify about the matter. It is not known whether Mr. Novak has testified or been interviewed on the matter.

Both Mr. Pincus, who covers intelligence matters for The Post, and Mr. Russert have continued to report on the investigation after being interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald about their conversations with government officials.

Mr. Pincus wrote in the Nieman Reports article that he had agreed to answer questions from Mr. Fitzgerald last fall about his July 12, 2003, conversation only after "it turned out that my source, whom I still cannot identify publicly, had in fact disclosed to the prosecutor that he was my source, and he talked to the prosecutor about our conversation."

In identifying Ms. Wilson and her role, Mr. Novak attributed that account to two senior Bush administration officials. One of those officials was Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, according to people close to Mr. Rove, who have said he merely confirmed information that Mr. Novak already had.

But the identity of Mr. Novak's original source, whom he has described as "no partisan gunslinger," remains unknown.

Mr. Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote about the matter several days after Mr. Novak's column appeared, has written and said publicly that he told a grand jury that Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove were among his sources. But Mr. Cooper has also said that there may have been others.

Ms. Miller never wrote a story about the matter. She has refused to testify in response to a court order directing her to testify in response to a subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald seeking her testimony about a conversation with a specified government official between June 6, 2003, and June 13, 2003.

During that period, Ms. Miller was working primarily from the Washington bureau of The Times, reporting to Jill Abramson, who was the Washington bureau chief at the time, and was assigned to report for an article published July 20, 2003, about Iraq and the hunt for unconventional weapons, according to Ms. Abramson, who is now managing editor of The Times.

In e-mail messages this week, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, and George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of the newspaper, declined to address written questions about whether Ms. Miller was assigned to report about Mr. Wilson's trip, whether she tried to write a story about it, or whether she ever told editors or colleagues at the newspaper that she had obtained information about the role played by Ms. Wilson.

The four reporters known to have been interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald or to have appeared before the grand jury have said that they did so after receiving explicit permission from their sources, most notably Mr. Libby, who was the subject of the interviews involving Mr. Russert, Mr. Kessler, Mr. Pincus and Mr. Cooper. They have declined to elaborate on their statements, citing Mr. Fitzgerald's request that they and others not speak publicly about the matter.

Mr. Russert, Mr. Kessler and Mr. Pincus have indicated in statements released by their news organizations that their conversations with Mr. Libby were not about Ms. Wilson.

In his article in the Summer 2005 issue of Nieman Reports, Mr. Pincus wrote that he did not write about Ms. Wilson when he first heard the account "because I did not believe it true that she had arranged" Mr. Wilson's trip.

Mr. Pincus first disclosed the July 12, 2003, conversation with an administration official in an Oct. 12, 2003, article in The Washington Post, but did not mention in that article that he himself had been the recipient of the information. He wrote in Nieman Reports that he did not believe the person who spoke to him was committing a criminal act, but only practicing damage control by trying to get him to write about Mr. Wilson.

The Globalization of State Terror

by Mike Whitney

The expression of Bush's maligned vision is now evident everywhere; from the gun-towers over Guantanamo, to the concertina wire surrounding Falluja, to the cement abutments enclosing the White House. The rising wave of militarism has been accompanied by an equal and opposite retreat in civil liberties and personal freedom.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9589.htm

http://snipurl.com/gkgy

Feds move swiftly to exploit 7/7:

Subway riders in New York and Washington are now subject to random searches, because they might have bombs. Forget that a suicide bomber would only detonate his payload upon being approached by a policeman, and take out whatever number of hapless innocents might be near him in these crowded venues.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/27/fe..._london_terror/

http://snipurl.com/gkhv

Florida church speaks out against Islam:

A sign outside a Jacksonville, Fla., church proclaims, "Islam is evil and believes in murder. Jesus teaches peace."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9601.htm

http://snipurl.com/gki8



"Christian" Country Or A nation In Shame?:

The Religious Right has corrupted Christianity beyond recognition
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9588.htm

http://snipurl.com/gkia



Deal for DeLay district added to energy bill, Democrat says:

A top House Democrat is accusing GOP leaders of slipping a provision into a sprawling energy bill to give hundreds of millions of dollars to a private energy consortium in the suburban Houston hometown of House majority leader Tom DeLay -- a consortium that includes energy giant Halliburton Inc. as one of its most prominent members.
http://snipurl.com/gkic



Waxman letter in full: $1.5 Billion Giveaway Secretly Slipped into Energy Bill:

In a letter to Speaker Hastert, Rep. Waxman writes that after the energy legislation was closed to further amendment in the recently concluded conference, a $1.5 billion provision benefiting oil and gas companies, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas, was mysteriously inserted in the text.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9599.htm

http://snipurl.com/gkid

Subcontractor's Story Details Post-9/11 Chaos:

Three years ago, Sunnye L. Sims lived in a two-bedroom apartment north of San Diego, paying $1,025 in monthly rent. Then she landed a dream job, with $5.4 million in pay for nine months of work.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9594.htm

http://snipurl.com/gkie



Roberts's past toes conservative line

his internal memorandums, some of which have become public in recent days, reveal a philosophy every bit as conservative as the policy makers on the front lines of the Reagan revolution and give more definition to his image than was apparent in the first days after President George W. Bush picked him last week
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file...ews/roberts.php

http://snipurl.com/gkjc



U.S. House approves Central American trade agreement:

Republicans, mostly from textile states, jockeyed over who would be allowed to vote against the bill and save face back home. The final count came minutes after midnight.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file...iness/cafta.php

http://snipurl.com/gkif



The CAFTA Agreement:

How Did Your Representative Vote:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll443.xml

http://snipurl.com/gkig



CAFTA: Which of the 15 Dem Sellouts Should Start Looking For Another Job/Party?

