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January 9, 2006
More Companies Ending Promises for Retirement
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
The death knell for the traditional company pension has been tolling for some time now. Companies in ailing industries like steel, airlines and auto parts have thrown themselves into bankruptcy and turned over their ruined pension plans to the federal government.

Now, with the recent announcements of pension freezes by some of the cream of corporate America - Verizon, Lockheed Martin, Motorola and, just last week, I.B.M. - the bell is tolling even louder. Even strong, stable companies with the means to operate a pension plan are facing longer worker lifespans, looming regulatory and accounting changes and, most importantly, heightened global competition. Some are deciding they either cannot, or will not, keep making the decades-long promises that a pension plan involves.

I.B.M. was once a standard-bearer for corporate America's compact with its workers, paying for medical expenses, country clubs and lavish Christmas parties for the children. Perhaps most importantly, it rewarded long-serving employees with a guaranteed monthly stipend from retirement until death.

Most of those perks have long since been scaled back at I.B.M. and elsewhere, but the pension freeze is the latest sign that today's workers are, to a much greater extent, on their own. Companies now emphasize 401(k) plans, which leave workers responsible for ensuring that they have adequate funds for retirement and expose them to the vagaries of the financial markets.

"I.B.M. has, over the last couple of generations, defined an employer's responsibility to its employees," said Peter Capelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. "It paved the way for this kind of swap of loyalty for security."

Mr. Capelli called the switch from a pension plan to a 401(k) program "the most visible manifestation of the shifting of risk onto employees." He added: "People just have to deal with a lot more risk in their lives, because all these things that used to be more or less assured - a job, health care, a pension - are now variable."

I.B.M. said it is discontinuing its pension plan for competitive reasons, and that it plans to set up an unusually rich 401(k) plan as a replacement. The company is also trying to protect its own financial health and avoid the fate of companies like General Motors that have been burdened by pension costs. Freezing the pension plan can reduce the impact of external forces like interest-rate changes, which have made the plan cost much more than expected.

"It's the prudent, responsible thing to do right now," said J. Randall MacDonald, I.B.M.'s senior vice president for human resources. He said the new plan would "far exceed any average benchmark" in its attractiveness.

Pension advocates said they were dismayed that rich and powerful companies like I.B.M. and Verizon would abandon traditional pensions.

"With Verizon, we're talking about a company at the top of its game," said Karen Friedman, director of policy studies for the Pension Rights Center, an advocacy group in Washington. "They have a huge profit. Their C.E.O. has given himself a huge compensation package. And then they're saying, 'In order to compete, sorry, we have to freeze the pensions.' If companies freeze the pensions, what are employees left with?"

Verizon's chief executive, Ivan Seidenberg, said in December that his company's decision to freeze its pension plan for about 50,000 management employees would make the company more competitive, and also "provide employees a transition to a retirement plan more in line with current trends, allowing employees to have greater accountability in managing their own finances and for companies to offer greater portability through personal savings accounts."

In a pension freeze, the company stops the growth of its employees' retirement benefits, which normally build up with each additional year of service. When they retire, the employees will still receive the benefits they earned before the freeze.

Like I.B.M., Verizon said it would replace its frozen pension plan with a 401(k) plan, also known as a defined-contribution plan. This means the sponsoring employer creates individual savings accounts for workers, withholds money from their paychecks for them to contribute, and sometimes matches some portion of the contributions. But the participating employees are responsible for choosing an investment strategy. Traditional pensions are backed by a government guarantee; defined-contribution plans are not.

Precisely how many companies have frozen their pension plans is not known. Data collected by the government are old and imperfect, and companies do not always publicize the freezes. But the trend appears to be accelerating.

As recently as 2003, most of the plans that had been frozen were small ones, with less than 100 participants, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures traditional pensions. The freezes happened most often in troubled industries like steel and textiles, the guarantor found.

Only a year ago, when I.B.M. decided to close its pension plan to new employees, it said it was "still committed to defined-benefit pensions."

But now the company has given its imprimatur to the exodus from traditional pensions. Its pension fund, the third largest behind General Motors and General Electric, is a pace-setter. Industry surveys suggest that more big, healthy companies will do what I.B.M. did this year and next.

"There's a little bit of a herd mentality," said Syl Schieber, director of research for Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a large consulting firm that surveyed the nation's 1,000 largest companies and reported a sharp increase in the number of pension freezes in 2004 and 2005. The thinking grows out of boardroom relationships, he said, where leaders of large companies compare notes and discuss strategy.

Another factor appears to be impatience with long-running efforts by Congress to tighten the pension rules, Mr. Schieber said. Congress has been struggling for three years with the problem of how to make sure companies measure their pension promises accurately - a key to making sure they set aside enough money to make good. But it is likely to be costly for some companies to reserve enough money to meet the new rules, and they - and some unions - have lobbied hard to keep the existing rules intact, or even to weaken them. So far, consensus has eluded the lawmakers.

"If Congress will not do its job and clarify the regulatory environment, then I think more and more companies will come to the conclusion that, given everything else that they've got to face, this just isn't the way to go," Mr. Schieber said of the traditional pension route.

Defined-benefit pensions proliferated after World War II and reached their peak in the late 1970's, when about 62 percent of all active workers were covered solely by such plans, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a Washington organization financed by companies and unions. A slow, steady erosion then began, and by 1997, only 13 percent of workers had a pension plan as their sole retirement benefit. The percentage has held steady in the years since then. The growth of defined-contribution plans has mirrored the disappearance of pension plans. In 1979, 16 percent of active workers had a defined contribution plan and no pension, but by 2004 the number had grown to 62 percent.

For many workers, the movement away from traditional pensions is going to be difficult. Already there are signs that people are retiring later, or taking other jobs to support themselves in old age. Participation in a pension plan is involuntary, but most 401(k) plans let employees decide whether to contribute any money - or none at all. Research shows that many people fail to put money into their retirement accounts, or invest it poorly once it is there.

Even skillful 401(k) investors can be badly tripped up if the markets tumble just at the time they were planning to retire. Mr. Schieber of Watson Wyatt ran scenarios of what would happen to a hypothetical man who went to work at 25, put 6 percent of his pay into a 401(k) account every year for 40 years, retired at 65, then withdrew his account balance and used it to buy an annuity, a financial product that, like a pension, pays a lifelong monthly stipend.

He found that if the man turned 65 in 2000 he would have enough 401(k) savings to buy an annuity that paid 134 percent of his pre-retirement income. But if he turned 65 in 2003, his 401(k) savings would only buy an annuity rich enough to replace 57 percent of his pre-retirement income.

When a company switches from a pension plan to a 401(k) plan, the transition is hardest on the older workers. That is because they lose their final years in the pension plan - often the years when they would have built up the biggest part of their benefit. They then start from zero in the new retirement plan.

Jack VanDerhei, an actuary who is a fellow at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, offered a hypothetical example. If a man joins a firm at 40, works 15 years, and is making $80,000 a year by age 55, he might expect to have built up a pension worth $16,305 a year by that time, Mr. VanDerhei said. If he keeps on working under the same pension plan, that benefit will have increased to $27,175 a year when he retires at 65.

But if instead when the man turns 55 his company freezes the pension plan and sets up a 401(k) plan, the man will get just the $16,305 a year, plus whatever he is able to amass in the 401(k). It will take both discipline and investment skill to reach the equivalent of the old pension payments in just ten years, Mr. VanDerhei said.

For women, the challenge is even tougher. They have longer life expectancies, so they have to pay more than men if they buy annuities in the open market. It turns out the traditional, pooled pension offered them a perk they did not even know they had.



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January 9, 2006
The Hearings
Issues and (Possible) Answers: A Primer on the Alito Hearings
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 - When Judge John G. Roberts Jr. appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September for hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court, all of the participants were largely improvising. It had been 11 years since the last nomination, and the legal landscape, political climate and very state of the world had changed so radically that the old templates were of little use.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., on the other hand, will have a fresh road map from the Roberts hearings when he sits to face the committee Monday for his own confirmation hearings. The topics to be covered, the nature and tenor of the senators' questions, and the limits on what Judge Alito will be willing to answer will almost certainly follow the path cut in September.

But there will be distinct differences, too. Judge Roberts replaced Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, meaning that his nomination was a one-for-one, conservative-for-conservative swap. If Judge Alito is confirmed, he will replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose vote was often the fulcrum on which the Rehnquist court's decisions turned.

Judge Roberts's judicial record was, moreover, comparatively thin, a product of less than two years as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Alito, by contrast, has produced hundreds of opinions in his 15 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia. Unlike Judge Roberts, he has written at length on some of the most contentious issues of the day.

Judge Roberts was asked only a few questions about what has since become a burning issue: the scope of executive power. Several senators say they will question Judge Alito closely on the legal implications of the recently disclosed domestic surveillance program.

With the lessons of the Roberts hearings as a guide, then, here is a primer on the questions Judge Alito is likely to face and how he may be expected to answer.

Abortion

Supreme Court confirmation hearings employ a sort of code when it comes to abortion. Since nominees typically refuse to divulge their views about what the Constitution has to say on the subject, on the grounds that the issue may come before them, senators tend to ask instead about privacy and about precedent.

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that found a constitutional right to abortion, was largely based on the right to privacy described in a 1965 case, Griswold v. Connecticut. Senators eager to tease out some information about the fate of Roe ask instead about the validity of Griswold.

The Griswold case, which struck down a law making the use of contraceptives illegal, found a constitutional right to privacy in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of various provisions of the Bill of Rights.

Judge Robert H. Bork's harsh criticism of Griswold in his academic writings and his skepticism about the nature and scope of a constitutional right to privacy at his confirmation hearings helped doom his nomination in 1987.

A second proxy for abortion is precedent. Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a supporter of abortion rights, pressed Judge Roberts, for instance, on whether the Supreme Court's reaffirmation of the core abortion right in a 1992 case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, made Roe a "super-duper precedent."

Judge Roberts did not adopt Mr. Specter's language and listed several factors on each side of the general question of when precedents should be overruled, many drawn from Casey itself.

Judge Alito may find it harder to take refuge in Casey's discussion of precedent, as the case presents something of a minefield for him. He participated in it as an appeals court judge, dissenting in 1991 from a ruling striking down a Pennsylvania law that required married women to notify their husbands before having an abortion. The Supreme Court disagreed with him in a 5-to-4 ruling the next year.

Though Judge Alito's decision in Casey was careful, technical and reflected an effort to interpret the Supreme Court's confusing abortion jurisprudence at the time, the fact that he found himself on the losing side of the most important abortion case since Roe will doubtless prompt many questions.

So, too, will a statement Mr. Alito made in a 1985 job application for a position in the Justice Department. He said he was proud to have helped advance "legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly." One of those positions, he said, was that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

While Judge Roberts was one of nine government lawyers who signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, he said that positions he took as an advocate were not necessarily his own. Judge Alito may find it harder to distance himself, should he wish to, from his Casey dissent and his personal statement in 1985.

Presidential Power

Mr. Specter, in prepared remarks to be presented Monday, said, "This hearing comes at a time of great national concern about the balance between civil rights and the president's national security authority," a reference to the domestic surveillance program. There is, he said, an apparent conflict between "the president's constitutional war powers as commander in chief to conduct electronic surveillance" and "Congressional legislation in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

In September, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, asked Judge Roberts about the scope of presidential power in the context of a 2002 Justice Department legal memorandum concerning harsh interrogations that were arguably forbidden by federal law. The Bush administration had by then disavowed aspects of the memorandum, but Mr. Leahy wanted to know about one of its more abstract assertions.

"Congress can no more interfere," the memorandum said, "with the president's conduct of interrogations of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical decisions on the battlefield." The Bush administration has made similar arguments in connection with the surveillance program.

Judge Roberts said the framework for analyzing the question of whether the president had exceeded his authority was in a concurring opinion by Justice Robert H. Jackson in a 1952 decision rejecting President Harry S. Truman's assertion that he had the inherent constitutional authority to seize private steel mills as a matter of national security during the Korean War.

"Where the president is acting contrary to Congressional authority," Judge Roberts said, "what Justice Jackson said is, the president's authority is at its lowest ebb."

It is not clear whether Judge Alito will also endorse Justice Jackson's approach. In a 2001 speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, Judge Alito spoke in favor of vigorous and expansive executive power. As a government lawyer, too, he frequently argued for a broad interpretation of executive authority.

Congressional Authority

Perhaps no issue engaged the senators questioning Judge Roberts more than a series of recent Supreme Court decisions limiting the ability of Congress to make federal law binding on the states or, sometimes, to legislate on a subject at all.

Judge Alito may expect questions about two of his decisions in this area. In one, a 1996 dissent, he voted to strike down a federal law regulating machine guns, saying Congress had not provided adequate evidence that those weapons facilitated crimes with an effect on interstate commerce.

In a similar vein, Judge Alito took a constrained view of Congressional power in a 2000 case involving the Family and Medical Leave Act. He said the states were immune from lawsuits under the act. The Supreme Court came to the opposite conclusion in a different case in 2003. Voting Rights

In his 1985 job application, Mr. Alito said that his interest in constitutional law was motivated by disagreement with some decisions of the Warren Court, among them those concerning reapportionment. The decisions, from the 1960's, required states to draw voting districts with equal populations. Some legal scholars at the time contended that the decisions did not have a basis in the Constitution.

Judge Bork, too, was critical of the decisions at his confirmation hearings. "There is nothing in our history that suggests 'one man one vote' is the only proper way of apportioning," he said.

In November, after the disclosure of the 1985 job application, the White House said that Judge Alito now believes that one person one vote is "bedrock principle."



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January 9, 2006
Lobbyist's Firm Escapes Fallout From a Scandal
By JONATHAN D. GLATER and ANNE E. KORNBLUT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 - Greenberg Traurig was a politically well-connected law firm long before Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist who pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion, joined it about six years ago.

Lawyers for the firm represented George W. Bush in the weeks after the disputed 2000 election. Its partnership ranks include high-powered lawyers like John Scalia, the son of Justice Antonin Scalia.

The firm has weathered scandal in the past. In the 1990's, it raised money from a German executive for political candidates, violating a ban on soliciting foreigners. It later paid $77,000 to settle with the government.

But no crisis has been as potentially toxic as the one involving Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to defrauding clients of tens of millions of dollars and enticing government officials with bribes.

His actions have threatened the firm's very existence by leaving it vulnerable to malpractice claims, according to several outside lawyers who have followed the case.

Among some employees of Greenberg Traurig and others doing business with it, there have been suspicions that the firm was aware of Mr. Abramoff's wrongdoing, which it has repeatedly denied.

Greenberg Traurig rushed to distance itself from Mr. Abramoff, appease his clients and work closely with prosecutors. In the process it has earned praise for its cooperation from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, kept alive the possibility of suing Mr. Abramoff for its losses and negotiated financial settlements with most of Mr. Abramoff's victims.

"They have taken the new approach that most corporations or institutions take in today's world, which is just completely cooperate with the investigation," said David Schertler, a former federal prosecutor who practices at Schertler & Onorato in Washington. "Once they find out about some wrongdoing, they completely distance themselves from the person that was doing it." He added that for Greenberg Traurig, "that does seem to have been pretty effective."

Top executives at the law firm are not talking about the strategy it has pursued to manage the crisis. The firm has only issued a brief statement, which read in part: "Almost two years ago, Jack Abramoff revealed to the firm conduct we found unacceptable. The firm demanded and obtained Mr. Abramoff's immediate resignation. This week's developments validate that action."

Greenberg Traurig was founded in 1967 in Miami. It has expanded rapidly over the past 10 years, growing to employ 1,500 lawyers in more than 25 offices, the largest now in New York, not Florida. Last year, according to American Lawyer magazine, the firm took in more than $700 million in revenue.

When top executives at the firm learned from a recruiter in 2000 that Mr. Abramoff might consider leaving the Washington office of Preston Gates & Ellis, another law firm, they jumped at the chance to woo a rainmaker. Mr. Abramoff and five colleagues made the move to the lobbying arm of Greenberg Traurig, where they proceeded to bring in millions of dollars in revenue for the firm.

There were some apparent oddities about Mr. Abramoff's business practices at the firm. For example, Michael Scanlon, who worked closely with Mr. Abramoff and pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to bribe a member of Congress, at times used an office at Greenberg Traurig, although he was never a firm employee.

Several participants in the criminal case have said that the firm, at a minimum, turned a blind eye to the work the pair did. A spokeswoman for the firm denied that accusation.

One of those participants in the case said that suspicious financial dealings ran rampant in Mr. Abramoff's corner of the firm, and that other employees of the firm knew it. "Expense reports were just completely fabricated," said the participant, speaking on the condition of anonymity because Justice Department officials have asked all participants not to comment on the case. Prosecutors have given no indication that they are investigating Greenberg Traurig, and the firm has been credited for cooperating with the investigation.

Greenberg Traurig lawyers moved swiftly to distance the firm from Mr. Abramoff once news of his work became public. (Partners at the firm have consistently said they learned of questionable activities by Mr. Abramoff from newspaper articles, in particular one in The Washington Post in early 2004.)

Mr. Abramoff was ordered out of his office in February 2004, and the firm hired a prominent criminal defense lawyer, Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler in Washington, to conduct an internal investigation into how Mr. Abramoff had operated. Sensing its own legal liability, the firm began contacting clients who had been misled.

The risks of client claims were substantial, said Brett G. Kappel, a partner in the Washington office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease who focuses on lobbying and legal ethics as well as campaign finance laws. "They would have had a contracts claim, a malpractice claim," Mr. Kappel said. "They would've had multiple claims."

Among the clients the firm approached was Tyco, which has since reached a settlement with Greenberg Traurig to be repaid $1.5 million of about $1.8 million it spent while working with Mr. Abramoff on a tax loophole issue in Congress.

As he was trying to get Tyco to hire him in May 2003, Mr. Abramoff suggested that the company hire GrassRoots Interactive to help. Ultimately, Tyco did - unaware, company officials said, that it was really paying Mr. Abramoff himself.

According to Mr. Abramoff's plea agreement, he "falsely advised" Tyco that GrassRoots Interactive "had no relationship with Abramoff's law and lobbying firm, even though G.R.I. was controlled by Abramoff."

George J. Terwilliger III, the lawyer representing Tyco, said Greenberg Traurig informed the company about the scam shortly after firing Mr. Abramoff. He also said the firm, "under very difficult circumstances, did the right thing, from making the disclosure to acknowledging its former partner had wronged one of its clients."

Greenberg Traurig also headed off potential claims by reaching financial settlements with clients including the Mississippi Choctaws, an Indian tribe that had hired the firm to lobby on its behalf. The tribe praised Greenberg Traurig's conduct on its Web site, saying the firm had "acted honorably."

The statement continued, "That settlement fully and fairly resolves all of the tribe's claims for recovery of funds arising from Mr. Abramoff's misconduct."

Mr. Abramoff took in about $1 million a year in compensation from Greenberg Traurig. But he supplemented his income, according to documents summarizing the charges to which he pleaded guilty, by many millions more. Mr. Abramoff persuaded clients to hire companies that he or Mr. Scanlon had established - in some cases without disclosing the personal connection - and those companies then charged the clients millions of dollars in fees.

Mr. Abramoff received as kickbacks about half of the profits from a company set up by Mr. Scanlon. For example, Mr. Abramoff received $6.4 million from one Indian tribe client from June 2001 to April 2004 and $11.5 million from another tribe from March 2001 to May 2003. The money was used "for their own personal benefit and not for the benefit of their clients," according to the criminal charges against Mr. Abramoff.

So far, one tribe, the Louisiana Coushattas, has filed a lawsuit against the law firm.

After its internal investigation, Greenberg Traurig quietly dismissed several people who had worked with Mr. Abramoff. And when the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a hearing on the widening scandal in November, Fred Baggett, a partner in the Tallahassee office of Greenberg Traurig, went.

"Based on Mr. Schuelke's investigation, the firm has made disclosures to clients affected by Mr. Abramoff's activities, worked out resolutions with a number of affected clients and hopes to work out resolutions with still other affected clients," Mr. Baggett's prepared statement reads.

The statement was clearly appreciated by Senator McCain, the committee chairman. "I know this chapter in the firm's history is embarrassing and painful in many ways," Mr. McCain said in his prepared remarks. "But I want the record to reflect that, consistent with their professional obligations, Greenberg Traurig and its counsel have always been responsive to the committee's requests, always made themselves available to answer questions, and have always conducted themselves with dignity and professionalism in these trying circumstances."

Prosecutors were also apparently satisfied with the cooperation they received. When the plea agreement between prosecutors and Mr. Abramoff was announced last week, it included references to Greenberg Traurig that cast the firm as an unknowing victim of fraud, not a participant. That will help the firm defend itself against any angry clients and also strengthen any claims it chooses to bring in the future, outside lawyers said.

According to the government, Mr. Abramoff made his own firm a victim when he wooed a wireless telephone company as a client in 2001 and persuaded it to pay $50,000 to a foundation he established instead of paying Greenberg Traurig. He never told the firm, which lobbied on behalf of the company without a retainer agreement, of the payments.

"In this case," said Mr. Schertler, the former federal prosecutor, "they were able to make the case that they did not facilitate the conduct and it was done unbeknownst to them."



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January 9, 2006
Bird Flu Reports Multiply in Turkey, Faster Than Expected
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
ISTANBUL, Jan. 8 - A flurry of new reports of avian influenza in humans and animals emerged Sunday from various parts of Turkey, and international health officials said they had come to believe that the disease had been simmering in the eastern part of the country for months, even though it was reported there only in late December.

A team of experts, including representatives of the World Health Organization, accompanied by the Turkish health minister, was scrambling to determine the full extent of the outbreaks. The group was heading by bus on Sunday to the worst-hit areas in and around the city of Van, where the airport was closed by severe weather.

Four children from villages near Van, in remote eastern Turkey, have now been confirmed by the W.H.O. to be infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, the first human cases outside of East Asia. Like many people in those poor villages, the four had had close contact with birds, health officials said, and probably were infected as a result.

Turkish officials announced Sunday that tests had confirmed five new cases of H5N1, two more in Van and three around Ankara - two young brothers and an elderly man, according to Turan Buzgan, the Health Ministry's basic sciences director.

The Ankara cases have the most alarming implications because bird flu had not been previously reported in that part of the country, and it is a relatively well-off area, where it is not the norm for humans and animals to live under one roof. The infected boys had contact with dead wild ducks, and the man with a dead chicken, said a ministry spokesman.

In addition to the confirmed cases, some 50 other people suspected of having the disease have been hospitalized, at least 30 in the Van area and about 20 in Ankara, a Health Ministry spokesman said.

