While George W. Bush continues to win HEARTS AND MINDS .....

In IRAQINAM ......

"Military Investigating Deadly Raid in Iraq"

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

58 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shortly after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine in a western Iraqi town, American troops went into nearby houses and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old-girl, residents say.

The military is investigating possible misconduct by the Marines and confirms there is a video, which Time Magazine says shows the aftermath of the Marines' assault.

Residents contacted by The Associated Press described what happened after the Nov. 19 roadside bomb in the town of Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, as "a massacre."

Khaled Ahmed Rsayef, whose brother and six other members of his family were killed in the incident, said the roadside bomb exploded at about 7:15 a.m. in the al-Subhani neighborhood.

A U.S. Humvee was badly damaged.

The military acknowledged Monday it was investigating the incident after it was approached by Time with accounts from residents, officials and hospital authorities in Haditha as well as a videotape purportedly showing the aftermath of the incident.

Military officials declined further comment.

A U.S. military statement shortly after the November attack described what happened as an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol, with a roadside bombing and subsequent firefight killing 15 civilians, eight insurgents and a U.S. Marine.

The statement said the 15 civilians were killed by the blast, a claim the residents strongly denied.

Residents said there only was a roadside bombing, and all the shooting was done by American troops.

Time, in a story in this week's edition, reported that a U.S. colonel went to Haditha for a weeklong probe to interview Marines, survivors and doctors at the morgue.

The magazine cited unidentified military officials close to the investigation.

The probe, Time reported, concluded that the civilians were killed by Marines and not a roadside bomb, and that no insurgents appeared to be in the first two houses raided by the Marines.

The probe found, however, that the deaths were the result of "collateral damage," investigators said.

"To fight ....."

"You must be brutal and ruthless ....."

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

"Will enter into the very fibre of our national life ...."

"Infecting Congress ...."

"The courts ......"

"The policeman on the beat ....."

"The man in the street ......."

- Woodrow Wilson, an American president with perhaps as much real experience of real war as has the TYRANT George W. Bush .....

As the PLAGUE of BUSHIANONIANISM continues to sweep over not only OUR America ....

But the candid world as well ....

George W. Bush continues to do everything in his power ...

To insure that no American child ...

Or any other child in the world, for that matter ...

Will be left behind the wave of ugliness that this one man and HIS ...

Have unleashed in this world ...

OF OURS ....

And here is one of George's "CHILDREN" right now ....

"Man had grenades, rifle near path, police say - Gunfire draws officers to bike trail, where they arrest 18-year-old who wants to be Army Ranger"

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, March 21, 2006

COLONIE - A Colonie man carrying two homemade hand grenades built from parts purchased over the Internet was arrested Sunday while holding a rifle near the town bike path, police said.

Brian P. Sweeney, 18, who family members said has a dream of becoming an Army Ranger, was firing his military-style rifle into the ground and "pointing it in the direction of the homes" on nearby Heritage Court, according to his arrest report.

Town police patrolling on all-terrain vehicles said they were drawn to the wooded area, just south of the town landfill, by the sound of "rapid-fire gunshots."

Sweeney was being held without bail Monday in Albany County jail as authorities investigate why he allegedly had the explosives.

He works as a cook in the family business, is not in school and has applied to enlist in the Army, his father said.

"What his mind-set was beyond yesterday, I have no idea," said Colonie Police Lt. John Van Alstyne.

But Sweeney's father described him as a curious, hard-working young man whose well-intentioned desire to prepare himself to fight for his country might have led him astray.

"Our son is not a danger to anyone," said Thomas Sweeney.

"He was dabbling into something he shouldn't have been ..."

"But all the things Brian has, he has because he was preparing to become a good soldier."

He said he bought the rifle for his son at a North Troy gun shop in October because the clerk told him it was just like the one he would use in the Army, only newer.

Thomas Sweeney said his son took the rifle without his knowledge Sunday and was trying to find a safe place to fire it, ultimately choosing a gully in the woods.

As the officers closed in on the source of the gunfire, they encountered Sweeney with his rifle, several magazines of ammunition and the explosives, Van Alstyne said.

Officers Stephen Donovan and Guy Jubert Jr. shouted orders to Sweeney, who complied and told police he was "just shooting" in the woods, according to statements attributed to him by police and filed in town court.

Asked if he had any weapons other than the rifle, Sweeney allegedly replied:

"You're not going to like these" and produced from his vest two plastic bags with the grenades, according to court records.

Later, in a written statement signed by Sweeney, he explained to investigators how, starting in September, he bought inert grenade shells on the Internet with his mother's credit card and modified them with common tools and legal ammunition to build the bombs.

The pineapple grenade hulls are not explosive by themselves and are similar to what can be found in a military surplus store, authorities said.

Sweeney explained to police how he tested the first batch of explosives behind his house last fall, and they were powerful enough to break bricks and blow a hole in the ground.

He told police he planned to detonate the two explosives in the woods Sunday.

Sweeney's rifle, described as an semi-automatic AR-15, was a legal weapon, said John Morgan, resident agent in charge of the Albany office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Morgan said his office is working with town police to decide whether Sweeney should also be charged in federal court.

Van Alstyne said additional state weapons charges stemming from searches of Sweeney's Fonda Road home are likely, though he declined to characterize what was seized.

The family never knew Sweeney had been building the explosives, his father said.

Now he said he worries authorities will mistake his son for someone with more sinister intentions.

"Whatever their profile says, it's not Brian," Thomas Sweeney said.

"We don't want him to be villainized."

"... He had no intention to harm anyone."

No Child Left Behind.

Regarding George W Bush, perhaps they should have made an exception

Amen to that, jeffmoskin .....

I was thinking, as I read that article above here, about that boy with the gun ...

The one who wants to be an Army Ranger ....

Just how strange the world has really gotten to .....

Or maybe it is just me .....

But I actually was a soldier ...

And a good one, by all accounts ....

And I never fired my weapon into the ground .....

Nor did I ever really like explosives ...

But, of course ...

That is just me ...

And so ....

"Bush: Troops to Stay in Iraq Through '08"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that American forces will remain in Iraq for years and it will be up to a future president to decide when to bring them all home.

But defying critics and plunging polls, he declared, "I'm optimistic we'll succeed."

"If not, I'd pull our troops out."

The president rejected calls for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, chief architect of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy," Bush said, acknowledging mistakes as the United States was forced to switch tactics and change a reconstruction strategy that offered targets for insurgents.

He also rejected assertions by Iraq's former interim prime minister that the country had fallen into civil war amid sectarian violence that has left more than 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine.

"This is a moment the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart and they didn't," Bush said, crediting religious and political leaders with restraint.

The president spoke for nearly an hour at a White House news conference, part of a new offensive to ease Americans' unhappiness with the war and fellow Republicans' anxiety about fall elections.

He faced skeptical questions about Iraq during an appearance Monday in Cleveland, and plans another address soon on Iraq.

Public support for the war and for Bush himself has fallen in recent months, jeopardizing the political capital he claimed from his 2004 re-election victory.

"I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war," Bush said.

The White House believes that people appreciate Bush's plainspoken approach even if they disagree with his decisions.

"I understand war creates concerns," the president said.

"Nobody likes war."

"It creates a sense of uncertainty in the country."

Bush has adamantly refused to set a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Asked if there would come a day when there would be no more U.S. forces in Iraq, Bush said, "That, of course, is an objective."

"And that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."

Pressed on whether that meant a complete withdrawal would not happen during his presidency, Bush said, "I can only tell you that I will make decisions on force levels based upon what the commanders on the ground say."

White House officials worried Bush's remarks would be read as saying there would not be significant troop reductions during his presidency.

They pointed to comments Sunday by Gen. George W. Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who said he expected a substantial troop reduction "certainly over the course of 2006 and into 2007."

The Pentagon announced last December that U.S. force levels would be reduced from the baseline figure of about 138,000 to about 131,000 by the end of March.

The total currently is 133,000.

In late February the Pentagon told Congress that "it will be possible to consider" additional reductions as the political process moves forward and as Iraqi security forces gain experience.

No timetable has been set for deciding on additional cuts.

More than 2,300 American troops have died in Iraq.

At home, nearly four of five people, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll.

"I am confident — I believe, I'm optimistic we'll succeed," the president said.

"If not, I'd pull our troops out."

"If I didn't believe we had a plan for victory I wouldn't leave our people in harm's way."

Bush said U.S. forces were essential for the stability of Iraq and restraining al-Qaida in the Middle East.

"Their objective for driving us out of Iraq is to have a place from which to launch their campaign to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, as well as to continue attacking places like the United States," he said.

Despite pleas from fellow Republicans, Bush has rejected calls for a White House staff shake-up, saying he was satisfied with his aides.

He did not rule out bringing in a savvy Washington insider, as some have suggested, but said, "I'm not going to announce it right now."

Aides said later he was not trying to signal any appointment.

Bush defended his administration's warrantless eavesdropping program whose legality has been questioned by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Putting his remarks in a political context, he said, "Nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the of the terrorist surveillance program."

Bush accused Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold of "needless partisanship" for urging censure of the president for authorizing the surveillance program.

On the economy, Bush sidestepped a direct answer when asked whether he was concerned about rising interest rates.

He simply said the U.S. economy was very strong.

He expressed disappointment that Congress shelved his Social Security overhaul and said the system won't be changed without the cooperation of Democrats and Republicans together.
___

On the Net:

http://www.whitehouse.gov

I still wonder what George W. Bush knows about war plans ...

Since he didn't have any for when he invaded IRAQINAM ......

Because George didn't know there was going to be a war ....

He did not know his enemy ...

He did not know the ground on which he would be forced to fight .....

He sure is one ****-poor Commander-in-Chief ....

And that is a fact .....

"Gunmen kill 20 in breakout at Iraqi jail"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:36 p.m., Tuesday, March 21, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- About 100 masked gunmen stormed a prison near the Iranian border Tuesday, cutting phone wires, freeing all the inmates and leaving behind a scene of devastation and carnage -- 20 dead policemen, burned-out cars and a smoldering jailhouse.