We now know who the 15 Democrats are that each undermined their party and America's middle class by casting the deciding vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
http://snipurl.com/gkis



One mother's war:

Mother seeking support cursed at for questioning war; Son escaped suicide bomb
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/one_mothers_war_ohio_728

http://snipurl.com/gkii



ISP 'censored' anti-war email:

A US broadband provider and a security services company have been accused of blocking emails relating to an anti-Iraq war protest.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/smh65.html

http://snipurl.com/gkil



US under fire over al-Qaeda guide :

The US Department of Justice has come under fire for posting an al-Qaeda training manual on its website.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4722833.stm

http://snipurl.com/gkin

Shuttle flaws test NASA's toolbox prowess
The vehicle's foam problem will be hard to fix. Should fleet be
retired? By Mark Sappenfield
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0729/p01s02-stss.html?s=hns

Longtime union members troubled over dissident split
Despite anger over the division, most agree that reforms are needed. By
Amanda Paulson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0729/p02s01-uspo.html?s=hns


Key turf war: control of nominee's old papers
Why the White House will withhold some of John Roberts's work. By Peter
Grier
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0729/p02s02-uspo.html?s=hns


From GOP Congress, welcome wins for Bush
With his poll ratings still troubled, the president enjoys a week of
better headlines. By Gail Russell Chaddock
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0729/p03s01-uspo.html?s=hns

Ex-CIA Officer Suing Over Bin Laden Book By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 28, 1:29 PM ET



WASHINGTON - The CIA is squelching publication of a new book detailing events leading up to Osama bin Laden's escape from his Tora Bora mountain stronghold during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, says a former CIA officer who led much of the fighting.

In a story he says he resigned from the agency to tell, Gary Berntsen recounts the attacks he coordinated at the peak of the fighting in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001, including how U.S. commanders knew bin Laden was in the rugged mountains near the Pakistani border and the al-Qaida leader's much-discussed getaway.

Berntsen claims in a federal court lawsuit that the CIA is over-classifying his manuscript and has repeatedly missed deadlines written into its own regulations to review his book. His attorney, Roy Krieger, said he delivered papers to the U.S. District Court in Washington after hours Wednesday.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigiliano said Bernsten's manuscript is subject to the same pre-publication review as that of all former employees.

"There, the guideline is that it contain no classified information," he said. "In this case, the process is moving forward."

During the 2004 election, President Bush and other senior administration officials repeatedly said that commanders did not know whether bin Laden was at Tora Bora when U.S. and allied Afghan forces attacked there in 2001.

They rejected allegations by Sen. John Kerry, then the Democratic presidential nominee, that the United States had missed an opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden because they had "outsourced" the fighting to Afghan warlords.

"When I watched the presidential debates, it was clear to me ... the debate and discussions on Tora Bora were — from both sides — completely incorrect," said Berntsen, who won't provide details until the agency finishes declassifying his book. "It did not represent the reality of what happened on the ground."

A Republican and avid Bush supporter, Berntsen, 48, retired in June and hasn't spoken publicly before.

His book chronicles chapters of his 23 years with the agency. Berntsen spent most of his career as a case officer in the Middle East, serving as the top U.S. intelligence official in three countries.

It covers his role handling the agency's response to al-Qaida's 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa. And the book continues through late 2001 when he was assigned to command a CIA team inserted into Afghanistan, code-named "Jawbreaker" — the title of his book, tentatively due out in October.

Berntsen said the story highlights the actions of four brave Muslim American men who went with him.

It's also about decision-making: "Who stepped up, who didn't in all of this," said Berntsen, the recipient of two of the CIA's three highest medals, one for preventing Islamic extremists from assassinating the Indian prime minister in 1996.

He said he felt compelled to write his story. But he also acknowledges he retired two years early because he ruffled senior management feathers. It was clear he wouldn't get further promotions.

Krieger said his client's First Amendment rights are being violated. He's also suing under the Administrative Procedures Act, arguing that the agency has taken more than twice the 30 days allowed by regulation to review the 330-page book.

Berntsen's book is one of a handful written recently by former CIA officers who have wrestled with the agency over what could be published.

An agency official said the regulations state the goal in general is to complete prepublication review within 30 days. For longer or more complex manuscripts, that review may take longer, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the litigation is pending.

Senator Questions Bolton Role in CIA Leak Probe
Thursday, July 28, 2005

WASHINGTON — Two of Washington's most contentious political issues of late have collided — the nomination of John Bolton (search) to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the investigation into who leaked a CIA operative's name to the press.

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden (search) of Delaware, who opposes Bolton's nomination, faxed a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (search) on Wednesday asking if it was true that Bolton was called to testify to the grand jury about who leaked the name of Valerie Plame (search) to reporters. If Bolton did testify, some Democrats say, he should have amended his response to a questionnaire filled out for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The latest request comes after months of protests from Senate Democrats on Bolton being confirmed and delays in holding a vote on his nomination to the United Nations. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., on Thursday said that chamber will revisit the Bolton nomination after Congress' August recess.

Earlier this week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan hinted that the president may grant Bolton a recess appointment in August, while sources told FOX News on Thursday that the recess appointment could come as early as next week. Such a move would mean Bolton could serve until January 2007, the end of the current Congress.

In his letter, Biden said: "I write to request that you or the nominee inform the committee whether Mr. Bolton did, in fact, appear before the grand jury, or whether he has been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special prosecutor or his staff in connection with this matter, and if so, when that occurred," wrote Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who led the Democratic filibuster last month against the nominee.

But a State Department official said Bolton does not need to change his response.

"Mr. Bolton, as part of the nomination process, supplied an answer to the question that asked whether or not a nominee as been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative, including an inspector general congressional or grand jury investigation, within the past five years, except routine congressional testimony," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Thursday.

"Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say 'no.' And that answer is truthful then and it remains the case now."

Before he was nominated, Bolton served as the State Department's undersecretary for arms control and international security since 2001. His official title is senior adviser to the secretary of state. Democrats argue Bolton is ill-mannered and hot-tempered, making him unsuitable for the top U.S. diplomatic post at the international body.

Democrats have also insisted that they want to see early drafts of Bolton's House testimony on Syria delivered two years ago, as well as the names of 36 individuals listed in National Security Agency intercepts that Bolton had requested and been permitted to view.

"I think it's a fishing expedition -- it looks to me it's not a red flag that's being raised, it's a red herring," former GOP Rep. George Nethercutt of Washington told FOX News about Biden seeking a potential Bolton-CIA leak connection.

Nethercutt said it's just another way Democrats are trying to stall Bolton's nomination.

"I think at some point, the president has to be able to have his nominees in placed in positions like the United Nations ambassadorship," he added. "I think it's very important we have someone on duty at this huge bureaucracy that is the United Nations. I think Mr. Bolton is that strong representative … let's give him a chance."

But former Texas gubernatorial candidate Gary Mauro, said erring on the side of caution is the best bet so far as the nominee is considered. Mauro rejected the notion that the issue is merely a delaying tactic on the part of Democrats.