The W.H.O. said it had not been notified of the latest test results, and so could not confirm the new cases, said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman in Geneva. But she added that international scientists studying the H5N1 virus samples from Turkey had detected no changes that might make it more contagious to humans. "It seems very much like the virus we've seen in Western China," she said.

The cluster of cases in Turkey is extraordinary and a cause for concern, scientists said. In all of East Asia, where the disease has been running rampant in birds for years, only about 140 people have been infected.

New reports of outbreaks among animals across Turkey were also rapidly increasing. By evening, the Agriculture Ministry said 10 of 81 provinces were reporting the disease in birds, up from 3 just a few days ago.

"Things are unfolding quickly, but we do not yet know how extensive the outbreaks are," said Juan Lubroth of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

"But we now believe and expect they have been going on for some time," he said, starting perhaps as early as October or November.

In light of the nine human cases confirmed in the last four days, the failure of the Turkish officials to detect and publicize animal outbreaks quickly could have been a deadly oversight.

Humans almost always acquire bird flu through close contact with sick birds. In areas with known outbreaks, all domestic birds are supposed to be culled quickly, and farming families in the surrounding area must take extreme precaution in handling poultry to prevent human infections. Because there were no earlier reports of bird flu in the area, the patients in Van and Ankara had no way of knowing they were at risk.

In one village near Van, Dogubayazit, four children from the same family have apparently come down with the disease after playing with chicken heads. Among the six cases in the area confirmed to have H5N1, two have died. A third also died, although her first test was negative. Ms. Cheng of the W.H.O. said the test was being repeated because it is "complicated and sometimes falsely negative," and circumstances implicate the H5N1 virus.

Although H5N1 does not now readily spread between humans, scientists are worried it may obtain that ability through biological processes, setting off a worldwide pandemic.

The international health officials said that while Turkey had responded swiftly to its first outbreak of bird flu, which occurred in the more developed western part of the country, in October, government officials had been far less efficient in dealing with the disease in the impoverished east.


Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting for this article.



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January 9, 2006
Hundreds Express Grief and Faith as 6 Miners Are Buried
By GARY GATELY
BUCKHANNON, W.Va., Jan. 8 - West Virginians began burying their fallen miners on Sunday, mourning their losses but celebrating the lives and legacies of men who prided themselves on making a living by harvesting coal from deep within the earth.

In the mountain hamlets surrounding the Sago Mine, hundreds of mourners turned out for the funerals of 6 of the 12 men who died there last week. But the grief, sympathy and prayers extended well beyond the funerals, most of them private services from which reporters were banned.

White ribbons and bows adorned utility poles in Buckhannon, and dozens of roadside signs conveyed the somber mood. "Healing hurts," one sign said outside a doughnut shop here. One just north of town read, "God just got 12 new angels."

At the service for Jesse L. Jones, a 44-year-old miner from Pickens, the Rev. Donald Butcher, pastor of Sand Run Baptist Church, spoke the names of each of the 12 men killed at the mine and spoke of their way of making a living and making a life.

"You see, coal miners are a different breed of men; they don't have any fear," Mr. Butcher said to about 200 mourners at a funeral chapel just north of the mine. Miners, he said, give us electricity for lights as well as powerful lessons on working tirelessly, no matter the circumstances.

"God gives us people who are heroes, and we don't even realize it," he said. "We got lots of coal miners here with us today. America is great because of this profession and because of men like Jesse, who put their lives on the line."

The pastor spoke of one of Mr. Jones's grandfathers, who was killed in a mine explosion, and of members of his own family, one of whom lost his sight and others who lost their fingers mining.

The other miners buried Sunday were Alva Martin Bennett, 51; Jerry Groves, 56; David Lewis, 28; Martin Toler, 51; and Jack Weaver, 52.

At Sago Baptist Church, where inaccurate first reports of the survival of 12 miners brought euphoria that later turned to grief, the Rev. Wease Day stood in front of a huge picture of the Last Supper during regular Sunday morning services and tried to make sense of it all.

Wearing a blue tie with the face of Jesus on it, Mr. Day told the congregation, "The other night when we received what we all believed to be good news, we all shouted and rejoiced, but you know when the other news came it broke our hearts as well."

But, he said, God would never forsake his people and was with them throughout the heartbreaking ordeal even if they could not understand or answer the unanswerable questions.

"Many times people think, 'Well, it was God's fault,' " Mr. Day said, "but God has a master plan, and everything comes together in that master plan. He was in control every minute.

"We were in this building the other night and it came to mind that the spirit was so great here and it was so great outside and God had just covered these old hilltops with his holy spirit, his holy power."

After the service, the church bells rang 12 times, echoing through the mountains. Just down the road near the entrance to the Sago Mine, 12 black ribbons hung from a fence.

Even as the towns mourned their dead, people kept praying for the recovery of the sole survivor of the mine disaster, Randal McCloy Jr., 26. Doctors at West Virginia University Hospitals, where Mr. McCloy is being treated, said that he remained in critical condition Sunday night but that his heart, lung and muscle functions had improved.

Mr. McCloy was breathing on his own, and doctors had stopped sedating him.

At First United Methodist Church, the pastor, the Rev. Mark Flynn, told congregants that he had been with the families of the miners almost nonstop for three days.

"I went to Sago to minister to those families, and they ministered to me," Mr. Flynn said. "I was touched by the strength, the love and the wisdom. In those dark days and nights at the Sago Baptist Church, I saw some light. I saw light in the faith and love of the family members with whom I talked.

"Their faith was not just a vague notion that somehow everything would turn out as they wished. These people believe that they and their loved ones were in the hands of God, no matter what happened in that mine."




Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 9, 2006
Lobbyist's Work for Publishers of Magazines Under Scrutiny
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The press has spilled plenty of ink writing about Jack Abramoff, the powerful Washington lobbyist at the center of an extensive corruption scandal. But little noticed is that among Mr. Abramoff's many clients was the press itself, at least part of it. In 2000, he represented the Magazine Publishers Association, and it turns out that some of the association's money may have been funneled to Mr. Abramoff's political allies.

In documents last week in which Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to mail fraud and conspiracy to bribe public officials, he revealed that he and an unidentified Congressional aide worked to stave off an increase in postal rates - a significant benefit for an industry that depends on the postal service.

The plea document said that Mr. Abramoff and the Congressional aide performed "a series of official acts, including assisting in stopping legislation regarding Internet gambling and opposing postal rate increases."

The corruption scandal could involve dozens of members of Congress, political operatives and lobbyists suspected of arranging bribes in exchange for favorable legislation and other benefits.

The magazine association paid at least $1.4 million from 2000 to 2003 to Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, the lobbying firm where Mr. Abramoff was the chief lobbyist.

Howard Rubenstein, the public relations executive who represents the association, said the amount was $1.8 million; a spokeswoman for Preston Gates put the amount at $1.4 million.

The money was part of a broader, $10 million campaign by the association to keep postal rates down, explore reform of the postal system and seek alternate means of delivering magazines.

Mr. Abramoff left the firm at the end of 2000 and the association stopped using Preston Gates in 2003. But, Mr. Rubenstein said, "Jack Abramoff was one of a number of people at Preston Gates who worked on the M.P.A. account."

The postal rate increases were deferred while the association was a client of Mr. Abramoff, but that deferment was short-lived. The rates went up 10 percent in June 2002, costing the magazine industry an additional $200 million a year; they went up again yesterday, for an estimated additional cost of $180 million a year.

It is not clear who did what for whom in terms of staving off the rate increase, but Mr. Rubenstein said that magazine officials were "deeply disturbed by the recent allegations concerning Abramoff's conduct and they are in the process of looking into the nature of his involvement in Preston Gate's work on behalf of M.P.A."

He declined to say whether the Justice Department had interviewed association officials, but said those officials "feel they may be one of the victims and will cooperate fully" with the investigation.

The magazine association made another payment that is under scrutiny.

In 2000, the association made a $25,000 contribution to a nonprofit group called Toward Tradition, an alliance of Jews and evangelical Christians, based on what Mr. Rubenstein called a directive from Preston Gates. People involved in the investigation have said that Mr. Abramoff funneled money through Toward Tradition to the wife of his associate, Tony C. Rudy, a former top aide to Representative Tom Delay, Republican of Texas.

"They had absolutely no knowledge of how that money would be used, and if it turns out that it was used for an improper purpose, the M.P.A. would be, quite frankly, outraged," Mr. Rubenstein said.

Genevieve Woodard, a spokeswoman for Preston Gates, said, "neither the firm nor the M.P.A. knew that Jack was diverting payments to the Congressional staffer's wife."

Postal rates are a central concern to publishers. "We actually spend more on postage than we do on paper," Ann Moore, chairman and chief executive of, said last year at a forum on the subject. "Mail is our single largest line item expense, so this really threatens our business."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 9, 2006
The Reagan Legacy
Two Legal Careers That Diverged May Intertwine Again
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 - Not long after the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, two young lawyers moved into cramped offices along the same hallway on the fifth floor of the Justice Department's headquarters.

One, Samuel A. Alito Jr., 30, was hired as a nonpolitical career lawyer. Promoted from the office of a New Jersey prosecutor, he quietly drafted Supreme Court briefs in the solicitor general's office. Former colleagues describe him as shy and serious, prone to spending long hours buried in case files. Charles Fried, the Reagan administration solicitor general, remembers Mr. Alito as "a very cultured man" who was more likely to spend their lunches together talking about books and ballet than politics.

The other, John G. Roberts Jr., 25, arrived fresh from a clerkship for Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court, and entered the department a rung higher than Mr. Alito, as a presidential appointee assisting the attorney general on a variety of matters. Mr. Roberts was handsome and funny, former colleagues say, and hard not to like.

A quarter-century later, their contrasting styles will be on display again this week in the Senate hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Alito, now on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. But if Chief Justice Roberts had the more political job then, it is now Judge Alito who faces more political opposition, in part because of statements he made in 1985 to persuade the administration's leaders that he, too, was a conservative at heart.

To many of their former colleagues, the ascent of both men to the Supreme Court within months of each other would be the high point of a conservative revolution in the legal establishment: an effort over several decades to seed the federal courts with jurists holding a narrower interpretation of the Constitution's application to abortion rights, civil rights, the rights of criminal defendants and the scope of federal power.

"It is the culmination," said Edwin Meese III, who was attorney general in the Reagan administration and a leading architect of the movement. "Judge Alito and Chief Justice Roberts represent the best among the group of excellent young lawyers that came into government at the same time in the Reagan administration."

They worked together only occasionally at first, colleagues said. Mr. Roberts's job entailed tracking prominent or politically sensitive cases for the attorney general, which sometimes meant checking with Mr. Alito on his work, their colleagues said. But they came together much more often in 1985, when Mr. Alito was elevated to a political job in the Office of Legal Counsel. Mr. Roberts was an associate White House counsel. The Office of Legal Counsel acted as a kind of in-house law firm evaluating pending legislation and interpreting statutes for the White House counsel, so Mr. Roberts was in effect one of Mr. Alito's clients.

"We might walk into each other's offices and say, 'Did you get John Roberts's call about such and such?' " recalled Douglas W. Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University who worked in an office adjoining Mr. Alito's and knew both men.

Former colleagues say their shared intellectual framework could make for an unusually close collaboration on the court. "The way that with a good friend you don't start each sentence anew, you start it in midsentence, that would be the relationship between John and Sam," said Professor Kmiec (pronounced kih-MECK).

Some Democratic lawyers argue, however, that the similarity of the men's backgrounds may be a liability, too. "Some senators might well conclude that the fact that one nominee is so similar to the immediate previous nominee is an argument against confirmation," said Walter E. Dellinger III, who was acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration. "Some might say, send us someone a little different."

But friends and colleagues of Chief Justice Roberts and Judge Alito say the two jurists' careers before and after the Reagan administration have followed very different paths, reflecting their personalities. Although both graduated from law school with sterling credentials - Mr. Alito was an editor of the law review at Yale and Mr. Roberts at Harvard - the chief justice followed an appeals court clerkship with his clerkship for Justice Rehnquist.

Mr. Alito moved back to New Jersey after law school to clerk for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, who had also worked closely with his father, a researcher for the New Jersey Legislature, and he stayed in the state to become a federal prosecutor.

In the Reagan White House, Mr. Roberts's conservative bona fides as a former Rehnquist clerk were already well-established. But Mr. Alito's were not.

"Sam was not like me, and most of the other political appointees, who were known-quantity Reagan conservatives," said Charles J. Cooper, the administration lawyer who in 1985 recruited Mr. Alito to a political job in the Office of Legal Counsel.

Mr. Cooper said he had begun to see that Mr. Alito was "simpatico" with the administration's goals from some of his work, including a recently disclosed memorandum proposing legal tactics to curb or end abortion rights. But for his promotion, "His political views, his thoughts concerning the administration's legal direction, had to be made known to the president's personnel office," Mr. Cooper said.

Thus as part of his application, Judge Alito was obliged to write a short essay spelling out his convictions about the conservative movement's legal approach to the Constitution, abortion rights, affirmative action and other matters. Democrats contend that, unlike any of the briefs or memorandums Chief Justice Roberts wrote for Republican administrations or clients, Judge Alito's essay provides a window into his personal view of the Constitution, and they now plan to make it the centerpiece of their questions for him in the hearings.

After the two left the administration, their careers diverged sharply. In 1986, Mr. Roberts left the administration to work in Washington as a private lawyer among the elite ranks of the Supreme Court bar. Mr. Alito, in contrast, surprised some of his colleagues by leaving the capital.

"Sam's main interest when he left was to raise his kids in his home state and the area where he grew up," Mr. Cooper said. "He wanted to go back to New Jersey first." It was only later that Mr. Alito settled on a position as United States attorney, Mr. Cooper said.

"John's progression was one that people would expect from the script - he is in the Beltway, he stays in the Beltway, and he takes his skills to a very profitable firm," Professor Kmiec said, but Judge Alito's return to New Jersey was not. "I would look at him with a bit of an arched eyebrow and I'd say, 'I don't get it.' "

His former colleagues said Judge Alito passed up an opportunity to make much more money by spending his whole career as a federal employee. And his 15-year tenure on the bench has left his opponents with far more judicial opinions to attack. Some liberal legal scholars contend that Judge Alito's record reveals a much more committed, less flexible conservative than do any of the opinions Chief Justice Roberts wrote during his two years as an appeals court judge. "In Roberts's opinions there were no signs of partisanship," said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who publicly supported Chief Justice Roberts's confirmation. "That gave liberals a lot of comfort."

Studying Judge Alito's opinions led him to a different conclusion, Professor Sunstein said: "Judge Alito's opinions have a different flavor. He is very predictably critical of individual rights claims, and predictably to the right of the court's majority."

Still, Mr. Fried, the former solicitor general, said he had no doubt that Chief Justice Roberts also shared the same conservative views that Judge Alito laid out in 1985 memorandum.

"John is more cagey," he said, adding, "but intellectually and dispositionally there is not a dime's worth of difference between them."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

- New Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls
http://www.spacewar.com/news/New_Device_Wi...rete_Walls.html

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 5, 2006 - Troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building.

SPY POWERS
Can the president eavesdrop on private citizens without a judge's ok? The high court said 'no' in 1972 Wiretaps: Ruling requires warrants for spying at home
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, January 8, 2006

Thirty-five years ago, President Richard Nixon claimed constitutional authority to wiretap Americans' phone calls to protect national security without asking a judge -- the same assertion that President Bush is making today in the name of fighting terrorism.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Nixon, saying the Constitution granted the powers he was claiming to judges, not presidents. If the current court eventually reconsiders that 1972 ruling, it may affect the fate of Bush's decision to authorize the National Security Agency to wiretap calls between Americans and alleged al Qaeda suspects in foreign countries.

Presidents have approved wiretaps without court orders since the 1940s, but the legality of the practice was thrown into doubt after the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that electronic eavesdropping was a search, and thus covered by the prohibition on unreasonable searches in the Constitution's Fourth Amendment.

The case Nixon chose as a test of presidential authority arose during a turbulent period, in circumstances that must have seemed to favor the government: the prosecution of members of the radical White Panthers on charges of bombing a CIA office in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1968.

The prosecution's evidence included phone conversations by one defendant, Lawrence "Pun" Plamondon, whom federal agents had taped without a warrant on the authority of Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell.

In defense of its conduct, the administration submitted a sworn statement in 1971 from Mitchell saying agents needed to conduct the surveillance to protect the nation from "attempts of domestic organizations to attack and subvert the existing structure of the government.'' The administration said there had been 1,562 bombing incidents in the United States in the first half of 1971, most of which involved government buildings.

The arguments did not sway the Supreme Court, which ruled 8-0 that the wiretaps exceeded the president's constitutional power.

The freedoms protected by the Fourth Amendment "cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillance may be conducted solely within the discretion of the executive branch,'' wrote Justice Lewis Powell, a Nixon appointee.

"Fourth Amendment protections become more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs,'' Powell said.

The ruling led prosecutors to drop the White Panther case and, in conjunction with a Senate committee's later revelations of government spying on dissidents, drove Congress to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978.

That law established a court, appointed by the chief justice, to meet in secret and issue warrants for searches and wiretaps related to foreign terrorism and spying, under more relaxed standards than the ones judges use for ordinary search warrants. Bush, however, has asserted the power to bypass the court and authorize wiretaps for foreign intelligence purposes in a series of orders since 2002.

The president claims two sources of legal authority: Congress' post-Sept. 11, 2001, resolution authorizing him to use force to repel terrorist threats, and his inherent constitutional power over military and foreign policy matters.

The standards that the court set for future cases in its 1972 ruling don't resolve either of those claims. The court did not anticipate a law such as the use-of-force resolution, although the justices rejected a similar argument by the Nixon administration that the existing wiretap law allowed the president to order surveillance for national security.

As for the constitutional issue, Powell's opinion specified that the court was considering only the president's authority over domestic security, and was expressing no view about foreign intelligence.

But two lawyers who opposed Nixon in the case say the issues today are virtually identical.

The 1972 ruling "makes clear that the warrant requirement applies to all searches within the United States, even if the president alleges that it's an intelligence search,'' said Abraham Sofaer, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus. Sofaer, as a Columbia University law professor, wrote the main brief challenging the wiretap, later served as a federal judge and then became the chief legal adviser to the State Department under President Ronald Reagan.

Although the case involved domestic surveillance, the court made it clear that "there's no inherent power to eavesdrop for foreign intelligence purposes within the United States,'' Sofaer said.

A liberal law professor, Herman Schwartz of American University, said the Bush administration was offering the same arguments that Nixon advanced in 1972: that the president has broad powers to protect the nation, and that national security surveillance requires more speed, secrecy and technical competence than judges are capable of providing.

Although today's scenario is different, "the threats (described by the government) are the same, and the claims are the same,'' said Schwartz, who filed written arguments for the American Civil Liberties Union in 1972. As in the earlier case, he said, "there's a danger that this (wiretapping) will be used to check on people who are simply protesting.''

Other liberal lawyers were less confident that the 1972 ruling could be used to scuttle Bush's program.

Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago constitutional scholar, said the Supreme Court had not ruled out presidential authority over international surveillance, and lower federal courts since 1972 have upheld comparable claims of presidential power.

David Cole, a Georgetown law professor and lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, told The Chronicle that the 1972 case was potentially helpful to those who might challenge Bush but wouldn't settle the issue.

In a recent article in Salon.com, Cole said a clearer precedent was the Supreme Court's 1952 ruling rejecting a wartime claim of inherent presidential power -- Harry Truman's attempt to seize most of the nation's steel mills during the Korean War.

Truman, citing his powers as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, had claimed the federal takeover was essential to the war effort because a nationwide steel strike was threatening the supply of munitions.

But the court said the president had no power to defy Congress, which had refused to authorize presidential seizure of strike-bound industries.

Similarly, Cole argued, Bush's wiretap program defies Congress' refusal in passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow government wiretaps without a warrant.

On the other hand, some of Bush's defenders contend the Supreme Court's 1972 ruling strengthens the president's position.

John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange County and director of the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, said the Supreme Court's chief rationale in 1972 for rejecting the government's wiretaps -- that they could be used against dissidents, not just criminals -- would be less compelling in an international case.

"The distinction between war powers and domestic authority is a strong one,'' Eastman said. "There's a much greater risk to free speech when (the president is) eavesdropping on domestic groups.''

He pointed to a footnote in the 1972 ruling that cited a lower court decision saying a presidential wiretap order might be constitutional for foreign intelligence even if the same order would be invalid for domestic eavesdropping. Although that decision reached no conclusion, Eastman said the Supreme Court's uncritical reference to it could be read as a suggestion that the president has such powers, and if so, "Congress couldn't limit him.''

The Supreme Court ruling is United States vs. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297.



