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Top Enron Figures Head to Court
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The conspiracy and fraud trial of the former chairman and CEO is set to begin next week.

By Thomas S. Mulligan
Times Staff Writer

January 25 2006

The recipe for the defense in the long-awaited Enron Corp. trial opening in Houston next week appears to be one part denial and one part defiance.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-enro...a-home-business

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/PO2...midt.FINAL2.pdf

The Urgent Need to Strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime
Pierre Goldschmidt

January 26, 2006
Big Test Looms for Prosecutors at Enron Trial
By KURT EICHENWALD
In the court of public opinion, they were convicted long ago. But as Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, the onetime leaders of Enron, step into a court of law next week, the outcome of their fraud trial is far from certain, creating one of the most closely watched and hotly contested white-collar criminal cases ever.

On one side of the Houston federal courtroom starting Monday will be two top-flight teams of defense lawyers, who will be taking the risky approach of proclaiming many of the controversial actions of Enron and some much-criticized statements of their clients to be legal and truthful.

On the other, the prosecutors for the Justice Department's Enron Task Force who have racked up an impressive array of guilty pleas in the case, but whose performance at trial has been decidedly less dazzling.

"For the government, if they lose the Enron case, it will be seen as a symbolic failure of their rather significant campaign against white-collar crime," said John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School. "It will be seen as some evidence that some cases are too complicated to be brought into the criminal justice process."

Of the three major Enron-related criminal cases brought by the government before juries, guilty verdicts stand from only one, which involved Enron's booking what the government said were phantom profits on the sale of Nigerian barges to Merrill Lynch. A second case, against the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, was thrown out by the Supreme Court on appeal. The third, involving the broadband division of Enron, resulted in no convictions, but the five defendants await a retrial.

Those cases involved narrower accusations of wrongdoing than those against Mr. Skilling, 52, who has been charged with dozens of counts, including fraud, conspiracy and insider trading, and Mr. Lay, 63, who is accused of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. Indeed, this trial will be the first time that the government's theory of the existence of an overarching criminal conspiracy at the company has been put to the test.

Learning its lesson from previous corporate fraud trials involving Enron and other companies, the government is expected to keep this trial as simple as possible to avoid confusing and boring the jury. Riding on the prosecution's success, experts said, is public support.

The implications of the outcome of the case against Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling, whose names have become fused to the scandals that have exploded across corporate America in recent years, are sure to be felt far beyond the courtroom.

"Most people in the white-collar world would agree that Enron is the granddaddy of all frauds in the last two decades," said Stephen L. Meagher, a former federal prosecutor who is now a lawyer in San Francisco. "How this comes out is a test of the limits of what the corporate community will tolerate in business practices."

The importance of the trial to both the government and the defense is underscored by the millions of dollars each side is committing to the case.

Mr. Skilling, for example, has hired Daniel Petrocelli, a top civil lawyer who has no criminal trial experience but made his name winning a $33.5 million verdict for the family of Ronald Goldman in a wrongful-death suit against O. J. Simpson. Mr. Skilling alone has some two dozen people, half of them lawyers, working full time at a makeshift office near the courthouse. Several more are employed as trial consultants helping with jury selection, which begins Monday.

The government is also committing significant resources, with 8 lawyers and 10 agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation working exclusively on this case.

In presenting the case, the government will be depicting a company where law breaking was commonplace. In official reports from the government, the bankruptcy court and the independent directors of Enron, and in the guilty pleas of former executives, Enron has emerged as a company that failed to follow the dictates of federal securities laws, with executives who deceived investors, directors and, in some cases, one another. While that is helpful to prosecutors, experts said that the government would have to be wary of focusing too much on the broad problems within the company.

"To the extent this becomes more of a trial about Enron and less of a trial about Skilling and Lay, that is likely to play into the defense's strategy to put the accounting techniques on trial rather than the individuals," said Robert A. Mintz, a former federal prosecutor who is now head of white-collar criminal defense at McCarter & English in Newark.

The defense case will focus on the requirements and dictates of accounting and securities rules. While both defendants deny knowledge of some of the brazen crimes, like transactions that resulted in millions of dollars from Enron's coffers being drained into other executives' personal bank accounts, there will be little effort to distance themselves from some of the financial dealings that have become infamous over the last few years. These include Enron's use of byzantine off-books partnerships that helped pretty up the company's balance sheet and improve its income statement.

Instead, according to people who know both men, their statements and actions will be defended with a simple response: their business practices may have been aggressive, but everything they did was lawful. Both men, who are expected to testify, plan to maintain that many of the accounting and financial decisions were both correct and appropriately disclosed, and their statements about them were truthful.

There are dangers to this strategy. At times, the defense — particularly that of Mr. Skilling, who is charged with playing a direct role in some of the partnership deals — will have to maintain that accounting rules allowed Enron to exaggerate earnings or hide losses, practices that strike outside experts as bizarre and that jurors may have a hard time accepting. There is the complexity of explaining why, if so much of what Enron did was legal and the company's finances were as strong as the executives maintain, the company quickly collapsed into bankruptcy.

There is also one final challenge, which experts refer to as the Simon problem. In a decision from the early 1970's in United States v. Simon, a federal court held that compliance with accounting rules is not, in itself, enough to disprove an accusation of fraud. In that case, the court held that there was also a positive duty for full and fair disclosure under the securities laws, which might not be met simply by following generally accepted accounting principles.

That these executives and this case would ultimately serve as a symbol of an era of corporate corruption might have seemed laughable five years ago, when Enron was repeatedly proclaimed by Wall Street and academics as among the best of the best, a cutting-edge company redefining the boundaries of business.

The government, however, hopes to bring in evidence that it contends will prove that Mr. Lay oversaw a reckless organization from soon after its founding as a gas pipeline company in 1985 with the merger of Houston Natural Gas and Internorth of Omaha. By early 1987, Mr. Lay, then the chairman and chief executive, was confronted with evidence of potential financial wrongdoing by top executives at Enron's oil trading unit in Valhalla, N.Y.

The government will seek to admit testimony that despite hearing the evidence, Mr. Lay allowed the executives to remain and, months later, those same executives committed other improper acts that exposed Enron to as much as $1 billion in losses. While prosecutors have been arguing that they should be allowed to present the Valhalla episode to the jury to show that Mr. Lay had a pattern of tolerating wrongdoers, the federal judge who is hearing the case, Simeon T. Lake III, has not issued a final ruling on whether he will allow such evidence.

A crucial witness in the government's case will be Andrew S. Fastow, the former Enron chief financial officer who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the prosecution.

Mr. Fastow was a specialist in the growing business of structured finance, a technique that companies use to gain access to new capital by essentially selling off portions of their risk through the use of off-books partnerships. When such transactions are done properly, at least 3 percent of the entity's capital is contributed by an independent investor. Under the accounting rules, assets sold to the entity can then be moved off the balance sheet and the purchase price can be reported as revenue.

By 1996, Mr. Fastow began committing crimes through use of the off-the-books entities for personal enrichment. He arranged to be the 3 percent investor himself — a strategy that would not have met the accounting standards for independence — then set up elaborate schemes in which bogus "investors" stood in as fronts for him. In one deal, called RADR, Mr. Fastow funneled money to various investors, who then returned profits to him. In another, called Chewco, Mr. Fastow allowed a close colleague, Michael J. Kopper, to control the 3 percent investor, then accepted kickbacks on the deal.

While neither RADR nor Chewco appear in the criminal indictments against Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling, the defense lawyers have already argued that they need to explore both transactions in front of the jury to try to prove that Mr. Fastow had a pattern of hiding illicit personal profits from his bosses.

It is this point — from Mr. Fastow's crimes beginning in 1996 to the charges against Mr. Skilling for actions years later — that will serve as a crucial battleground, with both the defense and the government fighting over the questions that the jurors should be asking themselves.

If Mr. Fastow engaged in crimes involving RADR and Chewco without the knowledge of his superiors, the defense argues, how can the jury believe that he told his bosses in later years about similar illegal acts that were used to manipulate Enron's financial reports? But, the government will counter, would Mr. Fastow — along with other executives who have pleaded guilty, including Richard A. Causey, the former chief accounting officer — have engaged in subsequent illegal acts that seemed to solely benefit the company without consulting superiors?

Numerous allegations against both Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling relate little to Mr. Fastow. Instead, they portray the executives as consistently working to disguise the true economic realities of Enron in violation of federal securities laws.

The economic underpinnings of Enron — already shaky from years of aggressive accounting tactics coupled with lightning-fast growth that entailed huge capital investments — began to become unhinged in 1998. That summer, Enron entered into a series of new, capital intensive transactions that ultimately proved to be abject financial disasters, including a venture into the water business and the purchase of a portion of an electricity distribution plant in Brazil.

The government's case is built not so much on showing that Enron was destroyed by fraud, but rather on showing that fraud, including the suspected deceptions by Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling, prevented the marketplace from knowing how badly things were going inside the company. But the cases against the two men are very different. Mr. Skilling faces the most complex series of allegations, which essentially accuse him of leading a concerted effort to make Enron appear more financially sound than it actually was.

Through the use of the off-books partnerships, the company avoided reporting losses and was able to generate tens of millions of dollars in profit. It wrote up the value of certain assets when it needed income, and did not write them back down when circumstances changed. It entered into transactions in which there were secret buyback agreements that would have required accountants, had they known, to remove the related profits from the company's books. All of this, according to the indictment, involved Mr. Skilling.

The charges against Mr. Lay are far narrower, on the other hand. He is not accused of involvement in the partnership machinations; rather, the vast majority of the allegations against him involve public statements he made in the final few months of Enron's existence. The government says that many of those statements, including upbeat assessments of the company's liquidity and business performance, were lies through which Mr. Lay continued the earlier deceptions involving Mr. Skilling.

In many ways, it is fitting for Enron's tale to end with a trial that is widely viewed as a verdict on business practices in the late 1990's. When it was flying high, the energy giant was celebrated from boardrooms to business schools as a lodestar for the future of the corporate world, the embodiment of a company that got everything right. But with its agonizing collapse into bankruptcy in 2001 — costing investors billions and pushing thousands of employees out onto the street — it became emblematic of everything wrong in corporate America.

"Enron has become a poster child for an era, so I think people will remember what happens at this trial more than any other white-collar trial that occurs," said Linnea Bernard McCord, associate professor of business law at the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. "It made a real imprint on everybody's psyche."

Alexei Barrionuevo contributed reporting from Houston for this article.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

January 26, 2006
Prognosis Is Mixed for Health Savings
By MILT FREUDENHEIM
President Bush has made "consumer-directed" health savings plans a cornerstone of his policy for addressing runaway medical costs, and he plans to push them again in the State of the Union address next week. But so far there is little evidence that the approach is helping many consumers come to grips with the high price of health care.

In a way, the early results do offer some hope. More than two million people have signed up for the plans, which were created as part of Medicare overhaul legislation in 2003 but were not an option for many people until the health insurance sign-up season last fall. While that is a tiny fraction of the 180 million Americans with health insurance, some experts say the numbers show a notably fast adoption rate for a complicated new consumer program.

By other measures, though, workers and employers have been slow to embrace health savings plans, which are intended to reduce corporate health care costs while giving individuals more control of their medical spending.

In essence, health savings plans are high-deductible insurance policies that people can obtain through their employers or buy independently from insurance companies. In exchange for paying at least the first $1,050 of their medical expenses each year (or for families, a deductible of the first $2,100, consumers are supposed to benefit in two ways: lower monthly premiums and the ability to put pretax dollars into a savings account that grows tax-free.

Those savings, in theory, could be used toward the deductible in future years and help pay additional health bills not covered by the underlying insurance policy. As with a 401(k) retirement account, the health savings are the individual's to keep when changing employers — a portability feature that Bush administration officials like to cite.

But in many cases, people have evidently signed up not because they are eager to direct their own medical spending but because the plan looked cheap or they had no other insurance option. And at least half of those enrolled have not put money in their health savings accounts. So there will be no money building up for next year's out-of-pocket expenses — a big selling point for these health plans.

In addition, many employers have been slow to offer the plans. And companies that do so have been reluctant to encourage worker participation by contributing money to the savings accounts. The employers figure that "portability" means that their money will go out the door with workers who leave.

"That is our main concern," said Eric Airola, benefits director of J. B. Hunt Transport Services, a trucking company based in Lowell, Ark. "Turnover in the truckload industry as a whole is very high," he said.

As the plans were conceived, people using their own money could be expected to spend less on health care, switching to lower-cost drugs, for example, and adopting healthier lifestyles. Employers were promised savings as they shifted responsibility to workers for thousands of dollars in costs. Uninsured employees of small companies and self-employed people would be able to set aside pretax dollars for low-cost, limited coverage.

But for those who criticized the idea of health savings plans from the start, the early results simply confirm their gloomier forecasts. The critics say this approach is increasing many people's out-of-pocket expenses and warn that it will make them less likely to seek routine preventive care that might stave off bigger problems down the road.

Pat Schoeni, executive director of the National Coalition on Health Care, a group seeking better, more affordable medical care, said, "The savings accounts are not designed to help people pay for health care; they are designed to help employers unload their health care costs."

Mr. Bush, in his weekly radio talk last Saturday, said he would call on Congress in the State of the Union speech to make the plans "more available, more affordable and more portable." Among other steps, White House officials say, he will propose raising the tax-free contribution ceiling, which for 2006 is $2,700 for individuals and $5,450 for families.

Frank McArdle, a health policy expert in Washington for Hewitt Associates, the big benefits-consulting firm, predicted that "expanding health savings accounts to make them more attractive to employers and their people will be a hot issue in Congress this year."

For people with modest incomes who are hard put to save for medical needs or much else, raising the contribution limit may be a moot point. But for those who have the money to set aside, the savings accounts can be attractive.

Eric Kok, 32, a printing and packaging company manager in Lancaster, Pa., says he will put part of his pay this year into a tax-free health savings account. "Because I'm young, I'm still maxing out my 401(k)," he said of his retirement plan at the Banta Corporation. He calls that Step 1. "Step 2 is opening a health savings account and trying to put as much into it as possible."

He and his wife, Susan, who has her own insurance from her employer, together have a six-figure income. Mr. Kok said that when he retires, he can use the health savings tax-free for care and for premiums in the company's retiree health plan. If he dies with a balance in the account, his survivors can inherit the money, as with a 401(k) account.

Stacy Ryan, the benefits manager at Banta, said the company saw the plan as "the new wave of health care." Banta added health savings accounts and eliminated company-subsidized health benefits for its 4,000 nonunion workers this year.

She said the health savings plan had already had "a huge impact" on employees' actions. They are "making better decisions, such as not going to the emergency room if it is not an emergency."

Based on the acceptance of health maintenance organizations in the 1980's, some industry analysts predict the pace of people signing up for the plans will continue to grow quickly. Forrester Research, a market research firm, projects that nearly 22 million people will have health savings plans by January 2008 — about 12 percent of those with insurance.

While nonunion employees of Banta have no insurance alternative, workers at large companies that still offer a choice have been slow to abandon coverage like H.M.O.'s and preferred-provider networks.

At I.B.M., only "a very small number" of employees have selected the health savings account option, according to Marianne E. DeFazio, the director of global health benefits, who declined to provide a specific figure. Industry experts estimated that 3 percent of I.B.M. employees had signed up for the savings plans, which the company has offered for the last two enrollment periods.

UnitedHealth Group, the largest provider of the savings plans, says that of the 24 million people insured under its various types of policies, 654,000 now have health savings plans. But so far, only about half have started setting aside money, a spokesman, Daryl Richard, said.

Among UnitedHealth's policy holders, a larger number — 846,000 — are still covered under an older type of policy that, like health savings plans, has low premiums and high annual deductibles. But instead of employees' setting aside money, the employer contributes to an account that gradually grows in value and is available for the employee to draw down for health expenses.

The money in these plans, known as health reimbursement accounts, reverts to the employer when workers leave their jobs. That is one reason some large employers are sticking with this older form of insurance.

Schneider National, a big trucking company in Green Bay, Wis., went further last year and chose such a plan as its only insurance option.

A happy beneficiary of Schneider's insurance plan is Lara Hobbs, 36, of Spring Hill, Fla. Ms. Hobbs, who drives 18-wheelers cross-country, has the liver disease hepatitis C. "It's terminal and deadly unless you cure it," said Ms. Hobbs, who is being treated with an expensive drug, a form of alpha interferon. "I've already been tested," she said. The hepatitis was not detectable. "They are hoping that I've beat it."

Last year, Schneider contributed $750 to Ms. Hobbs's health reimbursement account. She paid $1,500 more herself. But beyond that, her insurance covered 100 percent of weekly injections and six pills a day, whose total cost exceeded $50,000 — more than her annual income.

For Schneider, the first year was "pretty challenging," a spokeswoman, Janet Bonkowski, said. "There was a lot of learning that goes on. Our associates had to become much more involved and active in their care." But Schneider saved money and intends to continue the program, she said, though it is also considering whether to offer the savings plans.

At the White House, the deputy press secretary, Trent Duffy, said the president had no preference between the older health reimbursement plans and the new savings accounts he has been promoting.

But these days, Mr. Duffy said, people change jobs so frequently that they need a health plan they can take with them when they move. Mr. Bush, he said, believes "that the health care system that worked 30 or 40 years ago isn't working."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

January 26, 2006
A Mountain of Documents on Hurricane Response, but Democrats Seek More
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — In their four months of digging, House and Senate investigators have collected hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and testimony from governors, mayors, Homeland Security and Pentagon officials and dozens of others touched by Hurricane Katrina.

To the Republican leaders of the two committees, the mountains of still-accumulating evidence are sufficient to answer questions about why the government did not do more to prevent a well-predicted disaster scenario from turning into a catastrophe.

Democrats say crucial holes still remain, particularly related to what senior White House aides and the president knew, and how they reacted to this knowledge, right before the storm and after it.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and other Democrats on the investigative committees say they are not looking for a smoking-gun document implicating the White House. Instead, they say, they are trying to resolve contradictions and questions that have come up.

"What do they have to hide?" Representative Gene Taylor, Democrat of Mississippi, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "Why don't they just come forward and say, 'This is what we knew, when we knew, and this is how we reacted?' "

The White House said on Tuesday that it would deny requests for e-mail and other correspondence among top White House aides, including the chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. and the homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend.

In September, speaking in New Orleans, President Bush vowed to "work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough," and his aides say he has done that.

"There are some 120 administration officials that have been made available to the committees for interviews or for hearings," Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said Wednesday, adding that 15,000 pages of White House documents were provided. "We believe they're getting the information they need to do their job."

Yet certain questions remain. Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified to the House committee that he repeatedly e-mailed or spoke on the telephone to Mr. Bush, Mr. Card and Mr. Card's deputy, starting Saturday and Sunday before the hurricane struck.

Asked what kind of aid he requested, Mr. Brown replied, "I'm being advised by counsel that I can't discuss with you my conversations with the president's chief of staff and the president."