"The fact is, a couple more weeks isn't going to matter at this point" so far as when a vote is held on the Bolton nomination, the Democrat told FOX News on Thursday. "It seems to me this is easy to answer: Did he or did he not go to the grand jury? If he didn't, Biden will look silly and we can move forward."

The Memo

At issue is a classified memo from June 2003 that said Plame worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues. The document could be a flashpoint because of the controversy swirling over who in the White House, if anyone, leaked Plame's name, whether she was a covert agent at the time and whether this particular memo made it clear to Bush officials and others that her identity should be concealed.

California Rep. Jane Harman (search), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has asked the State Department for two different versions of the memo from its bureau of intelligence and research that discussed Plame, a congressional aide said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (search), D-Calif., told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the news report that caught Biden's attention to the matter suggested that the grand jury sought Bolton's cooperation in connection with the document.

Boxer said Biden sought clarification because Bolton had responded in March to a "boilerplate" committee questionnaire that asked if the nominee had been "interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), congressional, or grand jury investigation within the past five years, except routine congressional testimony."

Bolton swore in an affidavit that the questionnaire answers were all true. Boxer declined to state whether Bolton had responded "no" to that question, but said, "he indicated in his form that he had not [been interviewed or asked to supply information in such proceedings]."

Boxer also mentioned that former Bush adviser Karen Hughes recently filled out the same questionnaire for her nomination to a State Department post, in which she acknowledged testifying before the grand jury in the same case.

Attempt to clarify the matter on Monday failed, so Biden directly faxed a letter to Rice.

The State Department responded on Wednesday.

Boxer conceded it was possible that Bolton's answer was true when he gave it; he could have cooperated in the CIA leak case after he filled out the questionnaire in March. The Biden letter asked Rice if, and when, that cooperation occurred.

Boxer said she believes the special counsel had completed interviewing witnesses by March, and that even if Bolton's alleged cooperation came later, "ethics tells me you go and amend" the questionnaire.

The Background

The grand jury was convened in the fall of 2003 to discover whether anyone in the White House violated the law in leaking Plame's name to reporters. Plame, who was working at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., was said to be under nonofficial cover at the time.

Plame's husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson (search), suggested his wife's identity was revealed in retaliation for his July 2003 editorial in The New York Times, in which he suggested the Bush administration manipulated intelligence reports to boost Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction threat.

Rove testified that he spoke with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame, though without identifying her by name. Rove said he was first told of her name by another reporter.

But the June 2003 classified memo in question was sent to the White House just days before a news report published Plame's name. That memo, written by then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, noted that "Valerie Wilson" worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues. It also explained how Mrs. Wilson suggested her husband go on the fact-finding mission to Niger to see if Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium there.

Opponents suggest that Rove or someone else in the White House may have gotten Plame's name from the classified memo rather than from reporters, as Rove suggested.

More than two dozen Democratic senators (search) on Monday asked Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to investigate the leak of Plame's name, saying that her safety had been compromised.

"The United States Congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight of the executive branch, whether a law has been broken or not," reads the letter authored by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Boxer is one of the signatories. "It is time for Congress to fulfill that constitutional responsibility in this matter by initiating a thorough investigation."

Bolton was nominated in March for the U.N. post but has twice failed to win the 60 Senate votes needed to end debate and move toward final confirmation.

FOX News' Sharon Kehnemui Liss, James Rosen and Teri Schultz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Top Spy's No. 2 Tells of Changes to Avoid Error

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: July 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 28 - John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, has imposed strict safeguards intended to ensure that the government's National Intelligence Estimates are based on credible information instead of the kinds of unsubstantiated claims that were the basis for prewar intelligence on Iraq, his top deputy said Thursday.

John D. Negroponte has imposed new intelligence safeguards, his deputy testified before Congress.


The deputy, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, made clear that the change should be seen as a response to the intelligence failures on Iraq, most notably the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 that asserted that the Iraqis had chemical and biological weapons and were rebuilding their nuclear program. Those assertions were proved wrong, and a presidential commission said in March that the fault lay in part with failures by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and others to validate the reliability of their sources and to share their doubts with others.

General Hayden, testifying before a House Intelligence subcommittee, said the change was intended to give new, critical scrutiny to both human and technical intelligence, including reports from agents, satellite photographs and intercepted communications. Among the focuses, he said, will be "who said what, why, and why do we think this is true?"

National Intelligence Estimates are periodic classified reports, prepared by the intelligence community for the president and other national leaders, that are intended to identify trends of significance to national security. General Hayden acknowledged Thursday that the new precautions were likely to result in estimates that proved much less definitive than in the past. But he said he and Mr. Negroponte would embrace "a higher tolerance for ambiguity" than had been accepted and would encourage analysts to be forthright about what they did not know.

General Hayden described the change as "a major breakthrough" that would significantly widen the circle of senior intelligence officials required to be given detailed knowledge about other agencies' sources. In the past, 15 spy chiefs who make up the National Intelligence Board and have final word on what the estimates say have been expected to endorse them with only limited knowledge about other agencies' sources.

Under Mr. Negroponte, General Hayden said, no National Intelligence Estimate will be approved until each agency whose sources are being used as a basis for the findings articulates to all others its "confidence in the source." One intelligence official said this precaution was adopted in early May. Other government officials said the standard had already been applied, to a recent highly classified intelligence report on Iran, producing findings that the officials described as infused with considerable uncertainty about the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

General Hayden's testimony to the subcommittee was the first given to Congress by a member of Mr. Negroponte's team since his office was established 90 days ago. The creation of that office was the most significant overhaul of the American intelligence apparatus in half a century, and General Hayden said he believed that it had left the agencies equipped to act with more agility and speed to combat terrorism and other national security threats.

The Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies had already imposed changes of their own in response to intelligence failures related to Iraq, with the C.I.A. requiring in particular that its Directorate of Operations share more information with intelligence analysts. And at a briefing this month, senior intelligence officials who report to Mr. Negroponte outlined other changes intended to promote more transparency about intelligence sources.

But the change described by General Hayden extends that approach to the National Intelligence Board, the high-level interagency group, whose reviews of intelligence estimates have not always been rigorous. For example, General Hayden acknowledged, as a member of that body in 2002 he voted in favor of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. But he based his judgment, he said, on detailed knowledge only about the communications intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency, which he then headed.