At least 10 attackers were killed in the dawn assault on the Muqdadiyah lockup on the eastern fringe of the Sunni Triangle, police said.

The raid showed the mostly Sunni militants can still assemble a large force, capable of operating in the region virtually at will -- even though U.S. and Iraqi military officials said last year that the area was no longer an insurgent stronghold.

The insurgency's strength, spiraling sectarian violence and the stalemate over forming a government in Iraq have led politicians and foreign policy experts to say Iraq is on the brink or perhaps in the midst of civil war.

In all, 33 prisoners were freed, including 18 insurgents who were detained Sunday during raids by security forces in the nearby villages of Sansal and Arab, police said.

It was the capture of those insurgents that apparently prompted Tuesday's attack.

The 15 other inmates were a mix of suspected insurgents and common criminals.

In an Internet posting Tuesday night, the military wing of the Mujaheddin Shura Council, a militant Sunni Muslim insurgent group, purportedly claimed it carried out the operation.

The posting said the group killed "40 policemen, liberated 33 prisoners and captured weapons."

The claim was posted on the Iraqi News Web site.

Neither the higher casualty toll among policemen nor the captured weapons could not be independently verified.

The cutting of the telephone lines made it impossible for jailers or security men, who apparently did not have cell phones, to call other police for backup.

Residents of the town informed authorities of the situation after hearing the firing.

With the wires cut, the insurgents had 90 minutes to battle their way into the law enforcement compound before police reinforcements showed up from the nearby villages of Wajihiyah and Abu Saida, police said.

Muqdadiyah is about 25 miles from the Iranian frontier and 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.

By the time the insurgents fled, taking away the bodies of many of their dead compatriots, nearly two dozen cars were shot up and set on fire and the jail was a charred mass of twisted bunk bed frames and smoldering mattresses.

Afterward, U.S. helicopters hovered in the air above the jail.

Police said residents fired into the air, but it was not clear if the American aircraft were the target.

None was hit.

It was not the first time militants have targeted a jail.

On April 20, 2004, insurgents fired 12 mortars into the infamous Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing 22 inmates and wounding 92.

A U.S. general speculated the attack may have been an attempt to spark a prison break or an uprising.

In other violence Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded three in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, authorities said.

U.S. soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed by small-arms fire Tuesday while patrolling western Baghdad, the U.S. military reported.

At least 2,315 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Also in the capital, gunmen killed an employee of the mayor's office while he was driving in the Dora neighborhood of south Baghdad.

Police reported discovering eight more blindfolded corpses in west Baghdad, some of them under a highway and showing signs of torture, officials said.

In Suwera, 50 miles south of Baghdad, four more corpses were found on the bank of the Tigris River.

The execution-style killings have become an almost daily occurrence in a wave of sectarian violence that has left more than 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite shrine.

With an increasing number of Americans calling for a pullout of U.S. forces regardless of the consequences for Iraq, a powerful group of U.S. senators met with interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Tuesday to discuss prospects for formation of a national unity government.

The Bush administration views that step as all-important in establishing peace and opening the way for the start of a U.S. troop withdrawal as early as this summer.

Al-Jaafari said he believed Iraq's most difficult political hurdles had been crossed and predicted a new government would be ready in the coming weeks.

"I hope that the formation of the new government does not last beyond April," he said after the meeting.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: "April is fine, but it is necessary that this commitment be kept in order for there to be continued support for the presence of American troops in Iraq."

However, President Bush said Tuesday that the decision about when to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq will fall to future presidents and Iraqi leaders, suggesting that U.S. involvement will continue at least through 2008.

"Iraqis sound angry on invasion anniversary"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:36 p.m., Monday, March 20, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Some Baghdad residents voiced anger and dismay when asked about their lives as the U.S.-led war in Iraq entered its fourth year Monday, when insurgents and sectarian gangs killed at least 38 more people.

Salah Hashim, a 49-year-old businessman, said he yearned for the return of Saddam Hussein, the country's ousted dictator, given the violence that now envelops the country.

"Despite all he did that was bad, we did not suffer as we are now," Hashim said.

"Now we have lost everything, even a sense of living."

"The Americans promised us, especially (President) George Bush, prosperity."

"And we thank them all because we got it -- but we got a prosperity of car bombs, kidnappings and killings."

At least 992 people have been killed in a surge of sectarian killings since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, according to an Associated Press count.

"Now I have to spend time worrying about my safety while walking in the streets," said Hashim.

"I have to worry about my children when they leave home for school."

"Instead of being comfortable and enjoying time with my family, I worry that I can't ensure their good life."

Ahmen Najeeb, a 33-year-old supermarket owner, said he originally "waved his hands" at American forces as they entered the country in March 2003, but that his outlook has since changed.

"Day after day the Americans proved that they are here to steal our oil and protect their homes by keeping their war against terror in another country," he said.

One English teacher, though, said that Iraqis had tolerated Saddam's tyranny for so long that it was worth fighting through the violence to rebuild the country.

"What we are now living in is not an American failure nor that of the Iraqi government," said Assmaa Ali, 38.

"The problem is in the Iraqi people ... we started fighting each other using statements and words."

"Now we are fighting each other with guns.

Ali said the only ones to blame were the insurgents and sectarian fighters who cause the problems.

"They are the main reason behind the loss of life and destruction."

"We should help both the government and coalition forces in fighting these troublemaker instead of blaming them."

One man who said three of his daughters were killed by a bombing last year sounded despondent.

"I got nothing from this so-called liberation, just this cell phone and my satellite receiver."

"But I lost my three daughters," said Nawar Maarof, a 34-year-old taxi driver who said he had dreamed of becoming an accountant.

"I have a feeling that my destiny is the same."

"Anyway, we're all dead."

Salam Nassir, a 25-year-old college student, also longed for Saddam.

"We deserve all this because we didn't fight the Americans," he said.

"We had to know from the start they would not help us and were lying about liberating Iraq."

This morning ...

On FOX NEWS FAIR AND BALANCED YOU DECIDE broadcasting over CLEARCHANNELS WORLDWIDE .....

The BROADCAST SPECIALISTS who dole out the day's propaganda ....

Were talking about UNITED STATES PRESIDENT George W. Bush ...

Giving a speech, today, I think it was to be ...

BEFORE A VERY FRIENDLY AUDIENCE OF SOME SEVERAL THOUSAND PEOPLE .....

Assembled for that very purpose ..

To be very friendly to UNITED STATES PRESIDENT George W. Bush ....

BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE .....

And when I heard this ...

Well ...

I don't know ...

But isn't that just a little transparent ...

Or something ..

I mean ...

Well ...

George W. Bush has finally come out with the truth here .....

Which is that for the rest of many of our lives ...

There is going to be nothing but death and despair .....

And POVERTY ...

Thanks directly to that one man ...

George W. Bush ...

Who the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE is going to be CHEERING TODAY ...

AT A PEP RALLY ...

To praise George W. Bush for the real fix ...

That his INCOMPETENCE ......

Has gotten this nation into .....

SO .....

HHHHhhhmmm .....

Go figure ......

Because I can't quite, yet, myself ....

And so .....

There's something happening here ....

Although to George W. Bush ....

By his own public admissions .....

That is not at all clear ...

TO HIM, anyway ....

There's some armed, organized men over there ....

And there, as well ...

Not only telling the BUSHIANIRAQINAMIS they better beware .....

BUT ....

"U.S., Iraqi Forces Capture 50 Insurgents"

By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer

2 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi forces trapped dozens of insurgents Wednesday during a two-hour gunbattle at a police station south of Baghdad, a day after 100 masked gunmen stormed a jail near the Iranian border and freed more than 30 prisoners, most of them fellow insurgents.

Sixty gunmen, firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, attacked the Madain police station before dawn, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said.

U.S. troops and a special Iraqi police unit responded, capturing 50 of the insurgents, including a Syrian, al-Mohammadawi said.

Four policemen, including one commander, were killed and five were wounded, he said.

None of the attackers was killed.

Madain, about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad, is at the northern tip of Iraq's Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death," a region rife with sectarian violence — retaliatory kidnappings and killings in the ongoing conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.

In a highly publicized episode last April, there were reports that Sunni militants had seized 100 Shiites and threatened to kill them unless all Shiites left the Madain area.

Iraqi security forces swept into the region and found no hostages.

In the capital, roadside bombs that targeted police patrols wounded at least six policemen, including four who work as guards at the Education Ministry, police said.

Gunmen in western Baghdad attacked a truck carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims returning from a religious commemoration in the city of Karbala, killing one, police said.

Ten were wounded.

Also early Wednesday, gunmen killed three civilians transporting bricks on a country road outside the city of Baqouba northeast of Baghdad, police said.

A roadside bomb then exploded when a police patrol went to the site, wounding one officer, police said.

The body of a man wearing an Iraqi military uniform was delivered to a morgue in the southern city of Kut, a morgue official said.

The man had been killed outside Madain, he said.

In the Tuesday attack in Muqdadiyah, about 100 gunmen cut phone wires and fired rocket-propelled grenades in a daring operation that freed 18 fellow insurgents who had been captured in police raids just two days earlier.

Police said 15 other captives were sprung in the assault on the Muqdadiyah lockup.

Twenty Iraqi security men and at least 10 insurgents were killed in the attack.

In an Internet posting Tuesday night, the military wing of the Mujaheddin Shura Council, a militant Sunni Muslim insurgent group, purportedly claimed to have carried out the operation.

The posting said the group killed "40 policemen, liberated 33 prisoners and captured weapons."

The claim was posted on the Iraqi News Web site and could not be independently verified.

With the telephone lines cut, the insurgents had 90 minutes to battle their way into the law enforcement compound before police reinforcements showed up from the nearby villages of Wajihiyah and Abu Saida, police said.

Muqdadiyah, on the eastern fringe of the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad, is about 25 miles from the Iranian border.

By the time the insurgents fled, taking away the bodies of many of their dead compatriots, nearly two dozen cars were shot up and set on fire and the jail was a charred mass of twisted bunk bed frames and smoldering mattresses.