Documents uncovered during the investigation show that the White House was notified early Monday, hours before the storm hit later that morning, that it was probable that Hurricane Katrina would "lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching," adding, "This could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months."

That night, after the storm passed, a report sent to the White House warned of a quarter-mile breach "in the levee near the 17th Street Canal" and that "an estimated 2/3 to 75 percent of the city is underwater."

Yet Mr. Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, in interviews after the storm hit, said they never expected the levees to be breached. They said that after the storm had passed Monday, they were convinced that the city had survived without catastrophic damage.

"There was a sense of relaxation," Mr. Bush said at a news conference in New Orleans on Sept. 12, recounting his reaction. "I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged."

Mr. Lieberman wants to know more about how the White House could have felt it was appropriate to relax.

"That is central to the investigation," Mr. Lieberman said in an interview Wednesday.

A closed-door briefing provided to investigators by Ken Rapuano, Mr. Bush's deputy domestic security adviser, did not resolve these and other discrepancies, Mr. Taylor said.

At the briefing, Mr. Rapuano acknowledged that the government's response was deeply flawed, participants said. But when asked about the involvement of Mr. Bush, Mr. Card or Ms. Townsend, he also declined to offer details, saying, "I am really not here to discuss specific information that was passed to the president," according to a written summary of the briefing prepared by Democratic staff members.

"It was as shallow and phony a presentation by the administration as they possible could conceive," Mr. Taylor said, adding that he walked out in frustration.

Democrats also said that the documents provided by the White House consisted largely of news conference transcripts or e-mail sent to many people, instead of correspondence disclosing the decision-making process at the White House.

But Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, said that based on what his committee had, he was convinced that the report would be complete.

"The Select Committee has all the information we need to fulfill our duties and produce a comprehensive, fair, no-holds-barred report about the failures in response to Hurricane Katrina," Mr. Davis said Tuesday.

Mr. Lieberman said Wednesday that he realized it was unlikely he could get the information he wanted by threatening to subpoena. Even if one were issued, the administration would probably fight it in court.

Mr. McClellan all but invited such a response Wednesday.

"The president believes that Senator Lieberman ought to have the right to confidential conversations with his advisers, just like all presidents have asserted they ought to have that same right," he said. "That's what this is about."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

January 26, 2006
Bush Visits Security Agency and Defends Surveillance
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — President Bush went Wednesday to the heart of the debate over the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program, the supersecret agency itself, where he sought to bolster employee morale and make a case for ordering a surveillance program that has come under increasing political attack.

"It's just such an honor to be able to tell these people that the work they do is vital and necessary, and I support them a hundred percent," Mr. Bush told reporters during a rare presidential trip to the agency at Fort Meade, Md., in the suburban sprawl between Baltimore and Washington.

Mr. Bush's trip was part of a weeklong news media offensive to push back against lawmakers who argue that the program may be illegal. Hearings into the program by the Senate Judiciary Committee are to begin next month.

Mr. Bush first met privately with employees at the agency, then told a small group of reporters who accompanied him that the program, which intercepts international phone calls and e-mail messages of people in the United States suspected of links to Al Qaeda, had been a crucial tool in fighting terrorism.

"We've seen that part of the terrorist strategy is to place operatives inside of our country," the president said. "They blend in with the civilian population. They get their orders from overseas, and then they emerge to strike from within. We must be able to quickly detect when someone linked to Al Qaeda is communicating with someone inside of America."

The National Security Agency, the largest American intelligence agency, specializes in eavesdropping on foreign communications. It is so secret that for years the joke has been that its initials stood for "No Such Agency."

But its heavily guarded campus just off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway opened up a bit to the news media in recent years under the leadership of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, now the principal deputy director of national intelligence and Mr. Bush's point man on the eavesdropping program.

While the president was visiting the agency, the two parties on Capitol Hill spent the day in an exchange of dueling letters. Senate and House Democrats pressed their Republican counterparts to hold additional hearings beyond those already scheduled by the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Republicans suggested that Democrats were trying to use the issue for political advantage and jeopardizing national security.

In a letter released Wednesday to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, all nine Democrats on the panel said that only public hearings could provide the kind of "vigorous oversight" needed to answer questions about the program.

Likewise, all seven Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee urged the panel chairman to hold hearings to address, among other issues, "the legal justifications for the program."

Leading Democrats, in another letter, told Mr. Bush that they were "gravely concerned" about the eavesdropping program. Rather than going to the court that governs foreign intelligence for wiretaps warrants, the letter said, "you have apparently chosen to ignore the law." The letter was signed by four Senate Democrats — Harry Reid of Nevada, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin.

In yet another letter, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican who leads the Intelligence Committee, fired back expressing annoyance over the Democrats' complaints.

Mr. Roberts said he was already planning a closed-door briefing for the committee by the Justice Department on Feb. 1, and another closed-door meeting related to the program two weeks after that. He suggested that Democrats had bypassed protocol by making their pleas public before giving him a chance to respond.

"I think we can all agree that intelligence issues, especially in the middle of a war, should not be used as fodder for political advantage," Mr. Roberts said. "Doing so is unnecessary, unwise and potentially dangerous."

So far, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who leads the Judiciary Committee, is the only Republican to commit to a public hearing on the N.S.A. program. It is scheduled for Feb. 6 with testimony from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

But in a letter to Mr. Specter, Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said the committee should seek testimony from other former administration officials who may have had misgivings about the program, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and James B. Comey, the former deputy attorney general. If necessary, Mr. Schumer said, the committee should subpoena the former officials to testify.

The New York Times reported this month that Mr. Comey refused to reauthorize the continuation of the N.S.A. program in 2004, prompting senior White House officials to visit Mr. Ashcroft in a hospital after an attack of pancreatitis to press for his agreement. He was also said to have voiced concerns about the program. The episode led to the suspension of the program for months.

Mr. Specter said Friday that he was already considering calling other witnesses beyond Mr. Gonzales.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

January 26, 2006
In Address, Bush Is Seen Avoiding Large Initiatives
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — Having stabilized his political standing after a difficult 2005, President Bush is heading into his State of the Union address on Tuesday intent primarily on retaining his party's slim majority in Congress this year and completing unfinished business from his existing agenda.

Unlike last year, when he used the occasion to kick off an ambitious and ultimately failed effort to overhaul Social Security, Mr. Bush seems unlikely to reshape the political landscape with his speech on Tuesday, members of both parties said.

Lawmakers said this election year would not be a good time to push difficult initiatives, and the White House has already shelved what it had initially planned as its big idea for 2006, a rewriting of the tax code.

Administration officials and other Republicans in Washington said Mr. Bush would focus on several topics, including health care, spending restraint, illegal immigration and the nation's international economic competitiveness, as well as an unapologetic restatement of his national security policy.

Much of the speech, they said, will be tied together under a broad theme acknowledging that the United States is going through transitions that involve wrenching dislocation as well as opportunity.

His aides portray Mr. Bush as undaunted by the plague of setbacks last year that loosened his grip on his party and drove down his poll numbers, which, though up from their lows last fall, remain at anemic levels. They said he was intent on using the nationally televised address on Tuesday to set out a forceful agenda that he would use to draw sharp contrasts with Democrats.

"People don't sit around here wallowing and wondering if we should go the school uniform route because we had some challenges last year," said Nicolle Wallace, the White House communications director, referring to an initiative once championed by President Bill Clinton that has come to symbolize a retreat into small-bore leadership.

"The state of the union address will be directional for our party and our country, and visionary," Ms. Wallace said. "That is not code for it lacking substance."

In the broadest sense, Mr. Bush's challenge is to demonstrate to both parties that he can still drive the national agenda despite the increasing difficulties he has had keeping Republicans together on domestic issues and in line with his assertively expansive view of his own wartime powers.

After five tumultuous years in office, he must show that his administration is not exhausted and bereft of ideas, and that the more ambitious goals he has set out at home and abroad have not crashed up against the nation's tolerance for ideological change.

The president's main goals for the year appear to be showing progress in Iraq, the issue that more than any determines his public support, and doing all he can to help maintain Republican control of Congress in the fall elections.

Part of that calculation, members of both parties said, is acknowledging that overreaching on legislative initiatives this year could carry outsized political risks, since the loss of even a few seats in either chamber could endanger his ability to get anything done for the remainder of his term.

"We shouldn't underestimate the White House's ability to win a political campaign, so to the extent that success in November is his objective, this is his announcement speech, and an important one," said Bruce Reed, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization of centrist Democrats.

The speech is an opportunity for Mr. Bush to frame the legislative debates that will dominate Congress in coming months and provide ammunition for the fall elections. He has signaled that he will push hard for the extension of his tax cuts, arguing that failure to do so would amount to a tax increase that would endanger the economy. He is also fighting big fights over reauthorization of the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act and legislation to stem illegal immigration.

Aides said he also wanted to set out a broader vision of where the country should be heading and how it should get there.

"He views the times we are living in to be transformational, and with that comes great anxiety," said a senior administration official who is working closely with the president on the speech and who was granted anonymity in order to provide a glimpse of the speech's contents.

Mr. Bush, the official said, will bring up topics like protectionism and isolationism to make a point that "America is at its best when we are shaping events, not when we are being shaped by them, both in foreign policy and domestically."

The president goes into the speech having dealt to a large degree with the most acute political problems from the latter half of last year. One was the demoralization of his conservative base, whose enthusiasm could determine the control of Congress. The other was his loss of control last fall of the terms of the partisan debate over national security, the issue that more than any other has determined his political fortunes.

The nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court, and the smooth handling of his confirmation process, has gone a long way toward calming social conservatives. Economic conservatives say they have been reassured by signals from the White House that Mr. Bush will tackle more directly their main area of concern, the rapid growth in government spending.

On the politics of national security, Mr. Bush has struck back forcefully after spending much of last year on the defensive, especially over the continued bloodshed in Iraq and his evolving rationales for taking the United States to war.

"They're on their way up, and they're going to be slow and methodical about recovering the political capital and the ground they will need to advance more of their agenda," said Pat Toomey, a former Republican member of Congress who is now the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee.

Mr. Bush and other White House officials have issued broad hints about his 2006 agenda, especially a repackaged set of health care initiatives built on existing proposals.

The White House has signaled that Mr. Bush will highlight his support for expanding the tax deductibility of medical expenses for people who lack employer-provided insurance or who have out-of-pocket expenses.

Economists who have consulted with the administration on the issue said Mr. Bush might push for a tax credit for uninsured medical expenses that would be structured so that even people who pay little or nothing in federal income tax would receive it.

Supporters of this proposal say it would mitigate a bias in the tax code that encourages employer-provided health insurance rather than individually purchased coverage.

R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University and a former chief economist at the White House, and two other economists set forth the rationale in a recent book, "Healthy, Wealthy and Wise."

If the government encourages people to buy individual insurance policies with lower premiums and higher co-payments, they said, consumers will "make careful choices about their health care spending," and this, in turn, "will significantly reduce the growths in health costs."

In his budget last year, Mr. Bush proposed a refundable tax credit for the cost of health insurance bought by individuals under 65. The Treasury estimated the 10-year cost at $74 billion. Mr. Bush also said that people should be allowed to take tax deductions for the premiums they paid for high-deductible health insurance plans.

People buy such plans when they establish health savings accounts to pay routine medical expenses. The Treasury said the proposed deduction would cost $28 billion over 10 years.

On health care and other issues, however, Mr. Bush faces daunting hurdles. House Republicans are in the middle of a leadership fight that will not be concluded until after the State of the Union address. In addition, the criminal inquiry into bribery and corruption by lobbyists holds huge risks for Republicans.

Federal budget deficits limit the president's ability to undertake new programs. And members of his own party, especially in the Senate, are beginning to maneuver for advantage for the 2008 presidential race.

"You're starting to see the beginnings of a shift in the center of gravity away from Bush and his agenda toward the next agenda and the next leader of the party," said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative commentator who is often critical of the administration.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

US Outsourced Torture, EU Knew It
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Outsour...EU_Knew_It.html

Strasbourg, France (UPI) Jan 26, 2006 - Washington outsourced torture and moved more than 100 terrorist suspects throughout Europe, with governments there likely knowing of the practice, a Council of Europe investigator said Tuesday.

Pentagon, CIA refer 20 detainee-abuse cases to DOJ
By David Morgan
Tue Jan 24, 10:15 PM ET



Twenty cases of detainee abuse allegations against CIA and Defense Department employees have been referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official said in a letter released on Tuesday.

Assistant Attorney General William Moschella said in a January 17 letter to Sen. Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record), an Illinois Democrat, that the cases span both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and contain not only allegations of physical abuse but also possible violations of federal law and U.S. treaties.

Civil liberties advocates said the cases involve civilian interrogators and showed a double-standard in light of recent convictions of lower-ranking soldiers accused of abuse.

Only one CIA case has resulted in a criminal indictment. In that case, former CIA contractor David Passaro has been charged in North Carolina in a federal case involving the 2003 death of an Afghan detainee.

Moschella said the other 19 cases referred to the Justice Department have been reviewed by a federal prosecution task force in Virginia. Two have been closed for lack of sufficient evidence, and all others remain under investigation.

"It is now clear that enlisted men and women in a soldier's uniform are being convicted while CIA agents and civilian contractors who allegedly participated in the same crimes remain free," Christopher Anders, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

WAR ZONES

Administration officials said the investigation of detainee abuse cases by civilian investigators required extended periods of time because alleged acts often occur in war zones where the alleged victims can be difficult to track down.

"The president has directed that detainees be treated humanely," said Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson. "The U.S. continues to aggressively investigate credible allegations of abuse and to hold individuals responsible for wrongdoing."

She declined to comment about the cases disclosed in the Justice Department letter because of ongoing investigations.

Moschella was writing in response to a letter Durbin sent to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in November seeking details of abuse case referrals to the Justice Department from the Defense Department and the CIA.

"Since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan, the Defense Department has referred 11 allegations of detainee abuse to the (Justice) Department, and another agency has referred nine allegations of detainee abuse," the assistant attorney general wrote.

A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters.

Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith had no immediate comment on the letter, which she had not seen. "It is our policy that all detainees are treated humanely and to report any suspected detainee mistreatment and investigate that thoroughly," Smith said.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said: "The letter from the Department of Justice speaks for itself. I have nothing to add to it."




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Democrats break silence on Alito: Filibuster unlikely, frustration high
John Byrne
Published: January 25, 2006


Senate Democrats are buckling down for the final battle on conservative Bush Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, and senior aides say they will be unable to stop his final confirmation to the court.

Advisers to Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee express a palpable frustration at being unable to stop the man who most believe will significantly shift the nation’s highest court to the right. In conversations over the last week, aides in various Senate offices have privately told RAW STORY of their consternation with how the Alito confirmation process has played out.

Today, a senior Democratic aide admitted the filibuster is a “long shot,” and that some Democrats who have announced their intention to vote against Alito have signaled they will not support a move to filibuster the vote.

In a filibuster, 40 senators can block the nomination from reaching the Senate floor by voting against a procedure known as “cloture.” However, senators can still vote for cloture and then vote against Alito in the final vote. A vote for cloture means only that the senator supports a vote being held.

In other words, those who oppose Alito can still vote to support his nomination coming up for a vote – meaning that only 51 votes are needed to ensure his confirmation. An Associated Press report Wednesday said 51 senators will vote for Alito.

“There are a lot more people that want to vote no and think he’s not the right guy, and a lot less people who want to support the filibuster,” one veteran aide said.

The Democrats’ inability to block Alito – the second conservative nominee President Bush has tapped to join the Supreme Court this year – has stirred frustration among Democratic members in the Senate. One longtime staffer went so far as to accuse the caucus of “myopia.”

“The myopia among too many Senate Democrats is stunning,” the aide said. “They can’t see this is the fight for the future of the Supreme Court. Three years from now if Justice Alito has rolled back the right to choose, Democrats should want to be remembered for fighting tooth and nail to stop this guy.”

“This is a fight for history, you can’t just take the issue off the table,” the aide continued. “Does the country understand what’s at stake right now? Probably not. But they will when Alito does damage to our Constitution, and if we don’t fight now, voters will say a pox on both our houses.”

One aide said part of the problem is that Democratic senators haven’t felt a groundswell of opposition from constituents. Polls show that Alito’s nomination is supported by most Americans.

“People aren’t engaged in this fight,” one senior aide said. “The reality is this isn’t something that American people are calling in droves about. We’re getting more calls in on NSA spying than we are on Alito.”

Another longtime aide to a senator on the Judiciary Committee said Democrats feel they simply can’t win and are looking to focus their energy elsewhere.

“I think that people kind of saw the writing on the wall, and that [opposition to Alito] doesn’t have a lot of energy. Oddly the whole hearing in the aftermath of [John] Roberts and [Harriet] Miers -- everybody thought it was going to be the big enchilada because of the stakes, replacing a moderate rather than a conservative.”

“I guess nobody anticipated the dynamic. This has kind of sputtered out, and I think the Democrats are like, ‘Look, Is this the issue that we want to dominate the news, our attempt to present ourselves to the American public.’ I think that Democrats think that if there was a filibuster, if this thing went on for a few months, in the end we wouldn’t win... [and] there are so many other things where we could take advantage of our strength relative to the Republicans here.”

The aide compared Alito’s performance with that of Chief Justice John Roberts, another Bush nominee who was confirmed this summer. Both men, he said, were polished and didn’t have any “egregious” disqualifying characteristics in the eyes of the American public.

“Alito is not our choice obviously but its hard to say that there’s something so egregious that’s completely disqualifying,” the aide remarked. “He’s just not that scary a person like a Bork..”

Still, one aide close to the Democratic leadership said that they hadn’t given up hope of a filibuster.

“Things change every fifteen minutes,” the staffer quipped.


Raw Story

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?article=34569§ion=104

DOD reviewing policy on returning servicemembers' remains


By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, January 26, 2006



WASHINGTON — Under a mandate from Congress, defense officials are reviewing policies governing how the remains of servicemembers killed overseas are transported home, after some in Congress said the use of commercial airlines doesn’t show proper respect.

Pentagon officials last month confirmed reports that the bodies of troops killed overseas are usually transported via military aircraft to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, but then often put aboard commercial aircraft as freight for transportation to their final resting place.

Although a military escort is provided for all caskets, an honor guard to greet the casket is not. Department policy outlines that if any formal military honors are requested by the deceased’s family, those ceremonies will take place at the funeral.

The issue gained attention in early December when the family of Army Spc. Matthew Holley, killed in Iraq in November, asked for congressional intervention to ensure a military honor guard was allowed to carry his coffin when it arrived at a San Diego airport. Airline officials had denied the request.

Both parents are former soldiers. His father, John Holley, said he was stunned that the military does not require a more reverent handling of the remains.

“This is someone who gave his life for his country,” he said. “We had an expectation of how these men and women should be treated when they return. I was appalled by the whole thing.”

So were members of Congress, who included a provision in the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act mandating a review of the handling of remains. That bill became law earlier this month.

The act notes that use of military aircraft “may be a preferable means of transportation” and requires the Secretary of Defense to establish a policy to greet each casket with a small honor guard upon arrival to its destination.