Under the old system, General Hayden said, he was neither expected nor permitted to learn more about the human sources from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency and satellite photographs from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency on which many judgments were based.

The general was warmly received by the House panel, which included Representatives Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Intelligence Committee's chairman, and Jane Harman of California, its top Democrat. Both mentioned the recent terror attacks in London and in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, and Ms. Harman asked General Hayden to reassure the panel that the intelligence reorganization had left the government better equipped than before Sept. 11, 2001, to avert a similar attack on the United States.

General Hayden said the terms of the law that created Mr. Negroponte's post would allow intelligence agencies to respond more swiftly and with more agility to threats than in the past, when there was a looser structure headed by the director of central intelligence.

"If we step up to that," he said, "we get more speed and more direct action."

Ms. Harman replied sharply, "You must step up to that!"

Addressing General Hayden later, she said: "The times are dangerous. The terrorists are here. Most of us believe that an attack could occur at any time."

"Keep us safe," she added.

State Dept admits Bolton gave inaccurate answers By Vicki Allen and Saul Hudson
55 minutes ago


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department reversed itself on Thursday night and acknowledged that President Bush's U.N. ambassador nominee gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in.

The acknowledgment came after the State Department had earlier insisted nominee John Bolton's "answer was truthful" when he said he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years.

"When Mr. Bolton completed his form during the Senate confirmation process he did not recall being interviewed by the State Department inspector general. Therefore his form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Earlier, Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) of Delaware said he had information Bolton was interviewed as part of a State Department- CIA joint investigation on intelligence lapses that led to the Bush administration's pre- Iraq war claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that should have been noted on the questionnaire, for which nominees swear out affidavits stating the information is true and accurate.

"It now appears that Mr. Bolton's answers may not meet that standard," Biden wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

McCormack also said Bolton was not interviewed in special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Earlier in the day, reporters questioned McCormack on whether Bolton testified before the federal grand jury investigating the case, as MSNBC reported last week.

'TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE'

In a letter to Bush, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record) said Bolton's admission was "too little, too late" and urged Bush to withdraw the nomination.

"A recess appointment of a man who did not tell the truth to the (Senate Foreign Relations) committee and only admitted the truth when he was caught would send a horrible message," Boxer wrote.

"It seems unusual that Mr. Bolton would not remember his involvement in such a serious matter. In my mind, this raises more questions that need to be answered. I hope President Bush will not make the mistake of recess appointing Mr. Bolton," Biden said in response to the admission that Bolton's information was inaccurate.

The nomination of Bolton, a favorite of conservatives, has been held up by accusations he tried to manipulate intelligence and intimidated intelligence analysts to support his hawkish views in his position as the top U.S. diplomat for arms control.

Lacking votes in the Senate to confirm Bolton, the White House has left open the possibility it might appoint him while Congress takes its monthlong summer recess that starts this weekend. A recess appointment would expire in January 2007 when the new Congress convenes.

Rice, appearing on the PBS News Hour, said that "the president will make that decision" on a recess appointment. "What we can't be is without leadership at the United Nations. ... I'm spending an awful lot of time these days preparing for the high-level meetings that are going to take place in September" on U.N. reforms.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, confirmed the Senate would not act on Bolton's nomination in the remaining hours before the recess, "and therefore we will address it after the recess."

In procedural votes in May and June, Democrats denied Republicans the 60 votes needed from the 100-member Senate to close debate on Bolton and move to a confirmation vote, which would require a simple majority.

State Department: Bolton erred on report
U.N. nominee inaccurately said he had not been questioned in CIA leak case

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:10 p.m. ET July 28, 2005
WASHINGTON - John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday, responding to a Democratic critic.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency related to Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

When Bolton filled out a Senate questionnaire in connection with his nomination, “he didn’t recall being interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general. Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate,” Clay said. “He will correct it.”

The response came after Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserting Bolton had been interviewed and suggesting he had not been truthful in his questionnaire.

Democrats have tried to turn up the pressure on Bolton, hoping to persuade President Bush not to appoint Bolton on a temporary basis while Congress is on its summer recess.

Nomination stalled
Bolton’s nomination has been stalled for months, and Rice and other officials refused to rule out a recess appointment for Bolton. “What we can’t be is without leadership at the United Nations,” Rice said on the PBS’s “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.”

A federal grand jury is investigating who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the news media. Biden’s initial request followed a report that Bolton was among State Department undersecretaries who “gave testimony” about a classified memo that has become an important piece of evidence in the leak investigation.

Plame is the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA in 2002 to check out intelligence that the government of Niger had sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons. Wilson could not verify the intelligence and his public criticism of President Bush’s Iraq policy in July 2003 set in motion a chain of events that led to an ongoing criminal investigation and the jailing of a New York Times reporter who refused to cooperate with it.

Syndicated columnist Robert Novak, citing unidentified Bush administration officials, was the first to disclose in July 2003 that Plame worked for the CIA and suggested her husband for the Niger trip. Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper wrote a subsequent story and included her name.

A 1982 law prohibits the deliberate exposure of the identity of an undercover CIA official. Wilson has accused the White House of trying to orchestrate a dirty-tricks campaign to discredit him after he challenged the administration’s assertion that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was seeking material from Niger to make nuclear weapons and said the White House had manipulated prewar intelligence to justify an Iraq invasion.

Not known if Novak cooperated
It is unknown whether Novak has cooperated with investigators, but prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has said in court papers that his investigation was complete as far back as October 2004, except for the testimony of two reporters — Cooper and the Times’ Judith Miller.

Cooper testified to the grand jury this month following a protracted legal battle over whether the reporters should be compelled to reveal their confidential sources. Miller was jailed July 6 for contempt of court because she refused to cooperate with Fitzgerald.

Bush political aide Karl Rove and vice presidential chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby were among Cooper’s sources, he reported following his grand jury appearance. They are among several high-ranking administration officials who have given grand jury testimony.

While Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency, he has insisted through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.

Earlier disclosure
Among the many mysteries in this case is that there was apparently at least one other government official who disclosed to a reporter that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. Walter Pincus, a Washington Post reporter, wrote in the summer edition of the Nieman Foundation publication Nieman Reports that the official talked to him two days before Novak published his column.