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E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

Posted on Sun, Jan. 08, 2006
Domestic spying issue likely to dominate politics in 2006
BY DICK POLMANKnight Ridder NewspapersPHILADELPHIA -

One week into the new year, we are already mired in an acrimonious debate over whether George W. Bush - who vows to continue his warrantless domestic spying program - is crafting an imperial presidency unfettered by constitutional checks and balances or is restoring broad powers that he sees in the plain language in the Constitution.
Bush says he is acting within his constitutional prerogatives, but this debate could be the most critical political issue of 2006. It will surface in Samuel Alito's confirmation hearing, which starts Monday. It will permeate the impending debate over extension of the Patriot Act. It will raise thorny and explosive questions about the proper balance between national security and individual liberties in the Sept. 11 era. And, perhaps most important, it will mirror the national divide over Bush himself.
His supporters argue that, by approving warrantless domestic surveillance, he's taking the necessary steps to protect Americans from enemies foreign and domestic; to do otherwise, they say, would be a dereliction of duty. But Bush's critics - including legal scholars who contend that he has committed impeachable acts - now view him as a cross between Jack Bauer and Louis XIV.
Louis XIV was the famous French king who declared, "L'etat, c'est moi" (translation: I am the state). Jack Bauer is the famous Fox network hero of the show "24," the anti-terrorist agent who last season tortured a series of suspects with no regard for legal niceties and, at one point, outfoxed a craven civil liberties lawyer who was messing things up as the clock ticked down.
The Bush team prefers to view this president as a cross between Abe Lincoln (who suspended some civil liberties during the Civil War) and founding father Alexander Hamilton (who wrote that "energy in the executive ... is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks"). Or, as Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas puts it, national security trumps all: "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."
But you know that emotions must be running high when a constitutional lawyer says this: "President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. ... Congress should insist the president cease the spying unless or until a proper statute is enacted, or face possible impeachment." Those are the words of conservative Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan, who contends that Bush has explicitly broken the 1978 federal law that requires that a president obtain warrants.
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and a frequent counsel in national security cases, argued Friday that, because of Bush's spying program, "we now have the most serious constitutional crisis that this country has faced in decades. A president cannot be allowed to become a law unto himself.
"I testified in Congress in support of Bill Clinton's impeachment, and I also thought he should have been convicted. At that time, my Republican friends insisted that the Clinton case was about the rule of law. Today I'm a bit surprised to see so many of them being so conspicuously silent. This president is misusing his office to order the continued commission of federal crimes. That is unique in the annals of impeachment."
Impeachment talk will fizzle in Congress because Republicans control both chambers. And Bush supporters say the charge lacks merit anyway. As conservative commentator Rich Lowry contended the other day: "The president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to defend the United States. If he can bomb the nation's enemies overseas without a court's approval, he certainly can listen to their conversations."
Nevertheless, there will be hearings on the spying program (perhaps in secret, if the White House gets its way), and some lawmakers may be ready to challenge the Bush administration's claim that the president has the "inherent authority" to conduct the war on terror without interference from another branch of government.
The issue of expansive executive power has been festering ever since the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush, among other things, has claimed the authority to detain U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial, and to define torture. (Recently, he signed a law banning inhumane tactics but suggested in a statement that he might ignore the ban.) The exposure of the domestic spying program will undoubtedly sharpen debate on Capitol Hill and prompt some sensitive questions about the scope of presidential power.
For instance:
How does Bush's claim of "inherent authority" square with Bush's claim that he is a "strict constructionist"? A literal reading of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reveals that it is "the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance ... may be conducted" and requires that a president "during time of war" can conduct warrantless spying for a maximum of only 15 days, after which he must obtain court approval. And in a literal reading of the 2001 resolution authorizing Bush to use military force against terrorists, there are no references to domestic eavesdropping and no provisions setting aside the 1978 law.
Bush is fervently defending his three-year-old spying program and arguing that warrants are an impediment, but how does that square with his past remarks? On April 20, 2004, he said: "There are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the U.S. government talking about a wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so ... because we value the Constitution."
The president's lawyers stated, in a Dec. 22 letter to the Congress, that Bush ignored the 1978 law because he deemed it too slow. They wrote: "FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required." But how does that square with the fact that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gives the president a 15-day grace period to initiate surveillance - and that FISA has rarely been an impediment? Between 1979 and 2002, the foreign intelligence surveillance court approved 15,264 warrants. It rejected four.
Morton Halperin, a national security official in three administrations (Johnson, Nixon and Clinton), said he suspected that the administration's real motive for ignoring the law is that the eavesdroppers have been trolling widely for information without the traditional standard of probable cause. But, given the secrecy of the program, there is no way to prove that - and, more broadly, it remains to be seen whether there is sufficient political will to buck Bush on the issue of presidential clout.
This is particularly true for the Democrats, many of whom remain spooked by any issue that could make them appear soft on terrorism. Liberals are hot to blast Bush for imperial behavior, but others in the party think the issue is a loser. Activist Marshall Wittmann, who hails from the moderate wing, argued the other day that "what seems lost is the reality that jihadists seek to attack within the borders of the United States."
The latest surveys don't provide much encouragement to the liberals. Democratic pollster Mark Penn reports that, in his latest soundings, the GOP is favored over the Democrats, by 48 to 38 percent, as the party "more trusted to fight terrorism." And, according to independent pollster John Zogby, 49 percent of likely voters believe that Bush has the power to OK warrantless spying while 45 percent say no.
Zogby said Friday that, in the abstract, most Americans treasure privacy, "but the numbers shift when you put Bush's name in the poll."
"Republicans and Republican-leaning independents rally to him, and you end up with the public virtually split down the middle, as usual. That's the state of our nation."
And, as usual, the Democrats are in a tough spot. They have nearly half of the voters, but they have no clout in Washington. Many fear the argument that Bush has gone too far, lest they be accused of not wanting to go far enough. Turley, the law scholar, lamented: "The framers created a system of checks and balances that doesn't function well when two, or even three, branches of government are controlled by the same party."
Bush is working on that third branch. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warned, in a 2004 decision, that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president ... even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties." Her prospective replacement, Samuel Alito, is perceived as a potentially friendlier vote for executive power. The questioning begins this week.
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Senators condone NSA acts
Bond, Talent argue Bush has precedent.


By TERRY GANEY of the Tribune’s staff
Published Sunday, January 8, 2006
Both of Missouri’s U.S. senators are strongly defending the secret surveillance program that President George W. Bush’s administration has conducted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In separate appearances in Columbia last week, both Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent said intelligence gathering was crucial in the war on terror. The Republicans also said the program undertaken during Bush’s watch is no different than what previous presidents have done.

Bond, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was also critical of the New York Times’ disclosure of the secret program, saying "our nation is much less safe" as a result.

The newspaper reported that in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without court-approved warrants. The disclosure raised questions about whether the program violates the Constitution.

Congress established a secret court to review requests for sensitive surveillance operations and to issue warrants to eavesdrop. The NSA under Bush conducted the surveillance without such warrants. Lawmakers are preparing to hold hearings to examine the constitutionality of the program and whether Bush’s actions went beyond the authority he said Congress had given him.

Bond raised the disclosure of the surveillance program at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he announced a grant to develop intelligence-gathering software.

"What we do in intelligence is critical to our national security," Bond said. "It should be kept in confidence. Regrettably, too much of it has come out in the press recently, and as a result our nation is significantly less safe."

In an interview, Bond said searches without warrants were permissible in cases of foreign intelligence gathering.

"When there is a foreign contact involved, you do not need a court order for a wiretap," Bond said. He said the tactic had been used by presidents going back to Jimmy Carter.

"This was a very highly classified activity that was so critical to our nation’s well being that only eight members of Congress, and I was not one of them, were briefed on the program," Bond said. "My understanding is that none of them raised any objection to it. They thought that since it was producing information that would help us disrupt terrorists attacks, some of them in the United States, that it should not be disclosed."

Talent said the war on terror was all about intelligence gathering and that there might not be enough time to get the court order for surveillance.

"When we capture terrorists abroad or get some foreign intelligence that suggests they may have a contact in the United States, we need to be able to follow up on it quickly," Talent said. "So I think it’s important that the president have this kind of authority.

"You pick up a terrorist in Afghanistan and he’s got an American number on his cell phone, I want that checked out quickly," Talent said. He added that there should be oversight hearings to determine whether the authority was exercised properly.

The Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the sources of the newspaper’s report. Charles Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center at the MU School of Journalism, said there was a term for that kind of investigation: "Shoot the messenger."

"This is ongoing surveillance off the books, not approved by anyone, imperial in origin and ever reaching," Davis said.

"I’m infuriated by it," he added. "Anyone who cares about freedom of the press and journalism in this country ought to be outraged."



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Reach Terry Ganey at (573) 815-1708 or tganey@tribmail.com.
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Poll: Public Uneasy With GOP Leadership

Woodland Democrat

January 8, 2006

By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dissatisfied with the nation's direction, Americans are leaning toward wanting a change in which political party leads Congress - preferring that Democrats take control, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Democrats are favored over Republicans 49 percent to 36 percent.

The polling came as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to tax evasion, fraud and corruption charges and agreed to aid a federal investigation of members of Congress and other government officials.

President Bush's job approval remains low - 40 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll, with only one-third saying the country is headed in the right direction. Bush also remains low on his handling of Iraq, where violence against Iraqis and U.S. troops has been surging.

"I just don't like the direction our country is going in," said Steve Brown, a political independent from Olympia, Wash. "I think a balance of power would be beneficial right now."

Republicans are watching the situation unfold with some nervousness.

"I don't think anyone is hitting the panic button," said Rich Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman. "But there is an acute recognition of the grim environment that both parties are operating in."

"If the Democrats had any leadership or any message, they could be poised for a good year," Bond said. "But in the absence of that, they have not been able to capitalize on Republican woes. Because of the size of the GOP majority, Democrats have to run the board, and I don't see that happening."

The public's unease with Republican leadership in the White House and Congress creates a favorable environment for Democrats, said Democratic consultant Dane Strother.

"The problem is you don't vote for a party," Strother said. "You're voting for a member of Congress. And we're a year away" from the midterm elections.

About a third of the public, 34 percent, approves of the job Congress is doing, and nearly twice as many - 63 percent - disapprove, according to the poll of 1,001 adults taken Jan. 3-5. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points. Public opinion of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress has been mixed, recent polling found.

"Neither one of the parties has done a very good job so far," said Cristal Mills, a political independent from Los Angeles. "They get away with murder, they get paid to pass certain things. It's the good ol' boy syndrome."

In the Senate, 33 seats will be on the ballot in November, 17 of them currently in Democratic hands, 15 controlled by Republicans, and one held by Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent. Democrats now have 44 Senate seats, and need to pick up seven to gain a majority, six if Vermont independent Bernie Sanders replaces Jeffords.

All 435 House seats are on the ballot this fall, and Democrats need to gain at least 15 to become the majority party and take control of the House.

While many House races are noncompetitive, Republican strategists fear that fallout from the Abramoff scandal will give Democrats fresh opportunity for gains. But they dismiss suggestions that Democrats could take control of the House.

Republicans became the dominant party in the House in 1994, when the GOP picked up more than 50 seats held by Democrats. In that midterm election, Democrats won four open seats that previously were held by the GOP.

Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP's congressional campaign committee, said about 30 House seats are competitive this year, compared with more than 100 a dozen years ago. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who heads the Democrats' campaign efforts, put the competitive number in 2006 at 42, and he suggested ongoing scandals improve Democratic recruitment of candidates by "making the environment more conducive. It helps move them along in the process."

Some say they want new leadership in Congress because of strong dissatisfaction with current policies.

"I get the strange feeling that we're being sold down the river," said Paul Oulton, an independent from San Ramon, Calif. "We may be in line for some very severe financial problems.

"Give me somebody conservative with common sense. There's too much left and too much right. Give me somebody in the middle of the road."

---

Associated Press Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this story.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P...-01-07-05-40-16

Cheney hospitalised with breathing difficulties Telegraph.co.uk
Dick Cheney, the American vice president, has been rushed to hospital after complaining of shortness of breath. Mr Cheney was taken to George Washington University Hospital in Washington at around 3am local time. The Vice-President, who has had four heart attacks, was reportedly retaining fluid as a result of anti-inflammatory medication. Doctors administered an EKG in order to measure the electrical activity in Mr Cheney's heart, but found it was unchanged.
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Bush on Alito: 'Give this man a fair vote' CNN
Judge Samuel Alito and President Bush made an appearance Monday for reporters at the White House. President Bush sent Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito off to his confirmation hearings Monday with best wishes and a demand that senators "give this man a fair vote and an up or down vote." Alito was facing close questioning by the Judiciary Committee to determine his fitness to be the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice. But first, he got some last-minute encouragement from the president over breakfast at the White House. Speaking to reporters afterward, the president called Alito "eminently qualified" to be on the high court and said he told the judge that "he's conducting himself with such dignity and class." (Watch Bush give Alito a White House send off to his hearings on the Hill -- 1:45) "Sam's got the intellect necessary to bring a lot of class to that court," Bush said as he escorted Alito before news cameras in the Rose Garden. "He's got the judicial temperament necessary to make sure that the court is a body that interprets the law and doesn't try to write the law." Alito, a conservative, 15-year member of the federal appeals court in Philadelphia, was chosen by Bush on October 31 to succeed the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the high court. (Read a review of Alito's career) O'Connor, a justice since 1981, was a decisive swing vote on abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action and other highly contentious issues. "My hope of course is that the Senate bring dignity to the process and give this man a fair hearing and an up or down vote on the Senate floor," Bush said. He added: "Sam, good luck to you." Ten-minute opening statements by the panel's 18 members were likely to consume much of Monday's opening session, with direct questioning of Alito getting fully under way beginning Tuesday. The hearings are expected to last at least two days. (Alito's dissents draw attention) Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, said Sunday he will wrap up the hearings this week. He has called for a committee vote by January 17. Republican leaders hope for confirmation by the full Senate on January 20, but Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's top Democrat, would not promise the schedule would hold. Alito was Bush's second choice to replace O'Connor. White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew from consideration after conservatives questioned her judicial philosophy and qualifications for the Supreme Court. "The challenge for Judge Alito in the course of these hearings is to demonstrate that he will protect the rights and liberties of all Americans and serve as an effective check on government overreaching," Leahy said in a pre-released excerpt from his opening statement. "The president has not helped his cause by withdrawing his earlier nomination of Harriet Miers in the face of criticism from an extreme faction of his own party." Bush then turned to Alito, 55, who previously worked as a federal prosecutor and a lawyer in the Reagan administration. Republicans say there is no reason to delay or filibuster Alito. Senators who have met privately with Alito say he told them that his 1985 written comments maintaining there was no constitutional right to abortion were part of a job application for the Reagan administration, which opposed abortion. At the same time, he wrote in a separate legal memo while at the Justice Department that the department should try to chip away at abortion rights rather than mount an all-out assault. Specter, said in an advance copy of his opening statement that the hearing will be an opportunity for Alito to say publicly what he has been telling senators in private about how he would deal with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman's right to an abortion. "This hearing will give Judge Alito the public forum to address the issue, as he has with senators in private meetings, that his personal views and prior advocacy will not determine his judicial decision ...," said Specter, a moderate on the issue. But no matter what Alito says, some Democrats will oppose him, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in his opening statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. "I am reluctantly inclined to the view that you and any other nominee of this president for the Supreme Court start with no more than 13 votes in this committee, and only 78 votes in the full Senate with a solid, immovable and unpersuadable block of at least 22 votes against you, no matter what you say or do," the statement said. Abortion and presidential war powers are expected to be the main focus of the opening rounds of questions. Two areas that "Democrats and moderate Republicans feel are important: reproductive freedom is one, and all of these issues around executive authority," said Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law. Specter, along with several Democrats, also told Alito before the hearing that they would press him on his feelings about presidential power during wartime. The same senators who will question Alito will also hold hearings later this year on whether Bush can authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on conversations involving suspected terrorists in the United States without getting a court-ordered warrant. Bush contended that his constitutional powers and the prewar resolution gave him that legal authority. One of Alito's Democratic critics, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, said he sees tendencies by Alito to defer to the executive branch. "In an era when the White House is abusing power, has authorized torture and is spying on American citizens, I find your support for an all-powerful executive branch and almost unlimited power for government agents to be deeply troubling," Kennedy said in a pre-released excerpt from his opening statement.
Battle lines drawn over Supreme Court BBC News
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Schwarzenegger says stitches won’t slow him MSNBC
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t plan to change his schedule even though he received 15 stitches in his lip for injuries sustained when his motorcycle collided with a car, his spokeswoman said. The governor was expected to keep his appointments Monday, spokeswoman Margita Thompson said. Schwarzenegger was riding his motorcycle Sunday with his 12-year-old son, Patrick, in the sidecar, when a car backed out of a driveway in the Brentwood section, Thompson said.
Governor slightly injured in crash San Jose Mercury News
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GOP Puts Lobbying Scandal in Bull's-Eye Los Angeles Times
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Times Staff Writer. WASHINGTON — Moving to distance themselves from a growing corruption scandal, House GOP leaders Sunday chose Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) to lead a crash ffort to draw up legislation aimed at curbing the influence of lobbyists. Dreier, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, flew back to Washington from California after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) asked him to take on the high-profile assignment. "We want to deal with this issue and get it behind us as quickly as possible," Dreier told Fox News before heading to the airport. Several proposals from members of both parties already have been introduced. The announcement of Dreier's assignment came as Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the acting majority leader, said that they were entering the race to succeed Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas). DeLay stepped down as House majority leader in September after being indicted on money-laundering charges in his home state. He said Saturday that he would not seek to regain his leadership position. On Sunday, in DeLay's first television interview since his announcement, he said his decision was unrelated to the ongoing federal corruption investigation involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff. "I am not a target of this investigation," DeLay told Fox News. Abramoff, whom DeLay described Sunday as a friend, acknowledged in guilty pleas last week that he cheated Indian tribal clients out of tens of millions of dollars and attempted to influence legislators with expensive trips, gifts and campaign contributions. Although a number of proposals to overhaul lobbying rules have been introduced, finding bipartisan agreement on such an issue in an election year that might shift control of Congress could prove difficult. In broad terms, Republicans favor changes that would require disclosure of contacts with lobbyists. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, for example, has suggested creating a website on which all government officials would have to post their interactions with lobbyists on a weekly basis. Democrats would go beyond that. A proposal by Rep. David R. Obey of Wisconsin would bar lawmakers and staffers from accepting any trips from lobbyists. Before accepting a trip paid for by an outside party, lawmakers would have to certify that no lobbyists had been invited to travel along or participate in meetings. Obey also would bar lawmakers-turned-lobbyists from using their floor privileges to buttonhole current members of Congress on behalf of a client during legislative sessions. Such conduct has long been frowned on as an abuse of the privilege, but is not forbidden. The Senate may provide a more favorable climate for compromise. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), who teamed up on campaign finance reform, are also interested in curbing access by lobbyists. A spokeswoman for Dreier said the congressman wanted to strike a balance that would make it harder for lobbyists to woo lawmakers with hidden gifts and favors without infringing on the right of citizens to press their views on Congress. Although Dreier offered no specifics, he told Fox News that he wanted "bold, strong reform initiatives" with "greater transparency" and would consult with members of both parties. In a written statement released before he returned to Washington, Dreier noted that "recent developments have made clear the need for the House to take a closer look at the rules regarding members' interactions with lobbyists." Abramoff is not the only lobbyist to plead guilty in the continuing federal investigation. A former DeLay aide who went to work for Abramoff, Michael P.S. Scanlon, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe public officials. When House Republicans return to Washington at the end of the month, they are expected to find themselves in the midst of a heated campaign to elect a successor to DeLay. The majority leader is No. 2 in the House hierarchy and essentially functions as manager of the ruling party, making sure that the legislative agenda that the majority leader helped set is carried out. In his interview with Fox News, DeLay said he had chosen to step aside because "time was the enemy." "We needed to have a leadership race right now and have the elections sometime at the end of January … so we can get to work in February and have our team in place," he said. Boehner, 56, said in a letter to his GOP colleagues that he wanted to lead "a conversation about renewal … renewal in spirit, renewal in principles, renewal in commitment." "We've had a tough run recently, some of it of our own making," he wrote. "We're concerned about the future of our majority." First elected to the House in 1990, Boehner was among the junior back-benchers who teamed up with Gingrich, then a Georgia congressman, to wrest control of the House from the Democrats, who had held the leadership for four decades. In recent years, he has immersed himself in committee work and helped shape President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. Blunt, 55, was first elected in 1996 and rose rapidly to the post of majority whip with DeLay's help. His son, Matt, is governor of Missouri. Although he may seem to have the inside track because he is already acting leader, Blunt's close relationship with DeLay could prove to be a handicap. On Sunday, after Boehner had declared his candidacy, Blunt sent his own letter to colleagues. "Unfortunately, the recent scandals have caused some to question whether we have lost our vision and whether the faith they placed in us is justified," he wrote. "While I have no doubt that it is, it will be difficult to move forward with our platform until we regain the trust and confidence of our constituents by enacting new lobbying reforms and enhanced penalties for those who break the public trust." Blunt announced last week he was donating to charity $8,500 in campaign contributions linked to Abramoff. A watchdog group, the Center for Responsive Politics, has reported that Boehner received $32,500 in contributions from tribes represented by Abramoff. But Boehner's spokesman, Don Seymour, said Sunday that the congressman was not aware of any connections with the lobbyist.
Perpetuating Corruption: Tom DeLay's Replacements Political Cortex
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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 4
January 9, 2006


** CRS ON AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE
** CRS ON DECLARATIONS OF WAR AND AUMFS
** MORTON HALPERIN ON WARRANTLESS NSA SURVEILLANCE
** STEPHEN CAMBONE ON DOD FACILITY SECURITY


CRS ON AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE

The legislative history of the September 14, 2001 Congressional
resolution authorizing the use of force in response to the
September 11 attacks is concisely examined in a new report of the
Congressional Research Service.

The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, has been
in the news lately because the Bush Administration has claimed that
it provided statutory authority for the National Security Agency to
conduct warrantless surveillance within the United States, a claim
that has been disputed by some in Congress and elsewhere.

The new CRS legislative history notes that the White House had
initially sought legislative authority "to deter and pre-empt any
future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States."

But "This language would have seemingly authorized the President,
without durational limitation, and at his sole discretion, to take
military action against any nation, terrorist group or individuals
in the world without having to seek further authority from the
Congress."

"It would have granted the President open-ended authority to act
against all terrorism and terrorists or potential aggressors
against the United States anywhere, not just the authority to act
against the terrorists involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks,
and those nations, organizations and persons who had aided or
harbored the terrorists.

"As a consequence, this portion of the language in the proposed
White House draft resolution was strongly opposed by key
legislators in Congress and was not included in the final version
of the legislation that was passed," the CRS explained.

A copy of the new CRS publication was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Authorization For Use Of Military Force in Response to the 9/11
Attacks (P.L. 107-40): Legislative History," January 4, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22357.pdf


CRS ON DECLARATIONS OF WAR AND AUMFS

The distinction between a formal declaration of war and an
authorization for use of military force was addressed in an
exceptionally informative report of the Congressional Research
Service in 2003.

"With respect to domestic law, a declaration of war automatically
brings into effect numerous standby statutory authorities
conferring special powers on the President with respect to the
military, foreign trade, transportation, communications,
manufacturing, alien enemies, etc."

"In contrast, no standby authorities appear to be triggered
automatically by an authorization for the use of force."

The history of both categories is delineated, including the texts of
the eleven formal declarations of war and the most important
authorizations for use of military force, along with an itemization
of the various statutes that are triggered directly or indirectly
in each case.

The 112 page CRS report is not generally available in the public
domain. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of Military
Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications," updated
January 14, 2003:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL31133.pdf


MORTON HALPERIN ON WARRANTLESS NSA SURVEILLANCE

"The warrantless National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program
is an illegal and unnecessary intrusion into the privacy of all
Americans," writes Morton H. Halperin in a new assessment of the
controversial program.

Halperin, a leading civil libertarian and former Pentagon and State
Department official, played an influential role in the enactment of
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which
subjected intelligence surveillance within the United States to
a measure of judicial oversight. He also has the distinction of
having his phone tapped at the direction of Henry Kissinger, who
eventually apologized for the action.

"Congress must conduct hearings to determine exactly what is being
done in the new NSA program and why the administration concluded
that it could not use FISA," he urged.

"Then it should determine what needs to be done to insure that, in
the future, Presidents obey the law."

See "A Legal Analysis of the NSA Warrantless Surveillance Program"
by Morton H. Halperin, January 6, 2006:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.as...J8OVF&b=1334469


STEPHEN CAMBONE ON DOD FACILITY SECURITY

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone has
issued a new Department of Defense Instruction on the subject of
DoD facility security.