“The remains of our military men and women should be transported with the utmost ceremony, honors, and respect, and the conferees believe that examination of this issue with an eye toward improvement is called for,” the bill states.

A report from DOD on implementing those changes is due Feb. 1. Defense officials could not be reached for comment on the status of the review.

Officials had said the use of military aircraft could violate federal noncompetition laws between the military and commercial airlines, and noted that the large number of available commercial flights often allow the military to get caskets home faster.

Holley said he’s more concerned with having troops returned in an honorable fashion than moving the process along more quickly.

“If they thought garbage trucks were more expeditious, would they do it that way?” he said. “The country owes it to them to pay the proper respect.”




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Rift Between Parties Over NSA Wiretapping Grows

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 26, 2006; A04



In a pep talk yesterday to intelligence experts at the National Security Agency, President Bush defended eavesdropping on overseas communications to and from U.S. residents as legal and imperative to stopping terrorists.

In the latest sign of the escalating debate on the issue, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) called Bush's rationale a "strange" and dangerous legal stretch.

The conflicting views of the NSA spying program highlighted by the Bush-Clinton exchange reflect a widening divide over warrantless eavesdropping, and how leaders in both major parties are trying to shape the debate in preparation for upcoming congressional hearings and this year's elections.

Bush, whose aides said they consider the issue a clear political winner, is resurrecting tactics from the last campaign to make the NSA spying program a referendum on which party will keep the United States safe from terrorists. He has dispatched top White House officials almost daily to defend the program and has sent a message to party activists that he considers fighting terrorism with tools such as NSA eavesdropping the defining issue of the November elections.

Exhibiting an obsession to detail not seen in the Social Security rollout a year ago, the White House is even waging a war on the semantics being used in the debate, lashing out at reporters who call the program "domestic" spying, because the monitored calls involve a person overseas. It is also putting out pages of highly detailed -- and often hotly disputed -- legal analyses of the program and drawing what Democratic critics and many independent analysts regard as questionable historical parallels to show Bush is following a long wartime tradition.

Speaking to reporters, Clinton took aim at what she called a lawless assertion of power: "My question is, why can't we do what we want to do within the rule of law?"

Her comments came after an appearance at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Clinton, a leading contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, rejected Bush's argument that the president had power to order surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She said established procedures for approval for such spying from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would have protected civil liberties and national security.

"Their argument that it's rooted in the authority to go after al Qaeda is far-fetched," Clinton said. "Their argument that it's rooted in the Constitution inherently is kind of strange because we have FISA, and FISA operated very effectively and it wasn't that hard to get their permission."

Bush staged his latest defense at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. Speaking to the code breakers, analysts and linguistic experts who help sift through the information obtained with the warrantless searches of overseas phone calls and e-mails involving at least one person in the United States, Bush called the program a "vital" defense tool.

The issue is different but the message is similar to the one many political analysts credit for Bush's 2004 victory: He can be trusted to protect U.S. citizens, and Democrats cannot. In a recent speech to the Republican National Committee, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove previewed a similar strategy for this year's elections, in which the GOP majorities in the House, Senate and governorships are at risk. When news of the NSA program broke, Bush was put on the defensive, but he and strategists quickly decided this fight could be an asset at a time when the president was struggling to regain his balance, advisers said.

"It is amazing to me -- not only are the Democrats not learning from costly policy mistakes, they are not learning what happened from the political mistakes of 2002 and 2004," said RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman.

Some Democratic strategists say the NSA program is a political loser for Democrats, whom many voters still see as soft on national security. But there is no way for elected Democrats to avoid the fight -- and few want to. With congressional hearings on the topic expected early next month, Democrats and several Republicans have serious policy differences with Bush and consider the NSA fight part of a much larger battle over presidential power and congressional oversight.

"I don't think it's bad politics," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "I don't think the national security attack works this time," he said, because "we have a politically weakened president whose poll numbers are down and whose credibility is under increased scrutiny."

Although arguments about the legality of the eavesdropping program are boiling, details about what the NSA is doing remain hidden from all but eight members of Congress: the House speaker and minority leader, the Senate majority and minority leaders, and the chairmen and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Pressed yesterday by Democratic members of the Senate intelligence committee for a closed hearing or briefing on the NSA program, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said he had scheduled a Feb. 1 Justice Department briefing on the legal issues involved but not on the program itself. Under Roberts's proposal, the committee will meet on Feb. 16 "to discuss the terrorist surveillance issue" but apparently will not be briefed on what it entails.

Democrats told Roberts yesterday they want a business meeting of the committee Tuesday, when they will call for a vote on whether to hold a hearing or briefing with NSA witnesses, congressional sources said.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Domestic spying necessary: Bush
From correspondents in Washington
26jan06

US President George W. Bush said today that a controversial domestic spying program that some critics say is illegal was necessary in light of new threats on an audiotape from Osama bin Laden.

"I'll continue to reauthorise this program for so long as our country faces a continuing threat from al-Qaeda and related groups," Mr Bush said during a visit to the National Security Agency (NSA), which runs the surveillance initiative.
"Listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take him seriously. When he says he's going to hurt the American people again, or try to, he means it," he said.

"I take it seriously. And the people of NSA take it seriously. And most of the American people take it seriously as well."

The al-Qaeda mastermind threatened fresh attacks on the United States in a new audiotape broadcast last week by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television station.

Under Mr Bush's order, issued in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the NSA no longer needs a court's permission to intercept US citizens' telephone calls or electronic mail overseas.

"We must be able to quickly detect when someone linked to al-Qaeda is communicating with someone inside of America. That's one of the challenges of protecting the American people," the president said.

"We've seen that part of the terrorist strategy is to place operatives inside of our country. They blend in with the civilian population. They get their orders from overseas. And then they emerge to strike from within.

"When terrorist operatives are here in America communicating with someone overseas, we must understand what's going on if we are going to do our job to protect the people," said Mr Bush.
© Herald and Weekly Times

Bush says takes threats from bin Laden seriously
By Caren Bohan

President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he took Osama bin Laden's threats of another attack seriously and invoked the al Qaeda leader's recent audiotape to defend a domestic eavesdropping program.

"I understand there are some in America who say, 'Well this can't be true, there aren't still people willing to attack.' All I would ask them to do is listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take him seriously," Bush said at the National Security Agency.

"When he says he's going to hurt the American people again or try to, he means it. I take it seriously and the people of NSA take it seriously and most of the American people take it seriously as well," Bush said.

Democrats have criticized Bush for authorizing the warrantless monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mail messages of people in the United States suspected of aiding al Qaeda.

Critics say the program, conducted by the NSA, violates the U.S. Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which makes it illegal to spy on U.S. citizens in the United States without the approval of a special secret court.

Bin Laden in an audiotape that aired last week warned that al Qaeda was preparing attacks in the United States but was open to a conditional truce with Americans.

"Just last week ... we heard from Osama bin Laden," Bush said. "The terrorists will do everything they can to strike us. I am going to continue to do everything I can within my legal authority to stop them."

Top Senate Democrats sent a letter to Bush on Wednesday asking he outline, by February 1, any changes in current law he would propose to improve surveillance of suspected terrorists.

"We are ... gravely concerned that sometime in 2001, in apparent violation of federal law, you authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans in the United States without court approval," said the letter, signed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and others.

The senators noted that in a speech in 2004, Bush said, "When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." They quoted Bush saying, "A wiretap requires a court order."

Democrats have noted that in special cases the NSA is allowed to conduct domestic surveillance but has to obtain a warrant within 72 hours.

Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives also pressured Republicans on Wednesday to submit Bush's domestic eavesdropping program to the scrutiny of Congress' intelligence oversight committees.

'FAR-FETCHED'

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, said the administration's argument it needed to bypass the warrant process in order to go after al Qaeda was "far-fetched."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, plans hearings on the NSA program on February 6.

Bush told reporters he would continue to authorize the eavesdropping program.

"The American people expect me to protect their lives and their civil liberties and that's exactly what we're doing with this program," he said.

Touring the NSA in Fort Meade, Bush visited a room with a large screen highlighting statistics about cyberspace, including one saying over 592 billion instant messages were sent daily. That was projected to grow to 1.38 trillion by 2007.

The NSA is one of the most secretive of the U.S. spy agencies. Founded in 1952, it uses high-tech equipment such as satellites and bugs to pick up foreign electronic signals such as telephone calls and computer messages.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, Richard Cowan and David Morgan)



Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


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Sen. Clinton Blasts Bush on Eavesdropping
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer


Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called President Bush's explanations for eavesdropping on domestic conversations without warrants "strange" and "far-fetched" Wednesday in blistering criticism ahead of the president's State of the Union address.

"Obviously, I support tracking down terrorists. I think that's our obligation. But I think it can be done in a lawful way," the New York Democrat said.

Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, told reporters she did not yet know whether the administration's warrantless eavesdropping broke any laws. But the senator said she did not buy the White House's main justification for the tactic.

"Their argument that it's rooted in the authority to go after al-Qaida is far-fetched," she said in an apparent reference to a congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. The Bush administration has argued that the resolution gave the president authority to order such electronic surveillance as part of efforts to protect the nation from terrorists.

"Their argument that it's rooted in the Constitution inherently is kind of strange because we have FISA and FISA operated very effectively and it wasn't that hard to get their permission," she said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established by Congress to approve eavesdropping warrants, even retroactively, but Bush has argued that the process often takes too long.

Clinton leveled her criticism at a meeting of the nation's mayors while Bush toured the National Security Agency, which conducts the eavesdropping. His tour was part of the White House's aggressive campaign to defend the practice of eavesdropping on calls and other communications made overseas from the United States.

Polls suggest the public is divided on whether the administration should be able to eavesdrop on suspected terrorist communications, a practice that has drawn criticism from many congressional Democrats, human rights and civil liberties groups. Bush and his political team have signaled that the eavesdropping program will be a campaign issue in November, part of a broader strategy to cast Democrats as weak on terrorism.

"It is clear Hillary Clinton is more concerned with political attacks than substantive dialogue on how to fight and win the war on terror," said Republican Party spokesman Danny Diaz.

Clinton talked to reporters after addressing the mayors in a speech that criticized Bush's health care, economic and anti-terrorism policies.

Pointing the Democratic-leaning crowd to the president's State of the Union address on Jan. 31, she said his message amounts to "You're on your own."

"We are shifting costs and shifting risks on to individuals and families and local governments," Clinton said. "Mayors, you're on your own to protect citizens. Senior citizens who were promised a prescription drug benefit are on their own to figure out how to access the complicated and confusing program. Three-and-a-half million children who will be affected by cuts to Medicaid are on their own."

Claiming a piece of her husband's legacy, the former first lady said there was a budget surplus five years ago when President Clinton was in the White House. "If we were a company or a household, we would have already filed for bankruptcy," she said of the nation's current fiscal condition.

She said money needed to fight and respond to terrorism has been denied states and cities. "The sense of urgency that marked the days and months following the 9/11 attacks has largely given way to politics as usual" in Washington, the senator said.

Should she decide to run for president, Clinton would be an early favorite for the Democratic nomination because of her high profile and ability to raise money. But a recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll suggests that she remains a divisive figure: 51 percent of the respondents said they definitely would not vote for her.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, another potential 2008 candidate, accepted an award at the mayors conference for his state's investment in the arts. He said Iowa has generated $2 billion in economic activity by investing in museums, libraries, convention centers, parks and bike trails — a lesson, he said, for Bush.

"We need to get our fiscal house in order and make long-term investment in infrastructure to make America competitive," Vilsack said in an interview.




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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January 26, 2006
Who Lied Us Into War?
Ask George Tenet
Was the other George duped?
by Chris Moore
In Bob Woodward's 2004 book Plan of Attack, the famed Washington Post journalist details a pre-Iraq war conversation that allegedly took place between President Bush and then-CIA director George Tenet regarding whether or not Saddam Hussein truly possessed weapons of mass destruction.

According to the book's narrative, a hesitant and skeptical Bush asked Tenet: "George, how confident are you?"

"Don't worry, it's a slam-dunk," Tenet replied.

Fast forward to December 2005. New York Times reporter James Risen's State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration details another historic pre-invasion intelligence meeting involving Tenet.

Risen discloses in his book that Tenet was the source who provided Richard Dearlove, chief of British intelligence, the information that ended up in the infamous 2002 Downing Street memos. Those memos recorded Dearlove's conclusion, communicated to Tony Blair after being personally briefed by Tenet, that "military action [against Iraq] was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Something doesn't calculate here. If both Woodward and Risen are correct in their information, either Tenet was lying to Bush, or he was lying to Dearlove. After all, Tenet definitively told the former that Saddam had WMD and that the case was a "slam dunk." But he definitively told the latter that intelligence was being fixed, which implies that Iraq did not have WMD, hence the need to make it appear that it did. So which story was true?

Given that Tenet was "resigned" by Bush after the invasion when no WMD showed up, it appears that Tenet was lying to Bush about Saddam's supposed arsenal. Under this theory, then, it wasn't Bush but Tenet and the Cheney/neocon cabal who "wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." This, in turn, suggests they were the ones who had "fixed" the evidence around the policy – evidence that Tenet then cited to Bush as a "slam dunk" case.

Consider: when a center-left Clinton appointee admits through a back-channel pipeline to the center-left prime minister of our primary ally that the putative joint invasion is going to take place under false pretenses, he is most likely telling the truth. Why would he lie? To sabotage the invasion plans? If that's what Tenet had wanted, he could have informed President Bush that the WMD case was weak to nonexistent.

The only scenario that makes any sense is that Tenet, who along with Clinton was allied with the British prime minister during the Balkans conflict, was sending a helpful warning to his former comrade in arms: Even though "military action was now seen as inevitable," the truth was that Saddam did not possess WMD. Thus, Blair needed to get with the program and fine-tune his country's trumped-up intelligence for his own political protection.

Tenet didn't want to warn the prime minister directly, of course – that would have been far too risky for both men – so he sent word through Dearlove.

After leaving the CIA, Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, probably in the vain hope that he would keep his mouth shut about his disingenuous conduct and save the Bush administration tremendous embarrassment and possible scandal. Yet he may have unwittingly provided Americans the best evidence yet that both the U.S. and Britain were lied into war – though not necessarily by President Bush.

How so? The Bush administration categorically stated that Saddam Hussein was a threat because he had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaeda – and cited those as the primary reasons for invasion. Accurate intelligence to which Tenet was privy must have indicated that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was not linked to al-Qaeda.

Remember, through Dearlove, Tenet informed Blair with certitude that the evidence was "fixed." The need for fixed evidence only arises when real evidence doesn't suffice, or points toward innocence instead of guilt. And the only way Tenet could have known the evidence was fixed (and would have passed this insider information onto Blair with such confidence) is if he knew who did the fixing.

This, then, suggests that Tenet, Cheney, and the neocons enabled the manufacture of false "intelligence" and "facts" purporting to prove that Saddam did indeed have WMD. They then presented this "evidence" to the gullible Bush and allowed him to lead the country (still raw from 9/11) into war under the "fixed" pretense of "the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." Risky? You bet, but any group with the hubris to pull such a stunt was either supremely confident that the fix was secure enough to withstand scrutiny, or didn't care if it did not – and thought the country wouldn't care either.

Conclusion: Tenet, Cheney, and the neocons used the president to lie America into war with Iraq, and Tenet warned Tony Blair ahead of time that the frame-up and pending invasion were a fait accompli.

While Bush today no doubt knows he was manipulated (whether he admits it to himself or not), given his lack of intellectual curiosity and his lax habits of mind, it's possible he didn't realize it until well after the invasion when no WMD were found in Iraq and the media began focusing on the insiders behind the false alarms.

But besides getting rid of Tenet and Pentagon neocons Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith (who, unlike the implicated Cheney and Rumsfeld, were both disposable parties to the deception), what could the president do after the fact? Inform the public that he is a fool who was duped by his own advisers in the run up to war? That's about as likely as Congress collectively admitting it is a ship of fools that was duped by the administration.

No, unless the citizens of the U.S. and Britain demand accountability, Blair, Bush, and Congress will proceed as if they have done nothing wrong; the neocons will smirk at their own diabolical abilities and smugly plan their next grand deception; and American and British soldiers will continue to die in the Mideast for the sins and lies of a tiny cabal.

Americans must demand that George Tenet be immediately hauled before a jury to explain his deeply suspicious and, by all appearances, illegal conduct.

Gonzales defends secret surveillance
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 25, 2006


Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday defended President Bush's secret electronic surveillance program, saying presidential powers inherent in the Constitution override a 1978 law requiring the government to obtain warrants for wiretaps.
In a detailed case supporting the covert National Security Agency program, the attorney general also said a special court set up to hand down secret warrants could not be used -- even with a provision for so-called "emergency authorizations."
"The American people are, however, asking two important questions: Is this program necessary? And is it lawful? The answer to each is yes," Mr. Gonzales said in a speech at a Georgetown University Law Center forum.
Some Democrats contend the president overstepped his authority. On Monday, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, went further, saying, "The question remains: why did President Bush deliberately choose to break the law?"
Mr. Gonzales is expected to be among the first witnesses to testify when the Senate opens hearings on the matter Feb. 6.
"Presidents have uniformly relied on their inherent power to gather foreign intelligence for reasons both diplomatic and military, and the federal courts have consistently upheld this long-standing practice," he said.
Mr. Gonzales discussed the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created a special court to authorize secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage. The court is "the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance ... and the interception of wire and oral communications may be conducted," says one section of the law.
Mr. Gonzales, however, said the court could not have been used in this instance because the law "requires the attorney general to determine in advance that a FISA application for that particular intercept will be fully supported and will be approved by the court before an emergency authorization may be granted.
"That review process can take precious time."
Mr. Gonzales said the court stated in 2002 that "[w]e take for granted that the president does have that [inherent] authority" and, "assuming that is so -- could not encroach on the president's constitutional power."
FISA also says "that the government cannot engage in electronic surveillance 'except as authorized by statute,'?" Mr. Gonzales said. "And, in this case, that other statute is the force resolution" passed by Congress three days after the September 11 attacks.
The resolution gave Mr. Bush power "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks," Mr. Gonzales said.
Mr. Bush said the resolution meant that "Congress gave me additional powers to use force, but it didn't prescribe the tactics."

Report done for Pentagon says Army close to 'snapping'

But Rumsfeld says report's conclusions are 'inconsistent with the facts.'

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

An unreleased report prepared for the Pentagon says that the US Army has become a "thin green line" because of rapid troop deployments to Iraq, and could soon snap.
The Associated Press reports that retired Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich, a Vietnam veteran and former adviser to three defense secretaries who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, also concluded that the US cannot maintain the rate of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to defeat the insurgency in that country. While the 136-page report was not released publicly, a copy of it was obtained by AP. It was presented to the Pentagon last November at a cost of $137,000.

Krepinevich did not conclude that the US should leave Iraq, but he did say that it should be possible to reduce troop levels below 100,000 by the end of the year. There are currently 136,000 US troops in Iraq.