Pincus did not disclose his source. But he said he has cooperated with prosecutors and that his source also has been interviewed.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor and criminal defense lawyer, said he continues to believe that, based on reports of what the grand jury has been told, Fitzgerald’s focus is more on the veracity of witnesses than on the initial disclosure of Plame’s name.

“Historically, people are indicted for how they respond to investigations more than the original cause of the investigations,” Turley said.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

U.N. Nominee Omitted Data at Hearings in the Senate

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: July 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 28 - John R. Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, failed to tell the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he had been interviewed by the State Department's inspector general looking into how American intelligence agencies came to rely on fabricated reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa, the State Department said Thursday.

Reacting to a letter from Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said Mr. Bolton had not disclosed the interview with the inspector general because Mr. Bolton had forgotten about it. Mr. McCormack said the interview, on July 18, 2003, had nothing to do with a federal investigation into who leaked the name of an undercover C.I.A. official to reporters, a potential crime.

"When Mr. Bolton completed his forms for the Senate he did not recall being interviewed by the inspector general," Mr. McCormack said in a telephone interview Thursday. Mr. McCormack reiterated that Mr. Bolton had not been questioned by the grand jury in the leak investigation.

The latest disclosure about Mr. Bolton came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly hinted that President Bush would bypass the Senate when Congress adjourns this weekend and temporarily appoint Mr. Bolton to the United Nations post. Another Republican official said Mr. Bush could name Mr. Bolton as early as next week, but the official would not let his name be used as the decision is Mr. Bush's.

In a form submitted for his confirmation hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Bolton said he had not been interviewed or asked for information in connection with any administrative investigation, including that of an inspector general, during the last five years.

Senator Biden told Ms. Rice in a letter on Thursday that "it has just come to my attention" that Mr. Bolton had been interviewed by the State Department inspector general and that "this information would appear to be inconsistent" with the earlier information Mr. Bolton had given to the committee.

Mr. McCormack responded that Mr. Bolton would correct the form.

Ms. Rice, in an interview on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" on PBS, signaled that Mr. Bush needed to move quickly on Mr. Bolton's appointment to prepare for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

"I'm spending an awful lot of time these days preparing for the high-level meetings that are going to take place in September where all of the world's leaders are going to be here to talk about refreshing the United Nations after 60 years," Ms. Rice told Mr. Lehrer. "The United States needs to be active in that and we have a good team at the U.N., but we need our permanent representative to the United Nations."

Publicly, White House officials were noncommittal about the possibility of a recess appointment, a back-door procedure in the Constitution that permits the president to fill vacant positions when the Senate is in recess, as it will be when Congress breaks for the month of August.

But Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, suggested earlier this week that Mr. Bush might appoint the blunt, hard-charging Mr. Bolton when the press secretary addressed a reporter's question about Mr. Bush's views on recess appointments in general.

"There have been times when the president has used that authority that he has to get people in place that have waited far too long to get about doing their business," Mr. McClellan said at a briefing on Monday. He added that "if the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees, then sometimes there comes a point where the president has needed to fill that in a timely manner by recessing those nominees."

During May and June, Democrats denied Republicans the 60 votes they needed to confirm Mr. Bolton to the United Nations post. Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Bolton, the former undersecretary of state for arms control and a protégé of Vice President Dick Cheney, in March. The United Nations has been without an American ambassador since John C. Danforth left the job in January.

Democrats objected to Mr. Bolton because they said he had manipulated intelligence to conform to his hawkish views and treated subordinates harshly.

Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting for this article.

US failures 'fuel Iraq militants'

Militant groups have carried out almost daily attacks in Iraq
A prestigious US political research body has accused the US government of giving impetus to Iraq's insurgency through a lack of post-war planning.
A Council on Foreign Relations study said the decision that reconstruction would not need any more forces than the invasion was a critical miscalculation.

Too few soldiers, it said, had left the US ill-equipped to address security, governance and economic demands.

Post-war development must be a national security priority like war, it said.

The report also recommended that an international fund of $1bn be set up to help reconstruct post-conflict states.

It was headed by two former national security advisers - the Democrat Sandy Berger and the Republican Brent Scowcroft, who was critical of the invasion of Iraq.

'Serious consequences'

The report said that government responsibility for stabilisation and reconstruction was "diffuse" and "uncertain".

"Nation-building is not just a humanitarian concern, but a critical national security priority that should be on par with war-fighting," it said.

"The failure to take this phase of conflict as seriously as initial combat operations has had serious consequences for the United States, not just in Iraq but, more broadly, for international efforts to stabilise and rebuild nations after conflict."

Specifically, it said the perceived failure to prepare properly for the post-war period had given an "early impetus for the insurgency".

Iraq's efforts at reconstruction have been hampered since the 2003 invasion by almost daily shootings and bomb attacks.

Militants have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks in a bid to destabilise Iraq's new Shia-led government.

Senate expected to approve US energy bill Reuters AlertNet
By Julie Vorman. WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) - The US Senate was poised on Friday to approve a $14.5 billion energy bill that is championed by the White House as a way to increase US supplies and reduce demand but criticized by environmental groups. Supporters say the measure will revive America's nuclear power industry, boost oil drilling, convert coal into a cleaner-burning fuel and use home-grown corn to stretch gasoline supplies. Environmental groups and some Democrats criticize its extensive tax breaks, subsidies and loan guarantees as a lavish gift to an industry enjoying near-record profits. The Senate was scheduled to vote on Friday on the energy bill, following the lead of the House of Representatives that approved it by a wide margin on Thursday. President George W. Bush -- who spent the past four years pressing Congress to overhaul U.S. energy policy -- was expected to sign it into law soon afterward. The bill will have no short-term impact on gasoline prices or oil imports, Republicans acknowledged. But longer term, they said it would revitalize all types of energy production. "For once, Congress and the United States are going to do something important that we will benefit from, not tomorrow, but for the next five or 10 years," said Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico, one of the bill's authors. "This bill will create jobs, job security and clean energy," he said. "Who could ask for anything more?" Most Americans will feel the impact of the 1,700-page bill when daylight-saving time is extended by two weeks in 2007 to save energy. Homeowners will also be able to claim a tax credit of up to $500 to install more energy-efficient windows, and another modest credit for buying a hybrid fuel vehicle.