"The authority of a DoD commander to take reasonably necessary and
lawful measures to maintain law and order and to protect
installation personnel and property ... shall not be exercised in
an arbitrary, unpredictable or discriminatory manner."

See DoD Instruction 5200.08, "Security of DoD Installations and
Resources," December 10, 2005:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/i5200_08.pdf




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

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

January 9, 2006
Alito Tells Senators That 'Rule of Law' Is Paramount
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. described himself today as the proud son of humble, hard-working parents and pledged that, as a Supreme Court justice, he would adhere to the rule of law regardless of any personal feelings.

"There is nothing that is more important for the republic than the rule of law," Judge Alito told the Senate Judiciary Committee on the first day of hearings on his nomination to the high court. "No one is above it, no one is beneath it."

Some 15 years ago, he recalled, he put his hand on the Bible and took an oath to uphold the law as a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia. "And that's what I have tried to do," he said. "That is what I would do on the Supreme Court."

In his 12-minute statement, Judge Alito was not only expressing his core beliefs and values but, perhaps, seeking to reassure those who fear that his conservative views would make him too beholden to President Bush and tilt the Supreme Court too far to the right.

"A judge can't have an agenda, a judge can't have a preferred outcome," the nominee said. "A judge can't have a client."

Nor, he suggested, has he been a rigid ideologue on the bench. "Good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds" when they read the next brief or hear the next argument, he said.

The judge paid tribute to his late father, Samuel A. Alito, and his mother, Rose, who is 91. "I am who I am in the first place because of my parents," he said. From them, he said, he learned the value of learning and hard work, home and hearth. And because a generous neighbor in Trenton enabled his brilliant but impoverished father to attend college, the judge said, he learned "the power of a small good deed."

Judge Alito seemed to hint at his own conservative values when he recalled that, as a Princeton student more than three decades ago, he saw some intelligent people with privileged backgrounds "behaving irresponsibly," an apparent allusion to the campus unrest of that era.

The 18 members of the committee will begin their questioning of the nominee on Tuesday. The hearings began today with senators of both parties vowing to question him closely on abortion, the tension between civil rights and national security and the powers of the presidency.

Senators Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Republican chairman and leading Democrat, respectively, on the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised the nominee they would give him a fair hearing before deciding how they would vote.

But the senators told Judge Alito he needed to convince them - and by extension the American people - that he deserved to sit on the highest court in the land. The hearings come at a crucial moment, for President Bush politically and for the evolution of the law. Mr. Bush has been hampered by declining public support for some of his policies, and his last nominee to the high court, the White House counsel Harriet Miers, had to withdraw amid criticism of her credentials and questions on whether she could be independent.

Moreover, abortion is far from the only legal issue of paramount importance that is likely to come before the justices. They may also be called upon to weigh the balance between personal liberty and national security, in particular how much authority a president should have in the age of terrorism to order the detention of people without formal charges.

"There is, I think, a heavy sense of drama as these hearings begin," Mr. Specter said.

The chairman said experience had taught him that Supreme Court nomination hearings are "really in effect a subtle minuet," with the prospective justice typically saying only what he or she thinks is necessary to win the votes of enough senators. And, while some Republicans on the panel all but promised to vote in favor of the nominee, several Democratic committee members signaled that the "subtle minuet" may not be enough this time.

No senator, Republican or Democrat, questioned Judge Alito's credentials or intellectual acumen. But Mr. Leahy said it was all-important that Judge Alito convince the committee that he would be nothing like a "rubber stamp" for a conservative Republican administration of President Bush, whose overall philosophy the nominee clearly shares.

"I will ask Judge Alito to demonstrate his independence from the interests of the president," Mr. Leahy said.

Mr. Specter, one of only a few Republican senators who support a woman's right to abortion, said he would press Judge Alito on a memorandum he wrote in 1985, as a young lawyer in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, opposing the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, in which the Supreme Court upheld a woman's right to choose.

Other abortion-rights supporters on the committee, Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York, indicated that they will closely question Judge Alito regarding that issue. "We will ask you, 'Do you still personally believe very strongly that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion?' " Mr. Schumer said.

Senator Specter said he will ask Judge Alito if he would still be guided by the views he expressed more than two decades ago - or would he, as a justice, put aside his personal feelings and rely on established law and precedent and, by implication, be very hesitant about tampering with Roe v. Wade?

At least one member of the committee, Senator Tom Coburn, made it clear he would not mind hearing Judge Alito speak against abortion. Mr. Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who is a doctor, is a fervent opponent of abortion, which he scathingly termed "this wonderful right to choose" and "a right of convenience" to kill unborn babies.

Senator Leahy, like Mr. Specter a former prosecutor, said the nomination of Judge Alito was particularly important because it comes against a disturbing backdrop, "that the president has, outside the law, been conducting secret and warrantless spying on Americans for more than four years."

"It comes as members of the Bush administration and Republican Congressional leadership face criminal investigations and indictments in corruption probes," Mr. Leahy went on. "This is a time when the protections of Americans' liberties are directly at risk, as are the checks and balances that have served to constrain abuses of power for more than 200 years."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, voiced similar concerns. "In an era when the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling," he said.

But those Republicans leaning toward the nominee were warm in their praise. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, for instance, called the nominee "a brilliant but modest jurist," and one that would not try to legislate from the bench.

If confirmed, Judge Alito will fill the seat vacated by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom Judge Alito called "a pioneer" whose service to the country and the high court "will never be forgotten." She has been widely regarded as a "swing" justice, or ideological bridge between the tribunal's conservative and liberal wings. Thus, the elevation of Judge Alito would, in the opinion of many lawmakers and legal analysts, tip the balance of the court to the right, perhaps for many years to come.

No doubt aware of all that conjecture, the nominee sat in the hearing room with a serious demeanor, nodding and smiling occasionally. Inevitably, he is being compared to John G. Roberts Jr., whose nomination to be chief justice sailed through the committee on a 13-to-5 vote, with three of the panel's eight Democrats joining the 10 Republicans in endorsing him. The full Senate confirmed Judge Roberts, 78 to 22.

Judge Alito has been on the Third Circuit for 15 years, far longer than Chief Justice Roberts sat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit before his nomination to the Supreme Court, and so has a much longer paper trail to stir admiration or suspicion, depending on one's perspective.

Mr. Leahy voted for Judge Roberts and, while he emphasized that he has not made up his mind about Judge Alito, he expressed disappointment with one aspect of the nomination.

"The court that served America should reflect America, but with this nomination the court has lost a measure of diversity," Mr. Leahy said. "There was no dearth of highly qualified women, Hispanics, African-Americans and other individuals who could well have served as unifying nominees while adding to the diversity of the Supreme Court."

Another Democrat who supported Judge Roberts, Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, offered Judge Alito a warm personal welcome. "Judge, I do greatly admire your legal qualifications," he said. "I wish you well here." But he added pointedly, "I expect complete answers, and I think my colleagues do, too."

Republicans have 55 seats in the Senate, to 44 for the Democrats and 1 independent, James Jeffords of Vermont. So Judge Alito would seem to have a good chance at confirmation - unless the Democrats stall the proceedings with a debate-prolonging filibuster that requires 61 votes to defeat.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Alito Confirmation Hearings Begin

By William Branigin

Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's nominee to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, told his Senate confirmation hearing today that he has no judicial agenda and pledged to administer justice without regard to the power or wealth of those before him.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Proving His Mettle in the Reagan Justice Dept.

By Jo Becker and Dale Russakoff

Alito proved himself to top Justice Department operatives by distilling their agenda to reshape the nation's civil rights laws and overturn abortion rights into brilliantly analytical legal strategies.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Majority of Americans Favor Alito Nomination

By Richard Morin

A majority of Americans favor the confirmation of federal appeals court judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court and an even larger proportion believe Alito would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 high court ruling that legalized abortion, according to the latest Washington...

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Climate summit challenges Kyoto's approach
The Asia-Pacific Partnership, composed of six nations responsible for
40 percent of global greenhouse gases, meets Wednesday. By Janaki
Kremmer
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p01s01-wogi.html?s=hns

Why budget fixes can't wait
Rising longevity, healthcare costs, and federal obligations will force
a reckoning in the US, experts say. By Mark Trumbull
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p01s02-uspo.html?s=hns

Jury duty is for Everyman - and some presidents
The local judge is giving Bush some latitude, so the president can
choose from several dates to serve. By Kris Axtman
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p01s03-uspo.html?s=hns

Reporter abducted in Iraq
Freelancer Jill Carroll was kidnapped in Baghdad Saturday morning. By
Scott Peterson and Peter Ford
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p01s04-woiq.html?s=hns

Ad war at full blast as Alito hearings begin
Interest groups are targeting specific states and taking to the
Internet to make their case for or against confirmation. By Gail
Russell Chaddock
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p02s01-usju.html?s=hns

New rumbling over salvage logging
Removing dead wood seems like a good idea after a fire, but data shows
it may compound problems. By Brad Knickerbocker
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p02s02-sten.html?s=hns

Choice in cable channels? Debate heats up.
Minorities and Christians have raised concerns that individual channel
pricing will end their programs. By Randy Dotinga
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p03s03-ussc.html?s=hns

Time is ripe to reform lobbying
The Abramoff case, while an extreme, points to ties between lobbyists
and officials that are too close. The Monitor's View
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p08s02-comv.html?s=hns

The tangled web of lobbyists and the majority party
Lobbying isn't a dirty profession but it often dances on a fine ethical
line. By Dante Chinni
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p09s01-codc.html?s=hns

The price of associating with a lobbyist
A deal with Abramoff cost him his job at a think tank and his newspaper
column. By Doug Bandow
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns

Frank Rich : The Wiretappers That Couldn't Shoot Straight :

The louder the reports of failures on this president's watch, the louder he tries to drown them out by boasting that he has done everything "within the law" to keep America safe and by implying that his critics are unpatriotic, if not outright treasonous.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11502.htm

===
Angry and Furious at the Collaborationist Democrats:

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, a man known for some sensitivity to civil liberties infringements, and a substantial number of congressmen, plus the New York Times, all knew of Bush's illegal spying.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-garbu...e-_b_13478.html

===
Specter Seeks AG's Testimony on Spying :

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify publicly on the legality of warantless eavesdropping on telephone conversations between suspected terrorists and people in the United States.
http://tinyurl.com/7lnvy

===
The NSA Spy Engine - Echelon :

A top-secret program code-named Tempest, is capable of reading computer monitors, cash registers and automatic teller machines from as far away as a half-mile and is being used to keep a close eye on an untold number of American citizens, the sources said, pointing to a little known declassified document that sheds light on the program.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11500.htm

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

January 10, 2006
Legal Context
A Quick Focus on the Powers of a President
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - The opinion is more than 50 years old, and it is not even binding precedent. But just minutes into the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., it took center stage and seemed to lay the groundwork for the questions he will face concerning his views on the limits of presidential power.

The 1952 opinion, a concurrence by Justice Robert H. Jackson, rejected President Harry S. Truman's assertion that he had the constitutional power to seize the nation's steel mills to aid the war effort in Korea. Whether and how Justice Jackson's analysis should apply to broadly similar recent assertions by the Bush administration, notably concerning its domestic surveillance program, will plainly be a central theme when questioning of Judge Alito begins Tuesday morning.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, discussed only three decisions by name in his opening statement: Justice Jackson's concurrence in the 1952 case, Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer, and two abortion cases, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Quoting from the Jackson concurrence and referring to the surveillance program, Mr. Specter said, "What is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system."

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the committee, made a similar assertion in noting that Judge Alito would replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor if he was confirmed. "She upheld," Mr. Leahy said, "the fundamental principle of judicial review over the exercise of government power."

That was a reference to Justice O'Connor's decisive opinion turning back another broad assertion of executive power in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, a 2004 case in which the court allowed a man held without charges as an enemy combatant to challenge his detention, over the objections of the Bush administration.

"We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice O'Connor wrote for herself and three other justices in 2004. She cited one case as precedent for that proposition: Youngstown.

Judge Alito, in his brief, mostly biographical opening statement, did not address Youngstown or any other case. But he did seem to nod in the direction of the current controversy. "No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law," he said, "and no person in this country is beneath the law."

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., at his confirmation hearings in September, endorsed Justice Jackson's concurrence. It has, Judge Roberts said, "set the framework for consideration of questions of executive power in times of war and with respect to foreign affairs since it was decided."

Most of the discussion of executive power on Monday came from Democratic senators. One Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, argued for an aggressive view of executive power.

"In a time of war," Mr. Graham said, "I want the executive branch to have the tools to protect me, my family and my country."

In 1952, the Supreme Court faced a set of clashing interests in the Youngstown case broadly similar to those in the current surveillance controversy. That April, President Truman seized the nation's steel mills to prevent an expected labor strike, saying that national security during the Korean War required uninterrupted access to steel.

In June 1952, in a 6-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the various legal rationales offered by the Truman administration for the seizures. Many of those rationales have echoes in the justifications offered by the Bush administration for its detention of enemy combatants, harsh interrogations and domestic surveillance without court approval.

Writing for the court, Justice Hugo L. Black said the president's power was extensive but not unlimited.

"Even though 'theater of war' be an expanding concept," Justice Black wrote, "we cannot with faithfulness to our constitutional system hold that the commander in chief of the armed forces has the ultimate power as such to take possession of private property in order to keep labor disputes from stopping production. This is a job for the nation's lawmakers, not for its military authorities."

There are, of course, obvious differences between the Youngstown case and recent efforts to combat terrorism. The seizure of the steel mills, for instance, was a wholly domestic matter. The surveillance program, by contrast, monitors international communications between the United States and other nations. The Korean War was, moreover, a conventional one, while terrorism involves a more amorphous threat.

It is not entirely clear why Justice Jackson's concurrence has had such a lasting impact. It may be because he spoke with particular authority, having argued for expansive executive power as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's attorney general, much as Judge Alito did when he was a lawyer in the Reagan administration.

"That comprehensive and undefined presidential powers hold both practical advantages and grave dangers for the country," Justice Jackson wrote in the concurrence, "will impress anyone who has served as legal adviser to a president in time of transition and public anxiety."

He proposed three categories to judge the constitutionality of assertions of executive power. His framework may be thought to endorse or reject the Bush administration's position, depending on how various Congressional actions are understood.

The president's authority is at its maximum, Justice Jackson wrote, when he "acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress." The administration says a resolution authorizing the president to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks was such authorization.

In his opening statement, Mr. Graham said he was troubled by that argument. "I've got some problems," he said, "with using a force resolution to the point that future presidents may not be able to get a force resolution from Congress if you interpret it too broadly."

Justice Jackson's second category was "a zone of twilight" in which Congress has taken no action. In that case, he said, "any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law."

The third category is where the president takes action at odds with the will of Congress. A 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, appears to require court approval before monitoring of the sort the administration has acknowledged.

In this third area, Justice Jackson said, the president's power is "at its lowest ebb," and claims of presidential authority "must be scrutinized with caution."



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January 10, 2006
From Big-Time Lobbyist to Object of Derision
By KATE ZERNIKE and ANNE E. KORNBLUT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Jack Abramoff, former superlobbyist and newly convicted felon, is learning how unpleasant disgrace can be.

After pleading guilty last week to federal corruption charges in Washington and Florida, Mr. Abramoff is now mocked by late-night comedians and editorial cartoonists.

Television commentators are calling him a scoundrel, even "Satan." A fashion writer described him as a fat mobster in his black fedora and trench coat.

His most diehard defenders have fled, and people he once counted as friends privately insist that they were never all that close.

Even if Mr. Abramoff wanted to escape the suburban home where he has hunkered down, the knee surgery he underwent Thursday has hobbled him. He sits at home, friends say, speculating about which of the people who no longer return his calls are making which anonymous snipes in the newspapers.

"He can connect the dots and figure out which of his former friends are hitting him that way," said Elie Pieprz, a friend of Mr. Abramoff's since they met at synagogue two decades ago. "Anyone who is successful and well connected, people flock to, and it's hard to know who are your real friends and who is just using you. Times like this, you find out who your friends are. But that's not something Jack wanted to know."

His pariah status, of course, is not surprising. Mr. Abramoff acknowledged in his guilty pleas that he bilked Indian tribes of $20 million. In e-mail messages disclosed over the last year, he had called the tribes troglodytes and far worse. He lied to clients, evaded taxes and tried to bribe lawmakers.

And, of course, he is dangerous. As part of his plea, Mr. Abramoff agreed to become the star witness in what many say could be the most explosive corruption investigation in Congressional history.

Mr. Abramoff's ties to the Republican Party stretch into the executive branch, and he could implicate up to 12 members of Congress, people involved in the case said.

Representative Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who once boasted of his close friendship with Mr. Abramoff and whose dealings with him are under scrutiny, announced over the weekend that he would not seek to regain his post as House majority leader.

In addition to the elected officials, 12 or so former Congressional staff-members-turned-lobbyists may also be vulnerable.

Even after his fall, Mr. Abramoff, who will be sentenced after fulfilling his agreement to cooperate with prosecutors, remains unreformed in some ways. He continues spewing messages on his BlackBerry, even though his crimes were partly exposed by hundreds of brash e-mail messages chronicling his activities and contempt for his clients.

"You can't stop him," a person close to him said.

Like several others who described Mr. Abramoff's recent activities or comments, the person insisted on anonymity because the Justice Department has asked participants not to discuss the case.

In public and in private, Mr. Abramoff has said he feels "profound regret and sorrow" for the acts acknowledged in his plea. He has also expressed remorse for using degrading terms to describe his Indian clients, saying his language was sloppy. But in conversations with people he considers sympathetic, he has insisted that his practices were Washington business as usual.

Some associates, including lawmakers whom Mr. Abramoff once welcomed as friends with free meals at Signatures, the restaurant he operated until recently, had said the same in recent months. But they are no longer sticking to that story.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is a college friend of Mr. Abramoff's and has been his most steadfast defender on Capitol Hill, declined to discuss him in an interview, issuing a brief statement instead saying:

"Washington can be intoxicating at times, and I think over the years there have been many people who have been seduced into very bad decisions by the lure of power and money, and Jack obviously made some very bad decisions. He has made some mistakes and some very bad decisions and now he's going to have to pay the price."

Mr. Abramoff, who used to bounce, BlackBerry in hand, between racquetball games and Table 40 at his restaurant, now spends most of his time in his sprawling brick home on a wooded cul de sac in Silver Spring, Md. He no longer exercises much - given the bad knee, and the fact that his frequent racquetball and business partner, Michael Scanlon, drew away more than a year ago to focus on his own plea deal. After gaining weight, Mr. Abramoff jokes to friends that he is becoming fatter to avoid being recognized around town.

When he has ventured out, it has been mostly to meet government lawyers to work out his plea deal, in which he agreed to cooperate in the investigations of lawmakers and pay restitution and taxes that prosecutors say will exceed $26 million.

In intensive 8- to-10-hour stretches since August, Mr. Abramoff, 46, has recounted in detail how he orchestrated kickbacks from unsuspecting tribes, arranged overseas travel for Mr. DeLay and others and lent his luxury stadium suites to members of Congress.

Since he withdrew to his home, Mr. Abramoff has mostly tended to his family, often checking in on his five children when he is out of the house to inquire about their homework, a person close to him said.

Mr. Abramoff and his wife have explained to their children - 12-year old twins and others 14, 16 and 18 - why the family is in such isolation.

His father, Frank, said he was pained.

"I don't understand the situation that's engulfed our family," Frank Abramoff said. "My son is a religious person, a charitable-minded person. He's worked hard all his life and never asked for anything, and now for this to happen."

An Orthodox Jew, Mr. Abramoff has been writing a commentary about the Torah. His home is within walking distance of his synagogue, but Mr. Pieprz said other members there had never embraced Mr. Abramoff. They considered him abrasive and initially resented his plans to start a Jewish school, now defunct. And he was a Republican at the synagogue when few others were.

Eventually, some came to appreciate Mr. Abramoff's Redskins football tickets and his restaurant for its kosher kitchen, Mr. Pieprz said

People close to Mr. Abramoff say he believes that he had fallen away from his faith, not praying or reading the Talmud as much as he should. He has chosen to believe that there is a reason for his downfall that will be revealed to him over time, they say.

He carried Torah readings with him when he made his guilty pleas last week in a whirlwind 24 hours of court appearances in Washington and Miami, those associates say. In keeping with the Orthodox requirement that the observant cover their heads, he wore a fedora one day and a baseball cap from a luxury golf resort the second.

What has most devastated him, friends say, is discovering that he has so few of them left.

"People obviously thought that the best thing to do was distance themselves," said Mr. Pieprz, who now lives in Seattle.

He would not be surprised, Mr. Pieprz added, if the family moved, saying, "There are not a lot of good memories there."

Mr. Abramoff's most constant concern, people in contact with him said, is money. Despite collecting $40 million from clients in four years, he has told people that he is going broke.

His defenders say he poured his earnings into often unsuccessful ventures, including Stacks, a kosher delicatessen, and Signatures. Prosecutors have declined to comment on whether they believe the assertions about his financial condition except to say they expect him to pay the amount agreed to in the settlement.

Mr. Abramoff has told people that he has borrowed money from relatives and is trying to develop some income, mainly through real estate deals and finder's fees on other ventures.

Yet few people want to do business with him.

"One can and indeed should presume that someone is innocent until proven guilty," a former associate said. "But he has now acknowledged before the court that he's not innocent."

"It doesn't mean I dump a friend," the former associate added.

But he has not reached out to Mr. Abramoff, beyond to wish him well a few months ago.

"When the forces of destruction begin to rain down," the former associate said, "what else can you do?"



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January 10, 2006
News Analysis
Endemic Problem of Safety in Coal Mining
By GARDINER HARRIS
Once every few years, a disaster in a tiny Appalachian town reminds the nation that coal mining remains a dangerous occupation. The cause of the latest incident, which claimed 12 lives at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, is unknown and under investigation.

But certain problems are endemic in the industry: old safety equipment, lax enforcement and a get-along culture in which safety complaints are discouraged, according to an examination of government and court records and interviews this past week and over the years with hundreds of miners, dozens of mine inspectors and mine safety experts.

Even well-run mines are frightening places. The average Appalachian mine is less than five feet high, with some less than three feet. Some miners take straws with their lunches because there is not enough space to tilt a soft-drink can over their heads. The roof often pings and rumbles like ice on a frozen pond.

While a few corporate giants own multiple mines, there are many small companies with only a few mines. These operations are usually nonunion. They use reconditioned equipment and hire unskilled men with few other prospects who often worry that large fines will shut down their mines.

"Many miners look at inspectors as their enemies," said Tony Oppegard, a former top federal mine official in the Clinton administration and the former prosecutor of mine safety violations in Kentucky.