Krepinevich is not the first retired officer to suggest that the Army is overtaxed, according to the AP. George Joulwan, a retired four-star Army general and former NATO commander, agrees the Army is stretched thin.

“Whether they’re broken or not, I think I would say if we don’t change the way we’re doing business, they’re in danger of being fractured and broken, and I would agree with that,” Joulwan told CNN last month.
The Guardian reports that Krepinevich, who runs a Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, also says the administration lacks a clear strategy for Iraq.

In his report presented as "an interim assessment" of the Iraq, he writes: "Without a clear strategy in Iraq it is difficult to draft clear metrics for gauging progress. This may be why some senior political and military leaders have made overly optimistic or even contradictory declarations regarding the war's progress."
The Daily Telegraph reports that Krepinevich is "a respected figure and well known as the promoter of the so-called oil-spot strategy for beating Iraqi insurgencies."
This is based on the success of British forces in Malaya in the 1950s and calls for American forces not to hunt down insurgents but to secure specific towns and make life so good there that no one will want to support the rebels.
The Telegraph also writes that the "political dimensions" of the issue became apparent yesterday when Democrats also released a report on the situation of the US Army and Marines in Iraq. The Financial Times reports that Madeleine Albright, a former secretary of State; William Perry, a former secretary of Defense; and Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said the administration had not adequately planned, or sent enough troops, for postconflict operations in Iraq. ABC News reports that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld fired back at both documents yesterday, saying the US military is not broken.
"I just can't imagine … someone looking at the US armed forces today and suggesting they're close to breaking. That's just not the case."
Although he said he hadn't read either report, Rumsfeld called them at various turns "out-of-date or misdirected," "a misunderstanding of the situation" and "not consistent with the facts."
Noting the current force is "battle hardened," Rumsfeld derided comparisons with a peacetime force or the implication that the current force had been weakened as a result of its combat experience. "The implication is almost backward in a sense, for the world saw the US go halfway around the world ... they saw what the US military did in Iraq and the message from that is not that this armed force is broken but that this armed force is enormously capable," he said.
Meanwhile, the BBC reported Tuesday that a US soldier convicted last week of negligent homicide in the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in 2003 was given a reprimand and docked $6,000 of his pay. He could have faced up to three years in jail.
After the sentencing, Welshofer's lawyer, Frank Spinner, was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying: "When you send our men and women over there to fight... you've got to give them enough room to make mistakes without treating them like criminals."
US military prosecutors said General Mowhoush was bound and placed headfirst in a sleeping bag. He died with an officer sitting on him.

January 26, 2006
President Remains Confident That Domestic Spying Is Legal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:36 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush again defended his program of warrantless surveillance Thursday, saying ''there's no doubt in my mind it is legal.'' He suggested that he might resist congressional efforts to change or expressly endorse it.

''The program's legal, it's designed to protect civil liberties, and it's necessary,'' Bush told a White House news conference.

Democrats have accused the president of breaking the law in allowing eavesdropping on overseas communications to and from U.S. residents, and even some members of his own party have questioned the practice.

It was the president's first full-scale news conference of the new year, and the 10th since he was re-elected in 2004. He previewed his upcoming State of the Union address and fielded questions on former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the stunning victory of the radical group Hams in Palestinian elections and the administration's cooperation with Congress on its investigation of Hurricane Katrina.

Asked if he would support efforts in Congress to spell out his authority to continue the eavesdropping program, Bush cited what he said was the extreme delicacy of the operation.

''But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy,'' he said. ''Why tell the enemy what we're doing?''

''We'll listen to ideas. If the attempt to write law is likely to expose the nature of the program, I'll resist it,'' the president said.

On the Middle East, Bush expressed concern that Palestinian elections had given a majority to the radical party Hamas, which has called for the elimination of Israel, although he noted that democratic elections sometimes produce unwelcome results.

He made it clear that any organization that has an armed wing and which advocates violence against Israel ''is a party with which we will not deal.''

Bush called the election results a ''wake-up call'' to the old guard Palestinian leadership, many of whom are holdovers from the days of the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Questioned about a controversy swirling about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Bush said he would cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating Abramoff and his alleged influence peddling activities, if necessary. Otherwise, the president said he saw no reason to release pictures that he acknowledged were taken of him and Abramoff.

''There is a serious investigation going on by federal prosecutors -- that's their job,'' the president said. ''If they believe something was done inappropriately in the White House, they'll come and look and they're welcome to do so.''

Otherwise, Bush said, ''I've had my picture taken with a lot of people. Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean I'm a friend with them or know them very well.''

''I've had my picture taken with you,'' Bush said to the reporter who asked the question.

Pressed further on his relationship with Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from his lobbying practices and has pledged to cooperate with investigators, Bush said, ''I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don't know him.''

He said that federal investigators should pursue all leads and ''look into all aspects of his influence on Capitol Hill,'' and that if the path also leads to the White House, he was sure they would ''come knock on the door.''

He was asked if he meets with lobbyists. ''I try not to,'' Bush replied.

Asked about assertions by some Democrats that they will take back control of Congress in this year's midterm elections, Bush said he wasn't surprised they were talking that way, but shrugged it off.

He said he was ready to hit the campaign trail one more time, not for himself, but to stump for Republican congressional candidates this year. ''We've got a record and a good one, and that's what I intend to campaign on,'' Bush said.

The president defended his administration's level of cooperation with congressional investigations into the government's slow response to the Hurricane Katrina devastation, citing the thousands of documents the White House has provided.

Questioned on congressional complaints that more could be done, Bush said that it would have a ''chilling effect'' on the ability of presidential advisers to speak freely.

Bush also said that his nominee for Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, deserves to be confirmed in the Senate, where he clearly has the votes but where minority-party Democrats were speaking out against him at length.

''The Senate needs to give him an up or down vote as soon as possible,'' Bush said in opening remarks that also previewed the themes of his State of the Union address next Tuesday.

Bush shrugged off a recent Pentagon-contracted report which concluded the Army was overextended and the United States cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency there.

The president predicted victory in Iraq and said, ''Our commanders will have the troops necessary to do that.''

He said the military was focused on transforming itself to ensure the armed forces could meet its goals in the 21st century.

''After five years of war, there is a need to make sure troops are balanced properly, threats are met with capabilities. That's why we're transforming the military,'' Bush said.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

January 26, 2006
Lobbyists Oppose Efforts to Impose New Restrictions
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — Leaders of the lobbying and advocacy community pushed back on Wednesday against the drive to impose new restrictions on lobbying, saying Congress risks cutting off lawmakers from valuable information and educational travel.

As the Senate held its first hearing on a possible overhaul of lobbying rules in the wake of the Jack Abramoff bribery and corruption scandal, representatives of the National Association of Manufacturers, AARP and others who regularly court Congress expressed reservations about the emerging plans.

"I think elected leaders who cherish our unique freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution should act very carefully to ensure the ability of Americans to educate and inform our elected leaders is not restricted," said John Engler, president of the manufacturers' association and a former Republican governor of Michigan.

In a letter sent Wednesday to members of Congress, the head of the American Society of Association Executives said he feared a ban on travel provided by private groups for lawmakers and staff members would deprive officials of views from those outside Washington.

"Congress must create a distinction between unnecessary 'fact-finding' trips to exotic locales where the agenda is more socially or recreationally driven, and educational trips to an association meeting or conference," wrote John H. Graham IV, president of the group.

Lawmakers said it was proving difficult to draw a line between trips that are legitimate and those that are not without creating new opportunities for abuse. But many said they believed that Congress would have to act to restore public confidence shattered by admissions of bribery and influence peddling.

"If the bond of trust between public officials and their constituents is frayed, if our citizens believe that decisions are tainted by improper influence, then our country will be unable to tackle the big issues," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

As they surveyed the proposals, some lawmakers said any effective rules revisions should be tied to campaign finance changes that would reduce lawmakers' dependence on lobbyists for campaign aid. Senator Tom Coburn, a maverick Republican from Oklahoma, went further and faulted Washington's overall culture, with lawmakers putting re-election before the public interest.

"The problem is us," Mr. Coburn told his colleagues on the committee.

But Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, warned against being distracted from the core idea of tightening lobbying rules by those who "want to change the subject."

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the author of a leading lobbying proposal, said he believed that Congress — facing election-year pressure — would ultimately agree on new restrictions on travel and gifts for lawmakers and new disclosure rules for lobbyists.

He predicted the central battle would be over the effort to limit "earmarks" — special projects lawmakers seek to place in bills, often at the behest of lobbyists hired to promote the provision. Many lawmakers consider earmarks their legislative bread and butter, and Mr. McCain anticipates serious opposition.

"If we don't stop the earmarking, we're not going to stop the abuses of power here in Washington," Mr. McCain told the Senate committee.

But the lobbying groups were more alarmed about a potential ban on travel as well as new disclosure requirements for efforts to bring public pressure to bear on lawmakers through citizen campaigns.

AARP, one of the most potent lobbying groups because of its ability to muster millions of retired people, told the panel in a statement that it was worried "onerous or complex reporting requirements on citizen volunteers could result in fewer people taking on what is really a duty of every citizen."

On the travel issue, an official of the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit group that organizes national and international seminars popular with senators, urged lawmakers to exempt that program from any ban.

"If our lawmakers are to effectively address immigration, international trade, the war on terror and other pressing matters, an understanding of the peoples of the world is vital," said Dick Clark, director of the institute's Congressional program and a former Democratic senator from Iowa.

Mr. Engler came equipped with itineraries from trips to Georgia and Arizona that his association and member businesses sponsored for Congressional aides this month, trying to demonstrate that the trips, with tours of local plants and working lunches, were not glamorous junkets. "These Congressional staff tours really help provide a very valuable first-hand education about the importance of manufacturing to the nation's economy," he said.

But Bill Samuel, director of legislation for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said the labor lobby would support a ban on travel, though it supported an exemption for events like the annual meeting of a chamber of commerce or a labor convention.

"The problem of corporations and wealthy individuals buying disproportionate influence in Congress has gotten worse in recent years, and the abuses have become more flagrant and egregious," Mr. Samuel said.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

President Bush Holds a White House Press Conference

Full text of the Jan. 26, 2006, presidential press conference.

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

AJCongress Says, 'Hamas Victory Means Charade is Over'

1/26/2006 11:11:00 AM


NEW YORK, Jan. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- American Jewish Congress issued the following statement today after Hamas' gain of the plurality in yesterday's Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections, ousting President Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah as the dominant party in the Palestinian legislature.

Executive Director Neil B. Goldstein issued the following statement:

"During the Palestinian election campaign, Hamas promised that, if elected, it would do better providing services to the Palestinian people than the corrupt Fatah leadership that, heretofore, had used available funds to line its own pockets. At the same time Hamas continued to call for the destruction of Israel and threatened to resume the Palestinian campaign of terrorism following the election. One half of the Hamas platform cannot be separated from the other; by choosing the party that, so to speak, promised to do a better job "making the trains run on time," the Palestinian people also have acquiesced to Hamas' campaign of evil.

"By choosing Hamas, the Palestinians have punctured the myth that they have elected leaders who reject terrorism -- a fundamental requirement of the Roadmap for Peace. Furthermore, by choosing Hamas, the Palestinians have ended the charade that there is a partner with the will and with the authority to negotiate a bona fide peace settlement with Israel. President Bush is absolutely correct in saying today, that Hamas is not a partner for peace.

"There are some who retain the illusion that, now that Hamas is part of the political process, it will moderate and support peace with Israel -- much in the same way that Fatah, the dominant party in the PLO, did so. Those who hold to this vain hope misread history and ignore the differences between the PLO and Hamas. First of all, in the end, Fatah and the PLO never fully supported peace. At the final hour Yassir Arafat was unwilling to conclude an end to hostilities and make peace with Israel. Today, while the leadership of Fatah is nominally in favor of peace, its President, Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to put an end to terrorism, and many of its factions (the Al-Aqsa Brigades and Fatah Hawks among them) are terrorist. Second, while the Fatah and PLO leadership benefited by moderating their stands and agreeing to be part of the Oslo peace process by being granted the right to return from exile in Tunisia, Hamas would derive no such benefit. To the contrary, the Hamas leadership is convinced that it is the tool of terrorism that has given them the capacity to throw Israel out of Gaza and that makes them a potent force."

---

The American Jewish Congress is a membership association of Jewish Americans, organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad, through public policy advocacy, in the courts, Congress, the executive branch and state and local governments. It also works overseas with others who are similarly engaged.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Bush Justification for Domestic Spying Contradicts DOJ Explanation From 2002, Says DNC; Statement by DNC Chairman Howard Dean

1/26/2006 1:26:00 PM

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today, during his news conference, President Bush explained that he circumvented the FISA court process to enact his domestic spying program because the current system "doesn't work." But, according to a number of news reports, the Bush Justice Department in 2002 rejected a move by the Republican Congress to loosen restrictions on domestic spying, including legal requirements to obtain a warrant from a top-secret FISA court.

In a statement to Congress, "the Justice Department said it opposed a legislative proposal to change FISA to make it easier to obtain warrants that would allow the super-secret National Security Agency to listen in on communications involving non-U.S. citizens inside the United States." The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, "the law governing such operations, was working well, the department said in 2002." A Justice Department official also noted that, the "proposed change raises both significant legal and practical issues, the administration at this time is not prepared to support it." (Knight-Ridder, 1/26/06, http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/ politics/13712083.htm )

This analysis directly contradicts the current, possibly illegal, Administration practice of sidestepping the courts because they say getting approval would be difficult. (New York Times, 1/25/06,

In fact, during today's press conference, President Bush argued that the FISA law was old and didn't work. He noted that, "I said, 'look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law?' And people said, 'it doesn't work in order to be able do the job we expect us to do.' So, that's why I made the decision I made." (President Bush, 1/26/06)

---

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean released the following statement on President Bush's domestic spying flip-flop:

"Democrats believe that we should spy on terrorists and aggressively fight the War on Terror, and the President currently has the authority to do just that. So, why is it that on day four of the president's PR campaign to defend his warrantless domestic spying program, he contradicted his own Justice Department's position from just a few years ago?"

http://www.usnewswire.com/

American Jewish Committee Calls Hamas Victory a Setback for Peace

1/26/2006 1:31:00 PM

NEW YORK, Jan. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The American Jewish Committee (AJC) called the results of yesterday's Palestinian legislative elections "a setback for peace." The Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, won a majority of seats in the parliament.

"The Palestinian people, in a democratic election, have made their decision, and their choice of a terrorist organization will have consequences," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. "Unless Hamas completely reinvents itself, renouncing violence, recognizing Israel's right to exist and endorsing a two-state solution, Hamas cannot be viewed as a partner for peace."

AJC welcomed President Bush's remarks at his news conference today, declaring that the U.S. would not deal with Palestinian leaders who do not recognize Israel's right to exist. The U.S. and the European Union have listed Hamas as a terrorist organization.

AJC supports a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but has long pointed out that Israel needs a credible Palestinian partner, one who is committed to a path towards peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.

"Israel has demonstrated its desire for peace again and again, and its willingness to make painful compromises to advance peace with the Palestinians, including the most recent transfer of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority," said Harris. "The political elevation of Hamas will not thwart Israel's commitment to safeguarding its own citizens while searching for a durable peace with all neighbors."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Budget Reconciliation Bill Jeopardizes Medicaid Coverage for 3 to 5 Million U.S. Citizens, Survey Finds

1/26/2006 11:48:00 AM

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released the following analysis of a survey on Medicaid coverage and the Budget Reconciliation Bill:

New Survey Finds 3 to 5 Million Citizens' Medicaid Coverage Jeopardized by Budget Reconciliation Bill

By Leighton Ku, Donna Cohen Ross and Matt Broaddus

On Feb. 1, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the budget reconciliation agreement, which contains a little-noticed mandate requiring U.S. citizens covered by Medicaid to prove their citizenship by submitting a birth certificate or passport or lose their Medicaid coverage. While the provision was intended by its sponsors to keep illegal immigrants from fraudulently enrolling in Medicaid, a new survey demonstrates that it will have unexpectedly large consequences for the health coverage of U.S. citizens, including children, who lack these documents.

Data from a new nationally representative telephone survey of 2,026 adults, commissioned by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation between Jan. 12 and Jan. 16, reveal that the new requirement could jeopardize the health insurance coverage of millions of low-income U.S. citizens. Key findings from the survey include:

-- About 1.7 million U.S.-born adults on Medicaid could find their coverage in jeopardy. About one in every twelve (8 percent) U.S.-born adults age 18 or older who have incomes below $25,000 report they do not have a U.S. passport or U.S. birth certificate in their possession. This indicates that about 1.7 million U.S.-born adults covered by Medicaid could lose their health insurance because of the new requirement or experience delays in obtaining coverage as they attempt to secure these documents.

-- Between 1.4 and 2.9 million U.S.-born children on Medicaid would be at risk. More than one-tenth of U.S.-born adults with children who have incomes below $25,000 reported they did not have a birth certificate or passport for at least one of their children. This indicates that between 1.4 and 2.9 million children enrolled in Medicaid apparently do not have the paperwork required.

-- Taken together, approximately 3.2 to 4.6 million U.S.-born citizens now on Medicaid would be at risk of losing coverage because they do not have a U.S. passport or birth certificate readily available.

-- Risks are greatest for African Americans, senior citizens, and rural residents. Some types of citizens would shoulder a greater risk of losing Medicaid than others because they are less likely to have the required documents. While 5.7 percent of all adults in the survey (i.e., adults at all income levels) reported they lack these documents, the percentages were larger for certain groups:

-- African American adults (9 percent lack required documents)

-- Senior citizens 65 or older (7 percent lack required documents)

-- Adults without a high school diploma (9 percent lack required documents)

-- Adults living in rural areas (9 percent lack required documents)

The risks posed by the new requirement are particularly problematic given that there is no evidence that illegal immigrants are fraudulently enrolling in Medicaid by claiming to be citizens. A comprehensive study conducted by the Department of Health and Human Service's Inspector General in 2005 did not reveal evidence of a problem; accordingly, the Inspector General did not recommend the policies that Congress now appears poised to adopt.

The full report is posted to http://www.cbpp.org/1-26-06health.htm.

Please contact the media office at the Center -- communications@cbpp.org -- to interview with one of the co-authors about this analysis.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Rice: Any Palestinian Government Must Accept Israel's Right to Exist
By David Gollust
State Department
26 January 2006

Gollust report - Download 288k
Listen to Gollust report


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Palestinian government that emerges from this week's elections must accept a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict and Israel's right to exist. She said the U.S. view of Hamas, the apparent election winner, has not changed.

Secretary Rice is congratulating the Palestinian people on an election that was peaceful and apparently free and fair, and one which clearly showed a desire for change.

But she is also serving notice that the Middle East peace process cannot go forward unless the Palestinian partner in the dialogue renounces violence and accepts Israel's right to exist.


Condoleezza Rice speaks on screen by video link, during a plenary session at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
The secretary's comments in a video hookup with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland were the first by a senior Bush administration official since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian legislative elections became clear.