U.S. helicopters were in the air above the jail after the insurgents had fled. Police said there was firing into the air by residents, but it was not clear if the American aircraft were the targets. None was hit.

The insurgents whose incarceration apparently prompted the assault were detained Sunday during raids by security forces in the nearby villages of Sansal and Arab, police said.

Both U.S. and Iraqi military officials had said last year that the area was no longer an insurgent stronghold, but Tuesday's attack showed the militants still could assemble a large force, capable of operating in the region virtually at will.

The insurgency's strength, spiraling sectarian violence and the continuing stalemate over forming a government in Iraq have led politicians and foreign policy experts to say Iraq was on the brink or perhaps in the midst of civil war.

With an increasing number of Americans calling for a pullout of U.S. forces regardless of the consequences for Iraq, a powerful group of U.S. senators met with interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Tuesday to discuss prospects for formation of a national unity government.

The Bush administration views that step as all-important in establishing peace and opening the way for the start of a U.S. troop withdrawal as early as this summer.

Al-Jaafari said he believed Iraq's most difficult political hurdles had been crossed and predicted a new government would be ready in the coming weeks.

"I hope that the formation of the new government does not last beyond April," al-Jaafari said after the meeting.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said:

"April is fine, but it is necessary that this commitment be kept in order for there to be continued support for the presence of American troops in Iraq."

The committee chairman, Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said decisions on the U.S. troop presence would be made not only by Bush, Congress and other leaders, but also by the American people — a seeming allusion to declining U.S. popular support for the Iraq war.

Most mainstream Iraqi politicians do not want the United States to withdraw troops until the insurgency is defeated, although some more radical leaders, like firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, demand an immediate pullout.

In other violence Tuesday, a U.S. soldier with the 4th Infantry Division was killed by small-arms fire while patrolling the streets of western Baghdad, the military reported.

At least 2,315 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

George ...

Let me tell you something ...

Your alleged and supposed "WAR PLANS" ...

Were never more than a HUGE CROCK OF **** ....

And so ...

THEY NEVER LOOKED GOOD, George ...

Because there was NEVER anything more than smoke, mirrors, and PURE BULL**** to see .....

Although you did gull some, George .....

And that is a fact ....

"Police widen grenade case - Authorities seize silencers and military equipment from home"

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, March 22, 2006

COLONIE -- Hours after police arrested a man in the woods with two homemade grenades and a rifle on Sunday, authorities seized illegal gun silencers and other military equipment from his Latham home, police said.

Brian P. Sweeney, 18, faces additional weapons charges when he appears in court tonight because it's a felony in New York to possess a firearm silencer, investigators said.

Sweeney's family contends he's just a dedicated young man driven by curiosity about the military and a hope to one day serve as an Army Ranger, not the type who would intentionally hurt others.

And while authorities refused to speculate Tuesday about Sweeney's plans for the explosives, they revealed more about what they found while searching Sweeney's Fonda Road home: an armored helmet, several silencers and a handgun.

The silencers, which muffle the sound of gunfire, are illegal under the same law that make it a felony to possess the grenades that Sweeney allegedly built from components purchased on the Internet, said Lt. John Van Alstyne, a Colonie police spokesman.

Van Alstyne said it is not illegal to have a bullet-resistant Kevlar helmet, which was seized.

Sweeney, a cook in his family's business, was arrested Sunday afternoon when two police officers patrolling on newly acquired all-terrain vehicles were drawn to the wooded area between the town bike path and Heritage Court by the sound rapid gunfire.

They allegedly found Sweeney firing into the ground and pointing what authorities described as a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in the direction of nearby homes.

Van Alstyne said police have found no evidence Sweeney tried to illegally alter the weapon.

In addition to the rifle, which is legal, and several 30-round magazines, Sweeney produced two homemade fragmentation grenades that he told police he planned detonate in the woods.

He told police he had built other grenades several months ago, powerful enough to break bricks and blow a hole in the ground.

According to court records, Sweeney cooperated with police and told them he was just target shooting in the woods.

"At some point I think we'll be comfortable labeling it one way or another," Van Alstyne said.

Authorities also took a computer from Sweeney's home, and town police are working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to determine whether he should also be charged in federal court.

Sweeney is scheduled to appear tonight in Town Court and remains in Albany County jail without bail at least until then.

Right now, Sweeney is charged in connection with the two explosives he had Sunday.

But he might also face charges for firing his rifle close enough to the new homes on Heritage Court to pose a danger, Van Alstyne said.

Sweeney's father said he bought him the rifle in a North Troy gun shop last fall because it was similar to the one he would eventually carry in the military.

Meanwhile, Police Chief Steven Heider praised the results of the department's all-terrain vehicle program started last year.

"This is one of the prime examples of why we got them in the first place," Heider said, adding that illegal hunting and target shooting are not unusual in the town.

"Neighbors are concerned."

"They hear gunshots, they don't know where they're coming from."

Staff writer Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@ timesunion.com.

"Forum Says Governments Must Improve Water"

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 51 minutes ago

MEXICO CITY - Governments, not private companies, should take the lead in improving public access to safe drinking water, representatives of 148 countries said Wednesday at the end of a forum on how to tackle the world's water crisis.

The seven-day forum focused much of its attention on the developing world's growing reliance on bottled water bought from private companies.

Worldwide, the industry is now worth about $100 billion per year.

Anti-corporate forces and other critics say governments should instead be improving tap water supplies.

The forum's declaration, to be adopted later Wednesday, does not specifically mention privatization, but states that "governments have the primary role in promoting improved access to safe drinking water."

The declaration also described dams and hydroelectric projects — opposed by environmentalists for decades — as important and innovative.

"(We) acknowledge the implementation and importance in some regions of innovative practices such as ... the development of hydropower projects," said the draft declaration, circulated in advance of the closing ceremony.

Environmentalists oppose big dam projects — used to create hydroelectric power — because they can disrupt natural water sources and take up land.

They say corporate interests, combined with an aggressive lobbying campaign by the World Bank, are pushing developing countries to build large dams.

On Wednesday, United Nations officials presented a report warning about the effects of climate change and the need for more dams.

The U.N. World Water Development Report, however, recommends small dams instead of big ones — or at least making the larger projects more environmentally friendly.

"Many regions will likely need to increase water storage capacity in order to cope with (climate) change," UNESCO official Walter Erdelen said at the same Mexico City hotel where government representatives met for the water forum.

Almost everyone who spoke at the summit — from leading business figures to government officials — claimed they did not support handing local water authorities over to private administrators, which was done starting in the 1990s.

Violent protests in countries including Bolivia and Guatemala have led private firms to withdraw from some contracts and to be more cautious about signing new ones.

But private companies have vastly increased their sales of bottled water in the developing world in recent years, in what some see as a sort of "stealth" privatization of water services in countries where the tap water is unsafe.

The declaration also included recommendations in favor of the expansion of water services to reduce poverty, community water planning and careful consideration of the environmental, social and economic impacts of water projects.

The water forum is held every three years.

"Venezuela's Chavez Inspires Fierce Loyalty"

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 47 minutes ago

CARACAS, Venezuela - His portraits hang in homes across Venezuela.

Loyal "Chavistas" cheer him on during folksy speeches that last up to seven hours and end up in print for sale on street corners.

Admirers often say he embodies the spirit of Simon Bolivar, South America's 19th century independence hero.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has become so firmly enshrined in the national psyche, so adored by followers who see him as their savior, that his personality has become the predominant issue of his re-election campaign.

Love him or hate him, Venezuelans agree that his crusading, magnetic persona is at the heart of what Chavez calls his socialist revolution.

"He gives the impression that he truly cares for the poor, that he would do anything to help us," says Anita Lopez, 32, a single mother who carries a photograph of "El Comandante" in her wallet.

Such loyalty among Venezuela's poor frustrates Chavez opponents, who have yet to come up with any force capable of countering him.

Chavez takes to the airwaves almost daily to address the nation, delivering rebellious tirades against the rich, the media, international capitalism and the U.S. government.

And masses of Venezuelans respond in Chavez fashion.

Many turn out for rallies wearing red, the color that represents his movement.

His running skirmishes with the Bush White House have increased tension, with America alleging he is trying, Fidel Castro-style, to export his revolution to the rest of Latin America, and Chavez claiming Washington is out to overthrow him.

His friendly ties to Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war, and his current honeymoon with Iran, further heighten Washington's disquiet.

The Chavez phenomenon illustrates a uniquely Latin American attraction to charismatic "caudillo" figures, says Bruce Bagley, a professor of international studies at the University of Miami.

Whether on the right or the left, these are strong-armed leaders who appeal to a cultural hunger for a "powerful-but-kind patron" to solve the people's woes, Bagley says.

With deep pockets from high oil prices — last year alone, Venezuela made $48 billion from oil exports — Chavez has signed generous oil deals with a host of friendly governments and has become a leading benefactor for Latin America's increasingly popular left, and beyond.

This winter he supplied millions of gallons of heating oil at a 40 percent discount to poor Americans in the Northeast.

At home, he offers social programs from state-subsidized markets to free government-run universities.

While Chavez hates to be called "populist," his critics complain that he's a master of handout politics.

Many Venezuelans go straight to Chavez seeking solutions for problems such as a failing school or crumbling shantytown.

Aides at the presidential palace shuffle through more than 10,000 letters and handwritten notes to Chavez every year, said Mildred Zambrano, who reviews the pleas of people seeking surgery or specialized health care.

The idolization of Chavez carries echoes of like-minded figures, from Cuba's Castro to Argentina's Juan Peron and his famous first lady, Eva.

Just as "Peronistas" decades ago displayed framed portraits of "Evita" in their homes, today's Chavistas often put up posters of him on their walls.

This heartfelt glorification contrasts sharply with the fearful attention once commanded by right-wing dictators like Gen. Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic or Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile.

Chavez's government bears no resemblance to the right-wing dictatorships in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s, with their mass killings and disappearances of dissidents.

Chavez is an elected leader whose opponents generally feel free to call him a menace to democracy who props up his government with heavy spending on propaganda.