Throughout the industry, the oxygen canisters, the telephones, the ventilation equipment and almost every other piece of safety equipment are nearly identical to those used more than 20 years ago. Some mines still extract coal with explosives, a technique that has changed little in 100 years.

Mines are routinely cited for violating federal safety rules. Federal inspections occur at least four times a year.

For some mining operations, paying fines is less expensive than adhering to the rules, miners say. And a few mines do not bother to pay at all. Since 2000, 84 mines have not paid any citation levied against them that exceeded $10,000, according to federal records. Indeed, miners say that they are sometimes forced to accept unsafe working conditions in return for employment.

The proof is that miners continue to die - and not just from roof falls, electrocutions and explosions. Black lung disease still stalks the coal fields even though the technology to prevent it has been available for nearly 100 years, and federal rules that would eliminate it have been in place for more than 35 years.

Still, the nation's coal mines are far safer today. The toll from black lung has plunged to around 1,000 deaths annually now. Accidental deaths are also down. In 1907, 3,242 miners died in accidents in the United States, the worst year on record. Last year, 22 died.

But new technologies that might improve working conditions often enter mining slowly. Consider the oxygen canister carried by most miners. Weighing six pounds, it provides an hour's worth of oxygen through a chemical reaction. The canisters have not changed substantially in more than 20 years.

An hour might have been enough to allow the Sago miners to reach fresh air, but the miners did not know that. Had their canisters delivered more air, they might have risked a two-mile crawl instead of retreating and waiting for rescuers who arrived too late.

Last year, researchers at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.Va., did a brief technology survey to determine if these devices could be improved to deliver more oxygen in a smaller, lighter container.

"What we found is that there are technologies that can be used to improve the system to do all three," said Michelle Dougherty, a director at the university's national technology transfer center. "I can't answer why no one in the private sector has thought of this before."

Bruce Watzman, vice president of safety, health and human resources at the National Mining Association, said it was not the responsibility of coal operators to develop new safety equipment. "We're not in the self-rescuer manufacturing business," Mr. Watzman said.

Lewis V. Wade, senior science adviser for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which sponsored the Wheeling Jesuit survey, said mining was "a small market."

Communications systems in underground mines are also often aging and rudimentary. Most mines have just a few telephones attached to cables - identical to systems in use for decades. In disasters, a crew may be trapped far from a phone.

A few mines have antennas that allow radio communication by any miner from any place in a mine. Every miner at the Willow Creek mine in Price, Utah, escaped a major fire in November 1998 in part because many crew members had hand-held radios and were alerted almost immediately, Mr. Oppegard said.

Suzy Bohnert, a spokeswoman for the federal mine safety agency, said the agency had not mandated the new communications systems because they did not work well in all mines.

Even when safer techniques become widely available, federal regulators rarely ban older, less-safe production techniques. Like Sago, most mines use machines to claw coal from mountains, a far safer method than the old system that relied on explosives. Using explosives in small, narrow spaces creates obvious safety problems, but the technique is still allowed. In Kentucky alone, one in five mines are still "shooting" with explosives, according to state records.

Federal inspectors almost never close a mine even when they find repeated instances of life-threatening safety problems.

The Sago Mine had 202 safety violations last year, a number that included 16 blatant violations that were considered immediate hazards to miners' safety. Like Sago, six other underground mines in West Virginia have 100 to 150 employees, according to federal records. Not one of the six had a similar blatant violation last year, according to federal mine records. Sago has had 14 major roof falls since June. Its injury rate last year was three times the national average.

Yesterday, Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia named J. Davitt McAteer, who oversaw the mine safety agency in the Clinton administration, to oversee the work of state and federal investigators and issue a report on last week's disaster by July 1.

"We will pursue every lead," Mr. McAteer said. "We will take every step necessary to find the problems and to fix those problems."

Wilbur L. Ross Jr., whose investment firm took over the Sago Mine in November, vehemently denied in an interview last week that his company had compromised worker safety. Indeed, company officials said safety had improved since Mr. Ross's firm took over.

But Sago has had three major cave-ins since the takeover, including one on Nov. 27 that dropped a rock 70 feet long, 20 feet wide and 18 feet high, roughly the size of a blue whale.

"I think this mine should have been closed," said Jack Spadaro, who retired in 2004 as the director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beckley, W.Va.

Even when inspectors find violations and the mine agency levies fines, the citations are often ignored, although this does not appear to be the case with Sago.

Ms. Bohnert, of the federal mine safety agency, did not answer a question via e-mail about why the agency failed to collect fines.

In Pike County, Ky., for instance, eight operating mines have paid only a tiny fraction of the fines levied against them for years, according to federal records. Midgard Mining of Pike County has more than $350,000 in fines that have accumulated since 1996. In 1998, the company paid $700 to the agency. Since then, nothing, the records show.

Josh Osborne owns Midgard Mining, according to federal mine records. Mr. Osborne's father, Stanley Osborne, of Jonancy, Ky., owns a mine near Jenkins, Ky., called Misty Mountain No. 5, according to federal court records. Neither man could be reached.

This Jenkins mine suggests another reason that coal mining continues to be dangerous: workers who complain about unsafe conditions are sometimes fired or penalized. Wade Damron complained to the mine superintendent after the brakes gave out on a coal scoop on Aug. 30, 2004.

Mr. Damron and three other miners subsequently lost their jobs.

Todd T. Hodgdon, a federal administrative law judge, ruled in October that the miners had been fired unfairly, and awarded each back pay and fined Misty Mountain and Stanley Osborne $10,000.

Some miners say that they are expected to put up with such problems to keep their jobs, Mr. Oppegard said.

"It's a Hobson's choice," he said, "of their safety or their jobs."

Andy Lehren contributed reporting for this article.



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January 10, 2006
Growth of National Health Spending Slows Along With Drug Sales
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - The growth of national health spending slowed in 2004, mainly because insurers reined in drug costs so that spending on pharmaceuticals increased at the slowest rate in a decade, the Bush administration said Monday.

Total health care spending rose 7.9 percent in 2004, to $1.9 trillion, or an average of $6,280 a person, the administration said. That represents 16 percent of the nation's economy, the highest share on record.

Spending on prescription drugs rose 8.2 percent, to $188.5 billion in 2004, the government said. This was the first year of single-digit growth in retail drug sales since 1994.

But spending on hospitals and doctors' services surged in 2004, and the nation spent far more on them than on prescription drugs.

The 8.6 percent increase in spending for hospital care and the 9 percent increase in payments to doctors were the highest recorded since 1991.

The new figures do not reflect the cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which took effect this month. Stephen Heffler, a government economist, has previously said that the benefit will have "only a minor impact on overall health spending," but will redistribute costs so the federal government bears a larger share of drug spending.

Cynthia Smith, an economist at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the slowdown in drug spending resulted from greater use of low-cost generic drugs, in place of brand-name products; increased use of mail-order services to dispense drugs; and "reduced consumption of certain drugs" because of safety concerns.

"U.S. health care spending grew more slowly in 2004 than in the three previous years," Ms. Smith and three colleagues said in a report published in the journal Health Affairs. "Prescription drug spending has been the strongest factor in the slowdown in recent years."

Mark Merritt, president of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said the new data vindicated the techniques used by members of his organization to manage drug spending. These companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers, include Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions.

But, Mr. Merritt said, at the federal and state levels, "lobbyists for brand-name drug makers, chain drugstores, trial lawyers and others are working to undermine many of the tools we have used to reduce the rate of growth in drug spending." For example, he said, brand-name drug companies have resisted state laws that encourage the substitution of generic drugs.

Andrea Hofelich, a spokeswoman for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, a trade group, said patients received generic drugs for 53 percent of the prescriptions filled in 2004. But, Ms. Hofelich said, the costs were so much lower that those drugs accounted for only 12 percent of drug spending.

Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a private group that tracks health costs, said he took little comfort from the new data.

The latest slowdown must be viewed in context, Mr. Ginsburg said. Health spending grew at abnormally high rates in 2001 and 2002 because consumers forced insurers to relax many restrictions of managed care, like rules requiring patients to get authorization from a primary care doctor before visiting a specialist.

"The rate of growth in health spending slowed in 2004, but it's still substantially higher than trends in earnings, which are the key to being able to afford health care," Mr. Ginsburg said. "Health insurance is becoming less affordable to more people."

As usual, health spending grew faster than the economy or consumer prices. The Consumer Price Index, a widely used measure of inflation, increased 3.3 percent in 2004.

The government's annual report on health spending, issued Monday, includes these highlights:

¶Spending for hospital care totaled $570.8 billion. Hospital spending by private insurers rose 9.5 percent, while Medicaid spending on hospitals increased 9.9 percent.

¶Spending for doctors' services climbed to $399.9 billion in 2004. Medicare spending on doctors rose 11.1 percent, up from an increase of 8.8 percent in 2003. Doctors are performing more services and more complex services, for which they receive higher fees from Medicare.

¶Payments to independent home health agencies have been rising more rapidly than any other category of health spending. They increased 11.1 percent in 2003 and 13.3 percent in 2004, to $43.2 billion. Medicare spending for home care shot up 19.3 percent in 2004, partly because of rapid growth in home-based hospice services.

¶Spending on care provided by skilled nursing homes rose 4.3 percent in 2004, to $115 billion. Medicaid accounts for 44 percent of that spending. The federal government has restricted the techniques states can use to finance their share of these Medicaid costs. Medicaid spending on nursing homes rose just 3 percent in 2004, compared with an increase of 5.3 percent in 2003.

Over all, public spending on health care grew faster than private spending in 2004. Medicare spending, for people who are 65 and older or disabled, rose 8.9 percent in 2004, to $309 billion, partly because of a new law that increased payments to health maintenance organizations and rural health care providers.

By contrast, Medicaid spending grew 7.9 percent in 2004, to $290.9 billion. Efforts to hold down drug costs slowed the growth in Medicaid spending, which was 11 percent in 2002 and almost 9 percent in 2003.



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Judges Just Briefed on Surveillance Plans By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 46 minutes ago



The federal judges who were bypassed when the Bush administration ordered warrantless wiretaps in the United States received a secret briefing Monday on details of the surveillance. Separately, a former FBI director and other lawyers questioned whether the surveillance is legal.

The classified briefing at the Justice Department had been requested by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Established by Congress in the late 1970s, the court oversees the government's handling of espionage and terrorism investigations.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson last month resigned from the FISA court and other judges voiced concerns about the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program, which President Bush authorized after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, was among administration officials who attended the briefing. Hayden served as NSA director when the electronic surveillance program was launched and has since become the government's No. 2 intelligence official.

Details of the program remain highly classified.

Justice Department and NSA spokesmen refused to confirm that a meeting took place. A spokesman for Kollar-Kotelly likewise declined comment and the nine other FISA court judges did not return telephone calls Monday.

But two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed the briefing and Hayden's presence.

According to an account in the Washington Post, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson of Utah, a member of the special panel, has asked why the special court was not used in conducting the surveillance.

"If you've got us here, why didn't you go through us? They've said it's faster (to bypass FISA), but they have emergency authority under FISA, so I don't know," Benson was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The existence of the program was first reported last month by the New York Times. Bush later acknowledged he approved the warrantless surveillance and, along with senior lieutenants, has stoutly defended it.

In a letter Monday to congressional leaders, 13 legal scholars said the Justice Department's written justification for the NSA monitoring program "fails to offer a plausible legal defense."

In a five-page letter to House and Senate intelligence committee leaders, Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella on Dec. 22 outlined a detailed defense for the warrantless surveillance.

He argued that Bush under a congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack, had the authority to order such electronic surveillance as part of his responsibility as commander-in-chief to protect the nation.

But the former government officials and constitutional law experts said Congress did not authorize domestic spying as part of the 2001 resolution. Lawmakers, they wrote, also "indisputably" have the authority to regulate electronic surveillance inside the United States.

The 13 experts said it is "beyond dispute that, in (our) democracy, the president cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable."

Legal analysts at the Congressional Research Service last week raised similar questions, and lawmakers have called for hearings on the NSA program.

The group included former federal judge William S. Sessions, who served as FBI director from 1987 to 1993 under President Reagan and President George H.W Bush.

____

Associated Press writer Katherine Shrader contributed to this report.



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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Battle lines drawn over nominee for US top court Toronto Star
Judge Samuel Alito has sought to rebut critics who say he is beholden to the right-wing base of George W. Bush's Republican party, telling US senators he will have no agenda or preferred outcomes if confirmed to the country's Supreme Court. "There is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law," Alito said in brief remarks to the Senate judiciary committee yesterday, the first day of his crucial confirmation hearing. "No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law." Alito's 12-minute statement came after 10 Republican and eight Democratic senators drew battle lines over his nomination, a battle that will be fully engaged starting today when the 55-year-old nominee takes questions on abortion rights and presidential powers. Democrats will be using the hearings to take aim at a Bush White House they say is running roughshod over civil liberties and is illegally concentrating more and more power at the executive level. Meanwhile, some Republicans made it plain yesterday they expect a court featuring Alito as a replacement for outgoing moderate conservative Sandra Day O'Connor will move to overturn the historic Roe vs. Wade decision enshrining abortion rights, and provide more freedom for religious speech in the U.S. Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy led a Democratic charge, calling Alito an associate justice who'd grant even more freedom to a White House that has already overstepped its authority. "In an era where the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling," Kennedy said. "In decision after decision on the bench, he has excused abusive actions by the authorities that intrude on the personal privacy and freedoms of average Americans. And in his writings and speeches, he has supported a level of overreaching presidential power that, frankly, most Americans find disturbing and even frightening." At issue on the debate over abortion and presidential powers are three declarations from Alito's lengthy paper trail: A 1985 job application with the Ronald Reagan White House expressing pride in his role in crafting arguments that a right to an abortion was not protected under the U.S. constitution, a 1984 memo backing the Richard Nixon-era attorney-general's right to conduct wiretaps without legal authorization, and a more recent speech backing the type of robust presidential powers recently advocated by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney. Kennedy's comments rankled some Republicans who leapt to Alito's defence, claiming Democrats want only liberals outside the U.S. mainstream to craft law on the highest court. Other Republicans used the first nationally televised hearings to push for changes to laws on abortion and religious expression. "I've had the unfortunate privilege of caring for more than 300 women who've had complications from this wonderful right to choose to kill their unborn babies," said Oklahoma's Tom Coburn, a medical doctor. "And that's what it is — it's the right of convenience to take the life." Sam Brownback of Kansas said there was no constitutional right to an abortion in the U.S. It was a right created by the court in 1973 in the Roe vs. Wade decision, he said, asserting the decision has legalized the killing of babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome, who will die simply because of a positive genetic test which can sometimes be wrong. "America is poorer because of such a policy,'' Brownback said.
Alito pledges to respect rule of law San Jose Mercury News
Supreme Court nominee hearing begins ABC Online
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No Signs of Panic as GOP Mulls New House Leader ABC News
If the maneuvering to replace Rep. Tom DeLay as House majority leader offers an early gauge of Republican worries about the impact of corruption scandals, then so far, it seems, the party isn't panicking. The only two candidates currently in the race — acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio — are far from outsiders. Both are veteran lawmakers who emphasize their experience and ability to get the party back on track. And the path the party seems to be charting for its post-DeLay era is one of cautious change. Certainly, DeLay's decision to permanently relinquish the leadership post indicates that many in his party believe a change is necessary. The Texas congressman made his decision over the weekend, days after former lobbyist Jack Abramoff — who had close ties to DeLay and top DeLay aides — pleaded guilty to corruption charges. DeLay insists he is not a target of the Abramoff investigation but said in a statement that he felt he should give up claims to the leadership post for the good of the party. But with DeLay out, the GOP may be looking less for a "fresh face" to repair the party's image than for someone to put in place a solid reform agenda. "The party's image is pretty bad," says Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, a moderate who had well-publicized differences with DeLay, and is now supporting Blunt. "That's why it's absolutely essential that our leadership move forward with a [lobbying reform] bill that's at least as good as what Senator McCain and I have proposed," he told ABC News. Speaker Dennis Hastert has asked Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., to spearhead lobbying reform legislation. Shays has already put forward a reform package that would mandate greater disclosure and tighter restrictions on gifts from lobbyists, and he says now that lawmakers should consider banning gifts outright. There's a clear political incentive for them to do so: According to an ABC News poll released Monday, nine out of 10 Americans say they would favor banning lobbyists from giving members of Congress anything of value.

Ideology and Style Both at Issue
The GOP leadership elections will be held sometime after Jan. 31, when House members return. Blunt and Boehner's offices will not reveal tallies of their supporters, although so far at least 26 members have publicly indicated their support for Blunt and 18 for Boehner. And while a dark horse candidate could still emerge, one member whose name had been circulated — Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. — took himself out of the running Monday. Leadership fights are often portrayed as ideological. But they can be as much about personality and style. Blunt's camp has emphasized his ability to reach out to different elements within the party — from moderates to social conservatives — and bring them together. He's also stressing his full support for Hastert and Dreier's reform initiative. But Blunt has close ties to lobbyists himself — including Abramoff — and some suggest that as DeLay's protégé and most obvious successor, he might not offer enough of a clean break. Yet some see Boehner — a onetime member of the GOP leadership — as almost as consummate an insider. Boehner has emphasized his reform background — he rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one of the "gang of seven" who exposed a House banking scandal. Today his aides hand-delivered to the office of each GOP member his 37-page "vision" for getting his party back on track and restoring the public's trust. Unlike Blunt, he has focused on the need for better enforcement of existing rules. "He's not for dismantling the entire system," says spokesman Kevin Smith, but he says greater transparency may be needed. Nearly everyone agrees the last thing the party needs is a bitter contest that divides members in the run up to the November elections, when all 435 House seats will be up for grabs. Republicans "cannot afford a visibly divisive, nasty fight," says political analyst Stuart Rothenberg. "If there's one thing the country hates more than its political leaders being wrong, it's their party being divided."
Boehner, Blunt vie for GOP post MarketWatch
Blunt, Boehner Remain as Field For Majority Leader Narrows Washington Post
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On the record: Alito's answers CNN
Senators on the Judiciary Committee began questioning Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito on Tuesday. Click on a topic for excerpts of his answers on key issues.
Constitutional interpretation - Domestic spying - Executive power - Legal precedent - Role of judiciary

Constitutional interpretation
I think the Constitution is a living thing in the sense that matters, and that is that it is -- it sets up a framework of government and a protection of fundamental rights that we have lived under very successfully for 200 years. And the genius of it is that it is not terribly specific on certain things. It sets out -- some things are very specific, but it sets out some general principles and then leaves it for each generation to apply those to the particular factual situations that come up. ... The liberty component of the Fifth Amendment and the 14th Amendment ... embody the deeply rooted traditions of a country. And it's up to each -- those traditions and those rights apply to new factual situations that come up. As times change, new factual situations come up, and the principles have to be applied to those situations. The principles don't change. The Constitution itself doesn't change. But the factual situations change. And, as new situations come up, the principles and the rights have to be applied to them.

Domestic spying
I think in the first instance, the government would have to come forward with its theory as to why the actions that were taken were lawful. I think that's correct. ... If someone has been the subject of illegal law enforcement activities, they should have a day in court. And that's what the courts are there for, to protect the rights of individuals against the government or anyone else who violates their rights. And they have to be absolutely independent and treat everybody equally.

Executive power
The president has to follow the Constitution and the laws. And, in fact, one of the most solemn responsibilities of the president -- and it's set out expressly in the Constitution -- is that the president is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and that means the Constitution. It means statutes. It means treaties. It means all of the laws of the United States. But what I am saying is that sometimes issues of executive power arise, and they have to be analyzed under the framework that Justice [Robert] Jackson set out. And you do get cases that are in this twilight zone, and they have to be decided when they come up based on the specifics of the situation.

Legal precedent
I think the doctrine of stare decisis is a very important doctrine. It's a fundamental part of our legal system. And it's the principle that courts in general should follow their past precedents. And it's important for a variety of reasons. It's important because it limits the power of the judiciary. It's important because it protects reliance interests. And it's important because it reflects the view that courts should respect the judgments and the wisdom that are embodied in prior judicial decisions. It's not an exorable command, but it is a general presumption that courts are going to follow prior precedents.

Role of judiciary
My general philosophy is that the judiciary has a very important role to play ... the judiciary has to protect rights. And it should be vigorous in doing that. And it should be vigorous in enforcing the law and in interpreting the law in accordance with what it really means and enforcing the law even if that's unpopular. But, although the judiciary has a very important role to play, it's a limited role. It is not -- it should always be asking itself whether it is straying over the bounds, whether it's invading the authority of the legislature, for example, whether it is making policy judgments rather than interpreting the law.
Alito faces a rough ride to highest court Sydney Morning Herald
Alito Says He'd Keep 'An Open Mind' ABC News
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Cheney's Standing With Republicans OK Washington Post
Whether Vice President Dick Cheney is suffering from problems with his foot, his heart or his knees, leading Republicans across the country say they are confident he is fit for office. GOP faithful say they've known since Cheney joined President Bush's ticket that he had his share of ailments. His recent hospitalizations have not caused them to doubt whether the 64-year-old vice president should finish his second term. "I haven't heard a soul say anything along the lines of Dick Cheney stepping aside," said Patrick Anderson, an economist who ran for statewide office in Michigan as a Republican. "You have to remember, Cheney's job is to back up the president and be ready if something happens to him. He doesn't need to be Jack LaLanne Jr."
Cheney Scare a Reminder of Heart Ailments Forbes
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Pentagon says Rumsfeld nixed Bremer troop request
09 Jan 2006 21:34:26 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned down a request in May 2004 by Paul Bremer, the U.S. diplomat governing Iraq at the time, for hundreds of thousands more U.S. troops during a particularly violent period in the Iraq war, the Pentagon acknowledged on Monday.

Bremer, who governed Iraq for 13 months after President Saddam Hussein was toppled, said in an NBC interview aired on Sunday that he wrote a memo in May 2004 to Rumsfeld suggesting that about 500,000 U.S. troops were needed, more than three times the 142,000 in Iraq at the time.

Congressional critics in both parties argued at the time that the Pentagon had deployed too few troops to maintain order, restore essential services and combat an insurgency that was escalating in spring 2004. April 2004, the month before Bremer's memo, was the deadliest of the war to date for U.S. forces.

Lawrence Di Rita, chief Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Rumsfeld asked Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top commanders in Iraq to evaluate Bremer's recommendation and others.

"There was a specific conclusion that the military commanders reaffirmed their belief that the level that they had there was the proper level," Di Rita said. "The secretary relied on the judgment of the military commanders."

"He (Bremer) had views on a variety of things over time that he shared. He, I think, would be the first to acknowledge he wasn't responsible for military force levels. He, on many times, demurred (in media interviews) when asked what the proper levels of forces were during the course of his tenure there, properly," Di Rita added.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan added, "The president believes that the decisions about our troop levels ought to be based on the recommendations of our military commanders who are on the ground in Iraq. They're the ones who are in the best position to say what they need to complete the mission."