The United States has no dealings with the militant Islamic group, which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization and Rice said the U.S. view on Hamas has not changed.

She said while the Palestinians have voted for change, the United States believes their aspirations for peace have not changed. She said any new government that emerges would have to adopt the basic tenets of the peace process if it is to gain international acceptance:

"We understand that this is a transitional period," she said. "But anyone who wants to govern the Palestinian people and do so with the support of the international community, has got to be committed to a two-state solution, must be committed to the right of Israel to exist. You cannot have a peace process if you are not committed to the right of your partner to exist."

The secretary said she had discussed the election by telephone with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and new Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

The discussion will continue Monday at a London meeting of the international Middle East Quartet, including Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, which is sponsoring the "road map" to a Middle East peace accord.


Palestinian supporters of Islamic Hamas wave flags and hold weapons during a rally
In her comments to the Davos forum, the secretary said Palestinians are in a period of historic transition after emerging from years of corruption and mis-rule under Yasser Arafat.

She said those in whom the Palestinians are putting their trust now face difficult choices, and that if they are going to provide a future that meets the aspirations of their people, it will have to be a future that renounces violence and terror.

January 26, 2006
2 More Democratic Senators Back Alito
By DAVID STOUT and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The Senate's confirmation of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. for a Supreme Court seat appeared inevitable this afternoon, despite what seemed to be a quixotic attempt to stop it, as the nominee picked up the support of two more Democratic senators.

The two new Democratic backers, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, joined Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, in crossing party lines to endorse Judge Alito, whom many Senate Democrats have assailed as so conservative as to be out of the judicial and social mainstream.

"I make up my own mind," Mr. Byrd said. He said he had become convinced that Judge Alito was "an honorable man who loves his country and loves his Constitution. Can we really ask for more?"

Mr. Johnson announced his support for Judge Alito in a statement that was decidedly tepid. "Judge Alito's long record raises concerns across a broad range of areas," he said. "Clearly, he would not have been my pick for the Supreme Court."

Still, the senator said, "I do not believe that simple political ideology ought to be a deciding factor so long as the nominee's views are not significantly outside the mainstream of American legal thinking."

Mr. Johnson added, "I cannot accept an argument that his views are so radical that the Senate is justified in denying his confirmation."

C-Span2, which has kept a running tally of senators who announce their positions, counted 54 votes in favor of Judge Alito by late this afternoon, against 31 opposed to him.

Two liberal Democrats who have been among Judge Alito's harshest critics, Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry, both of Massachusetts, were known to have tried to build support for a filibuster, a Senate delay-through-debate technique that requires 60 votes to defeat. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Kerry delivered an impassioned plea to the Democratic caucus on Wednesday, but they failed to persuade enough of their colleagues. And as of this afternoon, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, was said to be firmly against a filibuster, in part because he thinks Democrats might incur too much ill will for opposing a candidate who is considered well-qualified, whatever his ideology.

Since three of the 44 Democrats are already on record supporting Judge Alito, every other remaining Democrat would have to sign on to a filibuster.

No Republican has yet come out in opposition to the nominee. But two moderate Republicans, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, had yet to announce their decisions by late this afternoon. Susan M. Collins, another moderate Republican from Maine, said she would vote for Judge Alito.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

Vaccine Provides 100% Protection Against Avian Flu Virus In Animal Study
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Vaccine_...imal_Study.html

Pittsburgh PA (SPX) Jan 27, 2006 - University of Pittsburgh researchers announced they have genetically engineered an avian flu vaccine from the critical components of the deadly H5N1 virus that completely protected mice and chickens from infection. Avian flu has devastated bird populations in Southeast Asia and Europe and so far has killed more than 80 people.

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ENERGY TECH

Ethanol Can Replace Gasoline With Big Energy Savings
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ethanol_...gy_Savings.html

Berkeley CA (SPX) Jan 27, 2006 - Putting ethanol instead of gasoline in your tank saves oil and is probably no worse for the environment than burning gasoline, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

How Bush would tame healthcare costs
A briefing on the president's anticipated move to put healthcare atop
the US political agenda. By Alexandra Marks
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0127/p02s01-uspo.html?s=hns

Is the US Army prepared to fight another Iraq-style war?
Two recent studies raise concerns over troop levels and US
preparedness. By Mark Sappenfield
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0127/p03s03-usmi.html?s=hns

Mitt Romney
The Massachusetts governor put some space between himself and the Bush
administration on Iraq and healthcare. By David T. Cook
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0127/p25s01-usmb.html?s=hns

January 27, 2006
New Poll Finds Mixed Support for Wiretaps
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER
Americans are willing to tolerate eavesdropping without warrants to fight terrorism, but are concerned that the aggressive antiterrorism programs championed by the Bush administration are encroaching on civil liberties, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

In a sign that public opinion about the trade-offs between national security and individual rights is nuanced and remains highly unresolved, responses to questions about the administration's eavesdropping program varied significantly depending on how the questions were worded, underlining the importance of the effort by the White House this week to define the issue on its terms.

The poll, conducted as President Bush defended his surveillance program in the face of criticism from Democrats and some Republicans that it is illegal, found that Americans were willing to give the administration some latitude for its surveillance program if they believed it was intended to protect them. Fifty-three percent of the respondents said they supported eavesdropping without warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

The results suggest that Americans' view of the program depends in large part on whether they perceive it as a bulwark in the fight against terrorism, as Mr. Bush has sought to cast it, or as an unnecessary and unwarranted infringement on civil liberties, as critics have said.

In one striking finding, respondents overwhelmingly supported e-mail and telephone monitoring directed at "Americans that the government is suspicious of;" they overwhelmingly opposed the same kind of surveillance if it was aimed at "ordinary Americans."

Mr. Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday, twice used the phrase "terrorist surveillance program" to describe an operation in which the administration has eavesdropped on telephone calls and other communications like e-mail that it says could involve operatives of Al Qaeda overseas talking to Americans. Critics say the administration could conduct such surveillance while still getting prior court approval, as spelled out in a 1978 law intended to guard against governmental abuses.

The findings came in a poll conducted as Mr. Bush prepares to deliver his fifth State of the Union address on Tuesday. It found that Mr. Bush will face a nation that has grown sour on Washington and skeptical that he will be able to achieve significant progress in health care, the economy, the Iraq war and the cost of prescription drugs for older patients before he leaves office in three years.

The poll also signaled concern for Republicans as they prepare to defend their control of the House and the Senate in midterm elections this November. Investigations into Congressional corruption are taking a toll as the elections approach: 61 percent of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Congress, the highest in 10 years.

This finding holds particular peril for Republicans as the party that has been in charge. More than half of the respondents said they believed that most members of Congress would exchange votes for money or favors.

Republicans were seen as more likely to be unduly influenced by lobbyists. And the Republican Party is now viewed unfavorably by 51 percent of the nation, its worst rating since Mr. Bush took office. By contrast, 53 percent said they held a favorable view of Democrats.

The telephone poll was conducted with 1,229 adults, starting Friday and ending Wednesday. Its margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.

The poll found that Americans were to a large extent perplexed as they weighed conflicting forces: the need presented by Mr. Bush to take extraordinary action to fight terrorism, and a historical aversion to an overly intrusive government.

The poll found that 53 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's authorizing eavesdropping without prior court approval "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism"; 46 percent disapproved. When the question was asked stripped of any mention of terrorism, 46 percent of those respondents approved, and 50 percent said they disapproved.

At the same time, 64 percent said they were very or somewhat concerned about losing civil liberties as a result of antiterrorism measures put in place by Mr. Bush since the attacks of Sept. 11. And respondents were more likely to be concerned that the government would enact strong antiterrorism laws that excessively restrict civil liberties than they were that the government would fail to enact antiterrorism laws.

The poll was conducted just as the White House commenced an elaborate campaign to defend the surveillance program, and thus may have been too early to offer a full measure of that campaign's effectiveness. There were no measurable changes in the poll findings from one day to the next.

The findings, and follow-up interviews with some participants, clearly suggest that Mr. Bush has an opportunity to make the dispute over the program play to his political advantage. He has been pointing to the threat of another terrorist attack to justify the eavesdropping program and is trying, for the third election in a row, to suggest that he and his party are more aggressive about protecting the nation than are Democrats.

"Say they're targeting someone in Al Qaeda outside the country, and that person then calls someone in the United States about a plot or something really bad: I don't have a problem with that phone being monitored," Debbie Viebranz, 51, a Republican from Ohio, said in a follow-up interview. "But I don't think they should do it for no reason."

Donnis Wells, 69, a Republican from Florence, Miss., said: "I don't think civil liberties are the more important thing we need to handle right now. I think we need to protect our people."

Still, interviews reflected clear apprehension about the program. "If there is a warrant and done by the courts, I would agree," said Robert Ray, 54, an independent from Kentucky. "But they're trying to do it without using the courts. I just don't trust them."

In the poll, 70 percent of respondents said they would not be willing to support governmental monitoring of the communications of "ordinary Americans"; 68 percent said they would be willing to support such monitoring of "Americans the government is suspicious of."

Beyond surveillance, the poll found that Americans hold unfavorable views of the president and the Republican-controlled Congress as Mr. Bush prepares to give his State of the Union speech. Americans, while declaring themselves generally optimistic about the next three years under Mr. Bush, do not expect him to accomplish very much in that time.

When Mr. Bush leaves office, respondents said, the deficit will be larger than it is today, the elderly will be being paying more for prescription drugs, and the economy and the health care system will be the same as today, or worse.

Mr. Bush is viewed favorably by 42 percent of the respondents, statistically the same as in the last Times/CBS News poll, in early December, a lackluster rating that could hamper his ability to rally public opinion behind his agenda and push legislation through a divided Congress. Beyond that, nearly two-thirds of the country thinks the nation is on the wrong track, a level that has historically proved to be a matter of concern for a party in power.

A majority said they were dissatisfied with the way Mr. Bush was managing the economy and the war in Iraq. Public approval for his handling of the campaign against terrorism, once one of his greatest political strengths, has rebounded somewhat from last fall, but remains well below where it was for the first two years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Most strikingly, the poll found abundant evidence of public unhappiness with Congress. While it is risky to draw conclusions about Congressional elections from national measurements of discontent — for example, more than half of all Americans said they were satisfied with the job their member of Congress was doing — the findings underscored the tough electoral environment that has led some analysts to predict significant Republican losses this fall.

The corruption investigations appear to account for a lot of the dissatisfaction. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said that the kind of influence-peddling revelations that have emerged in the investigation of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff reflected the "way things work in Congress" and were not isolated incidents. More than 50 percent said most members of Congress "accept bribes or gifts that affect their votes."

"It seems like the integrity of Congress members in the last few years has just gone to pot," said Donald Pertuis, 54, an independent voter from Hot Springs, Ark. Mr. Pertuis added: "In the last 20 years, greed has accelerated. People expect more, I suppose, and want to work less."

Marjorie Connelly, Marina Stefan and Megan Thee contributed reporting for this article.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Bush Sees No Need for Law to Approve Eavesdropping
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — President Bush declared again on Thursday that his administration's program for eavesdropping without warrants was well within existing law, and said that efforts in Congress to write legislation expressly giving him authority for such a program were unnecessary and dangerous.

"My concern has always been that in an attempt to try to pass a law on something that's already legal, we'll show the enemy what we're doing," Mr. Bush said in a wide-ranging morning news conference in the White House press briefing room. The president added that if the effort to write a new law "is likely to expose the nature of the program, I'll resist it."

Mr. Bush's 46-minute news conference, announced less than an hour and a half ahead of time, was an effort by the White House to frame the debate on an array of foreign and domestic issues only five days before his State of the Union address. The topics included the Hamas landslide in the Palestinian elections; photographs of Mr. Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist; and the Congressional investigation into the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Bush appeared relaxed in the briefing room, which his aides say he prefers for news conferences instead of the more formal East Room. He appeared apprehensive at first, but loosened up when he saw a camera dangling precariously from a cord in the ceiling, threatening to crash down on the heads of reporters. "Are you wearing your helmets?" Mr. Bush asked.

He said he welcomed traveling for the 2006 midterm elections in November. "I've got one more off-year campaign in me as a sitting president, and I'm looking forward to it," he said. "As you know, I like to get out and tell people what's on my mind."

The eavesdropping program dominated the domestic policy questions at the news conference, which Mr. Bush used as another volley in his weeklong campaign to push back against both Democrats and Republicans who question the program's legality. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into the program are to begin next month.

"There's no doubt in my mind it is legal," Mr. Bush said.

He reiterated that the program, which intercepts international phone calls and e-mail messages of people in the United States suspected by the government of having links to Al Qaeda, was crucial to national security, and declared that he had the constitutional authority in wartime to order it. He said that after the Sept. 11 attacks he had asked people like Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency and now the principal deputy director of national intelligence, to come up with plans to protect against terrorist attacks.

"And so he came forward with this program," Mr. Bush said. "In other words, it wasn't designed in the White House; it was designed where you expect it to be designed, in the N.S.A."

Mr. Bush took issue with a questioner who asked why he felt the need to circumvent the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court warrants for wiretaps.

"Wait a minute," Mr. Bush said. "That's a — there's something — it's like saying, you know, 'You're breaking the law.' I'm not." He said that the surveillance act "was written in 1978" and that now "it's a different world."

Mr. Bush sidestepped a question on whether the eavesdropping program was part of an effort by the White House to reassert executive power.

"I would say that there has been a historical debate between the executive branch and the legislative branch as to who's got what power," he said. "And I don't view it as a contest with the legislative branch. Maybe they view it as a contest with the executive. I just don't."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Prosecutor Will Step Down From Lobbyist Case
By PHILIP SHENON and ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.

The prosecutor, Noel L. Hillman, is chief of the department's public integrity division, and the move ends his involvement in an investigation that has reached into the administration as well as into the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.

The administration said that the appointment was routine and that it would not affect the investigation, but Democrats swiftly questioned the timing of the move and called for a special prosecutor.

The announcement came as Mr. Bush faced a barrage of questions about why he would not make public "grip-and-grin" photographs of him with Mr. Abramoff. The photographs apparently show Mr. Bush and Mr. Abramoff smiling at White House Hanukkah parties and Republican fund-raising receptions.

Mr. Bush's position, which he offered at a news conference on Thursday morning that was peppered with questions about Mr. Abramoff, was that the photographs were so common as to be almost meaningless and that it was part of his job "to shake hands with people and smile." He said he could not remember posing for the pictures, or, for that matter, even meeting Mr. Abramoff.

"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Mr. Bush said. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people. Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well."

He said, "I'm also mindful that we live in a world in which those pictures will be used for pure political purposes, and they're not relevant to the investigation."

The White House, which announced Mr. Bush's selection of Mr. Hillman for the court in a routine e-mail message on Wednesday afternoon that included 15 other nominations to judgeships and federal jobs, dismissed the calls for a special prosecutor.

"It's nothing but pure politics," said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary. "The Justice Department is holding Mr. Abramoff to account, and the career Justice prosecutors are continuing to fully investigate the matter."

A special prosecutor would not be especially welcome at the White House. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case, is more than two years into an inquiry that has resulted in the indictment of a top vice-presidential aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., and has left Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, under investigation.

Mr. Hillman's departure from the Justice Department creates a vacancy at the top of the Abramoff investigation only three weeks after Mr. Abramoff, once one of the city's most powerful Republican lobbyists and a major fund-raiser for Mr. Bush, announced his guilty plea and agreed to testify against others, possibly including members of Congress.

A former senior White House budget official, David H. Safavian, has been indicted in the case on charges of lying about his contacts with Mr. Abramoff, a former lobbying partner. The Justice Department's plea agreement with Mr. Abramoff makes clear that prosecutors are investigating several members of Congress and other public officials who are suspected of having accepted gifts from the lobbyist in exchange for official acts.

Colleagues at the Justice Department say Mr. Hillman has been involved in day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began almost two year ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on allegations that Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a generation.

Mr. Hillman's nomination for a judgeship was among the factors cited Thursday by four Democratic lawmakers, two senators and two representatives, in calling on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to name a special prosecutor to oversee the wide-ranging corruption investigation.

The timing of Mr. Hillman's nomination "jaundices this whole process," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in an interview. "They have to appoint a special counsel. I think there will be broad support for one."

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said the timing was "startling." Mr. Miller said, "You have one of the chief prosecutors removed from a case that has tentacles throughout the Republican leadership of Congress, throughout the various agencies and into the White House."

White House officials have said that Mr. Abramoff had no improper dealings with the White House. They have said he attended "staff level" meetings at the White House, but have declined to say with whom. One of Mr. Abramoff's chief connections to the White House was through Susan Ralston, an assistant who worked for him before she worked for Mr. Rove. Ms. Ralston continues to work for Mr. Rove as a top aide.

A Justice Department spokesman, Bryan Sierra, said he had no comment on the Democratic request for a special prosecutor because the department had not received their letter making the request.

Mr. Sierra said in an interview that there was nothing unusual about the timing of Mr. Hillman's nomination and that it would not affect the Abramoff investigation. "The team that Noel put together is going to remain together," he said. "The investigation should not be impacted."

He said that Mr. Hillman would remain at the Justice Department while the nomination was processed in the Senate, but that the prosecutor had decided to step aside as head of the public integrity office next week "because he felt the position should be held by someone who could devote their attention to the investigations full time."

He also said that Mr. Hillman would be temporarily succeeded as head of the public integrity office by Andrew Lourie, a career prosecutor in Florida, who performed the same role before Mr. Hillman took over the office in 2002.

The White House had been poised to nominate Mr. Hillman for the bench last year. Mr. Sierra said he did not know why the nomination had been delayed until this week, but he said he believed it had nothing to do with the Abramoff investigation.

In a letter sent to the attorney general on Thursday asking for an independent counsel, Senator Schumer and Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, praised Mr. Hillman's office for the investigation that led to the guilty plea by Mr. Abramoff and his former lobbying partner, Michael Scanlon, a former press secretary to Representative Tom DeLay.

"We applaud its pursuit of Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues," they said. "We have no doubt that if the investigation is left to the career prosecutors in that section, the case would reach its appropriate conclusion. Unfortunately, the highly political context of the allegations and charges may lead some to surmise that political influence may compromise the investigation."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Savings Accounts for Health Costs Attract Wall St.
By ERIC DASH
When it comes to medical benefits, millions of Americans already have a health insurer. Soon, many will also have a debit card and a bank tied to their medical plan.

Banks, credit unions and money management firms are now quietly positioning themselves to become central players in the business of health care, offering 401(k)-type accounts to cover future medical expenses.

Bank of America, J. P. Morgan Chase, Fidelity Investments and hundreds of others are hoping to capitalize on the latest wrinkle in medical care paid by consumers: health savings accounts, which have been around since 2003 but are moving to the fore of the national agenda in anticipation of the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

These supercharged checking accounts, which must be linked to a high-deductible health insurance plan, allow consumers to invest their own money for current and future medical expenses and have it grow tax-free.

They are the centerpiece of President Bush's plans on health care, just as private accounts were offered as a Social Security fix.