COAL, OIL, NUCLEAR ARE BIG WINNERS
The bulk of the bill's incentives are aimed at companies and utilities that produce energy. Of the total $14.5 billion, $2.6 billion is in tax breaks for oil and gas drilling and the expansion of pipelines and refineries. Electric utilities are in line to get $3.1 billion in tax credits and subsidies to build the first nuclear power plants since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Coal companies will get $2.9 billion to invest in new technology to generate gas or electricity with less air pollution. About $3.1 billion is earmarked for tax credits for renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, geothermal, landfill gas and hydropower. The bill also orders the U.S. oil industry to nearly double the amount of corn-distilled ethanol it uses as an additive in gasoline, giving farmers a new market for their crop. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said the package "will reduce energy demand, increase energy supplies, and update our aging energy infrastructure." It will also promote "research and development efforts to transform that way we produce and use energy in the future," he added. Some Senate Democrats said they would reluctantly vote for the bill even though it fell far short of steering the nation on a new energy course. The legislation failed to curb oil demand with stricter fuel mileage for gas guzzlers or encourage more renewable forms of energy, said Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts, his party's 2004 presidential nominee. "What we need is an energy policy that is as bold and as big as the challenge is to the country. That is not what we are getting in this bill," Kerry said. "This does nothing to reduce American dependence on foreign oil." The U.S. oil addiction means the nation must import 60 percent of the 21 million barrels per day consumed.
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* Reuters top energy news [TOP/O]
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* Energy bill text at http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/0205_E...onf_report.pdf)
Congress Set to Pass Energy Bill San Francisco Chronicle
Congress Ready to Approve Energy, Highway Measures Los Angeles Times
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Muslim leaders: Go beyond condemnation of terrorists Chicago Daily Herald
"I think it is the responsibility of the leaderships of mosques to be more connected to the congregations, to make communities safe on an individual basis, and to keep an eye out for people under stress and make sure they channel it in a nonviolent way." Abdul Malik Mujahid, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Islamic Relations. People who commit terrorism in the name of Islam are “criminals, not ‘martyrs,’æ” according to a powerful religious edict, called a fatwa, issued Thursday by leading American scholars of Islamic law. Today in Chicago, Muslim leaders from throughout the city and suburbs will underscore that not only is violence against innocents forbidden, it’s the duty of Muslim leaders to dissuade, speak out against and even report to police anyone in their community they suspect of inciting violence or preparing to commit violence. “We go beyond condemnation,” said Abdul Malik Mujahid, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Islamic Relations, which will be leading this morning’s endorsement of the fatwa by a host of local mosques and foundations, as well as the civil rights group Council on Islamic-American Relations. “I think it is the responsibility of the leaderships of mosques to be more connected to the congregations, to make communities safe on an individual basis, and to keep an eye out for people under stress and make sure they channel it in a nonviolent way,” Mujahid said Thursday. “It will be the responsibility of the Islamic leaders to recognize this, and it will be their duty to look for formal law enforcement.” He and others said the fatwa and its implications are twofold: First, it’s an internal edict to Muslims, but it’s also an external message to non-Muslims who may need to hear the strongest possible condemnation of terrorism from within Islam. “For the non-Muslim community, it’s important because I don’t believe many Americans realize this is forbidden by Islam,” said Arif Hussain, who leads Friday prayers at the Lake County Mosque in Waukegan. “They don’t believe the Muslim community in America has spoken out loudly enough against these acts.” Many Muslim leaders overseas have issued similar condemnations in recent weeks, but some have left an opening for violence to be used. British Muslim leaders who denounced the July 7 attacks in London said suicide bombings could still be justified against an occupying power. Local Muslim leaders say they were troubled by reports that some of the suspected British-raised bombers had drifted from their home mosque and attended talks by Islamic extremists. “It was shocking to us,” said Oussama Jamal, a board member and former president of the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation. “On Sept. 11, we knew it was no one in the community. But it is shocking to see someone who grew up in the UK to take part in acts like this.” Thus, Jamal said, in some ways the American fatwa was a “pre-emptive strike” in the battle for the hearts and minds of American Muslims. The American fatwa was issued by the 18-member Fiqh Council of North America. The term “fiqh” refers to Islamic legal issues and understanding the faith’s religious law. “There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism,” the scholars wrote in a statement that quotes the Quran and accepted statements from the Islamic prophet Muhammad. “Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram — or forbidden.” Unlike, say, the Roman Catholic church, Islam has no central authority, so voices of local Muslim leaders are crucial, said Habibuddin Ahmed, general secretary of the Forest Park-based Islamic Thought and Science Institute. “Islamic Foundation in Villa Park has an audience of several thousand people,” Ahmed said. “The National Fiqh Council does not have that large an audience, so the local groups must move forward.”
US clerics issue anti-terror edict Newsday
US Muslims: Declaration of Support and Action Against Terrorism SomaliNet
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Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts: Findlaw.com
Remarkably little is known about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts, other than the bare bones of his resume. Although he was recently confirmed for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, that confirmation hearing did little delving. So far, he has written only about forty opinions in his two years on the appellate court, on largely mundane legal matters. Thus, his judicial philosophy remains essentially unknown. For this reason, several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have said they will seek copies of documents that Roberts prepared as a government attorney in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, to see if these documents provide evidence of Roberts's thinking. Of particular interest are Roberts's years in the Office of the Solicitor General, for nowhere in the Executive Branch is there more thinking done about the High Court. The Bush White House, and those speaking on behalf of the Administration, initially said that they would refuse to turn over documents, claiming attorney-client privilege. Apparently reminded that as Independent Counsel, Ken Starr pretty much made a nullity of that privilege for government attorneys, the White House later said that some documents would be made available, but not all. In support of its position, it cited as precedent the rules that had governed the hearings of past government attorneys who have been selected for the high bench (Rehnquist, Bork, and Scalia). The problem is, it turns out that existing precedent -- in particular, precedent from the Bork hearings, the more recent of the three, cuts the wrong way for the White House.