ESCALATING INSURGENCY

As head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer was the Bush administration's top official in Iraq from May 2003, the month after Saddam was driven from power, until the United States returned sovereignty in June 2004, at which time he left.

Bremer, who is publicizing a book on his experiences, said he "never had any reaction" from Rumsfeld on his memo.

"This was weeks before Jerry left," said Di Rita, using Bremer's nickname. "So it's not clear to me that he expected an answer." Di Rita noted this was the only time Bremer offered advice on troop levels.

Bremer also said it was not fair to fault him for a decision made shortly after his arrival to disband the Iraqi military. This reversed plans by Jay Garner, his predecessor in Iraq, to harness Iraq's military to help rebuild the country.

Saddam had used the military to reinforce his hold on power, but some experts contend that former members of the disbanded military, suddenly jobless, went on to help form the insurgency.

Bremer said "it wasn't me" who was responsible for the decision, which he said was was approved "in Washington" based on his recommendation. Supporters of the decision said the military had effectively disbanded itself with thousands deserting in the face of the U.S.-led invasion.

Di Rita called disbanding the military "a complex decision," adding, "It could have gone either way."

"It was fully vetted by people here, but it was ultimately Jerry's decision, and he had that authority as the head of the CPA," Di Rita said.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)

Bush urges critics be responsible on Iraq
By Steve Holland

President George W. Bush called on Tuesday for a responsible election-year debate on Iraq and said Americans should demand a discussion "that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush predicted more tough fighting and more sacrifice ahead in Iraq in 2006 but said he believed progress will be made against the insurgency and on the Iraqi political process and reconstruction this year.

Bush made clear he was girding for battle with Democrats in the run-up to the mid-term congressional election in November, when he will try to keep the U.S. Congress in the hands of his Republican Party.

"There is a difference between responsible and irresponsible debate and it's even more important to conduct this debate responsibly when American troops are risking their lives overseas," Bush told the veterans organization.

Americans know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted, "and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people," said Bush.

He added, "So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

Bush was not specific but was clearly talking about Democrats who have questioned his motives in attacking Iraq and who have been demanding a timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq.

COMPROMISE AND CONSENSUS

The president spoke as well for the need for political harmony in Iraq and urged disaffected Sunni Arabs to join in the process, saying "compromise and consensus and power-sharing are the only path to national unity and lasting democracy."

"A country that divides into factions and dwells on old grievances cannot move forward and risks sliding back into tyranny," he said.

As for concerns that Iraqi security forces are engaging in torture against minorities, Bush called it "unacceptable" and said adjustments were being made in the way these forces are trained so they can become more professional and protect all Iraqis without discrimination.

Bush is trying to convince skeptical Americans that his strategy for Iraq will work even as the U.S. death toll increases nearly three years after the invasion to oust President Saddam Hussein.

He has faced a barrage of criticism over his handling of Iraq. This week Paul Bremer, the senior diplomat who administered Iraq for a year after Saddam was toppled, said his call for a big expansion of troops there in 2004 was rejected.

Bush made no specific reference to Bremer's charges, simply repeating as he has in recent speeches that "setbacks" have been made.

Bush said reforming Iraqi gasoline subsidies was a necessary step for economic reform in Iraq because the price of fuel has been artificially low and that the subsidies are a drag on Iraq's budget.

He urged all governments to follow through on promised aid to Iraq.

He said $13 billion in assistance has been pledged by the international community but not all of it has yet been delivered.

"I call on all governments that have pledged assistance to follow through with their promises as quickly as possible so the Iraqis can rebuild their country and provide a better future for their children," Bush said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Wilson and Tabassum Zakaria)



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January 10, 2006
Presidential Power Has Limits, Alito Tells Senators
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. said today that he wholeheartedly agreed with the principle that a president does not have "a blank check" in terms of power, especially during wartime.

"The Constitution applies in times of peace and war," President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court said in the first round of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The Bill of Rights applies at all times."

In the second day of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to the United States Supreme Court, Judge Alito said, preservation of individual rights is particularly important in wartime because that is when the temptation to abuse liberties in the name of national security is most dangerous.

Declaring that the Constitution "protects the rights of Americans in all circumstances," Judge Alito was addressing an issue that his critics have called very troubling: whether he would too easily embrace the concept of far-reaching executive power, as his critics say the judge's paper trail seems to indicate.

In agreeing that the president does not have "a blank check" in terms of power, even in wartime emergencies, Judge Alito embraced the language of the justice he would succeed, Sandra Day O'Connor, who so wrote in a decision that upheld the right of a prisoner held as an "enemy combatant" to use the courts to challenge the basis of his confinement.

The judge also testified that he would approach abortion-related cases with an open mind, that the Constitution is "a living thing in the sense that matters" in that its underlying principles do not change even as time and circumstances do, and that the views he espoused as a young lawyer in the administration of President Ronald Reagan - "a line attorney," as he put it - are by no means a preview of how he would rule as a justice.

"My general philosophy is that the judiciary has a very important role to play," Judge Alito said, adding that he saw it as "a limited role" that should never encroach on the duties of lawmakers.

Some of the sharpest questions about the limits of presidential power came from Senators Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the panel's ranking Democrat, and Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Mr. Leahy asked the nominee whether he agreed with President Bush's interpretation of the powers conferred on him by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Judge Alito replied cautiously, asserting that "difficult and important and complex questions" attend the issue.

But, the nominee said: "No person in this country is above the law. That includes the president and the Supreme Court."

Mr. Leahy was probing the judge's views on the electronic surveillance undertaken by the National Security Agency in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Apparently not satisfied with the nominee's replies, Mr. Leahy said half-jokingly, "Let's take an easy one." Could the president authorize someone to murder a person, the senator asked.

Of course not, Judge Alito said. "The president has to follow the Constitution and the laws," he said.

Judge Alito, who has sat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, for 15 years, said repeatedly that precedent in the law deserves great respect, and should be overturned only with great care. He was responding to questions from Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who heads the panel, who is an abortion-rights supporter and has expressed concerns that the Supreme Court might one day consider undoing its 1973 ruling that established a woman's right to choose.

Precedent is "not an inexorable command," but it deserves great respect, Judge Alito said. He was referring not just to abortion issues but to a defendant's protection against police interrogations, as set forth in the 1966 Miranda ruling.

Senator Kennedy was skeptical about the nominee's dedication to the rights of ordinary citizens. "Time and again, even in routine matters involving average Americans, you give enormous, almost total deference to the exercise of governmental power," Mr. Kennedy said, citing a case in which the judge upheld the validity of a warrant in which a 10-year-old girl was strip searched.

Judge Alito answered in a calm, precise tone. "Senator, I wasn't happy that a 10-year-old girl was searched," he said, emphasizing that he had felt compelled to rule as he did, on a highly technical issue, because he felt the law required him to do so.

Three of the committee's 10 Republicans commented in a recess that the nominee had acquitted himself well. "It's clear to me that he is willing to be very forthright, that he appears to view his role as a judge very seriously and totally different from his position as a lawyer, divorcing any of his own personal views," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who was joined by Senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama and John Cornyn of Arizona.

Senator Leahy and Senators Russell D. Feingold and Herb Kohl, both of Wisconsin, were the three Democrats who voted for the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr., who won the committee's approval by 13 to 5 on his way to easy confirmation as chief justice.

Senator Leahy seemed concerned today about Judge Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, an organization that the senator said had resisted the admission of women and members of minority groups to the elite Ivy League institution. The nominee cited his membership in the group when he was applying for a promotion in the Reagan administration in 1985.

"Why in heaven's name, judge?" Mr. Leahy asked, seemingly incredulous that a man with Judge Alito's immigrant heritage and working-class background could have belonged to such a group.

The judge said that he had never active in the group's activities and that he had belonged chiefly because he disagreed with campus hostility to the Reserve Officers Training Corps in that Vietnam War era.

That back and forth afforded Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, a chance to serve up a friendly question. The senator asked the nominee whether he was against women and minority groups in college.

"Absolutely not, senator, no," the judge replied.

"Tough question, Orrin," Senator Leahy interjected with a chuckle. "Tough question."

"Good question, though," Mr. Hatch retorted.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Remarks by the President on the Global War on Terror

1/10/2006 1:04:00 PM

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a transcript of remarks by President Bush on the global war on terror:

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for the warm welcome. It is an honor to stand with the men and women of the Veterans of Foreign Wars - - again. This is one of America's great organizations. I appreciate the proud and patriotic work you do across America. Thanks for your hard work in our nation's capital to make sure our government listens to the concerns of our veterans. (Applause.)

Your members include veterans who served in World War II. I just happened to spend Christmas with one of your members. (Laughter.) The Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo and many other operations. In the past four years, you've welcomed into your ranks new veterans who have defended liberty in places like Afghanistan and Iraq as a part of the global war on terror. No matter where you deployed, or which century you wore the uniform, each of you stepped forward when America needed you most. And in these days, first days of the year 2006, a grateful nation says thank you for your service in the cause of freedom. (Applause.)

I want to thank the Commander-in-Chief of the VFW, Jim Mueller. I had the honor of welcoming him to the Oval Office the other day, where we discussed issues important to our nation's veterans and issues important to our nation's security. He's a clear thinker. He's a patriot. I appreciate the invitation, Jim.

I'm also proud to be joined today by the Secretary of State, Condi Rice. (Applause.) The Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Jim Nicholson. Mr. Secretary. (Applause.) Two members of the United States Congress, one Republican and one Democrat have joined us. (Laughter). Americans quest for freedom and peace is a bipartisan quest. And I'm honored that Senator Pat Roberts is with us and Congressman Adam Schiff. Thank you both for coming. (Applause.)

Lieutenant General Bob Shea of the Joint Chiefs is with us today. As is my friend, Lieutenant General Danny James, who was the Texas Adjutant General when I had the honor of being the Commander-in-Chief of the Texas Guard. (Laughter.) Good to see you, Danny. (Applause.)

To all those who wear the uniform who are here, I particularly want to pay my respects to those wounded soldiers from Walter Reed. (Applause.) Thanks for serving. (Applause.) I'm proud you're here. And I want to report to our fellow citizens that we've got a fantastic health care system for those who wear the uniform. Any man or woman wounded in combat is removed immediately from the battlefield into the best possible care. I want to thank those at Walter Reed, those healers and helpers -- not only at Walter Reed, but at Bethesda and Brooke, where I recently went -- for the great compassion and great skill that they show in helping those who have been wounded on the battlefield. May God bless you all. (Applause.)

As veterans and soon to be veterans, you have placed the nation's security before your own lives. You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas (sic) and under fire. (Applause.) All of us who live in liberty live in your debt, and we must never forget the sacrifice and the service of our veterans.

A new generation of Americans is carrying on your legacy, defending our nation in another great struggle for freedom -- the global war on terror. This war began with a sudden attack on September the 11th, 2001. That morning, we saw the destruction our enemies intend for us -- and we accepted new responsibilities. Like generations before us, we're taking the fight to those who attacked us, and those who share their murderous vision for future attacks. Like generations before us, we have faced setbacks on the path to victory -- yet we will fight this war with resolve and without wavering. And like generations before us, we will prevail. (Applause.)

Like earlier struggles for freedom, the war on terror is being fought on many battlefronts. Yet the terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity. And so we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war against the terrorists.

Our goal in Iraq is victory. (Applause.) And in a series of speeches last December, I described the enemy we face in that country, our strategy to defeat them, and how we have adapted our tactics to meet changing conditions on the ground. Today, I've come before you to discuss what the American people can expect to see in Iraq in the year ahead. We will see more tough fighting and we will see more sacrifice in 2006, because the enemies of freedom in Iraq continue to sow violence and destruction. We'll also see more progress toward victory. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy. Victory will come when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens. Victory will come when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation.

And when victory comes and democracy takes hold in Iraq, it will serve as a model for freedom in the broader Middle East. (Applause.) History has shown that free nations are peaceful nations. And by helping Iraqis build a lasting democracy, we spread the hope of liberty across a troubled region, we will gain new allies in the cause of freedom. By spreading democracy and freedom, we're laying the foundation of peace for generations to come. (Applause.)

Our work in Iraq in 2006 will be focused on three critical areas. On the political side, we will help Iraqis consolidate the democratic gains they made last year, and help them build democratic institutions, a unified government, and a lasting free society. On the security side, we will stay on the offense against the terrorists and Saddamists. We will continue to strengthen the Iraqi security forces -- with an emphasis on improving the capabilities of the Iraqi police, so that over the next 12 months, Iraqi forces can take control of more territory from our coalition and take the lead in the fight.

And on the economic side, we will continue reconstruction efforts, and help Iraq's new government implement difficult reforms that are necessary to build a modern economy and a better life. In all three aspects of our strategy -- democracy and security and reconstruction -- we're learning from our experiences, and we're fixing what hasn't worked. And in the year ahead, we will continue to make every change that will help us complete the mission and achieve the victory we all want.

On the political side, we've witnessed a transformation in Iraq over the past 12 months that is virtually without precedent. Think back to a year ago. At this time last year, the Iraqi people had an appointed government, no elected legislature, no permanent constitution and no recent experience with free national elections. Just one year later, they have completed three successful nationwide elections.

Iraqis voted for a transitional government, drafted the most progressive, democratic constitution in the Arab world, approved that constitution in a national referendum and elected a new government under their new constitution. Each successive election has seen less violence, bigger turnouts, and broader participation than the one before. One Iraqi voter in Tal Afar described the December elections this way: "We want democracy. This is our answer to the decades of slavery we had before."

When the final election results come in, Iraqi leaders will begin working to form a new government. And in the weeks ahead, Americans will likely see a good deal of political turmoil in Iraq as different factions and leaders compete for position and jockey for power. Our top commander in the region, General John Abizaid, has said he expects the coming weeks to produce "some of the hardest bare-knuckle politics ever in the Arab world." We should welcome this for what it is -- freedom in action.

Dictatorships seem orderly -- when one man makes all the decisions, there is no need for negotiation or compromise. Democracies are sometimes messy and seemingly chaotic, as different parties advance competing agendas and seek their share of political power. We've seen this throughout our own history. We've seen this in other democracies around the world. Yet out of the turmoil in Iraq, a free government will emerge that represents the will of the Iraqi people -- instead of the will of one cruel dictator. (Applause.)

Iraqis are undertaking this process with just a year's experience in democratic politics -- and the legacy of three decades under one of the world's most brutal tyrannies still hangs over them. Many of the institutions and traditions we take for granted in America -- from our party structures, to our centuries' experience with peaceful transitions of power -- are new to Iraq. So we shouldn't be surprised if Iraqis make mistakes and face setbacks in their effort to build a government that unites the Iraqi people.

Despite the obstacles they face, Iraqis have shown that they can come together for the sake of national unity. Think about what happened after the January 2005 elections -- Shia and Kurdish leaders who did well at the polls reached out to Sunni Arabs who failed to participate, giving them posts in the government, and a role in fashioning the constitution. Now Iraqis must reach out once again across political and religious and sectarian lines and form a government of national unity that gives a voice to all Iraqis.

Because Sunni Arabs participated in large numbers in the December elections, they will now have a bigger role in the new parliament -- and more influence in Iraq's new government. It's important that Sunnis who abandoned violence to join the political process now see the benefits of peaceful participation. Sunnis need to learn how to use their influence constructively in a democratic system to benefit their community and the country at large. And Shia and Kurds need to understand that successful free societies protect the rights of a minority against the tyranny of the majority.

The promise of democracy begins with free elections and majority rule -- but it is fulfilled by minority rights, and equal justice, and an inclusive society in which every person belongs. A country that divides into factions and dwells on old grievances cannot move forward -- and risks sliding back into tyranny. Compromise and consensus and power-sharing are the only path to national unity and lasting democracy. And, ultimately, the success of Iraqi democracy will come when political divisions in Iraq are driven not by sectarian rivalries, but by ideas, and convictions, and a common vision for the future. (Applause.)

When the new Iraqi government assumes office, Iraq's new leaders will face some tough decisions on issues such as security and reconstruction and economic reform. Iraqi leaders will also have to review and possibly amend the constitution to ensure that this historic document earns the broad support of all Iraqi communities. If the new parliament approves amendments, these changes will be once again taken to the Iraqi people for their approval in a referendum before the end of the year. By taking these steps, Iraqi leaders will bring their nation together behind a strong democracy -- and help to defeat the terrorists and the Saddamists.

America and our coalition partners will stand with the Iraqi people during this period of transition. We will continue helping Iraqis build an impartial system of justice, so they can replace the rule of fear with the rule of law. We'll help Iraqi leaders combat corruption by strengthening Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity -- so Iraqis can build a transparent, accountable government. And we will help Iraq's new leaders earn the confidence of their citizens, by helping them build effective government ministries.

It's especially important in the early months after Iraq's new government takes hold that its leaders demonstrate an ability to deliver measurable progress in the lives of the Iraqi people. So we will continue helping the new government to develop their ministries, to ensure they can lead effectively and produce real results for the Iraqi people.

The foreign terrorists and Saddamists will continue to fight this progress by targeting the citizens and institutions and infrastructure of a free Iraq. An enemy that sends suicide bombers to kill mourners at a funeral procession is an enemy without conscience. (Applause.) These killers will stop at nothing to undermine the new government, divide the Iraqi people, and try to break their will. Yet with the recent elections, the enemies of a free Iraq have suffered a real defeat. The Saddamists and rejectionists are finding themselves increasingly marginalized, as Sunni Arabs who once rejected the political process are now participating in the democratic life of their country.

And as democracy takes hold in Iraq, the terrorists like Zarqawi and his al Qaeda associates are suffering major defeats. Zarqawi tried to stop the elections throughout the year 2005, and he failed. He tried to stop the writing and ratification of a new constitution, and he failed. The advance of freedom is destroying his and al Qaeda's greatest myth: These terrorists are not fighting on behalf of the Iraqi people against a foreign occupation -- they are fighting the will of the Iraqi people expressed in free elections. (Applause.)

In the face of these thugs and terrorists and assassins, the Iraqi people have sent a clear message to the world: Iraqis will not cower before the killers -- and the terrorists and regime loyalists are no match for millions of Iraqis determined to live in liberty. (Applause.)

As we help Iraqis strengthen their new government, we're also helping them to defend their young democracy. We're going to train the security forces of a free Iraq. We have been doing so and we will continue to do so in 2006. Last November, I described many of the changes we made over the past year to improve the training of the Iraqi army and the police. And we saw the fruits of those changes during the December elections. Iraqi forces took the lead in the election security. They were in the lead; we were there to help. They protected over 6,000 polling centers, they disrupted attacks, and they maintained order across the country.

Thanks in large part to their courage and skill, the number of attacks during the elections declined dramatically compared with last January's vote. One Iraqi General put it this way on election day: "All the time and money you have spent in training the Iraqi army -- you harvest it today."

The Iraqi security forces are growing in strength and in size, and they're earning the trust and confidence of the Iraqi people. And as Iraqis see their own countrymen defending them against the terrorists and Saddamists, they're beginning to step forward with needed intelligence. General Casey reports that the number of tips from Iraqis has grown from 400 in the month of March of 2005 to over 4,700 last month -- and that some of the new intelligence is being passed by Iraqi civilians directly to Iraqi soldiers and police. Iraqis are gaining confidence that their security forces can defeat the enemy, and that confidence is producing intelligence that is helping to turn the tide in freedom's way.

There's more work to be done in the year ahead. Our commanders tell me that the Iraqi army and police are increasingly able to take the lead in the fight. Yet the Iraqi police still lag behind the army in training and capabilities -- and so one of our major goals in 2006 is to accelerate the training of the Iraqi police. We'll focus our efforts on improving the performance of three categories of the Iraqi police. First, we will work to improve the Special Police under the Ministry of Interior, who are fighting alongside the Iraqi army against the terrorists and Saddamists. Second, we will expand and strengthen the border police charged with securing Iraq's frontiers. And, third, we will increase our focus on training local station police, so they can protect their communities from the criminals and terrorists.

The Interior Ministry's Special Police are the most capable of the Iraqi police forces. There are now about 19,000 Iraqi Special Police trained and equipped -- which is near our goal for a complete force. Many of these Special Police forces are professional, they represent all aspects of society. But recently some have been accused of committing abuses against Iraqi civilians. That's unacceptable. That's unacceptable to the United States government; it's unacceptable to the Iraqi government, as well. And Iraqi leaders are committed to stopping these abuses. We must ensure that the police understand that their mission is to serve the cause of a free Iraq -- not to address old grievances by taking justice into their own hands.

To stop abuses and increase the professionalism of all the Iraqi Special Police units, we're making several adjustments in the way these forces are trained. We're working with the Iraqi government to increase the training Iraqi Special Police receive in human rights and the rule of law. We're establishing a new Police Ethics and Leadership Institute in Baghdad that will help train Iraqi officers in the role of the police in a democratic system -- and establish clear lesson plans in professional ethics for all nine Iraqi police academies. To improve their capability, we will soon begin implementing a program that has been effective with the Iraqi army -- and that is partnering U.S. battalions with Iraqi Special Police battalions. These U.S. forces will work with and train their Iraqi counterparts, helping them become more capable and professional, so they can serve and protect all the Iraqi's without discrimination.

Second, we're working to increase the number of border police that can defend Iraq's frontiers and stop foreign terrorists from crossing into that country. Iraqis now have 18,000 border police on the job, manning land and sea and air ports across the country. Our goal is to have a total of 28,000 Iraqi border police trained and equipped by the end of this year.

To better train Iraqi police, we've established a new customs academy in Basra. We're embedding border police transition teams with Iraqi units, made up of coalition soldiers and assisted by experts from our Department of Homeland Security. The Iraqi border police are growing increasingly capable and are taking on more responsibility. In November, these forces took the lead in protecting Iraq's Syrian border, with coalition forces playing a supporting role. In other words, they're beginning to take the lead and take responsibility for doing their duty to protect the new democracy. And as more skilled border police come on line, we're going to hand over primary responsibility for all of Iraq's borders to Iraqi border police later on this year.

Finally, we're helping Iraqis build the numbers and capabilities of the local station police. These are the Iraqi police forces that need the most work. There are now over 80,000 local police officers across Iraq -- a little more than halfway toward our goal of 135,000. To improve the capabilities of these local police, we're taking a concept that worked well in the Balkans and applying it to Iraq -- partnering local Iraqi police stations with teams of U.S. military police and international police liaison officers, including retired U.S. police officers.