Even the bags of sugar, pasta and beans sold at the discount government-run groceries he pioneered carry presidential slogans, and billboards bearing his image stare down at motorists on highways.

"The regime has developed a mythology and an exaggerated cult of personality through government publicity," complains opposition leader Cesar Perez.

The president's followers say they genuinely believe Chavez is finally using Venezuela's vast oil deposits — the largest proven reserves outside the Middle East — to help the poor, rather than just the elite few favored by past leaders.

Chavez says he hopes to eventually help do away with poverty, and he cites government statistics showing poverty has decreased from 48 percent in 1997 to about 37 percent today.

Opponents dispute those numbers, insisting poverty has not significantly declined.

"In the past, presidents came from the higher classes, the oligarchy, and didn't know anything about us, the poor."

"Chavez is different," Lopez said.

He has been in office seven years, and nine months before he runs for re-election, he has become a larger-than-life figure with no comparable challenger.

Chavez developed his popular touch while hawking tropical fruit and homemade candies as a child to help his family make ends meet in Sabaneta, a small town in the sunbaked plains of southwestern Venezuela.

He became an army paratrooper, and led a 1992 coup that failed to oust President Carlos Andres Perez, a populist-turned-fiscal conservative.

More than 80 civilians and 17 soldiers were killed.

Released after two years in prison and discharged from the army, Chavez traveled the country promising to wipe out corruption and usher in prosperity.

Many saw him as a fresh alternative to leaders from the two entrenched political parties that had shared power since the fall of Marcos Perez Jimenez, Venezuela's last dictator, in 1958.

He won the 1998 election with 56 percent of the vote.

Briefly ousted in a coup in April 2002, he bounced back after just two days accusing the United States of engineering the plot.

His opponents later mounted a recall campaign, forcing Chavez to put the matter to a referendum in 2004.

He won it.

Chavez often warns of assassination plots.

His bodyguards keep close watch while he greets supporters, planting kisses on women's cheeks and greeting "hermanos" with firm hugs and handshakes.

"I want to thank God for giving us a president as good as you," a crying woman told Chavez recently during his weekly TV program as she appeared on-camera to receive a government housing loan.

"Don't thank me," Chavez replied.

"Thank God."

"He's the boss."

"State senator accused of assault - Female staffer alleges Ada Smith, D-Queens, threw coffee on her and pulled her hair"

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 4:09 p.m., Wednesday, March 22, 2006

ALBANY - State Police are investigating an allegation that State Sen. Ada Smith, D-Queens, assaulted a staffer Tuesday morning in the Legislative Office Building.

Lt. Glenn Miner, a State Police spokesman, confirmed "we're been made aware of the allegations'' but could not comment on the specifics or say whether an arrest of the 17-year incumbent is imminent.

Law enforcement sources said the female staffer alleged that Smith threw coffee in her face and pulled her hair.

The alleged attack, according to one person familiar with the details of the complaint, happened after the senator returned from a Weight Watchers meeting and announced she had lost about four pounds, and the staffer remarked that she thought the senator would have lost more given her active lifestyle.

The alleged victim went to St. Peter's Hospital Tuesday, the source said.

She complained of damage to her eyes and abrasions on her neck.

Smith's office said the staffer is no longer employed there.

It had no immediate comment on the investigation or the allegations.

The accusation is not Smith's first brush with the law or her own staff.

Smith was found guilty in 2004 of failing to obey a direct order from a police officer in May 2003 when she refused to hand over her government ID and drove through a security checkpoint at an Empire State Plaza parking garage.

Albany City Judge E. David Duncan ordered her to pay $200, including a $50 state surcharge.

She could have faced up to 15 days in jail on the infraction.

State Police Trooper Michael Kovarovic said Smith refused to take her ID out and give it to him, then spewed profanities, put her car in drive and "sped'' off to a lot reserved for legislators, refusing his order to stop.

Kovarovic said he had to step back to prevent Smith from driving over his feet.

Smith maintained she did not speed and proceeded forward because traffic was backing up behind her stopped car.

She said she told the trooper she would continue their conversation at her parking space, but he never showed up.

She said the trooper wanted her to surrender her ID, not simply show it.

Last year, Douglas Greene, a former chief of staff for Smith, asked Soares and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate the senator for misusing state funds and resources by providing no-show and semi-show jobs and putting her office staff to work on political business.

The state ethics commission had cleared her of any wrongdoing within its jurisdiction.

Smith was cleared last year by the state Division of Human Rights of accusations by another former chief of staff, Philip Wayne Mahlke, that she made racist remarks and fired him because he's gay.

The division found "insufficient'' evidence and said Mahlke's termination was based on his "poor behavior and performance.''

Smith was also charged with biting a New York City Police officer's hand during a traffic dispute in 1998.

In 1996, she was accused by a former staff member of threatening the employee with a knife.

In both cases, Smith denied the charges.

"Tales from the crypt an epic work of art"

By GEORGE PSYLLIDES, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, March 21, 2006

NICOSIA, Cyprus -- A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.

Construction workers found the limestone sarcophagus last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia, in the coastal Paphos area.

The tomb, which probably belonged to an ancient warrior, had been looted during antiquity.

"The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view, but for the subject and the colors used," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities department.

Only two similar sarcophagi have been discovered in Cyprus.

One is housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the other in the British Museum in London.

Flourentzos said the coffin -- painted in red, black and blue on a white background -- dated to 500 B.C., when Greek cultural influence was gaining on the eastern Mediterranean island.

Pottery discovered in the tomb is expected to provide a precise date.

Experts believe the ornate decoration features the hero Ulysses in scenes from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey -- both hugely popular throughout the Greek world.

In one large painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep.

Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans from the Iliad.

Archeologists think the scenes hint at the status of the coffin's occupant.

"Why else take these two pieces from Homer and why deal with Ulysses?"

"Maybe this represents the dead person's character -- who possibly was a warrior," Flourentzos said.

Reflecting a long oral tradition loosely based on historic events, Homer's epics were probably composed around 800 B.C. and written down in the 6th century B.C.

It seems, Snuf, that maybe a more modern corollary is needed here ...

Something to do with the OUTRIGHT GREED AND HOGGISHNESS of the "modern STATE" being the DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE, itself .....

Or maybe OUTRIGHT GREED AND HOGGISHNESS of the "modern STATE" coupled with complete and total lack of responsibility on the part of those who comprise that "modern STATE" .....

"A tax some want nipped in bud - As state advises local officials on extracting revenue from timber, opposition from landowners, legislators takes root"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, March 23, 2006

If a tree grows in the forest and nobody cuts it, should it be taxed?

Apparently yes, according to state officials who are advising local tax assessors on how to tap all those oaks, maples and pines that landowners have on their property for cash.

The trouble is, this newfound revenue source could sprout unforeseen problems.

Some fear taxing trees could cause wholesale clear-cutting.

And farmers worry it could lead to taxes on standing crops such as corn, hay or fruit trees.

If nothing else, it's an example of how New York's endless appetite for tax revenue can take root in novel ways.

"We're starting to get phone calls from around the state," said Kevin King, president of the Empire State Forest Products Association, a trade group of timberland owners of varying sizes.

He said town assessors in western and northern New York have started to put a taxable value on timber, and the state Office of Real Property Tax Services has been advising local officials how to do that.

In theory, King said, a town could tax a small patch of trees in someone's backyard, although that probably wouldn't be worth the time and effort.

Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks, rural Montgomery County, and the Catskill community of Shandaken, in Ulster County, have all started assessing trees, said King.

In the Cattaraugus County town of Allegany, King said, the change will double land taxes, with one landowner seeing his taxes go up fivefold.

"You talk to people and their jaw drops," said Jason Crisafulli, chief administrative officer at Kinley Corp., a family-owned firm that owns 3,000 acres of timberland in Allegany.

Assessing the trees means their tax bill is set to rise from $15,000 to $57,000.

They plan to fight the assessment.

Crisafulli and King, as well as Capital Region politicians, place part of the blame on the Office of Real Property Tax Services for advising local assessors on how to tax timber.

ORPS spokesman Joe Hesch said state law has long allowed trees to be assessed and his agency hasn't offered any new directives or memos about the issue.

"Trees have always been taxable."

"We've been using the same process for 40 years," said Hesch.

"We have forest data available for assessors who ask for it, but that's nothing new."

Crisafulli said ORPS wants all of the state's communities to have up-to-date assessments that reflect the full market value of properties.

That makes sense, he said.

But as part of that, ORPS is saying that timber, which has skyrocketed in price due to the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and the booming Asian economy, should be factored into land values.

"This is going to be an up and coming topic," said Crisafulli.

It's already having some local impact.

The Rensselaer County Legislature last month passed a resolution urging the tree tax be axed.

Kenneth Herrington, a Brunswick dairy farmer and Republican legislator, said farmers are worrying the state will try to apply the concept to standing crops such as corn or grain.

"It's a new layer of taxes," he said.

Bills to stop the practice have also been introduced in the Assembly and Senate.

The method by which trees are assessed and taxed can be complex.

Essentially, King said, the new approach involves separating trees and their value from the land they grow on.

Different values can be assigned to various types of tree stands or woodlots.

So far, the new method of assessment has been seen in rural areas and has hit people with timber stands and large tracts of land the hardest.

Tree taxes can also be viewed as a politically acceptable way to raise revenue, King suspects.

Increasing "broad based taxes," such as income or sales taxes, is politically unpopular, he noted, so government is constantly on the lookout for more targeted or subtle ways to get more money.

It's not the first time a relatively obscure tax hike has sprouted in localities across the state.

Two years ago, counties began quietly raising their mortgage taxes, increasing transaction costs by hundreds of dollars.

County officials said they needed the money to pay for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor.

There could be other forces at work as well, including rising timber prices, which have made trees more valuable.

There may be a desire among state officials to have private landowners shoulder more of the cost in areas where the state owns a lot of wilderness land and pays local property taxes.

Taxing trees could have environmental effects, noted Assemblyman William Parment, D-Jamestown, who has introduced a bill to stop the assessments.

Parment is among those who say some landowners may simply clear-cut their woodlots to achieve long-term savings on taxes.