Currently, only about three million Americans have signed up for the high-deductible insurance policy required for such accounts, up from slightly more than one million last March, according to findings released yesterday by America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group. It is not clear how many of those people have actually opened a linked account. Still, the number is expected to rise sharply over the next five years.

By 2010, more than 15 million Americans, or about 10 percent of all those insured, will have a health savings account, according to an estimate by DiamondCluster International, a management consulting firm.

The average individual's account balance, it projects, will grow from $1,500 today to about $3,500 in 2010. Even if people pull out some or all of their money to pay their medical bills, the ballooning balances may mean that $75 billion or so in new money to manage will soon be at stake.

Banks and others are drawn by the promise of lucrative fees they can generate by offering consumers mutual funds and other investment vehicles as their account balances grow. Most also charge $50 to $75 to set up a health savings account, and they collect perhaps $40 or more each year in maintenance charges and service fees.

Not since the creation of the individual retirement account in the mid-1970's has such a potentially huge mountain of money landed in the lap of the financial services industry.

"Billions of dollars that used to be written in the form of checks with insurance companies' names on them would instead go to credit unions, banks, and long-term investment houses," said Dan Perrin, the publisher of H.S.A. Insider and executive director of the H.S.A. Coalition, a lobbying group backed by 70 small-business and medical industry groups as well as the American Bankers Association. "You know America: you see a financial opportunity and it sets off a gold rush."

Two years ago, not a single major bank offered a health savings account. Only seven small banks had any sort of plan. Today, more than 300 financial services companies, including big banks, are taking deposits or will be soon. About 150 more are on the way. Some of the country's biggest health insurance providers have started their own banks.

To be sure, health savings accounts will make up only a small fraction of earnings at a financial giant like Citigroup. But at a time when deposit growth has slowed and higher interest rates have hurt profits, they represent a steady stream of new income that is increasingly hard to find. Banks are betting that what the administration calls consumer-directed health care catches on.

Supporters say that the discipline and marketing might of financial services giants could spur the adoption of consumer-directed care. Critics argue that the banking industry's involvement only bolsters their case: the accounts are more about wealth than health.

"We already have a large number of retirement savings vehicles in the United States," said Jonathan Gruber, an economist and Treasury Department official in the Clinton administration. "It is not clear why we need yet another tax break for savings for rich guys."

Corporations, of course, want relief from soaring health care costs, and have been steadily shifting more of the burden to their employees. Small businesses were among the first to offer health savings accounts to their employees. But over the last year or so, a number of big companies — from Guidant to Wal-Mart Stores — have started signing up.

Health savings accounts are akin to the private accounts that were proposed to help overhaul Social Security. Much of Wall Street liked private retirement accounts, but their support was guarded because they feared a potential negative reaction.

Banking lobbyists have met with White House officials at least three times over the last year to discuss the rules governing health savings vehicles. But until recently, most have been shy about their interest in such plans. Now, they have established a lobbying group, the H.S.A. Council, and are spending millions of dollars to roll the plans out.

The idea behind the accounts is simple: forced to pay out of pocket for medical care, Americans workers will spend health care dollars more wisely. The way it works is more complex. Americans under the age of 65 with a high-deductible health care plan can contribute tax-free to the new 401(k)-like account as much as $2,700 this year for individuals and $5,450 for families, or the amount of their deductible if it is less. Unlike health reimbursement plans, which were controlled by the employer, health savings accounts belong to employees even if they change jobs.

The money can be used to pay for medical, dental and vision expenses as well as a portion of qualified premiums for long-term-care insurance.

The rest can be invested in stocks, bonds and mutual funds — and grow tax-free. That money would be available to pay for a broad range of health care expenses in the future, and would remain untaxed as long as it was spent on health care. At any time after age 65, money can be withdrawn for any reason without penalty, but the entire amount taken out would be taxed.

For wealthier people, the tax break could provide a generous incentive to build a nest egg for future health care; poorer people with smaller annual contributions could wind up spending all the money they put away during the year.

Geoff Dougall's accounting firm in Beaverton, Ore., is among the thousands of employers that have switched from a conventional health insurance plan to offering health savings account.

"We are very much talking about it as a savings vehicle," said Mr. Dougall, who is giving each of his employees $2,500 this year to cover the deductibles of their health insurance policies.

The savings accounts, in effect, give financial institutions a vital, but behind-the-scenes role in shaping the nation's health care system.

Banks hope to use their close ties with their customers to enter the health insurance market. For now, they collaborate with insurance providers as much as they compete. Health savings accounts must be opened in conjunction with a high-deductible health insurance plan. After choosing an insurance policy, the consumer must pick a bank.

Even though the health plan and savings account are separate products, big banks and insurance companies pitch them together as an "integrated solution" and split the fees. Health insurers keep the premiums; banks retain the investment management fees and the debit card transaction fees. The two split the money earned for opening and maintaining the accounts.

Health insurers, said David Josephs, J. P. Morgan's vice president for health care business development, "are good at explaining benefits."

"They are good at eligibility. They are good at enrollment. Managing risk. Contracting with doctors and hospitals. Banks are good at managing transactions. Managing deposits. Making investments."

"As you look at consumer-directed health care," he added, "it really requires both of those skill sets."

Even without the lucrative investment management fees, bank executives like Daniel Kelly, manager of H.S.A. services at U.S. Bancorp, say health savings accounts are attractive. Banks make money each time a customer swipes his debit card at a doctor's office. Payment processing alone could generate some $2.3 billion over the next five years, the DiamondCluster study estimates.

Some big medical plans have already entered the health saving account arena by starting their own bank.

Four years ago, United Healthcare started Exante Financial Services, a Utah-based bank that allowed it to become the first company to offer its customers the high-deductible health insurance policies as well as savings accounts. In December, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said it was planning to charter a similar institution, Blue Healthcare Bank, an online bank.

Executives at both companies say they are not being lured into the banking business by the prospects of wealth management; nor do they plan to offer traditional banking services and loans.

Instead, they say having both products under one roof will allow them to provide better customer service, like more smoothly processing transactions at doctors' offices or quickly resolving billing disputes.

"This has nothing to do with an assets-under-management play," said John M. Prince, chief executive of Exante Financial Services. "There will be huge falloff in people who are trying to play that role. Eighty percent of the money are assets that go right in and go right out."

Just a few years ago, the idea that the titans of health care and banking would be battling for business would have been nearly impossible to imagine.

Even after the Bush administration began pushing for the creation of health savings accounts with the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the banking industry mainly stayed on the sidelines. The American Banking Association lent its name to the H.S.A. Coalition lobbying group but did not contribute any money.

Industry lobbyists viewed the idea as a health care issue; they raised questions about its prospects of passing as the 2004 presidential race heated up. Banking executives did not see the profit potential after an experiment with Medical Savings Accounts, aimed at small businesses, failed.

"Put it this way, the impact of this law did not really become clear to them until after it passed," said Mr. Perrin, the H.S.A. Coalition director. Once they understood how the accounts worked, however, the big banks realized the next I.R.A. had landed at their feet.

Now, some financial institutions are urging the Bush administration and Congress to raise the tax-deductible contribution limit to encourage consumers to put more money in their accounts — a proposal that President Bush is expected to endorse in his State of the Union speech.

Banks are already champing at the bit. "We happen to be in the camp that the H.S.A. is a second retirement account to be used for medical expenses," said Nancy Todor, an executive who will oversee health savings accounts when Citigroup introduces them this year.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Bush Defends His Goal of Spreading Democracy to the Mideast
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — The sweeping victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections threw President Bush and his aides on the defensive on Thursday, complicating the administration's policy of trying to promote democracy as an antidote to the spread of terrorism.

Reacting uneasily to the Hamas triumph, Mr. Bush said the results spoke to the failures of President Mahmoud Abbas and the "old guard" of his Fatah faction to root out corruption and mismanagement, not to any flaws in the administration's policy of advocating democracy.

"There was a peaceful process as people went to the polls, and that's positive," Mr. Bush said. "But what's also positive is that it's a wake-up call to the leadership. Obviously people were not happy with the status quo. The people are demanding honest government. The people want services."

But without criticizing the Palestinian people for choosing leaders who advocate the destruction of Israel, a tenet at the very core of Hamas's creed, he said that the United States would never tolerate such a policy. In the same fashion, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that Palestinians want a negotiated peace settlement with Israel, according to opinion polls, but she repeated that this goal remained possible only if Hamas renounced its violent ways.

Mr. Bush joined a chorus of world leaders — including the so-called quartet of principal parties in the moribund peace process — in calling on Hamas to renounce terrorism, disarm its militias and recognize the legitimacy of Israel now that it has won the elections. But his tone was less confrontational than invitational — in effect, inviting Hamas to embrace reconciliation.

For now, Mr. Bush called on President Abbas to stay in office and steer the Palestinian government on a moderate course.

The Hamas victory was the fifth case recently of militants' winning significant gains through elections. They included the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, a radical president in Iran, and Shiites backed by militias in Iraq.

As these elections unfolded, there has been increasing criticism in some quarters — notably among the self-described "realists" in foreign policy, many of them veterans of past Republican administrations — that President Bush has naively pushed for democracy in countries without the civil society components to support it.

"The Hamas victory is a disillusioning result showing that democracy and American interests don't always coincide," said Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a Russia expert who is editor of The National Interest, a publication that echoes with debate about this subject.

"Given the weakness of Palestinian society, people should not have been surprised that this was the outcome," Mr. Gvosdev added.

Other critics, too, including some Arab leaders, say that the United States failed to do its part to shore up Mr. Abbas by wringing more concessions from Israel and doing more to revitalize the economy in the West Bank and Gaza.

A senior State Department official said recently that the Bush administration, five years ago, inherited what he called the old model: that economic growth, the development of a middle class and the spread of education needed to come before democracy could take hold in troubled countries.

"But that's a story that we can no longer accept," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of rules prohibiting him from publicly explaining administration policy. "First of all you're not getting economic growth in a lot of places. We now understand that getting greater political openness and democracy in the Arab world is essential to our security."

The problem faced by the administration on Thursday was how to coax Hamas into the mainstream.

The West has more tools than mere diplomatic pressure to influence Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The authority, described by many as nearly bankrupt, has begun tapping its trust funds to pay daily expenses and is running a deficit that Israel calculates at more than $700 million a year.

Europe and the United States provide most of the $1 billion in foreign assistance that goes to the Palestinians. But some of this money has already been cut back in protest of the Palestinian leadership's raising salaries and welfare benefits, which make up a major part of the Palestinian economy.

American and European officials said they could not imagine outside aid continuing if there is a Hamas-led government that has not renounced violence or Hamas's commitment to destroying Israel.

Many of the reactions from Western diplomats took on dramatic tones, characterizing Hamas as now facing a trial of identity.

"What Hamas faces is not only a political but an existential dilemma," said Terje Roed-Larsen, the former United Nations envoy in the Middle East, in an interview. "They have built their identity on opposing elections and the institutions of the Palestinian Authority. Now they're the masters of the institutions they have been against."

Diplomats involved in the Middle East peace process known as the road map, the document that calls for reciprocal steps between Israelis and Palestinians toward creation of a Palestinian state, say that any immediate chances of reviving the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue are daunting if not impossible.

The immediate question before the administration is not whether negotiations can be revived but whether Israel can be encouraged to carry out more unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank.

As for dealing with Hamas, the Europeans are considered likely to see the problem differently, many diplomats say. Regarding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the Europeans have called for the West to use the template of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, when dealing with them.

In other words, they say, talking to Hamas may help coax it toward eventual partnership in a peace negotiation. The problem, many diplomats and experts say, is that no one even pretends that there are truly separate wings of Hamas. Its armed forces and its political leaders are married to each other inextricably.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Bush and China Endorse Russia's Nuclear Plan for Iran
By DAVID E. SANGER and ELAINE SCIOLINO
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — President Bush and the Chinese government both declared their full support on Thursday for a Russian proposal to allow Iran to operate civilian nuclear facilities as long as Russia and international nuclear inspectors are in full control of the fuel.

Mr. Bush's explicit public endorsement puts all of the major powers on record supporting the proposal, even as most acknowledge that it is a significant concession to Iran and runs the risk that the country will drag out the negotiations while continuing to produce nuclear material. Yet officials say they believe it is the best face-saving strategy to pursue a negotiated settlement with Iran.

European and American officials familiar with the details of the offer that Russia made to Iran say that Iran would continue to be allowed to operate its nuclear plant at Isfahan, which converts raw uranium into a form that is ready to be enriched. That is a step that both Europe and the United States said last year that they could not allow — and that was explicitly barred under the agreement between Iran and Europe in late 2004, because Iran could divert the uranium to secret enrichment facilities. Iran began operating the Isfahan plant again in August.

Mr. Bush did not discuss the details of the Russian offer. But American, European and Russian officials, who like others discussing the issue spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be seen as interfering in the negotiations, said the offer would allow Iran to continue operations at the plant that turns yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium ore, into uranium hexafluoride, a toxic material that centrifuges spin into fuel for reactors or bombs.

Critics of that concession say that it could send a signal to Iran that it no longer has to comply with all provisions of its November 2004 agreement with Europe.

"A red line was crossed" when Iran began producing the uranium last fall, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonpartisan research group that follows developments in Iran. "The Iranians got away with reopening the conversion facility, and now people have accepted it's never going to be shut again and have taken it off the table."

Mr. Bush made his statement embracing the Russian idea at a news conference on Thursday. He said, "The Iranians have said, 'We want a weapon.' "

In fact, Iran has denied that it is pursuing a weapon, and in the afternoon, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, acknowledged that Mr. Bush had misspoken.

"He was referring to their behavior," Mr. McClellan said by telephone later. "Our concern is their intention is to develop a nuclear weapon under the guise of a civilian program."

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush's slip may cement the perception among some members of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency that he has decided, at least in his own mind, that Iran is intent on building a weapon as fast as it can, a situation he has said repeatedly that he will not tolerate. Mr. Bush gave no hint on Thursday that he was thinking of military action, instead saying that "we are working hard to continue the diplomacy necessary to send a focused message to the Iranian government, and that is: 'Your desires for a weapon are unacceptable.' "

Mr. Bush's statement came at a moment of heightened concern in Vienna, home of the agency, that if its board votes next week to send Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council, Iran might make good on its threat to limit cooperation with inspectors and begin full scale enrichment of uranium. North Korea threw out inspectors three years ago, and one senior American official said recently that "the Iranians have looked closely at that model."

The Russian proposal lays out a complicated plan in which Iran would supply the uranium hexafluoride from Isfahan, shipping it to Russia for enrichment. Once enriched, the uranium would be shipped back to Iran's nuclear plant in Bushehr, which is being built by the Russians.

But huge questions remain, including the scale of the program, the degree of involvement of Iranian engineers and program's commercial viability. Moreover, just working out a deal this complex would take months or longer, experts say, at a time the administration fears the Iranians could surge ahead.

In interviews, Russian and European officials said they believed the arrangements, while face-saving, made no economic or technological sense for Iran. Iran would have to pay for the enrichment, but its own scientists would not be allowed to work on the site.

Moreover, there are technical problems. Russian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were in the middle of negotiations, said that the uranium gas produced at Isfahan was of inferior quality to what was produced in Russia. As a result, the Russians have no interest, they say, in buying any of its for their own use.

In an interview in Vienna on Wednesday, Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador to the atomic agency, said, "There are those who would argue that conversion is not proliferation-significant because it does not produce weapons grade material, but from our perspective, conversion is another step forward to acquire enrichment capability. It has no economic purpose."

While China favored the Russian proposal, it also firmly opposed the use of sanctions. That comes as a disappointment to Washington, which this week sent a top official to persuade China's leaders that they should do far more.

During a visit to Beijing by Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Kong Quan, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, praised Moscow's offer to enrich Iran's uranium in Russia and made clear that China will not support sanctions. "We think the Russian proposal is a good attempt to break this stalemate," Mr. Kong said, adding, "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems."

The Bush administration has not allowed its stated opposition to Iran's uranium conversion at Isfahan to block the Russian offer. "This is dangerous, but it is minimally acceptable as long as they are not enriching," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "The Russian proposal is the last best chance of resolving this without an escalation."

U.S. Comments on India Clarified

India responded testily yesterday to American suggestions of a quid pro quo in its blossoming relations with the United States, with the Indian foreign secretary calling in the United States ambassador over his reported remarks about how India should vote next week on whether to refer the case of Iran's nuclear ambitions to the United Nations Security Council.

David C. Mulford, the American ambassador to India, had been quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency as saying that if India did not vote to refer Iran to the Security Council, it would be "devastating" to its chances of securing the nuclear deal with the United States.

The American Embassy later said that the comments had been taken "out of context" and released a full transcript. In it, Mr. Mulford first said that India would be expected to vote "based on India's judgment of its own national interest."

He went on to say, "that if they decide that they don't want to vote for this, our view is that the effect on members of Congress with regard to this civil nuclear initiative will be devastating."

William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York for this article, and Joseph Kahn from Beijing.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Kerry Urges Alito Filibuster, but His Reception Is Cool
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Jan 26 — Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts could not attend the Senate debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Thursday. He was in Davos, Switzerland, mingling with international business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum.

But late Thursday afternoon, Mr. Kerry began calling fellow Democratic senators in a quixotic, last-minute effort for a filibuster to stop the nomination.

Democrats cringed and Republicans jeered at the awkwardness of his gesture, which almost no one in the Senate expects to succeed.

"God bless John Kerry," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "He just cinched this whole nomination. With Senator Kerry, it is Christmas every day."

Steve Schmidt, a White House spokesman working on the nomination, said Mr. Kerry's move "says a lot less about Alito than it does about the Iowa primary in 2008," suggesting that Mr. Kerry, who lost the presidential race in 2004, was playing to his party's liberal base in a bid to recapture its nomination.

Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, sounded almost apologetic about Mr. Kerry's statements.

"No one can complain on this matter that there hasn't been sufficient time to talk about Judge Alito, pro and con," Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. "I hope that this matter will be resolved without too much more talking."

Mr. Kerry's call for a filibuster, an effort to stop confirmation by refusing to close debate and hold a vote, was joined by his fellow Democratic senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy.

Under Senate procedures, their objections blocked the Senate Democratic and Republican leaders from setting Tuesday as the date for a vote on confirmation.

Instead, the Senate will vote Monday on whether to close debate. Sixty votes are required for a full Senate vote on Judge Alito. More than 60 senators have already pledged to support him, and the leaders of both parties said they expected to hold the full vote on Tuesday.

Mr. Kerry offered an explanation for his position in a post on a liberal blog, the Daily Kos.

"People can say all they want that 'elections have consequences,' " he wrote. "Trust me, more than anyone I understand that. But that seems like an awfully convoluted rationale for me to stay silent about Judge Alito's nomination."

Mr. Kerry was celebrated by leaders of the coalition of liberal groups opposing Judge Alito's nomination.