These officers will work with provincial police chiefs across Iraq, and focus on improving local police forces in nine key cities that have seen intense fighting with the terrorists. By strengthening local police in these cities, we can help Iraqis provide security in areas cleared of enemy forces and make it harder for these thugs to return. And by strengthening Iraqi local police in these cities, we'll help them earn the confidence of the local population, which will make it easier for local leaders and residents to accelerate reconstruction and rebuild their lives.

The training of the Iraqi police is an enormous task and, frankly, it hasn't always gone smoothly. Yet we're making progress -- and our soldiers see the transformation up close. Army Staff Sergeant Dan MacDonald is a Philadelphia cop who helped train Iraqi police officers in Baghdad. He says this of his Iraqi comrades: "From where they were when we got here to where they are now, it's like two different groups of people1/4. They're hyped-up, they look sharp, they're a lot better with their weapons 1/4 I'd take these guys out with me back home." If he's going to take them back home in Philadelphia, they must be improving. (Laughter and applause.)

As we bring more Iraqi police and soldiers online in the months ahead, we will increasingly shift our focus from generating new Iraqi forces to preparing Iraqis to take primary responsibility for the security of their own country. At this moment, more than 35 Iraqi battalions have assumed control of their own areas of responsibility -- including nearly half of the Baghdad province, and sectors of south-central Iraq, southeast Iraq, western Iraq, and north-central Iraq. And in the year ahead, we will continue handing more territory to Iraqi forces, with the goal of having the Iraqis in control of more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006.

As Iraqi forces take more responsibility, this will free up coalition forces to conduct specialized operations against the most dangerous terrorists, like Zarqawi and his associates, so we can defeat the terrorists in Iraq so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.) We will continue to hand over territory to the Iraqis so they can defend their democracy, so they can do the hard work, and our troops will be able to come home with the honor they have earned.

I've said that our strategy in Iraq can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And with more Iraqi forces demonstrating the capabilities needed to achieve victory, our commanders on the ground have determined that we can decrease our combat forces in Iraq from 17 to 15 brigades by the spring of 2006. That's what they've decided. And when they decide something, I listen to them. This adjustment will result in a net decrease of several thousand troops below the pre-election baseline of 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. This decrease comes in addition to the reduction of about 20,000 troops who were in Iraq largely to assist with the security during the December elections.

Later this year, if Iraqis continue to make progress on the security and political sides, we expect to discuss further possible adjustments with the leaders of Iraq's new government. Having said this, all of my decisions will be based upon conditions on the ground, not artificial timetables set by Washington politicians. (Applause.) Our commanders on the ground will have the forces they need to complete the mission and achieve victory in Iraq.

As we help Iraqis defend their democracy, we will continue to help Iraqis build their infrastructure and economy in the coming year. Iraqis face real challenges from the long-term economic damage caused by Saddam Hussein's regime. They face challenges because of acts of sabotage by the enemies of a free Iraq. Yet despite these challenges, our coalition and Iraqi leaders have made progress in a number of areas. Iraq now has a stable currency, an independent stock exchange, an independent Central Bank. Iraqis have new investment laws to welcome foreign capital, tax and commercial laws to encourage private sector growth, and a low-tariff trade regime that has opened Iraq's economy to the world. Under Saddam, private property was not protected. Today, Iraq's new constitution guarantees private property rights that are the foundation of any free society.

Iraqi leaders are also beginning to make the tough choices necessary to reform their economy -- such as easing gasoline subsidies. Until recently, government subsidies put the price of fuel in Iraq at artificially low prices -- really low prices. And that created incentives for black-market corruption and crime -- and changing these subsidies is a necessary step on the path for economic reform. So Iraqi leaders have begun a series of price increases aimed at dismantling the gas subsidy system. That's hard political work. But gasoline subsidies, along with other subsidies, consume over half of Iraq's annual budget; it diverts critical resources from health care and education and infrastructure and security. Addressing these subsidies will allow Iraqi leaders to better provide for their people and build a modern economy.

One of the biggest challenges facing Iraq is restoring the country's oil and electric power infrastructure. These sectors were devastated by decades of neglect. And since liberation, terrorists have targeted these areas for destruction. As a result, oil and power production are below pre-war levels. To help increase production, we're helping Iraqis better maintain their refineries, build their oil supply and transportation capabilities, improve their capacity to generate power, and better protect their strategic infrastructure.

The struggles with oil production and the shortage of electricity remain sources of frustration for the Iraqi citizens. Yet they're putting these challenges in perspective. Today, seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well; nearly two- thirds expect things to improve even more in the next year. The vast majority of Iraqis prefer freedom with intermittent power to life in the permanent darkness of tyranny and terror. Iraqis are optimistic about the future, and their optimism is justified.

To realize their dreams, the Iraqi people still need help. And in the coming year, the international community must step up and do its part. So far, other nations and international organizations have pledged more than $13 billion in assistance to Iraq. Iraqis are grateful for this promised aid. So is the United States. Yet many nations have been slow to make good on their commitments.

I call on all governments that have pledged assistance to follow through with their promises as quickly as possible, so the Iraqis can rebuild their country and provide a better future for their children. Many nations have still not returned all the Iraqi assets frozen during the regime of Saddam Hussein. I call on all nations to return these assets to their rightful owners: The free people of Iraq own those assets, not the foreign governments. (Applause.)

Many of the world's smallest nations have been among the most generous. Last month, for example, Slovakia announced that it plans to forgive a hundred percent of Iraq's $145 million debt. This makes Slovakia only the third country, along with the United States and Malta, to write off Iraqi debt completely. More nations should do the same so the Iraq people are not held back by the crushing burden of debt accumulated by Saddam Hussein.

International lending institutions are also stepping forward with needed assistance. Last month, the International Monetary Fund approved Iraq's request for a $680 million loan to carry out economic reforms. The World Bank recently approved its first loan to Iraq in over 30 years, lending the Iraqi government $100 million to improve the Iraqi school system, and making up to $400 million available to fund water, electricity, roads and sanitation projects.

The international community must meet its responsibilities in Iraq -- and here in America we have responsibilities, as well. The coming year will test the character of our country, and the will of our citizens. We have a strategy for victory -- but to achieve that victory, we must have the determination to see this strategy through. The enemy in Iraq knows they cannot defeat us on the battlefield -- and so they're trying to shake our will with acts of violence, and force us to retreat. That means that our resolve in 2006 must stay strong. We must have patience as Iraqis struggle to build democracy in a volatile region of the world. We must not allow the images of destruction to discourage us, or obscure the real progress our troops are making in Iraq. And we must continue to provide these troops with all the resources they need to defend our nation and prevail in the global war on terror.

We face an added challenge in the months ahead: The campaign season will soon be upon us -- and that means our nation must carry on this war in an election year. There is a vigorous debate about the war in Iraq today, and we should not fear the debate. It's one of the great strengths of our democracy that we can discuss our differences openly and honestly -- even in times of war. Yet we must remember there is a difference between responsible and irresponsible debate -- and it's even more important to conduct this debate responsibly when American troops are risking their lives overseas.

The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see it. They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. And they know the difference between a loyal opposition that points out what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

When our soldiers hear politicians in Washington question the mission they are risking their lives to accomplish, it hurts their morale. In a time of war, we have a responsibility to show that whatever our political differences at home, our nation is united and determined to prevail. And we have a responsibility to our men and women in uniform -- who deserve to know that once our politicians vote to send them into harm's way, our support will be with them in good days and in bad days -- and we will settle for nothing less than complete victory. (Applause.)

We also have an opportunity this year to show the Iraqi people what responsible debate in a democracy looks like. In a free society, there is only one check on political speech -- and that's the judgment of the people. So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account, and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy -- not comfort to our adversaries.

Support for the mission in Iraq should not be a partisan matter. VFW members come from all over the country, and both sides of the political aisle -- yet your position on the war is clear. In a recent resolution, the VFW declared, "it is critical that the United States succeed in Iraq, which will result in stability and security in the region." I appreciate your support for the mission in Iraq, and so do our troops in the fight. Your lives of service, from the first time you put on the uniform to this day, are a credit to our country and an inspiration to our military. A new generation of soldiers, and sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen is now carrying out an urgent and noble mission -- and they're doing so with the same determination and courage as you who came before them.

Some of our finest men and women have given their lives in freedom's cause. Others have returned home with wounds that the best medicine cannot heal. We hold all who sacrificed and their families in our thoughts and in our prayers. And I'm going to make you this pledge: We will not waver, we will not weaken, and we will not back down in the cause they served. (Applause.) By their sacrifice, we are laying the foundation of freedom in a troubled part of the world. And by laying that foundation, we're laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.

Thank you for letting me come by today. God bless. (Applause.)

END

11 A.M. EST

http://www.usnewswire.com/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=100...4b_MWQ&refer=us

U.S. Says Iran May Face UN Action on Nuclear Research (Update1)
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration warned Iran that its decision to resume research on uranium reprocessing may lead to action against the country at the United Nations Security Council.

``There is serious concern within the international community about the regime's behavior,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington. His comment followed a similar statement from Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran's decision to resume research on the nuclear fuel cycle followed two years of voluntary suspension designed to underline the Iranian government's contention that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, in announcing that seals affixed by the IAEA were taken off ``several research centers,'' made a distinction between research and production, which Iran also halted at the IAEA's request in 2003.

Uranium conversion is the second step in mastering the nuclear fuel cycle, which includes mining, conversion, enrichment and reprocessing. Fuel enrichment, which uses a gas obtained through uranium conversion, can be used in the production of weapons-grade uranium.

Iran has been under threat of UN action over its atomic program since September, after the Middle East's No. 2 oil producer said it would no longer abide by an agreement with the European Union to suspend uranium conversion.

IAEA Vote

IAEA inspectors witnessed the removal of seals at Natanz, South of Tehran, the UN nuclear watchdog said.

``Based on the information currently available, the removal of Agency seals at enrichment site of Natanz, and at two related storage and testing locations, Pars Trash and Farayand Technique, will be completed by 11 January 2006,'' the IAEA said.

The U.S. and the EU are concerned that Iran may be seeking to make weapons.

The IAEA board last September voted in favor of referring Iran to the Security Council at a later date, leaving more time for negotiations with the Islamic Republic. The U.S.-backed resolution, submitted by French, German and U.K. diplomats, found Iran in ``non-compliance'' with its nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty obligations.

Iran reacted to that decision by saying it would cancel the suspension of uranium enrichment if the resolution was not amended. Iran already has an enrichment facility in Natanz, which was sealed at IAEA request in 2003.

`Continue Talking'

McClellan declined to say whether the breaking of UN seals alone constituted a resumption of Iran's nuclear program that would spur Security Council action.

``We'll continue talking'' about ``the next step,'' he said. ``If the regime in Iran continues on the current course, there is no other choice but to refer the matter to the Security Council.''

In the Majlis, Iran's parliament, 221 members, or more than three quarters of legislators, signed a statement supporting today's decision, the state-run news agency IRNA reported. They called the suspension of nuclear research a ``major blow to the morale and character'' of Iran's young nuclear scientists.

Russia's Proposal

Russian Foreign Ministry officials discussed with their Iranian counterparts on Jan. 7-8 a proposal allowing Iran to enrich uranium in Russia. The Islamic Republic has already partly rejected the offer, insisting on the ``right'' to carry out enrichment on its own soil. A new round of talks is scheduled next month.

Russia is ``concerned'' about Iran's decision to resume nuclear research, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today, according to RIA Novosti news service.

The European Union, represented in talks with Iran by Britain, France and Germany, has offered closer trade ties as long as Iran's leaders abandon uranium enrichment and reprocessing needed for weapons. The next EU-Iran session is set for Jan. 18 in Vienna, the seat of the IAEA, a UN agency.

``The international community has an imperative to make agreements respected for the security of everyone,'' French President Jacques Chirac told ambassadors to France today in a New Year's address in Paris. Iran and North Korea ``would be committing a serious error in not taking the hand we are offering them.''

U.K. Reaction

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain is ``profoundly concerned'' about today's Iranian decision. ``This amounts to yet another breach of IAEA Board resolutions, as well as the Paris Agreement that Iran signed with the U.K., France and Germany in November 2004.''

IAEA's ElBaradei has called on Iran to cooperate with the UN watchdog, saying, ``I am running out of patience, the international community is running out of patience,'' the Financial Times reported Jan. 7.

The IAEA and ElBaradei, its director general, won last year's Nobel Peace Prize for their work to prevent the military use of nuclear energy.



To contact the reporters on this story:
Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net
Marc Wolfensberger in Tehran at mwolfens@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 10, 2006 11:59 EST

Emergency Systems Ailing
Report Says Most States Are Ill Prepared for Medical Crises

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006; Page A03

Few states are equipped to handle emergency medical crises such as a terrorist attack, a natural disaster or an influenza outbreak, according to an analysis being released today by the American College of Emergency Physicians.

The organization gave an overall grade of C-minus to emergency care in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with more than half earning below-average scores in areas dealing with the availability of hospital beds and emergency specialists, immunization rates, injury-prevention programs, malpractice laws and sophistication of 911 telephone systems.


"A C-minus is horrible," said Angela Gardner, chair of the task force that prepared the first-ever analysis of emergency medical systems. "When my children come home with a C-minus, they get grounded."

Emergency care specialists such as Gardner said they expected to find some deficiencies in a field that has seen budget cuts and rising demand. But the panel was startled at how poorly prepared the nation is as a whole to manage trauma, whether in individual patients or in the event of a large-scale disaster.

"We have no capacity to handle a Hurricane Katrina or an avian flu outbreak," Gardner said in an interview yesterday. "We can barely handle a regular flu outbreak."

Analyzing publicly available data, the task force gave each state and the District an overall letter grade and ratings in four categories: access to emergency care, quality and patient safety, medical liability environment and public health and injury prevention.

No state received an A overall. California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and the District scored the highest, with overall ratings of B. "More than 80 percent of the states earned poor or near-failing grades," the report concluded. At the bottom, earning D grades, were Arkansas, Idaho and Utah, while Virginia scored a D-plus and Maryland got a B-minus.

Locally, the report illustrated how government action -- and inaction -- affect health care. The District nearly failed in the category of public health, largely because it lags far behind in government-funded programs for infants, the elderly and injured workers. Virginia's low grade overall was attributable primarily to a state malpractice system that has sent specialists fleeing to friendlier legal environments, Gardner said.

The report supported what many Americans have experienced directly -- long waits in overcrowded emergency rooms, loss of health insurance, and specialist shortages in areas such as neurosurgery and obstetrics. Many patients are facing higher bills and traveling longer distances to receive needed care, the authors found.

"Even if you are educated, have insurance and have a doctor, you can have an emergency," Gardner said. "You better hope the big red sign out front doesn't say 'No vacancy.' "

"What we need are beds, doctors and nurses," especially doctors and nurses with special training in trauma care, she said.

From 1990 to 1999, hospitals nationwide eliminated 107,000 beds, 7,800 of which were critical-care beds, according to the report. At the same time, more and more people have sought care. Emergency department visits have increased by 5 million a year, hitting 114 million patient visits in 2003, the last year for which data were available.

In many instances, states with wealthier residents fared better than lower-income states. But the task force found exceptions as well. South Carolina and West Virginia, two of the poorest states in the nation, received above-average grades "If the emergency medical system gets a C-minus on an average day, how can it ever be expected to provide expert, efficient care during a natural disaster or terrorist attack?" asked Gardner.

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January 10, 2006
Bush Issues Stark Warning to Democrats on Iraq Debate
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - President Bush issued an unusually stark warning to Democrats today about how to conduct the debate on Iraq as midterm elections approach, declaring that Americans know the difference "between honest critics" and those "who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people."

In a speech here to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Mr. Bush appeared to be issuing a pre-emptive warning to critics at a time when Democrats are divided between those who say the United States should begin a troop withdrawal now and those who have criticized Mr. Bush but say the United States should stay in Iraq as long as necessary.

In some of his most combative language yet directed as his critics, Mr. Bush said Americans should insist on a debate "that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

Mr. Bush was speaking in the same room in a Washington hotel where last month he described the effort to reconstruct Iraq before a skeptical audience: the Council on Foreign Relations, whose members greeted him with only tepid applause. But today 425 members of the V.F.W., which has passed a resolution supporting the Iraq action, interrupted the president repeatedly as he predicted that progress would be made in both fighting the insurgency and stabilizing the newly elected government.

Mr. Bush acknowledged major human rights abuses by the Iraqi police, who he said have been "accused of committing abuses against Iraqi civilians."

"That's unacceptable," he said, adding that the United States was adjusting how it trains Iraqi police officers, including the establishment of a new "Police Ethics and Leadership Institute" in Baghdad that will establish a curriculum for the nine Iraqi police academies. He made no references to disclosures over the past year of American abuses of detainees, in Iraq and elsewhere.

The president acknowledged slow progress in restoring basic services in Iraq, but argued that those problems paled in comparison to the progress he said Iraq was making.

"The vast majority of Iraqis prefer freedom with intermittent power to life in the permanent darkness of tyranny and terror," he said, an amplification of the theme he hit repeatedly in December in an effort to rebuild support for the war at home.

President Bush also pressed countries that have promised aid to Iraq to make good on their pledges. He praised Slovakia and Malta for forgiving all of Iraq's previous debts to those countries - though their concessions amounted to a couple of hundred million dollars. Among large countries, only the United States has forgiven all past Iraqi debt.

But it was Mr. Bush's warning to Democrats that ventured into new territory.

"There is a difference between responsible and irresponsible debate and it's even more important to conduct this debate responsibly when American troops are risking their lives overseas," he said without specifically naming his critics.

In discussing Iraqi politics, the president directly addressed Sunni Arabs, the minority in the new government, saying that "compromise and consensus and power-sharing are the only path to national unity and lasting democracy."

Mr. Bush added that "a country that divides into factions and dwells on old grievances cannot move forward and risks sliding back into tyranny."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Is Uncle Sam Reading Your Mail?

U.S. officials can open personal mail arriving from abroad

By Reuters

"Customs and Border Protection is charged with making sure that terrorists and terrorists' weapons don't enter the country," said Suzanne Trevino, a spokeswoman for the customs agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11510.htm

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January 11, 2006
The Context
Judge Alito Proves a Powerful Match for Senate Questioners
By ADAM LIPTAK
and ADAM NAGOURNEY
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - If Senate Democrats had set out to portray Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as extreme on issues ranging from abortion to government surveillance of citizens, they ran up against an elusive target on Tuesday: Samuel A. Alito Jr. For nearly eight hours, Judge Alito was placid, monochromatic and, it seemed, mostly untouchable.

Unlike the testimony of John G. Roberts Jr., who had often declined to answer questions on various grounds, among them that certain issues might come before him as chief justice or that his older writings did not necessarily reflect his current views, Judge Alito's default impulse frequently seemed to be to try to give a direct response to the senators' often rambling questions.

Failing that, he offered what he presented as clarifications of earlier statements or writing, sanded of any rough edges, or said he simply could not recall details about some past chapter of his life that had raised concern among senators. Only in one exchange did he appear rattled, refusing to give a direct answer when Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York asked him if he still held a view, expressed in 1985, that there was no constitutional right to abortion.

For the most part, his handling of questions from Democrats had the effect of leaving his questioner shuffling through papers in search of the next question.

Judge Alito was not Judge Roberts, to be sure - far less personable, rarely smiling and struggling to draw even the occasional burst of laughter. But he came across as far less ideological than Democrats have suggested, undercutting their efforts to stir public opposition by portraying his writing as outside the American mainstream.

Yes, he said, he once believed that there was no constitutional right to abortion, but at the time he was merely a "a line attorney in the Department of Justice in the Reagan administration," and he would keep an open mind should abortion come before him at the Supreme Court.

Not even a president is above the law, he said, though he added that he did not have enough information to say if he agreed that President Bush had broken the law by authorizing extensive domestic eavesdropping without warrants.

He claimed no memory of having been active in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which opposed the university's affirmative action program for minorities, despite listing his affiliation with the group in a 1985 job application. That lack of memory "left some of us puzzled," said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.

Even when he was pressed to offer his opinion on the landmark Supreme Court decision that awarded the 2000 presidential election to Mr. Bush, Judge Alito said he had not given the case enough attention to offer an opinion, an assertion that left his questioner, Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, rolling his eyes.

But at other times, he silenced Democrats by the directness of his responses. Asked by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts about an endorsement of "the supremacy of the elected branches of government" in the 1985 job application, Judge Alito simply disavowed it.

"It's an inapt phrase," he said, "and I certainly didn't mean that literally at the time, and I wouldn't say that today. The branches of government are equal."

Mr. Kennedy followed up. "So you've changed your mind?" he asked.

"No, I haven't changed my mind, senator," Judge Alito responded. "But the phrasing there is very misleading and incorrect."

To a large extent, Judge Alito's success at skating though a good deal of the day reflected the quality of the questioning. The senators frequently did not follow up on their own queries, and Mr. Biden in particular devoted most of his 30 minutes to talking, leaving little time for the nominee to speak.

Mr. Schumer, whose questioning left Judge Alito looking wobbly and pale, was an exception, as was Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who pressed him on his views about the Supreme Court's authority to overrule precedent. Early in the day, Judge Alito said there "needs to be a special justification for overruling a prior precedent."

Ms. Feinstein asked for an example of such a justification. It took four attempts, but Judge Alito finally listed some decisions in which such justifications figured.

Like Judge Roberts, Judge Alito declined to adopt the terminology of the Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, that the status of Roe v. Wade was "super precedent" or "super duper precedent," a reference to the fact that its core holding had been reaffirmed in later cases. "It sort of reminds me of the size of laundry detergent in the supermarket," Judge Alito said, in one of the very few comments he made that gave rise to laughter.

The nominee said he did believe there was a constitutional right to privacy, based on a 1965 Supreme Court case that overturned a Connecticut law prohibiting married couples from using contraceptives, though he did not take it the next step to argue that such a provision could be extended to abortion.

At a time when members of Congress from both parties are increasingly concerned that the White House has become overly empowered, he also said the president did not have a "blank check" to do what he wanted.

When several Democrats pressed him on a statement he once made calling Judge Robert H. Bork "one of the most outstanding nominees" for the Supreme Court in this century, he said that he had been speaking only in his role as a member of the Reagan administration and that he in fact did not agree with some of Judge Bork's positions.

Judge Alito's command of the law was impressive, but it did not have Judge Roberts's effortless, Olympian quality. In responding to one of many questions about presidential power, for instance, he slightly misstated an element of the framework set out in a 1952 concurring opinion by Justice Robert H. Jackson.

"Do you believe the president has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to override laws enacted by Congress?" asked Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.

"Where the president is exercising executive power in the face of a contrary expression of Congressional will," Judge Alito said, "you'd be in what Justice Jackson called 'the twilight zone,' where the president's power is at its lowest point."

Judge Alito's larger point in describing the opinion was correct, but Justice Jackson's reference to a "zone of twilight" was not to situations where Congress had spoken but, as Justice Jackson wrote in 1952, to "when the president acts in absence of either a Congressional grant or denial of authority."

Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, asked Judge Alito, as he had asked Judge Roberts, whether it was appropriate for American courts to look to the precedents of foreign courts. The differences in their responses were illuminating.

Judge Roberts was crisp. "Looking at foreign law for support," he said, "is like looking out over a crowd and picking out your friends. You can find them. They're there. And that actually expands the discretion of the judge."

Judge Alito was more methodical. "I don't think that foreign law is helpful in interpreting the Constitution," he said, adding that it might be helpful in other contexts, including the interpretation of treaties and of issues in private lawsuits.

Asked by Senator Kyl why he wanted to serve on the Supreme Court, Judge Alito gave an answer that contrasted with Judge Bork's famous response in 1987. Judge Bork, whose nomination was defeated, said the court's work would be "an intellectual feast."

Judge Alito gave a blander, almost bureaucratic answer.

"I think it's an opportunity for me to serve the country," he said, "using whatever talent I have."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 11, 2006
Miners Tried Escape by Rail Car, Family Says
By GARDINER HARRIS
The 13 men trapped after an explosion inside the Sago Mine last week tried to break their way out in a rail car before retreating to create a protective curtain and wait for help, the family of the sole survivor told The Associated Press.

Ben Hatfield, the chief executive of International Coal Group, the mine's owner, told the family that the miners had apparently tried to force their way out but were prevented from doing so by debris, Rick McGee, the brother-in-law of the survivor, Randal McCloy Jr., told The A.P. yesterday.

"They found footprints," Mr. McGee told The A.P., adding that the men "tried to go back out."

"This ain't hearsay," he said. "This came from Hatfield's mouth."

Efforts to reach representatives of International Coal Group late yesterday were unsuccessful.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Lara Ramsburg, told The A.P. yesterday that the state believed that the men had tried to escape.

Also yesterday, federal mine officials made public records of inspections done at the Sago Mine last year that concluded that mine supervisors had repeatedly failed to uncover dangerous conditions before starting a day's production.

Company officials have said that a required preshift inspection done shortly before the explosion on Jan. 2 found no dangerous levels of methane, an explosive gas that is often the cause of mine disasters. But the newly public records indicate that these inspections were often inadequate.

The records also show that the mine had by far the worst safety record last year of any mine its size in West Virginia. Federal inspectors cited the mine 202 times last year, a number that included 16 violations so blatant that they were deemed "unwarrantable failures." None of the six other mines in West Virginia with a similar number of employees were cited for that kind of violation.

Tony Oppegard, a former top official with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and a former prosecutor of mine-safety violations in Kentucky, said in an interview that the documents demonstrated that Sago officials should have been criminally prosecuted before the explosion.

Federal mine regulations allow the mine agency to issue a "pattern of violations" notice when a mine operation fails to correct unsafe conditions, Mr. Oppegard said. When such a notice is issued, parts of a mine are closed if an inspector uncovers a further safety violation, he said.

"This is precisely the sort of situation that Congress envisioned when they put the 'patterns' provision into the statute," Mr. Oppegard said. "You can't just let them violate the law month after month."

In a news briefing on Monday, Robert Friend, the acting deputy assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, said that for the agency to issue such a notice, the "pattern of violations takes a history, more than just a few weeks or a few months." A pattern extending two years could merit such a citation, Mr. Friend said.

Mr. Oppegard called Mr. Friend's answer "ridiculous."

"The law doesn't say it has to go on for years," he said.

Company officials have insisted for more than a week that they were not responsible for the injuries and citations at Sago over the past year because International Coal Group acquired the mine only in November. The Charleston Gazette reported yesterday, however, that Wilbur L. Ross Jr., who formed International Coal, had controlled the company that owns Sago since at least 2001.

Roof Collapse Kills Kentucky Miner

PIKEVILLE, Ky., Jan. 10 (AP) - Part of the roof collapsed Tuesday at a coal mine here, killing one miner, a state official said.

The rock collapse occurred 900 feet inside the Eastern Kentucky mine, owned by the Maverick Mining Company, said Chuck Wolfe, a spokesman for the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing. Mr. Wolfe said the miner killed was the only person harmed. He was identified as Cornelius Yates, 44.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 11, 2006
Editorial
Lost Time, Lost Lives in the Mine
The haunting question from the deadly mine disaster in Sago, W.Va., last week becomes ever clearer: Why did it take nearly 12 hours for enough rescuers to gather so they could attempt their first descent toward the 13 miners trapped with limited emergency oxygen? The explosion occurred at 6:30 in the morning in the rural Appalachian mine, as the work shift headed in. The first rescue team was not at the scene until 1:30, seven hours later. It had to wait for a second team, the backup required by law, and that could not be assembled from the far corners of the coal region until after 5:30 in the evening.

This devastating timeline is at the core of a detailed report by Ken Ward Jr., a reporter for The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, that questions whether some of the 12 fatalities might have been prevented by a faster, better-organized rescue effort. Signs of hope persisted for 10 hours into the tragedy, according to one desperate note found down below.

The emerging facts are not encouraging about the roles of government safety officers and of the companies that are so routinely allowed to dominate in running the mines, even down to the rescue effort at Sago. National requirements about maintaining readily available rescue teams have gradually been allowed to erode in the 29 years since the last overhaul of mine regulations. The law stipulates that at least two teams be at or near each mine; the reality is that this standard has slipped to where only one team is on hand for every four mines. The number of trained rescuers has dwindled alarmingly in parallel with the rise of mechanization and the reduction in the number of manned crews.

At the same time, vital positions at the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration have gone unfilled in recent years, inviting only further laxity on the part of companies that have been allowed to outsource their safety responsibilities to off-site contractors that are not subject to regular federal inspections. And the safety administration, which once maintained rescue experts at regional offices, now has them dispersed across the nation on the theory that they can be summoned fast enough to save lives.

Warning signs have abounded in recent years. Yet The Gazette found that a plan begun a decade ago to upgrade the mine rescue program was quietly scuttled by the Bush administration. The pro-company bias of the administration is itself a factor deserving full investigation if the inquiries now being promised are to have any credible effect.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 11, 2006
Team of Career Prosecutors Negotiated Lobbyist's Deal
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - The plea agreement from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which has the potential for a multitude of legal troubles for Congressional Republicans, has been largely the work of a team of career prosecutors in the Justice Department led by an avid surfer and early Bruce Springsteen fan from New Jersey.

The team leader, Noel L. Hillman, chief of the department's Office of Public Integrity, began his government career bringing cases in New Jersey involving the arcane issue of export control restrictions.

As a young lawyer, Mr. Hillman developed a specialty in that field, said Robert J. Cleary, the former chief federal prosecutor for New Jersey. Mr. Cleary, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, recalled that Mr. Hillman successfully prosecuted a major aircraft parts dealer for selling missile and jet fighter parts to Iran, as well as an Argentine banker who was linked to a $500 million scheme to defraud American banks and the Argentine government.

Mr. Hillman moved into the area of official corruption prosecutions with the federal investigation of former Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey. Mr. Hillman prosecuted David Chang, who pleaded guilty to funneling illegal contributions to Mr. Torricelli's campaign, and told prosecutors he had also given the senator cash and gifts. Mr. Torricelli, a Democrat, dropped his 2002 re-election bid after accusations of ethical missteps and an admonishment from the Senate Ethics Committee for his relationship with Mr. Chang.

In a brief interview, Mr. Hillman, 49, said cases with political dimensions like the one involving Mr. Abramoff invoked "a recognition and tradition in the Department of Justice that these kinds of cases must be treated as the law requires, regardless of politics."

"This has been the case under both Democratic and Republican presidents," he said.

Eric H. Holder Jr., deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, supported the view of the Office of Public Integrity as inoculated from politics.

"Traditionally the people who work in Public Integrity are among the best career lawyers in government," Mr. Holder said, "and they are as nonpartisan a group as you can get. When I interacted with them as the deputy attorney general, I never knew if anyone was a Democrat or a Republican. It didn't matter."

Bryan Sierra, a Justice Department spokesman, said the Abramoff investigation was conducted exclusively by career lawyers like Mr. Hillman; Mary C. Butler, who did much of the negotiating with Mr. Abramoff's lawyers; and Paul Pelletier of the department's fraud section. Their decisions are overseen by political appointees, notably Alice S. Fisher, who leads the department's criminal division.

Mr. Sierra said the public integrity section's prosecutions, up to 70 in 2005 from 52 in 2001, had included Democratic targets as well as Republican ones.

Mr. Sierra declined to say what role, if any, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the department's chief political appointee and a longtime adviser to President Bush, played in the Abramoff case or what role he might play in future deliberations about information obtained from Mr. Abramoff.

Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to three felony counts on Jan. 3, was generally known for his dealings with Republicans. His strong connections to Republican Congressional leaders is why his cooperation with prosecutors is widely viewed as alarming news for the Republican Party.

Joshua Berman, a Washington lawyer who worked in the Office of Public Integrity under Mr. Hillman, said the culture there clearly prevented any political interference. But Mr. Berman said it was inevitable that cases with higher profiles received more scrutiny from senior department officials.

"The greater the sensitivity, the more involvement from the front office," Mr. Berman said. That could include decisions about whether and what charges to bring as well as how prosecutions should be presented to the news media.

"But there was never any political meddling," he said.

Mr. Berman said that Ms. Butler, a federal prosecutor in Florida before joining the office about six years ago, was known for her willingness to pore over records and that her political leanings, if any, were unknown to people in the office.

Mr. Hillman, according to officials in the Senate as well as in the administration, may soon be nominated for a federal judgeship in New Jersey, a position for which he has received the approval of the state's two Democratic senators.

Mr. Cleary recalled how Mr. Hillman would take off at a moment's notice to some surfing site. His older brother, Rick, was a professional surfer, and they knew Mr. Springsteen from the time the singer lived and rehearsed at a surfboard factory at the Jersey Shore.

Mr. Hillman was a board member of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental organization in California that works to keep coastlines around the country clean. Michelle Kremer, the group's legal counsel, said he remained an important adviser to the group.

Mr. Hillman graduated from Monmouth College and Seton Hall Law School. He was first hired as an assistant federal prosecutor by Michael Chertoff, then the United States attorney for New Jersey and now homeland security secretary.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

Probe Set In NSA Bugging

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; A04



The National Security Agency's inspector general has opened an investigation into eavesdropping without warrants in the United States by the agency authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a letter released late yesterday.

The Pentagon's acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, wrote that his counterpart at the NSA "is already actively reviewing aspects of that program" and has "considerable expertise in the oversight of electronic surveillance," according to the letter sent to House Democrats who have requested official investigations of the NSA program.

Gimble's letter appears to confirm that an internal investigation into the NSA's domestic eavesdropping program, authorized by Bush in a secret order revealed in recent weeks, is underway. The Justice Department has opened a separate criminal investigation into the leak of the highly classified program's existence.

Officials in NSA Inspector General Joel Brenner's office could not be reached for comment last night.

A group of 39 House Democrats wrote Gimble and other officials last month requesting investigations into the legality of the NSA program. Gimble responded that his office would decline to launch its own investigation because of the ongoing NSA probe.

Another inspector general, Glenn A. Fine of the Justice Department, told the same group of lawmakers in a recent letter that his office does not have jurisdiction. The Democrats responded with a letter to Fine on Monday, arguing that both the inspector general statute and the USA Patriot Act require Fine's office to get involved.

Bush, who has joined his aides in an unusually public defense of the secret program, said last month that "the NSA's activities under this authorization are thoroughly reviewed by the Justice Department and NSA's top legal officials, including NSA's general counsel and inspector general."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said NSA's inspector general should not be conducting an investigation if the office has played a role in approving the program.

"The inspector general for NSA has repeatedly reviewed this and okayed it, . . . so I don't know how his investigation is going to get a new set of eyes on this," Lofgren said. "How are they going to be able to investigate themselves?"

Justice officials said the request has been referred to the department's Office of Professional Responsibility. As the current attorney general and previous White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales played a central role in reviewing the wiretapping effort's legality and has strongly defended it in recent public statements.


Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Scope of US Presidential Power Again an Issue
By Gary Thomas
Washington
10 January 2006

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Samuel Alito
One key issue dominating the hearings on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court is the scope of presidential power. The issue has been around since the founding of the United States. The terrorist threat has caused it to be raised again.

The scope of presidential power has proved to be one of the most vexing issues running through American history.

Presidential scholars say the issue becomes especially acute in times of war or crisis.

The wording of the U.S. Constitution simply grants the president unspecified "executive powers" and makes him commander in chief of military forces. The powers of Congress are spelled out in more detail than those of the president. As a result, Congress and the president have often clashed over just how much power a president can exercise.

Since September 11th, 2001, President Bush has compared the war on terror to the more traditional forms of nation-to-nation warfare. He has said this gives him wartime powers and the latitude to order the detention of terrorism suspects indefinitely and to conduct electronic surveillance, without court warrants, on U.S. citizens suspected of links to terrorism.

President Bush has said that the constitution, as well as the Congressional authorization to use force against terrorism, grants him the inherent power for actions like the warrantless surveillance.

"Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely," said Mr. Bush. "As I mentioned in my remarks, the legal authority is derived from the Constitution, as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress."

But a new memorandum issued Thursday by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service disagrees, saying the administration's legal justification for the warrantless surveillance is not so clear-cut as the administration claims.

This sort of dispute is why the Alito Supreme Court nomination hearing has focused so intently on presidential powers. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont made his concern about the issue clear on the opening day.

"At a time when this administration seems intent on accumulating unchecked power, Judge Alito's views on executive power are especially important," said Mr. Leahy. "It's important to know if he would serve with judicial independence or as a surrogate for the President nominating him."

Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of political science at Dickenson College and presidential scholar, says the current claims of executive power are rooted in Vice President Dick Cheney's experience in earlier presidential administrations, when Congress moved to limit the chief executive's prerogatives.

"Well, certainly after 9/11 you have a very aggressive claim to unilateral and exclusive executive power by the president," he said. "Actually, the vice president perhaps has been the most vocal about this. He was a staffer in the Nixon and Ford administrations when Congress really was surging ahead and seems to hold a 30-year grudge against the legislative body."

The Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal, and revelations of domestic spying on American citizens caused Congress in the 1970s to pass laws limiting executive authority. Among them was the War Powers Act, which sought to curb the president's authority to wage war without congressional approval.

David Adler, a presidential scholar at Idaho State University, says those attempts to limit presidential powers had little practical effect.

"Well, there were efforts by Congress in the aftermath of the Vietnam war to reassert its power," he noted. "Unfortunately, those legislative efforts amounted to little more than toy handcuffs because in the example of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress did not in fact reclaim its control over war power, which in fact the constitution vests in Congress, but Congress ended up giving the president more authority than the president enjoys under the constitution."

Professor Rudalevige says presidents have worked around congressional limitations through administrative tools such as executive orders and regulations in the vast government bureaucracy. Scholars say President Reagan was able to recover much of the lost presidential power.

Benjamin Kleinerman, a presidential scholar at Virginia Military Institute, says that in recent years Congress has been reluctant to reassert itself and looks to courts, especially the Supreme Court, for help.

"It's decided best when it's, in a way, decided politically, with congress asserting its powers over and against the president, and the president reasserting his powers over and against Congress," he explained. "And these questions have tended to work themselves out politically. Congress now tends to look to the Supreme Court to check the president rather than doing it themselves. In other words, they're hoping that the court will curb the president's power."

In writings early in his career, Judge Alito took a permissive view of presidential powers in intelligence and security matters. But under questioning, he said no president or court is above the law.

Bush Says Iraq Criticism Aides Adversaries
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

President Bush warned Democratic critics of his Iraq policy on Tuesday to watch what they say or risk giving "comfort to our adversaries" and suffering at the ballot box in November. Democrats said Bush should take his own advice.

There are still 10 months left before congressional elections in which the president's Republican Party could lose its dominance of Capitol Hill; a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found Americans prefer Democratic control over a continued GOP majority by 49 percent to 36 percent. But Bush is wasting no time engaging the battle. In his first speech of 2006 on the road, last week in Chicago, he aggressively challenged Democrats on the economy.

Tuesday's equally sharp message represented an attempt by the president to neutralize Democrats' ability to use Iraq — where violence is surging in the wake of December parliamentary elections and messy negotiations to form a new coalition government — as an election-year cudgel against Republicans.

Bush acknowledged deep differences over Iraq among casualty-weary Americans, just 39 percent of whom approve of his handling of the war, according to AP-Ipsos. Without specifically mentioning Democrats, the president urged campaigning politicians to "conduct this debate responsibly."

He said he welcomed "honest critics" who question the way the war is being conducted and the "loyal opposition" that points out what is wrong with his administration's approach.

But he termed irresponsible the "partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil or because of Israel or because we misled the American people," as well as "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right." With that description, Bush lumped the many Democrats who have accused him of twisting prewar intelligence with the few people, mostly outside the mainstream, who have raised the issues of oil and Israel.

Bush argued that irresponsible discussion harms the morale of troops overseas, emboldens the insurgents they are fighting and sets a bad example for Iraqis trying to establish a democratic government.

"In a free society, there's only one check on political speech and that's the judgment of the American people," the president said to sustained applause from a friendly audience, a gathering of Veterans of Foreign Wars. "So I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account and demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our adversaries."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan would not say who Bush believes has been irresponsible, other than Democratic Party chief Howard Dean, who said last month that "the idea that we're going to win this war ... is just plain wrong." In the past, the White House has also singled out, among others, Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), the Pennsylvania Democrat who became a leading advocate for a quick troop pullout, and other Democrats who say Bush has no strategy.

Democrats said Bush has no business trying to define what sort of talk is acceptable.

"Patriotic Americans will continue to ask the tough questions because our brave men and women in Iraq, their families and the American people deserve to know that their leaders are being held accountable," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said loyalty demands that Democrats differ with Bush on the lack of sufficient body armor for troops and other issues. "From its inception and continuing to this moment, the absence of open and honest debate has been one of the hallmarks of this war," the California Democrat said.

And Democratic National Committee communications director Karen Finney said: "The Bush administration's attack, distract and distort tactics reflect a Nixonian paranoia that is un-American. It's shameful that once again the Bush administration resorted to attacking the patriotism of fellow Americans rather than answering legitimate questions surrounding the president's failures in Iraq."

Rep. Adam Schiff (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., who met with Bush recently at the White House, praised the president's recent efforts to gather differing viewpoints and welcomed the call for a more civil dialogue. But Schiff said the process must begin at the White House, which he said "brought the debate down a significant notch" when it attacked Murtha, a respected veteran and longtime hawk.

"Some of the worst culprits in worsening the dialogue on Iraq have come from the White House," said Schiff, who attended Bush's speech. "It's got to be a two-way street."

It was the latest in a series of speeches by Bush aimed at giving Americans more detail and more candor. He predicted more sacrifice and more progress in 2006 in Iraq.

Over the next year, Bush said, "we will continue handing more territory to Iraqi forces, with the goal of having the Iraqis in control of more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006."

The still-unannounced results of Iraq's Dec. 15 elections are expected to show the religious Shiite United Iraqi Alliance with a strong lead. The Shiites will, however, will need to form a coalition government with support from Kurdish and Sunni Arab political groups.

Bush said Iraqis must put aside political, religious and sectarian differences to be successful.

Sunnis, he said, "need to learn how to use their influence constructively in a democratic system," while Shiites and Kurds must "protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority."

___

On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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Turmoil in Iraq Is Part of Progress, Bush Says

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Page A17

President Bush warned Americans yesterday that they can expect to see more violence in Iraq over the next year but called this the price of progress as the country stands up its own security forces and moves toward democracy.

Speaking to members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush said that in the coming weeks Iraq is likely to be the scene of "a good deal of political turmoil" as factions jockey for position and vie for power. Rather than being alarmed by those developments, he said, "we should welcome this for what it is: freedom in action."



(Evan Vucci - AP)

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"Out of the turmoil in Iraq, a free government will emerge that represents the will of the Iraqi people, instead of the will of one cruel dictator," Bush said.

The president's remarks to 425 people at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington came during a time of surging violence in Iraq, where more than 200 Iraqis and 16 U.S. troops have been killed since last Wednesday. It also marked the latest in a series of speeches he has given since December, aimed at more specifically outlining his administration's strategy for Iraq and spotlighting progress there, while sketching a balanced picture of what it will take to earn victory in the unpopular war.

With federal midterm elections later this year, Bush said he expects Iraq to be a continuing source of political contention. But, in a thinly veiled warning to his Democratic critics, he called on voters to demand a responsible debate "that brings credit to our democracy, not comfort to our enemies."

"The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see it," he said. "They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel or because we misled the American people."

The president also called on nations and international organizations that pledged money to help rebuild Iraq to follow through on their promises. Speaking to reporters later, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that very little of the $13 billion pledged for Iraq reconstruction during a 2003 donors conference in Madrid has been collected -- something Bush wants to change.

"Iraqis are grateful for this promised aid. So is the United States," Bush said. "Yet, many nations have been slow to make good on their commitments." He also asked nations to write off debt owed by Iraq and to release assets frozen under the government of Saddam Hussein. "I call on all nations to return these assets to their rightful owners: the free people of Iraq who own those assets, not foreign governments," he said.

In his remarks, Bush said that over the next year U.S. military commanders plan to focus more closely on preparing Iraqi police, whose training has been lagging. Part of that will involve training on human rights and ethics, a move being made in response to evidence that some Iraqi police officers had abused citizens to settle old scores.

"That's unacceptable," Bush said of the abuse reports. "That's unacceptable to the United States government; it's unacceptable to the Iraqi government, as well."

As the year progresses, Bush said the United States will be able to reduce troop levels in Iraq as Iraqi security forces take control of more of the country. "We will continue to hand over territory to the Iraqis so they can defend their democracy, so they can do the hard work, and our troops will be able to come home with the honor they have earned," he said.

Bush also repeated previous Pentagon assertions that by spring troop levels in Iraq would be reduced to several thousand below the pre-election baseline of 138,000. Those cuts would come in addition to the decrease of 20,000 troops who were in the country largely to provide security during the December elections.

Any further troop reductions, he said, would come as a result of consultations with Iraqi leaders and will be contingent on the progress of both Iraqi security forces and the stability of the newly elected government. "All my decisions will be based upon conditions on the ground," Bush said.

The president acknowledged that reconstruction in Iraq has moved slowly, as terrorists have focused on strategic targets for repeated attacks. Both oil and electricity production in the country are below prewar levels, and restoring those services remains one of the biggest challenges facing Iraq.

Despite that, Bush said that most Iraqis are upbeat about the future: "The vast majority of Iraqis prefer freedom with intermittent power to life in the permanent darkness of tyranny and terror."