King said he's already heard of such instances.

"They are forcing people to aggressively cut and subdivide," said Crisafulli.

Sen. Catherine Young, R-Jamestown, is also offering a bill to stop the tax.

Parment also said he didn't believe taxing timber makes much policy sense.

"In taxing policy, trees don't demand much service," he said.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

And while we are on the subject of HUCKSTERISM in OUR America .....

What is a day without OUR George ....

And BU-shite, of course .....

That "MIRACLE PRODUCT" from the labratories of WHITE HOUSE BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST Karl Rove .....

That has since been analyzed .....

And has been found to be quite harmful to one's overall state of health and well-being ...

As it is concocted out of a cocktail of whatever blend of toxic sludges that Rove can get his hands on at the moment .....

Along with a massive infusion of nothing but real hot air .....

And the purest BULL ****, of course ......

Purity of "product" is of importance to Rove, the "dedicated" scientist .....

And so .....

"Bush seeks support on Iraq, boost in polls"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:56 a.m., Thursday, March 23, 2006

WHEELING, W.Va. -- Whether he's before a friendly West Virginia audience, a Cleveland club proud of its interrogation skills or a White House news conference, President Bush is drawing on his plainspoken manner in freewheeling venues to defend his Iraq strategy.

Alternately serious and joking, charming and disarming in this war anniversary week, Bush is trying to counter election-year critics and reverse an approval ratings slide.

In Wheeling on Wednesday, the fifth day in a row Bush devoted his remarks to Iraq, the president bantered with the locals, his shoulders bouncing up and down as they do when he's pleased with his own jokes.

Then he brought down the house with his trademark I-won't-back-down pledge.

"Let me put it to you this way: If I didn't think we'd succeed, I'd pull our troops out," Bush said.

More than 2,000 supporters -- including many active-duty military and their families -- leapt from their seats and filled the gilded Capitol Music Hall with wild applause.

"I cannot look mothers and dads in the eye, I can't ask this good Marine to go into harm's way if I didn't believe, one, we're going to succeed, and, two, it's necessary for the security of the United States," Bush said.

Beginning with a speech last Monday in Washington, and with more planned to come, the president wants to convince Americans not only that there is reason for optimism about Iraq's future but that the situation now is better than the daily reports of strife make it appear.

With national polls showing he has a tough hill to climb -- and the upcoming midterm congressional elections making Republicans nervous -- Bush laces his remarks with nods to both Americans' worries and the grim realities on the ground in Iraq.

The insurgency remains strong, sectarian violence is spiraling and talks to form a unity government seem stalemated.

The president said at least a half-dozen times here that he understands the concern about Iraq.

"There was some awful violence."

"Some reprisals taking place."

"And I can understand people saying, `Man, it's all going to -- you know, it's not working out,'" he said.

But, Bush added, standing in front of three large blue-and-yellow "Plan for Victory" posters:

"The way I like to put it is, they looked into the abyss as to whether or not they want a civil war or not and chose not to."

"That's not to say we don't have more work to do, and we do."

The crowd in Wheeling needed little convincing.

Another standing ovation was prompted by a woman who asked Bush what could be done to keep the press from ignoring progress in Iraq.

"Our major media don't want to portray the good," she said.

"If the American people could see it, there would never be another negative word about this conflict."

Bush declined the opportunity to tell the media what to publish.

"You're asking me to say something in front of all the cameras here."

"Help over there, will you?" he joshed.

"Just got to keep talking."

"Word of mouth."

In Cleveland on Monday, Bush did his talking at the City Club.

The questions got tough at the forum known for taking on world leaders, ranging from Iraq to his warrantless wiretapping program to a new nuclear deal with India.

But the exchanges allowed Bush to make his case for the war, and earned him a few laughs and several rounds of enthusiastic applause along the way.

"Anybody work here in this town?" Bush joked at one point as the Cleveland questioning went on in an appearance that eventually went over 90 minutes.

On Tuesday, Bush called a news conference with the Washington media.

But he rejected the formal East Room in favor of going toe-to-toe with reporters in the cramped, casual White House briefing room that better suits his style.

The president bantered with an outspoken critic, journalist Helen Thomas, saying he "semi-regretted" calling on her, and he teasingly accused other reporters of falling asleep during his speeches.

The sessions follow a December blitz by Bush that succeeded in arresting an earlier fall in his approval ratings.

This time, White House advisers hope the speaking events, even when they draw the kind of difficult questions that have occasionally come Bush's way this week, will showcase a president comfortable with his message, his strategy and his facts.

"It's one of the best chances he has to be effective, to change away from the Pollyanna-ish characterizations of it being all good news," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist who has long observed Bush.

However, Wayne Fields, a specialist in presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis, said, "The problem is that clearly he's doing this because of the polls and that adds a level of desperation."

http://gprime.net/video.php/presidentialspeechalist

And looping back in time ...

As we are able to do in here ...

Thanks to the massive memory that this FORUM provides us with ....

Coupled with a very handy "search engine" feature ....

We have from back in the "beginning days" of this thread, as follows ......

U.S. National - AP

"AP Poll: U.S. Split Over Handling of Iraq"

Fri Dec 10, 2004

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Americans remain sharply divided in their views of how President Bush is handling Iraq, and their confidence that a stable, democratic government will be established in that country has eroded, an Associated Press poll found.

Fewer than half, 47 percent, think it's likely Iraq will be able to establish a stable government, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Just over half, 51 percent, say they think it's unlikely.

In April, 55 percent said they believed a stable, democratic government probably would be established, and 44 percent thought it was not likely.

While doubts are growing about Iraq's future, the American public's view of the president's handling of the situation has remained fairly constant through the year — dipping slightly in June — but evenly split now.

About half of the people still approve of going to war there, even as they see problems, said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"It's a question of whether they hold the president personally responsible for the troubles there."

As long as half the public see the war as the right decision, they are likely to continue supporting Bush's efforts, he said.

Some of the doubters acknowledge they still see a stable Iraq as an important goal.

"Once you made that initial step, you can't backtrack," said Richard Bates, 50, a Democrat who works at a steel mill near Pittsburgh.

"But I'm concerned Iraq is going to become another Vietnam."

Those most likely to have lost faith in the chances of a stable, democratic Iraq are those with college degrees, Southerners, city-dwellers, homeowners, Catholics, independents and Democrats.

Asked whether Iraq will be able to establish a stable democracy, Susan Welch of Jasper, Ga., was quick to say:

"No way."

"I don't think that President Bush started off with the right attitude — you cannot beat people into freedom," said Welch, a political independent and a part-time postal carrier.

People were about evenly divided on the president's handling of Iraq, with 48 percent approving and 50 percent disapproving.

In June, 43 percent approved, and 55 percent disapproved.

"I have no problem with the president's handling of Iraq," said Donna Baker, a 56-year-old Republican from Robinson Creek, Ky.

"I haven't heard any plan better."

Baker said she expects the election in Iraq to go off as planned Jan. 30, though not without problems.

The establishment of a stable democracy in Iraq will take time, she said.

Rising violence in recent weeks suggests her concerns are well-founded.

A series of insurgent attacks in recent days have killed more than 80 Iraqis, mostly members of the country's fledgling security forces.

Iraqi and U.S. officials insist elections will go ahead next month despite the violence and the fact that some insurgent strongholds have been too dangerous for voter registration to begin.

More than half, 52 percent, still think the United States overall is on the wrong track, while 43 percent think it's headed in the right direction.

The pessimistic mood has lingered since January, when people were about evenly split on the country's direction soon after the capture of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Bush's overall job approval in the poll among registered voters was at 51 percent, with 47 percent disapproving, about the same as in November shortly after his re-election.

The president got some of his strongest ratings for his handling of foreign policy and terrorism, with 53 percent approving and 45 percent disapproving.

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults, including 845 registered voters, was taken Dec. 6-8 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for all adults, 3.5 percentage points for registered voters.

http://dr-joe.net/flash-files/Bush-Leno.htm

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HC24Dj01.html


SPEAKING FREELY
US living on borrowed time - and money
By Julian Delasantellis

In 1987, Yale historian Paul Kennedy published The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, in which he argued that "military overstretch" - where conquering nations engaged in more foreign military adventures than their economic resources could support - led to the eventual decline and fall of empires.

So far, the US attempt at dominion that commenced in 2001 has not been threatened in this manner because, in essence, the
nation has been able to borrow the costs simultaneously to maintain both its new empire and its avaricious middle-class consumerist lifestyle.

But the times, they are a-changing. Buried deep in the arcanum of some recently released economic statistics are indications that the world is tiring of its role as America's charge card.

So far the United States has easily financed its endeavors in Iraq, as well as undiminished levels of domestic social-welfare spending, not by the traditional solution of raising taxes (in fact, taxes have been cut numerous times since 2001, an occurrence unheard of during previous wars) but by running huge budget deficits, such as fiscal year 2006's projected shortfall of US$423 billion.

Accompanying the federal budget deficit is the huge US trade deficit, burgeoning out of control as more and more of previously domestically produced consumption items are outsourced to foreign, mostly Chinese, manufacture. The stimulative US budget fiscal position assures that Americans will have all the money needed to buy them.

Standard economic theory since the adoption of floating foreign exchange rates in 1973 states that big trade deficits auto-correct by having the currency of the profligate nation depreciate. Thus if Brazil is buying more from, say, South Korea than South Korea is buying from Brazil, there will be more South Koreans with Brazilian reals (earned from the exports to Brazilians ) than there will be Brazilians with won.

In most cases, this would lead to selling of the currency of the deficit country, since there will be a surplus of the deficit country's currency in these foreigners' hands. The selling will drive down the value of the deficit currency; that will eventually make consumption of the shiny foreign goodies too expensive, and eventually the trade deficit will equalize.

This has traditionally not happened with foreigners holding US dollars. The United States dollar is what is called a "reserve currency", ie, foreigners are willing to hold dollars even though they can't easily use them as the domestic currency in their home markets. Without the selling that would accompany all the exporters to the United States trading their dollars for their home currencies, the US dollar stays higher than the economic fundamentals would theorize it should, and the great American global shopping spree can continue.