"Senator John Kerry has called for a filibuster of the Alito nomination, heeding your calls to do everything possible to defeat it," People for the American Way cheered in an e-mail message to its supporters.

Mr. Kennedy said a filibuster might help focus attention on the nomination and give its opponents a last chance to sway the public and the Senate.

He acknowledged some "divisions in the caucus" over the advisability of a filibuster, but he said the effort had the support of a few others, including Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip.

A spokesman for Mr. Durbin confirmed that he would vote against closing debate.

"It is an uphill climb at this point," Mr. Kennedy said of a filibuster. "But it is achievable."

Asked if Mr. Kerry's absence from the Senate would hinder their efforts, Mr. Kennedy said, "We'll do the best we can and make a good fight of it."

Mr. Kerry has been rallying his supporters against the nomination for weeks in mass e-mail messages and on his Web site.

And when the Democratic caucus met Wednesday to discuss the nomination, he gave an impassioned plea that the party should try to stage a filibuster even if it failed, people present said, speaking only if granted anonymity because the meeting was private. Some senators at the meeting said an unsuccessful filibuster would leave the party weakened for future battles.

Some said a messy and unsuccessful filibuster fight would distract from the Democratic focus on other issues like corruption in government and wiretapping by the Bush administration.

In the end the party leaders were not persuaded by Mr. Kerry's appeal.

Judge Alito's confirmation was looking increasingly certain Thursday. Two more Democrats, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, said they would break party ranks to vote for confirmation.

Mr. Byrd said his constituents had told him they were "appalled" by the harsh questioning Judge Alito received from the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings, calling them "an outrage and a disgrace."

With Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Byrd bring the number of Democrats pledging support for Judge Alito to three. The vote on confirmation is expected to hew closely to party lines. No Republicans have said they will vote against him.

Two Republican supporters of abortion rights, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, have not declared how they will vote.

Shortly after 7 p.m., Mr. Kerry issued a statement saying, "Judge Alito's confirmation would be an ideological coup on the Supreme Court."

"The president has every right to nominate Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court," Mr. Kerry said. "It's our right and our responsibility to oppose him vigorously."

A few moments later, April Boyd, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kerry, sent a postscript saying that "as things played out over the course of the day today" he had decided to fly home. "Kerry will be back in Washington tomorrow," Ms. Boyd said.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Democrats Outline Agenda, Mostly Sparing the Specifics
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — It has become fashionable in Washington to portray Democrats as the party without a compelling message. Congressional Democrats, eager to pick up seats in November but so far unable to capitalize on Republicans' vulnerability, fired back on Thursday, offering a sweeping agenda that was long on vision and short on specifics.

In back-to-back talks at the National Press Club, the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, and the Senate Democratic whip, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, promised initiatives on education, health care and jobs, and a stronger, more secure nation, if voters put Democrats back in power.

"Our Democratic message is one of renewing America's promise," Ms. Pelosi told reporters, testing out a potential party campaign slogan after the speeches.

The talks, billed as a "pre-buttal" to President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday, were an effort by the Democrats to get a jump on Mr. Bush's speech. But they were also a trial balloon, of sorts, for Democrats to test broad themes with voters, even if those themes lacked details and price tags.

The two outlined what Ms. Pelosi called a "Democratic innovation agenda" that included encouraging scientists and engineers to become teachers, support for small businesses to help them offer health care to employees, and revamping the new Medicare prescription drug law to give the federal government authority to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices.

"It's called Medicare, Part D," Mr. Durbin said of the new program, "and apparently the D stands for 'disaster.' "

Ms. Pelosi promised doubling the nation's budget for basic research in the physical sciences but did not say over what time period. In the Internet era's version of the Herbert Hoover era's promise of a chicken in every pot, she declared, "Our agenda guarantees that every American will have affordable access to broadband within five years."

Mr. Durbin, stepping in for the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, who canceled because of a scheduling conflict, called for a "small-business health benefits plan to give employees of small businesses the same kind of health care that members of Congress enjoy today for much less than what these businesses now pay." He did not say how much that would cost.

Having lost their House majority in 1994 and their Senate majority in 2002, Democrats see 2006 as their best opportunity to pick up seats in both chambers, though most agree that regaining control is a long shot. The past year was disastrous for Republicans: President Bush's poll numbers fell sharply, the administration was besieged with criticism over its handling of Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq, and a lobbying scandal engulfed Congressional Republicans.

So Democrats have been recently lambasting what they call the "Republican culture of corruption" in Washington. Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Durbin sounded that theme again on Thursday, though Democrats and independent political analysts agree that if the party expects to pick up seats in November, its candidates must do more than criticize.

"I think people have a sense that right now Democrats are completely powerless in Washington, that they're just sort of bystanders," said Charlie Cook, the editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which follows Congress. "But there's a danger of Democrats' looking always like they are carping. It's important for them to articulate some kind of vision."

Even so, the two leaders were hardly shy about attacking the president, especially on the war. Mr. Durbin said troops' morale had been undermined because they had been "sent into a war without a plan to win." When a questioner asked why more Democrats had not voted against going to war in Iraq, Mr. Durbin, who did vote against it, replied: "The president has driven this bus into a cul-de-sac, and now he challenges all of us to turn it around. It will not be easy."

Republicans were dismissive.

"The Pelosi-Durbin announcement was like a tree falling in the forest," said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. "Nobody heard it."

Afterward, Ms. Pelosi was asked if she was disappointed that Democrats had yet to benefit from Republican foibles.

"No, I'm not," she replied. "I think we brought the president down on Social Security. I think the press is covering the ethical lapses in the administration and the Republican side of the Congress of the United States. No, I think we're right where we need to be."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Democrats in 2 Southern States Push Bills on Bible Study
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — Democrats in Georgia and Alabama, borrowing an idea usually advanced by conservative Republicans, are promoting Bible classes in the public schools. Their Republican opponents are in turn denouncing them as "pharisees," a favorite term of liberals for politicians who exploit religion.

Democrats in both states have introduced bills authorizing school districts to teach courses modeled after a new textbook, "The Bible and Its Influence." It was produced by the nonpartisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project and provides an assessment of the Bible's impact on history, literature and art that is academic and detached, if largely laudatory.

The Democrats who introduced the bills said they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters. "Rather than sitting back on our heels and then being knocked in our face, we are going to respond in a thoughtful way," said Kasim Reed, a Georgia state senator from Atlanta and one of the sponsors of the bill. "We are not going to give away the South anymore because we are unwilling to talk about our faith."

In Georgia, the proposal marked a new course for the Democratic Party. The state's Democrats, including some sponsors of the bill, opposed a Republican proposal a few years ago to authorize the teaching of a different Bible course, which used a translation of the Scriptures as its text, calling it an inappropriate endorsement of religion. The sponsors say they are introducing their Bible measure now partly to pre-empt a potential Republican proposal seeking to display the Ten Commandments in schools.

In Alabama, a deeply religious state where Democrats support prayer in the schools and a Democratic candidate for governor recently introduced her campaign with the hymn "Give Me That Old Time Religion," the Bible class bills reflect Democrats' efforts to distance themselves from the national party.

"We have always had to somewhat defend ourselves from the national Democratic Party's secular image, and this is part of that," said Ken Guin, a representative from Carbon Hill, leader of the Democratic majority in the State House and a sponsor of the measure.

Democrats in other states are moving in the same direction, jumping into a conversation about religion and values that some party leaders began after the 2004 election, when President Bush and the Republicans rode those themes to victory.

In Indiana, Democratic legislators are among the leaders of a bipartisan effort to preserve the recitation of specifically Christian prayers in the Statehouse. In Virginia, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine relied heavily on religious themes and advertised on evangelical radio stations to win election last fall; Democratic Party leaders have called his campaign a national model.

In an interview, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, promised that Democrats would do a better job talking about values to religious voters. "We have done it in a secular way, and we don't have to," he said, adding, "I think teaching the Bible as literature is a good thing."

Christian conservatives, however, say they have been pushing public schools to offer courses on the Bible for decades, and Republicans in both Alabama and Georgia say some schools already offer such electives.

"Their proposal makes them modern-day pharisees," State Senator Eric Johnson of Georgia, the Republican leader from Savannah, said in a statement. "This is election-year pandering using voters' deepest beliefs as a tool."

Saying he found "a little irony" in the fact that the Democratic sponsors had voted against a Republican proposal for a Bible course six years ago, Mr. Johnson added, "It should also be noted that the so-called Bible bill doesn't use the Bible as the textbook, and would allow teachers with no belief at all in the Bible to teach the course."

Betty Peters, a Republican on the Alabama school board who opposed the initiative in that state, also dismissed the initiative as "pandering." Democrats, she argued, had adopted a new strategy: "Let's just wrap ourselves in Jesus."

For the last dozen years, most efforts to promote teaching the Bible in public schools have come from the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a conservative Christian group based in Greensboro, N.C., that advocates using the Bible as the primary textbook. The group says about 320 school districts in 37 states offer its curriculum.

But its curriculum often draws attacks from civil liberties groups. Democratic sponsors of the Bible class bills say their efforts would help shield local school districts from First Amendment lawsuits, in part by recommending a more neutral approach.

The textbook they endorse was the brainchild of Chuck Stetson, a New York investment manager and theologically conservative Episcopalian who says he was concerned about public ignorance of the Bible.

Mr. Stetson helped produce "The Bible and Its Influence" as the centerpiece of a course that seeks to teach about the Bible and its legacy without endorsing or offending any specific faith.

The textbook came to the attention of Democratic legislators in Alabama and Georgia through the advocacy of R. Randolph Brinson, a Republican and founder of the evangelical voter-registration group Redeem the Vote.

Mr. Brinson, who said he was working with legislators in other states as well, described his pitch to Democrats as, "Introducing this bill will show the evangelical world that they are not hostile to faith."

Some liberals are unhappy, however. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that "The Bible and Its Influence" was "problematic" because it omitted "the bad and the ugly uses of the Bible," like the invocation of Scripture to justify racial segregation.

Conservative Christian groups have been skeptical, too. "This appears to be a calculated effort by the Democrats to try to out-conservative the conservatives," said Stephen M. Crampton, a lawyer for the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group that supports the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.

"To mention any curriculum by name is suggestive of some back-room deal cut with the publishers," Mr. Crampton said.

For his part, Mr. Stetson, founder of the group that produced the textbook, said a political fight was not what he wanted. "We are the first English-speaking generation to have lost the biblical story," he said, lamenting that studying the Bible had become "a political football."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

January 27, 2006
Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return
By JAMES DAO
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — New Orleans could lose as much as 80 percent of its black population if its most damaged neighborhoods are not rebuilt and if there is not significant government assistance to help poor people return, a detailed analysis by Brown University has concluded.

Combining data from the 2000 census with federal damage assessment maps, the study provides a new level of specificity about Hurricane Katrina's effect on the city's worst-flooded areas, which were heavily populated by low-income black people.

Of the 354,000 people who lived in New Orleans neighborhoods where the subsequent damage was moderate to severe, 75 percent were black, 29 percent lived below the poverty line, more than 10 percent were unemployed, and more than half were renters, the study found.

The report's author, John R. Logan, concluded that as much as 80 percent of the city's black population might not return for several reasons: their neighborhoods would not be rebuilt, they would be unable to afford the relocation costs, or they would put down roots in other cities.

For similar reasons, as much as half of the city's white population might not return, Dr. Logan concluded.

"The continuing question about the hurricane is this: Whose city will be rebuilt?" Dr. Logan, a professor of sociology, writes in the report.

If the projections are realized, the New Orleans population will shrink to about 140,000 from its prehurricane level of 484,000, and the city, nearly 70 percent black before the storm, will become majority white.

The study, financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation, was released Thursday, 10 days after the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, who is black, told an audience that "this city will be a majority African-American city; it's the way God wants it to be."

Mr. Nagin's remark was widely viewed as an effort to address criticism of a proposal by his own rebuilding panel, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, that calls for a four-month building moratorium in heavily damaged areas. He said later that he had not meant to suggest that white people would not be encouraged to return.

"Certainly Mayor Nagin's comments reflected a concern on the ground about the future of the city," Dr. Logan said. "My report shows that there is a basis for that concern."

The study coincides with growing uncertainty about what government assistance will be available for property owners and renters. Louisiana will receive $6.2 billion in federal block grants under an aid package approved by Congress in December, part of which will be used to help homeowners. But that will not be enough money to help all property owners in storm-damaged areas, Louisiana officials say.

Those officials have urged Congress to enact legislation proposed by Representative Richard H. Baker, Republican of Louisiana, creating a corporation that would use bond proceeds to reimburse property owners for part of their mortgages, then redevelop the property. But the Bush administration has said it opposes the bill, out of concerns that it would be too expensive and would create a new government bureaucracy.

Asked Thursday about his opposition to the measure, President Bush told reporters that the $85 billion already allocated for Gulf Coast restoration was "a good start." He added that he was concerned that Louisiana did not have a clear recovery plan in place.

But Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat who has clashed frequently with the White House, said Mr. Baker's bill provided a clear plan.

"Administration officials do not understand the suffering of the people of Louisiana," Ms. Blanco said in a statement.

Demographers are divided over the likelihood of a drastic shift in New Orleans's population. William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who has studied the hurricane's impact on the city, called Dr. Logan's projections "a worst-case scenario that will come about only if these evacuees see that they have no voice in what is going on."

But Dr. Frey also said low-income evacuees might indeed begin to put down roots in cities like Houston or Dallas if they did not see movement toward reconstruction in the next six months.

Elliott B. Stonecipher, a political consultant and demographer from Shreveport, La., said that unless New Orleans built housing in flood-protected areas for low-income residents, and also provided support for poor people to relocate, chances were good that many low-income blacks would not return.

"If they didn't have enough resources to get out before the storm," Mr. Stonecipher said, "how can we expect them to have the wherewithal to return?"



Copyright 2006The New York Times

Bush Reasserts Presidential Prerogatives
Eavesdropping, Katrina Probe Cited as Concerns

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 27, 2006; A06



President Bush set limits yesterday on White House cooperation in three political disputes, saying he is determined to assert presidential prerogatives on such matters as domestic eavesdropping and congressional inquiries into Hurricane Katrina.

In a mid-morning news conference, Bush told reporters he is skeptical of a proposed law imposing new oversights on his use of the National Security Agency to listen in on electronic communications. He also said that he will block White House aides from testifying about the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and that he will not release official White House photos of himself with former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Facing repeated questions, Bush distanced himself from Abramoff, who is at the center of the biggest political corruption and bribery scandal in a generation. Bush said he does not recall having his picture taken with Abramoff or ever meeting him. Abramoff was a member of the exclusive club of Bush's $100,000 fundraisers known as Pioneers.

"Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with him or know him very well," Bush told reporters.

According to three people who reviewed half a dozen photos of the men, Bush is pictured at official gatherings and fundraisers with Abramoff and his children. He also attended a White House meeting with some of Abramoff's clients, including tribal leaders and the then-speaker of the House for the Northern Mariana Islands, the sources said. Abramoff has pictures from the event, they said.

If prosecutors "believe something was done inappropriately in the White House, they'll come and look and they're welcome to do so," Bush said. The White House has also refused to detail meetings between Abramoff and top White House aides.

The president was similarly adamant about not allowing top aides to testify about Hurricane Katrina. Bush, who has moved on several fronts over the past five years to strengthen the power of the presidency, said it would be damaging to him and future presidents if aides feared providing candid advice.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), a staunch supporter of Bush on foreign policy, has accused the White House of undermining the probe by refusing to detail the role of White House officials. "If people give me advice and they're forced to disclose that advice, it means the next time an issue comes up I might not be able to get unvarnished advice from my advisers," Bush said. "And that's just the way it works."

On the issue of NSA eavesdropping on overseas communications to or from U.S. citizens, Bush said he is concerned about Congress writing a new spying law because it could force the government to provide details and clues about a top-secret program used to hunt down terrorists.

"There's no doubt in my mind it is legal," Bush said. Democrats have accused Bush of breaking the law by authorizing the spying program without approval from Congress or the courts. The debate is expected to dominate hearings, scheduled to begin Feb. 6, on the highly classified NSA program.

"But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy," he said. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?"

In his 10th news conference since winning reelection, Bush talked at length about presidential power but also previewed next week's State of the Union speech and weighed in on several foreign policy issues, including the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections.

The performance was quintessential Bush: He joked and sparred with reporters, and betrayed no sense of second-guessing his decisions. When pressed about the election victory of Hamas, which the United States and other countries have called a terrorist group, Bush initially portrayed the vote as a triumph of the democratic process and a wake-up call to the current Palestinian leadership. Later, he conceded the results could set back the Middle East peace process, a top Bush priority.

Bush was often blunt, at one point taking a reporter's challenge to declare with "Texas straight talk" that the United States will never torture prisoners. "No American will be allowed to torture another human being anywhere in the world," Bush shot back. He said that is why the White House supported the law sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that outlawed cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. A statement released by the White House when Bush signed the law, however, left vague whether the administration is asserting that a loophole exists.

Bush endorsed a plan to allow Russia to help produce nuclear energy for Iran as a way to keep the anti-American regime from building nuclear weapons. But he mischaracterized Iran's public position by saying, "The Iranians have said, 'We want a weapon.' " Publicly, the Iranian government has insisted the opposite is true, though Tehran is widely believed to be actively seeking nuclear weapons.

Although he has not vetoed a spending bill since taking office, Bush warned he is "fully prepared to use the veto" if lawmakers overspend. The government is more than 25 percent larger today in total spending than it was the day Bush took office, and conservatives are calling on the president and Congress to reduce the size of the federal budget.

Bush is expected to talk about new spending restraint during his State of the Union address Tuesday night. The speech will be the official start of a legislative year that will be confined by high budget deficits and a tight legislative schedule. As Bush was speaking, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the 2006 deficit at $337 billion, up from 2005.

Bush will forgo expensive new programs in his speech, aides said, though he will call for new tax breaks to mitigate the cost of health insurance, which has skyrocketed in recent years. With the House and Senate up for grabs in November, politics, not policy, will likely drive much of the congressional agenda.

Bush said he is excited to be campaigning for GOP candidates in the midterm elections, which he predicted will be about "peace and prosperity."

At hearings on the NSA spying, Democrats plan to press administration officials to explain why Bush did not consult Congress more broadly about the program, why he does not believe Congress should write a new law governing eavesdropping programs such as the NSA operation, and why he believes the super-secret Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act courts should not be consulted before eavesdropping on communications to and from the United States. In his news conference, Bush emphasized that FISA was enacted in 1978 -- "a different world," he said.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said Bush's explanation that the Constitution and the war resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks provide the president with extraordinary wartime power is wrong. "Congress can't roll over in the face of these outrageous claims," Kennedy said. "No president is above the law."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Varied Rationales Muddle Issue of NSA Eavesdropping

By Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 27, 2006; A05



President Bush said yesterday that he didn't seek congressional approval for a warrantless domestic eavesdropping program for one simple reason: He didn't need it.

"We believe there's a constitutional power granted to presidents as well as, this case, a statutory power," Bush said. "And I'm intending to use that power."