Document Demands And Responses
Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested Roberts's documents from his tenure as an assistant to the Attorney General and an assistant counsel in the Reagan White House. The Bush White House did not resist the request. In fact, it is not clear that the Administration could have, since these records are covered by the Presidential Records Act, and most of them reside in the Reagan Presidential Library in California. In addition, The New York Times reports that Judge Roberts's documents from the period, 1981-1982, where he worked as Attorney General William French Smith's assistant, will be released by the National Archives. Judiciary committee chairman Arlen Specter did not request the documents from the years Roberts worked for Solicitor General Ken Starr, as his top deputy. And the Bush administration has made clear they will not release these records from the Solicitor General's office. Unlike the other records, these are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. Rather, they are considered "sensitive, deliberative, confidential" exchanges among government lawyers preparing cases to take to the Supreme Court. According to the Administration, they will therefore not be produced. But, again, as the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has stated, the Bush administration's position is contrary to precedent. During the confirmation hearings of former Solicitor General Robert Bork, then a judge serving, like John Roberts, on the District of Columbia Circuit, records from Bork's time at the Solicitor General's office were made available.

A Rehnquist Redux
The New York Times stated that "[T]he Nixon administration refused to release documents from the solicitor general's office when it came to the nomination of William H. Rehnquist to the Supreme Court," the New York Times noted. In fact, however, Rehnquist was not in the SG's office. He had served in the Office of Legal Counsel, which has traditionally been considered "the president's law office." Arguably, the papers of the OLC are more sensitive than those of the SG's office, which is the law office for the United States, not the President. Here's how things played out in1971, when Rehnquist was nominated as an Associate Justice to the Court: Rehnquist invoked attorney-client privilege as to the OLC documents. (This was a dubious position at the time. And today, such a privilege does not exist when it comes to government attorneys; decisions arising of out of the Starr investigation have made that clear.) Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to President Nixon requesting that the privilege be waived. That letter landed on my desk, with a copy to Attorney General John Mitchell. I called Mitchell. He did not want to waive the privilege, although he had not even bothered to check Rehnquist's files. That ended the matter, and Rehnquist was confirmed. In 1986, when President Reagan nominated Rehnquist to be moved to the center chair, to sit as chief justice, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, again requested access to Rehnquist's OLC documents. Not only Democrats wanted to see these documents; several Republicans (who controlled the committee) also wanted to see Rehnquist's writings from that earlier era. To make it clear that if the Senate committee subpoenaed the documents, they would not be forthcoming, President Reagan invoked executive privilege vis-à-vis the documents as well. Since OLC advises the President, Reagan argued that executive privilege covers OLC documents. This was a time when the U.S. Congress still had institutional pride. When the Senate Judiciary Committee made it clear that it was not backing down -- a stance that would indefinitely delay Rehnquist's nomination, as well as Antonin Scalia's, which was also pending -- the Reagan White House backed down instead. A compromise was reached. Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, an attorney, along with an attorney on the staff of the Senate Judiciary committee, would be given access to Rehnquist's records as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel.

Snookered By A Pig In The Poke
Not surprisingly, Senator Mathias found nothing remarkable in the Department of Justice material. I say it was no surprise based on what he was given access to review. The New York Times obtained access to, and published, an index of the materials. The index covers seven broad topic areas:
I - Laird v. Tatum, a ruling on military surveillance by the Supreme Court in which Rehnquist participated but later disqualified himself because he had testified for the government earlier;
II - Reform of the Classification System and Investigation of Leaks;
III - May Day [Demonstration] Arrests;
IV - Kent State Killings;
V - Judicial Nominations;
VI - Wiretapping; and
VII - Ellsberg Matter.
After scanning the documents under these provocative headings, several of which were addressed to me, I realized I could have saved Senator Mathias the trouble of his time. I recognized many of the documents listed in the index, with lengthy memoranda for which Rehnquist often prepared a summary. It appears the Senate was only given access to summaries in some instances, so it is not exactly clear what was given to the Senate, and what was withheld. More importantly, now, at the end of the Chief Justice's career, it serves no purpose to even characterize the material that was not seen. Suffice it to say that based on my knowledge of some of the documents that were withheld, I am confident that someday, when historians have access to that information, it will be clear that the Senate was snookered. They were offered, and apparently bought, the proverbial pig in a poke. I note this because I believe the Senate has the right to look at Judge John Roberts's papers when serving as a senior official in the Office of the Solicitor General. And if the Senate Judiciary Committee insists they be given access to those papers, the mistake that was made with the Rehnquist papers -- of accepting a pale shadow of what was agreed to be provided -- should not be repeated.

The Senate's Right To Inspect Judge Roberts's Papers
The Clinton administration, as readers may recall, was plagued by the refusal of the Republicans in the Senate to process the president's judicial nominees for any number of spurious reasons. At end of Clinton's tenure in office, a panel of former high- ranking government officials along with eminent members of the bar gathered to examine the selection process for federal judges and justices. In 2000 they issued their Report of the Task Force on Federal Judicial Selection. This report sets out clear parameters for both the executive branch, and the Senate confirmation proceeding, for the federal bench -- judgeships low and high. The Task Force found "it is both appropriate and important … to ask questions designed to flesh out a candidate's underlying philosophical and normative [what ought to be] commitments." Questions about "justice," "reasoning," "constitutional values," and "leading cases in our legal culture" are in order. What is not appropriate, according to the Task Force's Report, is to ask about how a judge or justice "would vote on an unresolved case or issue that could come before" them. If such a question were asked, the Task Force advised nominees to "decline to answer … on the ground that it seeks an inappropriate precommitment." It is difficult to think of anything that might better inform the Senate about Judge John Roberts's attitude and philosophy than those likely to be found in the files of the Solicitor General's office. The Senate committee might also call upon Ken Starr to testify about these matters, as Judge Roberts's former superior, as Solicitor General. But given the fact that Judge Bork provided such information during his confirmation hearing, why should not the same sort of information be provided about Judge Roberts's work in the SG's office? As with Rehnquist's nomination to be chief justice, if the Senate wants the information, and the Bush White House wants to get Roberts confirmed, they will provide it. And if the Senate is smart, it will press for better information from the Bush White House, than the Nixon White House gave. (It should be noted that not all presidents, or at least not President Nixon, actually want their nominees selected. Some might rather have the political benefit of the Senate turning down a qualified nominee. For example, when Judge Clement Haynsworth was rejected by the Senate, Nixon sent them an unqualified nominee who was also rejected, Judge Harold Carswell. Nixon was delighted, for after the rejection, he could claim that the Democrats would not let him put a Southern "strict constructionist" on the Supreme Court. Ironically, when Nixon did succeed in getting Minnesotan Judge Harry Blackmun on the Court, it would result in Roe v. Wade, a ruling that is to much of the South what the Dred Scott ruling once was to much of the North.)