The ledger of how much more capital the US sucks in to finance its consumption as compared with how much it sends out to invest is called the current account deficit. The money that foreign exporters hold in US dollars and then invest in US government or private bonds, stocks or short-term bills is entered in the minus column on the current account. As the US domestic savings rate is so pitifully low, the United States must import a huge amount of foreign capital just to finance that huge federal government budget deficit.

From an even then huge $531 billion in 2003, the current-account deficit has been rising in recent years by more than 20% a year, last year's was $805 billion, and the projection for 2006 is more than $975 billion - that's almost 7% of gross domestic product. In other words, America's spending addiction, from DVD players to destroyers, means that the nation consumes 7% more than it produces.

But until very recently, financing this hunger wasn't all that much of a problem.

The most important US government economic statistical report that you've never heard of is called the Treasury International Capital (TIC) report. The current-account data report how much the US needs to finance its lifestyle; the monthly TIC data report what it actually gets.

Thus in 2003, the current-account deficit meant that the US needed to entice $531 billion from the rest of the world. TIC data reported that what it actually got was $747 billion. For 2004, the need was $666 billion; it actually got $915 billion. For 2005, the need was $801 billion; $1.025 trillion was actually received. Many economic commentators believe that as this excess foreign capital started sloshing around and through the US banking and financial system, it kept US interest rates low and thus fired the tremendous rallies in real-estate and stock-equity prices that have occurred in the past few years.

But nothing good lasts forever. From reaching a high of $117.2 billion in August 2005, the TIC reports are showing a steady decline in foreign inflows, down to $74 billion in December, and $78 billion for January, the last month for which data are available. The nasty thing about this is that with a projected $975 billion current-account deficit for this year, the US is no longer getting what it needs from the world to maintain its lifestyle. The foreign-capital food supply is dwindling just as the hunger increases.

True, the actual shortfall is not yet very large, right now less than $5 billion a month. But I see the salient fact here as not being the current-account deficit minus TIC-inflow shortfall right now, but the rather significant 35% absolute reduction in inflows since last summer. As the US political system shows absolutely no indication of being either desirous or even able to deal with its fiscal profligacy (the recent congressional farce surrounding the increase in the debt ceiling being an example), the current-account deficit will only rise; unless US households are willing to increase their savings rates massively (very unlikely, since I haven't seen any "going out of business" signs on Best Buy or Circuit City lately) or the declining-TIC-inflow trend reverses, there's trouble ahead for the latest US experiment in cut-rate conquest.

There are many ways this trouble could manifest itself. Since much of this foreign-capital inflow finds its way into long-term US Treasury securities, it's hardly surprising that, with the recent shortfall in TIC inflows, Treasury interest rates are rising to their highest levels in two years. If demand is falling, then the market is marking down prices, and the basic rule of bond markets is that yields move in inverse directions to prices. Rising mortgage rates will put the US real-estate boom in real jeopardy, and it has been US homeowners pulling spendable cash out of the inflated values of their homes that has generated much of the consumption component of recent US growth.

It is also possible that this could lead to a sharp selloff in the US dollar, as has been happening in the dollar-euro market since November. If foreigners with export earnings from the US do not put it back into US assets, they will not just keep it stuffed in their mattresses; they will look around for interest-bearing instruments denominated in euros, sterling, yen, or a dozen other currencies.

This will cause these currencies to appreciate in value, and the dollar to fall. If you've ever looked at the back page of The Economist magazine you'll have seen the huge foreign-exchange reserves being built by countries that have recently been the winners in the global trading game. As of December, the International Monetary Fund lists Japan's reserves at $847 billion, China's at $819 billion, Taiwan's at $253 billion, South Korea's at $210 billion, Russia's at $194 billion, and India's at $137 billion. These reserves, held overwhelmingly as US dollars, are the potential gasoline just waiting for the match to set alight a huge global economic conflagration.

If somebody starts selling his dollar reserves, even if it's only a portion of his dollar portfolio, other countries could be forced into panic selling of their huge dollar reserves. The foreign-exchange markets are the biggest and most liquid in the world, but whether they would be able to absorb the amount of selling that could emerge from portfolio adjustments this large is a very open question.

More likely there would be a sharp overshoot in the dollar-selling, leading to a perhaps 20-30% decline in dollar values within a very short time. For the US, this would mean a sharp rise in the prices of everything it imports, especially crude oil. That would mean inflation, with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to contain it, or maybe the economy would bypass the intermediate inflationary phase and head straight into deep recession or depression.

Either way, the great run of US prosperity would be over. Worldwide, along with the global contractionary effects of US economic growth suddenly stopping or going into reverse, the effect of an almost instantaneous 20% haircut in the value of the world's financial reserves would be no picnic, either.

On the first day of class, business teachers like me love to introduce our sleepy students to the concept of TANSTAAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The United States may soon be introduced to the concept of TANSTAAFE - there ain't no such thing as a free empire. Specifically, will the nation still think it's so important to control the sands of Samarra, or the streets of Fallujah, or, for that matter, those of Baghdad if, like the signs say in US doctors' offices, "payment is expected at the time of service"?

Julian Delasantellis is a management consultant, private investor and professor of international business in the US states of Washington.

(Copyright 2006 Julian Delasantellis.)

That's quite an article, Snuf ....

And it's good to see you back .....

"The Age of the Acquisitors" ......

I think perhaps .....

We may finally be at the other end ....

And so .....

"Melting ice threatens sea-level rise"

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:18 p.m., Thursday, March 23, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Earth is already shaking beneath melting ice as rising temperatures threaten to shrink polar glaciers and raise sea levels around the world.

By the end of this century, Arctic readings could rise to levels not seen in 130,000 years -- when the oceans were several feet higher than now, according to new research appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Even now, giant glaciers lubricated by melting water have begun causing earthquakes in Greenland as they lurch toward the ocean, other scientists report in the same journal.

In principal findings:

-- At the current warming rate, Earth's temperature by 2100 will probably be at least 4 degrees warmer than now, with the Arctic at least as warm as it was 130,000 years ago, reports a research group led by Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona.

-- Computer models indicate that warming could raise the average temperature in parts of Greenland above freezing for multiple months and could have a substantial impact on melting of the polar ice sheets, says a second paper by researchers led by Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Melting could raise sea level one to three feet over the next 100 to 150 years, she said.

-- And a team led by Goeran Ekstroem of Harvard University reported an increase in "glacial earthquakes," which occur when giant rivers of ice -- some as big as Manhattan -- move suddenly as meltwater eases their path.

That sudden movement causes the ground to tremble.

Otto-Bliesner and Overpeck wrote separate papers and also worked together, studying ancient climate and whether modern computer climate models correctly reflect those earlier times.

That allowed them to use the models to look at possible future conditions.

The researchers studied ancient coral reefs, ice cores and other natural climate records.

"Although the focus of our work is polar, the implications are global," Otto-Bliesner said.

"These ice sheets have melted before and sea levels rose."

"The warmth needed isn't that much above present conditions."

According to the studies, increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the next century could raise Arctic temperatures as much as 5 to 8 degrees.

The warming could raise global sea levels by up to three feet this century through a combination of thermal expansion of the water and melting of polar ice, Overpeck and Otto-Bliesner said.

Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, who was not part of the research teams, said, "One point stands out above all others and that is that a modest global warming may put Earth in the danger zone for a major sea level rise due to deglaciation of one or both ice sheets."

Ekstroem and colleagues reported that glacial earthquakes in Greenland occur most often in July and August and have more than doubled since 2002.

"People often think of glaciers as inert and slow-moving, but in fact they can also move rather quickly," Ekstroem said.

"Some of Greenland's glaciers, as large as Manhattan and as tall as the Empire State Building, can move 10 meters in less than a minute, a jolt that is sufficient to generate moderate seismic waves."

Melting water from the surface gradually seeps down, accumulating at the base of a glacier where it can serve as a lubricant allowing the ice to suddenly move downhill, the researchers said.

"Our results suggest that these major outlet glaciers can respond to changes in climate conditions much more quickly than we had thought," said team member Meredith Nettles of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

------

On the Net:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

March 22, 2006

"Bush Concedes Iraq War Erodes Political Status"

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, March 21 — President Bush said Tuesday that the war in Iraq was eroding his political capital, his starkest admission yet about the costs of the conflict to his presidency, and suggested that American forces would remain in the country until at least 2009.

In a quick remark at a White House news conference about the reserves of political strength he earned in his 2004 re-election victory — "I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war" — Mr. Bush in effect acknowledged that until he could convince increasingly skeptical Americans that the United States was winning the war, Iraq would overshadow everything he did.

Later, in response to a question about whether a day would come when there would be no more American forces in Iraq, he said that "future presidents and future governments of Iraq" would make that decision.

That statement was one of the few he has made that provides insight into his thinking about the duration of the American commitment in Iraq, and signaled that any withdrawal of troops would extend beyond his term in office.

Mr. Bush asserted that Iraq was not in a civil war, and took issue with Ayad Allawi, a former Iraqi prime minister and White House ally, who said Sunday that it was.

The president also said repeatedly that he was convinced that the United States would succeed in Iraq and that he would continue to deliver that message across the country.

"I'm going to say it again: if I didn't believe we could succeed, I wouldn't be there," he said at the nearly hourlong session in the White House press briefing room.

"I wouldn't put those kids there."

The president's news conference was part of a White House campaign to convince Americans that there is good news in Iraq, not only the daily bloodshed they see on television.

The session with reporters was sandwiched in between a series of presidential Iraq speeches — Washington last Tuesday, Cleveland this last Monday and Wheeling, W. Va., scheduled for Wednesday — and like them, projected a tone of qualified optimism.

Mr. Bush admitted mistakes and acknowledged chaos on the ground, but emphatically asserted that the situation would improve.

"I've heard people say, 'Oh, he's just kind of optimistic for the sake of optimism,' " he told reporters.

"Well, look, I believe we're going to succeed."

"And I understand how tough it is."

"Don't get me wrong."

"I mean, you make it abundantly clear how tough it is."