It is one of several explanations on the topic from Bush and his aides, who have provided at least two separate rationales for why they did not ask for statutory authority for the program. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the administration had considered seeking legislation but determined it would be impossible to get, adding later in the same news conference that authorities did not want to expose the program's existence. White House spokesman Scott McClellan has echoed the latter point, saying the administration feared that details of the classified program would be exposed publicly.

The subject is one of several elements in the NSA spying debate that have been clouded by apparent contradictions and mixed messages from the government since the program was revealed last month. The confusion has cleared up little in recent days, as the White House has embarked on a multi-pronged campaign to defend the legality of the controversial program.

Gonzales and other officials, for example, have repeatedly said that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which governs secret surveillance in the United States, is too cumbersome to be applied to the NSA eavesdropping program. Yet the Justice Department raised concerns about a 2002 bill to loosen FISA requirements.

Before the program's existence was revealed, several administration officials also emphasized in testimony and public statements that the NSA was prohibited from engaging in domestic surveillance -- even as the agency was clearly doing so under the authority of Bush's secret order that established the program.

Many Democratic lawmakers and legal experts have seized on these and other issues in recent days to argue that the Bush administration has been misleading in its explanations of the NSA program.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said that the "after-the-fact spin we're hearing now is worthless." Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) issued a statement yesterday criticizing the administration for claiming that Congress had been fully briefed on the NSA program and for opposing the 2002 measure to loosen FISA standards.

The latter issue attracted particular criticism yesterday, as lawmakers and national security experts opposed to the program cast doubts on the administration's current legal rationale.

An amendment to FISA proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have lowered the standard to be met for authorizing surveillance of non-U.S. citizens, from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion" that the target was an agent of a terrorist group. The Justice Department did not offer support for DeWine's amendment because of "significant legal and practical issues," according to department statements.

Confusion over the issue deepened further yesterday after officials discovered two versions of a Justice statement on the legislation. One, which was posted on the Federation of American Scientists Web site and quoted in media reports, noted possible constitutional concerns. The other, held by the Senate intelligence committee, did not include that issue. Officials could not explain the disparity.

A Justice spokeswoman said this week that the previous opinion did not conflict with current legal justifications for the NSA spying because "probable cause" required under FISA is "essentially the same" as the standard used in the NSA program: "a reasonable basis to believe" that a target is linked to al Qaeda or an affiliate.

But Timothy H. Edgar, a national security lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, also said the NSA program clearly operates under a lower legal standard allowed only in limited circumstances, such as when police to frisk suspicious people on the street.

"That's never been considered acceptable for searching someone or listening to their telephone," Edgar said.

Bush and his top aides have repeatedly stressed that "Congress" had been briefed on the program over the past four years, but have often neglected to mention that the briefings were limited to the "Gang of Eight": the speaker and minority leader of the House; the majority and minority leaders of the Senate; and the chairmen and ranking Democrats on the two intelligence committees. And they were barred from taking notes or discussing what they heard with other lawmakers or their staffs.

Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), who as vice chairman of the Senate intelligence panel was briefed in 2003, took the unusual step of sending Vice President Cheney a classified letter voicing his concerns about the program and the lack of oversight on how it was being carried out. Several other prominent Democrats have also questioned the program's legality since it was made public, including Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking minority member of the House intelligence committee.

Yet Dan Bartlett, counselor to Bush and White House communications director, said Monday that the lawmakers who had been briefed "believed we are doing the right thing" and that Democratic leaders "briefed on these programs would be screaming from the mountaintops" if they thought the program was illegally eavesdropping on Americans.

Some critics, including a group of relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, have also focused on previous statements by Gen. Michael V. Hayden -- the deputy intelligence director who formerly headed the NSA -- that now appear to be, at best, incomplete.

For example, Hayden and other NSA staff members told the House-Senate inquiry into the attacks that "they do not want to be perceived as focusing NSA capabilities against U.S. persons in the United States," said the panel's report. "The Director and his staff were unanimous that lessons NSA learned as a result of Congressional investigations during the 1970's should not be forgotten."

Hayden suggested similar limitations in an appearance before the House intelligence committee in October 2002, telling Porter J. Goss, then the committee chairman, that the NSA "would have no authorities" to pursue Osama bin Laden if he entered the United States. The NSA program was at least a year old by that time, and Goss -- now the CIA director -- was one of the few members of Congress briefed on it. Experts also say Hayden was wrong to suggest that bin Laden would enjoy the same legal protections as U.S. citizens or residents.

Staff writers Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

from the January 27, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0127/p03s03-usmi.html

Is the US Army prepared to fight another Iraq-style war?
Two studies this week raise concern that troop levels may be inadequate for long conflicts.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - When two major studies released this week questioned whether the US Army is being stretched too thin, they raised a much- repeated concern: that America does not have enough troops to win the war in Iraq.

At a deeper level, though, they raise the question of whether today's military is prepared for the threats that could lie ahead in the war on terror.

The Pentagon's answer is a categorical "yes," insisting that the military is well suited for whatever the future holds. But with the department's four-year plan for spending and strategy to be presented to Congress next month, critics say that America's experience in Iraq suggests that the US may not be ready for another long, slow Iraq-style war.

"What are the countries we could not afford to walk away from" if they collapsed? asks Andrew Krepinevich, author of one of the studies and an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments here. Suggesting that Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia would be among the candidates, he adds, "Even if you thought the approach in Iraq was the right one, it's very difficult to see how you scale up the Army to deal with [those conflicts]."

The question is purely one of structure, not skill. Reports such as those released this week - one by Mr. Krepinevich; the other by former Defense Secretary William Perry - have suggested that the force is simply not large enough to do what the Defense Department has asked of it. The debate has played out at times publicly - in Congress and the media - and at times privately, as when former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer requested more troops in 2003 and was ignored, he says.

But only rarely has attention left Iraq and focused on what that conflict says about future threats. Now is one of those times. The Pentagon is scheduled to submit the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) to Congress Feb. 6. The QDR will set the Pentagon's priorities for the next four years by laying out a vision of what military leaders expect future threats to be, and then aligning the department's budgets and doctrine.

The Army of today is in many ways a reflection of the 2001 QDR. To react to flashpoints around the globe in a post-cold-war world, it suggested, the Army needed to be smaller but quicker - able to deploy to the far corners of the globe at a moment's notice. In Iraq and Afghanistan, a "transforming" Army deployed to devastating effect. But now, an Army designed for lightning strikes is being asked to keep the lid on a country where many neighborhoods are seething with anti-American sentiment.

To Krepinevich, that difficult task serves as a warning about the types of challenges US forces could face in future conflicts. In countries prone to Islamic radicalism - such as Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia - any military venture would probably involve a lengthy peacekeeping after the war is won. Moreover, since these countries are far larger than Iraq in both size and population, it would take a far larger force to control them.

If a country such as Pakistan collapses, he says, there is the possibility that Muslim radicals could seize a state with nuclear weapons - something the United States would not tolerate. Unless the US could get major help from its allies, it is unprepared for such a scenario, he adds.

The Pentagon disagrees. Defense officials insist that the size of the force in Iraq is what the generals want, and as the Army transforms, the process will free more soldiers to fight - creating the more-agile Brigade Combat Teams, moving troops out of jobs that can be done by civilians, and rebalancing Army and reserve duties.

"Does the force still need more rebalancing? You bet," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a briefing Wednesday. "You know, an awful lot of things are happening and there are a lot of moving parts." But in the end, he and other officials say, this is the Army they want.

"Out of the QDR, this force structure we think is appropriate to the threat," said Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey in a briefing this month.

Not surprisingly, critics are skeptical. Some who are familiar with drafts of the coming QDR suggest that the lessons learned from Iraq have simply heaped more duties - including peacekeeping - on a force already struggling to meet the ones it has.

"Given how stretched our ground forces are, how can you set that standard without recommending that we substantially grow our ground forces over time?" asks Michèle Flournoy, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here. "Many people may want to avoid a war like Iraq in the future, but most wars that we fight are not wars of choice," she adds.

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US does not torture: Bush
From correspondents in Washington
27jan06

PRESIDENT George W. Bush today defended the US handling of foreign terror suspects and insisted that the United States would never resort to the use of torture.

The president said he had not seen a recent Human Rights Watch reports criticising the US handling of terrorist suspects, but disputed findings which concluded that suspects had been tortured.
"I haven't seen the report, but if they are saying we tortured people they are wrong, period," the president told a White House news conference.

"No American will be allowed to torture another human being anywhere in the world," the US president said.

Mr Bush vowed that Washington would work to ensure that recent anti-terror legislation establishing strict interrogation policies at US-run detention facilities is "fully effective".

The US leader made his remarks two days after a European investigator said that there is convincing evidence that Washington sent detainees to third countries to be tortured, but no "irrefutable evidence" of the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe.

The Council of Europe investigation found no direct evidence of CIA-run facilities on European soil, but said hundreds of CIA-chartered flights have passed through numerous European countries, most likely with the acquiesence of their governments.

© Herald and Weekly Times

Support a Filibuster Against Judge Alito John Kerry
Dear Friends,

Yesterday, Senator Ted Kennedy and I told our colleagues that we supported a filibuster of Judge Alito's nomination for the Supreme Court. And we weren't alone. But the bottom line is that it takes more than two or three people to filibuster successfully. It's not "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." If you want to stop Judge Alito from becoming Justice Alito, use your own email list and organize. We can't just preach to our own choir. We need to prove to everyone - from our friends and neighbors to our fellow Senators - that the American people know Judge Alito will take our country in the wrong direction, and they expect something to be done about it.


So I'm asking you to join Senator Kennedy, me, and concerned citizens across America who are signing this petition to support a filibuster. If there was ever a time to forward an email on to friends and family, this is it. One way or another, we're going to find out in the next few days if Judge Alito is going to become Justice Alito. You know where I stand. The time to make your voice heard is now. So please sign this filibuster petition and get as many friends as you can to do the same.

Sign the filibuster petition
If Judge Alito gets on the Supreme Court, it will be an incredible mistake for America. And remember, this is one mistake that we can never take back. I voted against Justice Roberts, but I feel even more strongly about Judge Alito. Why? Rather than live up to the promise of "equal justice under the law," he has consistently made it harder for the most disadvantaged Americans to have their day in court. He routinely defers to excessive government power no matter how much government abuses that power. And, to this date, his only statement on record regarding a woman's right to privacy is that she doesn't have one. There isn't a shred of doubt in my opposition to Judge Alito's nomination. I spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about what kind of person deserves to sit on the highest court in the land, so I don't hesitate a minute in saying that Judge Alito is not that person. His entire legal career shows that, if confirmed, he will take America backward. People can say all they want that "elections have consequences." Trust me, I understand. But that doesn't mean we have to stay silent about Judge Alito's nomination.

Sign the filibuster petition
President Bush had the opportunity to nominate someone who would unite the country in a time of extreme division. He chose not to do this, and that is his right. But we have every right -- in fact, we have a responsibility -- to fight against a radical ideological shift on the Supreme Court. This nomination was a sellout to the demands of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. The president gave no thought to what the American people really wanted - or needed. So now that the president and Judge Alito have proven they won't stand up for the majority of Americans, we have to stand up. We have to speak out. That's the true meaning of "advice and consent."

Sincerely,

John Kerry

Kerry, Kennedy press for filibuster Seattle Times
Several prominent Democratic senators called Thursday for a filibuster of Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination, exposing a rift in the party. The filibuster's supporters — including Massachusetts Sens. John Kerry and Edward Kennedy — acknowledged the bid is likely to fail and Alito will be confirmed Tuesday. But they said extended debate may draw more Americans' attention to Alito's conservative stands on abortion, civil rights, presidential powers and other matters. "Judge Alito will take America backward, especially when it comes to civil rights and discrimination laws," Kerry said. "It's our right and our responsibility to oppose him vigorously and to fight against this radical upending of the Supreme Court." Kennedy said Alito, 55, "does not share the values of equality and justice that make this country strong. He does not deserve a place on the highest court of the land." Liberal groups such as People for the American Way have implored Democratic senators to filibuster Alito's nomination, even if it means nothing more than staking out their principles and showing that Democrats will fight against a party that controls the House, Senate and White House.
Key Democrats Try to Mount Filibuster Against Alito Los Angeles Times
Democrats Split Over Filibuster On Alito Washington Post
New York Times - FOX News - ABC News - American Chronicle - all 2,534 related »

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GLOBE EDITORIAL
The Hamas test
January 27, 2006

THE STUNNING victory of Hamas in Palestinian legislative elections may be attributed to several causes, among them the corruption of the Fatah movement, the failure of Israel to help validate the peaceful, pragmatic policies of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and the Bush administration's slowness to help Abbas prove to his people that his temperate ways could improve daily life and lead to an end of Israeli occupation.

From now on, however, the reasons for the ascendance of Hamas matter less than the manner in which that Islamist movement will govern the Palestinians -- and the ways in which Israel, the United States, Europe, and the Arab countries adapt to the Palestinians' democratic choice.

All concerned parties will have to proceed carefully, none more so than the Hamas leaders, who are about to take up responsibilities of power that, despite a triumphalist posture, they probably did not foresee or even really desire. Having campaigned to bring Palestinians ''change and reform," Hamas must now deliver. This sort of expectation in the aftermath of a democratic turnover of government is common in established democracies. But the situation of the Hamas leadership does not resemble that of any other governing group in any other nation.

Hamas will now form a government, but without a state. It will be expected to alleviate the grinding poverty and joblessness of Palestinians, but the economy for which it must take responsibility is overwhelmingly dependent on support from European and American donors who do not want to send taxpayers' money to an Islamist movement that has conducted suicide bombings of Israeli civilians and officially rejects a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hamas is about to encounter the full force of circumstance -- the realities that constrain the actions of leaders who are accountable to their people. Already, European Union representatives and officials of particular European countries that donated funds in the past to the Palestinian Authority have said they cannot go on giving money to the PA if it is ruled by a movement that countenances terrorism and is pledged to eliminate Israel.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have made similar statements. They have made it plain that a Palestinian Authority under the control of Hamas will have to choose between the rigid ideological position of the Hamas charter and the two-state solution that significant majorities of Palestinians and Israelis desire. Indeed, one recent poll found that a majority of Palestinians who intended to vote for Hamas also favored a peace agreement with Israel. As Rice said yesterday, Hamas cannot keep one foot in terrorism and the other in politics.

Having campaigned primarily on the need for reforming and changing the governance of the stateless Palestinians, Hamas must now confront the need to change and reform its own goals and tactics.

In the past, Hamas leaders have earned a reputation for political shrewdness, pragmatism, and attentiveness to public opinion. If they do change their ways, they will not be the first group that has used terrorism to molt into a purely political form. But they differ from Yasser Arafat's PLO, Northern Ireland's IRA, and the Israeli Stern Gang in having a religious rather than a secular nationalist core. So even if they prove realistic enough to recognize the necessity of abandoning terrorism and accepting Israel's right to exist, it may be extremely difficult for Hamas leaders to concede that reality is forcing them to act as though the movement's founding principles no longer apply.

For this reason, Israel, the United States, Europe, and the Arab states would be wise to pay more attention to the actual behavior of a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority than to its ideological posture. Even while remaining adamant on the requirement that Hamas forswear terrorism -- a fundamental element of the road map for Mideast peace accepted by the Palestinian Authority and Israel alike -- Israel, the United States, and Europe ought to judge the Hamas-led PA first and foremost on its maintenance of the current cease-fire.

This will be a crucial test. Hamas notables, along with counterparts from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have met abroad with leaders of Iran's Islamic Republic, lending credence to the appearance of an Islamist partnership that supports the threat of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. Islamic Jihad, which is a small terrorist group without Hamas's social and political dimensions, has not been observing the current cease-fire. In accordance with its Iranian sponsors, Islamic Jihad continues to send suicide bombers into Israel. So a telling sign of Hamas's readiness to reform itself will come when it decides either to enforce the cease-fire or to allow Islamic Jihad to act separately from the elected government of the Palestinian people.

As for Bush, he may not want to acknowledge publicly that the electoral triumph of Hamas has complicated his grandiose plan for implanting democracy throughout the Middle East, but that is precisely what has happened. Hamas is not merely a group on the State Department's terrorist list; as an outgrowth of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, it represents the Palestinian branch of an Islamist political and ideological movement that is represented by like-minded groups across the Sunni Arab world. Because the undemocratic regimes in that world have relentlessly suppressed liberal dissidents as well as human rights and women's groups, Islamists commonly become the sole, or principal, vessel for opposition to despised local regimes.

Consequently, governments in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, the Gulf countries, and North Africa will be watching the Palestinian experiment with great concern. If Hamas does not molt into a governing party of tolerant, adaptable pragmatists, those Arab states will be as eager as Israel to make sure the Hamas experiment is not prolonged and is not replicated elsewhere.



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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GLOBE EDITORIAL
Secure our troops
January 27, 2006

THE RICHEST, most powerful nation in the world should not be in the position of debating whether it has enough troops to meets its basic security requirements. But that is the situation now, after a leaked Pentagon report described the Army as nearing a breaking point because of frequent deployments of units to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld this week said he was not familiar with the report and called the Army ''battle-hardened" and ''not broken." A day later, though, his top commander in Iraq, General George Casey, acknowledged that US forces are ''stretched." As Congress begins work on the next federal budget, it should look beyond Rumsfeld for views on whether the Army needs a major and costly expansion.

This new round of concern about the readiness of the Army was set off by an internal report for the Defense Department by Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer. Krepinevich noted the Army's failure in 2005 to meet its recruiting goals and said the Pentagon risks ''breaking the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and reenlistment.

Rumsfeld's weakness for denying the obvious when it comes to necessary troop levels was most on display in 2003 when he sacked General Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, for telling Congress before the Iraq war that conquering and occupying that country would require several hundred thousand soldiers. Rumsfeld succeeded in overthrowing Saddam Hussein with a much smaller force, but it lacked the manpower to ensure social order or to locate and secure all the munitions depots that have since provided the insurgents with explosives.

The Army's plight would be eased considerably if the United States is able to reduce greatly its forces in Iraq, a process that has begun. The danger is that, because of the pressure on the military, the Bush administration might persist in withdrawing even if the buildup of Iraqi units as a counter to the insurgents is not successful. General Casey yesterday denied that the strain on forces is driving the decision to pull back.

There is little doubt, however, that the Army would be hard put to meet new challenges, whether from Iran or North Korea. Last fall, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine colonel, said that the Army is ''broken, worn out" and that its very presence in Iraq spurs the insurgency. At the time, it was assumed that Murtha was speaking in part for uniformed officers who could not risk being so frank. Before Congress budgets more billions for exotic weapons systems, it should insist on candid opinions from frontline officers on whether the Army is suffering from too few men and women.



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Rumsfeld's Roadmap to Propaganda:

A secret Pentagon "roadmap" on war propaganda, personally approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for "boundaries" between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but provides for no such limits and claims that as long as the American public is not "targeted," any leakage of PSYOP to the American public does not matter.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB177/index.htm