Resolution Of The Solicitor General's Papers Prepared By Judge Roberts
One of the most striking features of the Congress under Republican leadership has been its complete lack of institutional pride. As long as the Republicans have the votes, they have been nothing but arms of the White House on Capitol Hill. In short, it is not likely the Senate (either Democrats or Republicans, let alone both together) will insist on reviewing Judge Roberts's work in the Solicitor General's office. Indeed, I doubt that the Republican leadership would let Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter insist on production of these papers, even if he believed the Senate should see them. In the event the Senate does get access to these important papers, however, they should not once again buy a pig in a poke. They've been there and done that with Rehnquist. It was an easy mistake the first time. If it happens again, it will be simple stupidity, which is not becoming of any member of the U.S. Senate.
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Securing Our Subways

By Michael Chertoff

Friday, July 29, 2005; Page A23

In the past couple of weeks we have seen four major terrorist attacks on soft targets in civilian areas: two attacks on mass transit in London; an attack on a shopping mall in Netanya, Israel; and an attack on hotels and resorts in Egypt. The events are a tragic reminder of the dangers we face, the tactics of our enemies and the need for more preparedness.

Every act of terrorism is unforgivable, and any life taken by terrorists is an irreparable loss. This is why we have gone to great lengths as a nation since Sept. 11 to provide law enforcement and intelligence personnel with enhanced tools and information to better identify, track and apprehend terrorists before they are able to strike. We have also made significant progress since last year's bombings in Madrid in securing our mass transit systems.


State and local authorities have received more than $8 billion in Homeland Security Department grants that can be used for mass transit security, and President Bush has proposed an additional $2.4 billion in his 2006 budget. The federal government has chipped in more than $255 million for state and local transit authorities to increase protection through hardening of assets, greater police presence during high alerts, additional detection and surveillance equipment, increased inspections, and expanded use of explosives-sniffing dog teams.

These expenditures reflect our commitment to protecting all of our infrastructure from terrorist attack. Of course, the way in which we do so depends on the nature of the system that we are protecting. Mass transit is an open, accessible and efficient system across a broad geographic area. By contrast, our aviation system is a closed system that can be tightly monitored at controlled checkpoints. An airport-style security system would be poorly suited to local mass transit systems because long delays would interrupt fluidity and convenience. We cannot destroy with draconian security measures the very thing we are trying to protect.

While securing our subways, buses and rail systems remains a critical effort, it has never been solely or even primarily a federal effort. State and local officials rightly control almost all of the "boots on the ground" used to provide security for mass transit. Indeed, these highly trained local law enforcement personnel understand the unique design characteristics and security challenges of their hometown subway, light rail, bus and ferry systems better than anyone.

To make mass transit systems more secure, we need an effective partnership between federal, state and local officials that builds on the strengths and resources each can offer -- and that reflects the individual architecture of each local system. Here are three suggestions for strengthening the federal role in mass transit security while preserving our partnership with our state and local counterparts:

· We must use real-time intelligence and the experience gained from London and Madrid to improve our protective measures. Steps taken to identify and intercept sleeper cells and to secure our borders strengthen mass transit security and our entire infrastructure.

· We should not automatically focus all our resources and attention on subway trains and buses just because the terrorists in London targeted subway trains and buses. The attack on hotels and resorts in Egypt shows that terrorists are interested in other "soft" targets as well. Even within the mass transit sector, we need to think about other elements of the system, such as tunnels and ferries.

For this reason, the Bush administration has proposed $600 million in Targeted Infrastructure Protection Program (TIPP) grants, which will give our states, cities and counties discretion in how they provide protection for mass transit and other critical infrastructure. As Congress debates homeland security funding, it should build on the model of the TIPP grants and give maximum flexibility to allocate grants according to risk, rather than dividing money into categories based on the latest attack.

· Finally, catastrophic attacks on mass transit infrastructure have the potential to kill thousands -- and preventing them must be a primary focus of federal resources. A chemical, radiological or biological attack on mass transit could cripple the system. We must expedite research and development of more advanced equipment to detect chemical, radiological and biological substances so we can stay ahead of the terrorists' intent to unleash mass casualty attacks.

No amount of security can guarantee 100 percent safety, which is why we are applying a risk-based approach to our homeland security efforts. But working with our state and local partners, we can build on each other's strengths to make our mass transit systems as safe as possible.

The writer is the U.S. secretary of homeland security.

NASA Says Debris May Have Struck Shuttle Wing

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=E62B68:2F72C9D

A similar wing hit during launch of Columbia in February 2003 caused
disaster when it burned up upon reentry into earth's atmosphere,
killing all seven astronauts

Space shuttle Discovery prepares to dock with International Space
Station, July 28, 2005NASA officials say images taken of the space
shuttle Discovery's launch on Tuesday show a small piece of foam
insulation may have struck the orbiter's wing. A similar wing hit
during the launch of the Columbia in February 2003 caused the disaster
when it burned up upon reentry into the earth's atmosphere, killing
all seven astronauts. Mission controllers remain optimistic that there
is little or no damage to the Discovery.

The piece of foam insulation that's got NASA officials concerned is a
small piece that flew off Discovery's external fuel tank moments after
lift-off Tuesday.

Something similar happened with Columbia when a bigger chunk of loose
foam punctured the wing during launch and caused the vehicle to break
up in the searing heat of reentry.

So, it came as a bit of a surprise when cameras trained on Discovery
captured images of flying foam once again. At first, mission
controllers said they were fairly certain that none of the insulation
had struck the orbiter.

Now, assistant space shuttle manager Wayne Hale says they're not so
sure. "The indications are that this little piece of foam took a turn,
and so there is some concern or some thought that it most likely
struck the wing," he said.

Mr. Hale said if it turns out the chunk of foam did strike Discovery's
wing, it was probably too small to do any major harm. He said NASA
engineers will begin pouring over high resolution images of the wing
to see if they can detect any significant damage.

Mr. Hale believes the astronauts will return home safely. But NASA has
the space shutle Atlantis standing by just in case. "We said we had at
the very bottom of the tricks in our bag would be to perform a rescue
operation. We're nowhere near doing that. I expect that by flight day
six, we're going to get approval to fly home as is. So, that's not
even under consideration at this point," he said.

The shuttle's seven astronauts will spend eight days with the two-man
crew of the international space station, where they will conduct
maintenance space walks and resupply the space laboratory.