"I hear it from our troops."

"I read the reports every night."

"But I believe the Iraqis — this is a moment where the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart, and they didn't."

"And that's a positive development."

The speech tactic worked in late 2005 when another series of Iraq addresses helped to stabilize the president's poll numbers temporarily.

But analysts said that with his message now familiar to the nation, it was not clear whether people were listening.

"The problem with the speeches is they get gradually more realistic, but they are still exercises in spin," said Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"They don't outline the risks."

"They don't create a climate where people trust what's being said."

White House officials are hopeful that the communications offensive by Mr. Bush will stop the decline that has sunk his job approval ratings to the lowest levels of his presidency, but some military analysts said they were skeptical because he announced no new policies in his news conference or in his speeches.

"This particular series confuses me about what it is trying to accomplish," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military specialist at the Brookings Institution.

"It's been a bad winter in Iraq, but I also don't think he has enough new to say, and it's too soon after the fall speeches."

The war in Iraq bled into most questions at the news conference.

Mr. Bush once again strongly endorsed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in response to a question about whether he should step down, as some members of Congress are demanding.

"No, I don't believe he should resign," Mr. Bush said.

"I think he's done a fine job of not only conducting two battles, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also transforming our military, which has been a very difficult job inside the Pentagon."

He added: "Listen, every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy, not just the war plan we executed in Iraq, but the war plans that we have been executed throughout the history of warfare."

Mr. Bush's mood at the news conference alternated between relaxed and testy, although he appeared to be trying hard not to show his irritation at some reporters.

In one exchange, Helen Thomas, the longtime White House correspondent and Hearst newspaper columnist, asked Mr. Bush why he really wanted to go to war with Iraq.

He curtly replied that "to assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect."

At another point, he took on a peevish tone when asked about Democratic measures in Congress to censure him for his secret surveillance program.

A recent New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans support the program as long as they believe it is intended to protect them from terrorism.

"I did notice that nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program," Mr. Bush said.

He added, in a formulation similar to his campaign speeches portraying Democrats as soft on terrorism, that "they ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used."

He used the same question to take on Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic minority leader, over the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, although no reporter had brought up either the Patriot Act or Mr. Reid.

"He openly said, as I understand, I don't want to misquote him, something along the lines that, 'We killed the Patriot Act,' " Mr. Bush said, referring to Democrats and a handful of Republicans who temporarily held up renewal of the law because of concerns that it was infringing on civil liberties.

"If that's what the party believes, they ought to go around the country saying we shouldn't give people on the front line of protecting us the tools necessary to do so," Mr. Bush said.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, responded that Mr. Bush's remarks were "part of his standard talking points, but the reality is that Senator Reid strongly supported the bill that was signed into law by the president."

Mr. Reid also issued a statement on Tuesday with the headline, "We see no end to Bush's dangerous incompetence."

In the news conference, the president strongly defended his staff against calls from Republicans in Congress for new blood in the White House and complaints that the West Wing is adrift.

"These are good, hard-working, decent people," he said.

"And we've dealt with a lot."

He added that there was natural Congressional anxiety in an election year.

"I can remember '02 before the elections, there were a certain nervousness," he said.

"There was a lot of people in Congress who weren't sure I was going to make it in '04, and whether or not I'd drag the ticket down."

"So there's a certain unease as you head into an election year."

"I understand that."

Asked if he planned to bring to the White House an experienced Washington insider who could quell concerns among Republicans in Congress, Mr. Bush replied, "Well, I'm not going to announce it right now."

As long as BushCo can FORCE all payments for oil to continue to be made EXCLUSIVELY with US Dollars as it has been since 1973-74, the Fed can print more counterfeit money every time the price of oil rises.

Foreign countries need those dollars to buy their oil.

A pretty good racket.

If BushCo can keep it from collapsing.

A house of cards, jeffmoskin .....

Or that scene in the Wizard of Oz ...

Where the little dog ...

Finally pulls back the curtain ....

To reveal that the MIGHTY WIZARD ....

Is just some little old man ...

(Or in this case, a goofy Texican) ....

Feverishly working a lot of knobs ....

And dials and levers .....

In a futile effort ...

To have the candid world ...

Believe that he is a whole lot bigger ....

Than what reality .....

Finally shows him to be ....

And so .....

TEACHER: Little Johnny, what can you tell me about America?

LITTLE JOHNNY: It has the best government that money can buy of any nation on the face of this earth of OURS .....

TEACHER: Little Suzy, is everyone on Washington, D.C. for sale?

LITTLE SUZY: Well, I'm not sure about everyone ......

But the politicians are ....

Starting right with the Office of the President, it seems ....

And running downhill from there ....

Like sewage on its way to pollute the sea ....

And that is what matters ......

"Candidates Distance Bush, but Not His Cash"

By TOM RAUM

42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Many worried Republicans on the ballot in November have been pushing away from the White House, not wanting to be dragged under by President Bush's sinking approval ratings and growing anxiety over Iraq.

That doesn't mean they're also fleeing his cash offerings, however.

Despite approval ratings in the mid-to-upper 30s, Bush remains the nation's most successful fundraiser.

Vice President Dick Cheney, whose poll numbers are even lower than Bush's, is not far behind.

Both have raised tens of millions of dollars for GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates running in this year's midterm elections.

Even as some Republicans are becoming increasingly defiant on a range of issues, they're still lining up dutifully for the president's campaign dollars.

"I would be shocked if a legitimate Republican candidate, not just a fringe candidate, who got word that the president was coming to do a fundraiser said, `no, don't come to my district,'" said GOP consultant Rich Galen.

That said, Republican candidates don't want to be forced off message by such a visit and "have to spend the next two or three days talking about the president's policies ... or what happened yesterday in Ramadi (Iraq)," Galen said.

It has resulted in some fancy GOP footwork as candidates in tight races step away from Bush and Cheney on divisive issues but dance toward them when the subject is money.

Bush has scheduled fundraisers Friday for Rep. Mike Sodrel of Indiana at The Murat Centre in Indianapolis and for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., at a private residence in the Pittsburgh area.

He's doing another one at a Washington hotel on Monday for Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., where $1,000 will get you in the door, and $10,000 in combined contributions from others will get you a "photo opportunity with the president," according to an invitation.

Bush and Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, are not scheduled to appear together publicly on Friday.

Santorum, trailing Democrat Bob Casey in polls, broke with Bush on a plan to have an Arab company based in Dubai run terminals at some U.S. ports and has raised concerns about the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq.

When Bush went to Cleveland earlier in the week to make a major speech on Iraq, there was a noticeable absence of top Ohio Republicans, including Sen. Mike DeWine, who is locked in a tight re-election race.

Cheney went to Newark, N.J., earlier in the week to help raise $400,000 for New Jersey GOP Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr.

But Kean showed up 15 minutes after Cheney left.

Kean said he got stuck in traffic, a claim critics questioned based on the route he took.

Michael Steele, the GOP Senate candidate in Maryland, skipped Bush's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in November, but joined the president later at a $500,000 fundraiser.

Last month, GOP Senate candidate Mark Kennedy in Minnesota did not attend an appearance by Bush at a 3M Corp. plant outside Minneapolis, but joined him later at a fundraiser.

At a local GOP gathering in Nevada last weekend, Republican Sen. John Ensign tied himself to Ronald Reagan rather than Bush, saying spending under the Bush administration "has upset me."

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who also attended the gathering, told reporters:

"I believe the president has his agenda, his focus."

"I have mine."

"I will always run on mine."

Worries over the Iraq war are weighing down all Republicans and causing strains between Bush and his congressional allies.

"The big issue is now the war," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

In a White House news conference earlier this week, Bush acknowledged the war was dominating the nation's attention.

"So there's a certain unease as you head into an election year."

"I understand that," he said.

A president is typically his party's fundraiser-in-chief, and Bush has embraced the role like no other, besting even the reception-loving Bill Clinton in total dollars collected.

Bush headlined events that raised more than $140 million for Republican Party committees and candidates in each of the 2002 and 2004 election cycles.

In 2005, Bush held 20 fundraising events, raising $75.5 million, while Cheney held 36 events that brought in $15 million.

So far this year, Bush has held six events raising $12.5 million, and Cheney has held 11 events that raised $1.6 million, according to a GOP tabulation.

"The Republicans want to make withdrawals from the White House ATM."

"But at the same time, they don't want to be photographed or be seen being anywhere near the White House at this time," said Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

But Brian Nick, spokesman of the counterpart National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the large sums of money that Bush and Cheney are able to attract are "indicative of what both the president and the vice president have been willing to do since their election."

"... It shows the dedication to keeping the majority."

Polls show Bush and Cheney remain enormously popular with the GOP base and conservatives.

An AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month showed Bush holding a 74 percent approval rating among Republicans, compared with 37 percent overall.

"He enjoys very strong support there."

"His problem is with swing voters," said Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker.

It is in states like New Jersey and Ohio, where swing voters have the most clout, that the races are the tightest, and where Democrats are working hard to tie Republican candidates to Bush administration policies.

Democrats, for instance, had some fun with Kean missing Cheney at the New Jersey fundraiser, pointing to news accounts that he had taken traffic-clogged Route 1 — at rush hour — rather than driving on the less-congested New Jersey Turnpike.

"We made the photo that Tom Kean Jr. feared," said a Democratic news release with a computer-generated picture of Kean and Cheney standing side by side.

For his part, Cheney seemed to take Kean's absence in stride.

"I do some of my best work when I'm without a candidate," he quipped at the fundraiser.

"General: War on Terror Will Last for Years"

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 39 minutes ago

ANKARA, Turkey - The war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan are stable, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told military officials from around the world Friday.

Speaking at the Global Terrorism and International Cooperation Symposium, Pace called for patience and collaboration, repeating U.S. assertions that it will be a long campaign.

"Iraq and Afghanistan will over time become stable," he said in a keynote address.

"But the war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments."

Pace also told the crowd that military action alone will not be enough.

Economic growth, good education systems and solid governments also are necessary to quell terrorism.

"We are talking about years and years to come of vigilance," said Pace,

"Today's tactical victory does not guarantee tomorrow's strategic success."

Earlier in an interview with NTV, a Turkish all-news television station, Pace fielded questions about the U.S. military's progress in Iraq, and when troops will be withdrawn.

He repeated the Pentagon's assertion that any withdrawal will be based on conditions in Iraq.

He also said the U.S. military is not taking any steps to invade Iran, saying, "there is a lot more to be done before we consider military action."

Asked whether the U.S. will do more to help Turkey fight the PKK, a terrorist organization that has long been a problem here, particularly along the border with Iraq, Pace said the government in Iraq must be stabilized before anything can be done.

Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have recently escalated their attacks in the region.

A bomb set off by a suspected Kurdish suicide bomber earlier this month killed two people and injured 19 in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.

PKK terrorists also operate within Iraq's borders, and he said the U.S. and other countries are working to help Turkey, but he would not go into details.

"Any attacks against the PKK in Iraq are going to have to wait until the security situation in Iraq is more stable," Pace said.

During the interview, Pace also addressed a recent movie that has been very popular in Turkey, which shows American soldiers in Iraq crashing a wedding, pumping a little boy full of lead in front of his mother, and randomly gunning down dozens of people.

"Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," also reportedly fuels anti-Americanism by showing Turkish troops defeating American troops.

"It's pure fiction," Pace said.

"We're friends."

"Any movie ... that would try to paint a different picture in a way that would harm the relations between our two countries is unfortunate."

In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Pace said the U.S. and other countries must do a better job of sharing intelligence to be more effective in the campaign against terror.

"They are certainly trying to come to grips with how much intelligence they can share," Pace said Thursday in an interview aboard a plane flying from Saudi Arabia to Turkey.

"Each country has its own way of collecting data and they need to protect how they do that."

"But the data they collect can be very important to other countries."

On the eve of the counterterrorism meetings in Ankara, Pace said the two-day session would let officials trade information about how individual countries are dealing with terrorism.

That should give others ideas on what works and what doesn't, he said.

Pace said Saudi Arabia has been successful lately tracking down an al-Qaida cell.

Countries are trying to figure out how much intelligence can be shared, and how quickly, he said.

The Saudis, he said, have probably used "some techniques and procedures that will be helpful to other countries."

He noted that much of the discussions on intelligence sharing, among a host of high-raking officials from countries around the region, will be done in small groups and not publicly shared.

The sessions Friday featured officials from countries that are battling terrorism, including Afghanistan and Turkey.

Pace said countries that don't feel threatened by terror will have different views than those that do.

"Police probe badge mystery - Gold shield belonging to ranking Albany cop found at home of man indicted in accident scam case"

By BRENDAN LYONS, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, March 24, 2006

ALBANY -- A police badge that belongs to a high-ranking member of the Albany Police Department was recovered during a raid at the home of a well-known area prizefighter recently indicted for his alleged role in an elaborate insurance scam.

The badge was not included in a search warrant document that lists 27 other items taken from the Colonie home of 32-year-old Frank Houghtaling on March 15, when he and several members of his family were arrested on sealed felony indictments as their homes were raided by police.

Prosecutors say Houghtaling family members are part of an organized ring that staged accidents and collected hundreds of thousands of dollars at the expense of the victims' insurance companies.

Last week, police raided four residences and a business that belong to the family, seizing computers, accident reports, day planners, wallets, checkbooks, computer discs, Rolodexes and other items.

Inside Frank Houghtaling's home at 337 Sand Creek Road, authorities also found a polo shirt with an Albany Police Department emblem, a police pendant and a gold commander's badge that was issued to Tony Bruno, who is now an assistant chief, according to court records and department sources.

Bruno, a highly decorated police officer, has not been accused of wrongdoing and remains on duty with the department.

It's not clear whether he knows Houghtaling.

The shirt and pendant are listed in the search warrant return that was filed Monday in Albany County Court.

Under law, police agencies are required to file a formal list of everything they seize in a search that is supported by a court-ordered warrant.

The search warrant return, which is treated as a sworn affidavit and was signed by Detective Sgt. Mike Nadoraski, does not list the badge among 27 other items taken by police from Houghtaling's home.

However, the badge is listed in a handwritten Albany Police Department evidence room report that was filled out on the morning of March 15, about five hours after the raid, and that was signed by two officers, according to a copy of the report reviewed by the Times Union.

The entry "Alb PD badge" appears in tiny letters just above an entry for Houghtaling's brown leather wallet.

Department policies require officers to immediately report any lost or stolen badges.

If a badge is lost, a teletype alerting other police agencies is issued on a nationwide law enforcement network, authorities familiar with the policy said.

"I am conducting an investigation, an internal inquiry," Chief James Tuffey said.

"I am looking at an aspect of an item that was recovered at a scene ... I won't confirm who it is."

When asked about the police shirt and pendant, Tuffey said:

"I'm not a believer in any (police) paraphernalia being in anyone's hands."

Houghtaling was arrested on a 37-count sealed indictment along with his parents, wife, sister, brother and sister-in-law.

They are charged with enterprise corruption, insurance fraud, falsifying business records, grand larceny and conspiracy.

The family members were rounded up at their homes by members of an auto fraud task force that began investigating them two years ago.

More arrests are expected, authorities said.

The group allegedly thrived for years by collecting insurance payments, some worth tens of thousands of dollars, for crashes they had caused.

They would pick out victims, including elderly and drunken drivers, at mall parking lots and other locations and then initiate a crash in which the other person would be blamed, authorities said.

Frank Houghtaling is a welterweight champion who lost a headline fight last weekend at the Washington Avenue Armory.

He is also a State Thruway employee, a member of the Air National Guard and an Army veteran.

Houghtaling and his relatives all were released on bail, in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, after their arraignments in Albany County Court.

Wednesday's indictment was based on nine incidents involving fraudulent payouts of about $150,000.

But prosecutors said the family collected nearly five times that amount over a decade and a half based on hundreds of staged incidents.

Brendan Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

Okay, George ....

Yeah, right ....

YADA, YADA, YADA, and then some more YADA's on top of them ....

If YADA's were aces in a game of Poker ....

Where nothing else was "wild" ....

Well, George W. Bush might win then .....

BUT .....

March 23, 2006

NY Times, Editorial

"The Joy of Being Blameless"

The contrast could not have been more stark, nor the message more clear.

On the day that a court-martial imposed justice on a 24-year-old Army sergeant for tormenting detainees at Abu Ghraib with his dog, President Bush said once again that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose benighted policies and managerial incompetence led to the prisoner abuse scandal, was doing a "fine job" and should stay at his post.

We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world:

President Bush has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in his administration.

Just this week, Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall provided a bloodcurdling account in the Times of how a Special Operations unit converted an Iraqi military base into a torture chamber, even using prisoners as paintball targets, in its frenzy to counter a widely predicted insurgency for which Mr. Rumsfeld had refused to prepare.

In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected of selling cars to members of a terrorist network was arrested and beaten repeatedly.

Another man said he had been forced to strip, punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited.

His crime?

His father had worked for Saddam Hussein.

These accounts are tragically familiar.

The names and dates change, but the basic pattern is the same, including the fact that this bestiality produced little or no useful intelligence.

The Bush administration decided to go outside the law to deal with prisoners, and soldiers carried out that policy.

Those who committed these atrocities deserve the punishment they are getting, but virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped unscathed.

And not a single policy maker has been called to account.

Col. Thomas Pappas, the former intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib, testified at the dog handler's trial that the use of dogs had grown out of conversations he had had with military jailers from Guantánamo Bay led by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been sent to Iraq to instruct soldiers there in the interrogation techniques refined at Gitmo under Mr. Rumsfeld's torture-is-legal policy.

Colonel Pappas said General Miller had explained how to use the "Arab fear of dogs" to set up interrogations.

What of General Miller?

He invoked his right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying, and Time magazine reported this week that he was exonerated by an Army whitewash.

Apparently he was not responsible for the actions of soldiers operating under rules he put in place.

About the only high-ranking officer whose career has suffered over Abu Ghraib is Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the commander in Iraq at the time.

General Sanchez should certainly take responsibility, but he was also a victim of administration blunders.

General Sanchez was vaulted inappropriately from head of the First Armored Division to overall commander because Mr. Bush declared "mission accomplished": the war's over.

He was then denied the staff, soldiers and equipment he needed to deal with the insurgency that quickly broke out and produced thousands of prisoners.

Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors.

Indeed, he has promoted many of them.

And this is not an isolated problem.

It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, not matter how egregious.

I think BushCo has bet the farm on this plan.

It is clear that, just as the 20th century was the "American Century," the 21st will belong to either India or China. And our way of life, wasteful as it is, will be unsustainable in years to come. America has outsourced the only enterprises that permit a human being to multiply the value of his/her effort.

The operator of a stamping press at a car factory can be paid $40/hr because look at all the fenders he/she can turn out in that hour.

Ah, you say, but we have a service economy now. Precisely my point: A service employee can only produce ONE hour of output per hour.

Period.

Now, if it happens to be brain surgery, I guess the hourly compensation will be above $40/hr. Even accounting, lawyering, teaching (maybe), computer service. Oops, that one went to India. Sorry.

We Murricans are clearly looking BACK at the good ole days, not forward.

UNLESS WE CAN RIG THE GAME!!!

So here's BushCo's plan:

Force everybody to pay for oil in dollars. Kill anybody who takes any other currency, like Saddam for taking the dreaded Euro for oil.

Since every nation needs dollars, and since the Fed can print them for only 2.3cents per $100 bill, NOW WE HAVE A MANUFACTURING BUSINESS MODEL THAT WORKS.

We manufacture dollars; the rest of the world manufactures things that they can buy.

BushCo hopes that Toto will not pull back the curtain.

He just might get away with it.

One, jeffmoskin, I would say you were right ...

Bushco has "bet the farm" on some plan or other ...

And the farm he bet ........

Was not his to play with .....

To the contrary ...

It was something entrusted to him ...

And he betrayed that trust ...

Because he is essentially a weak man .....

And he has never displayed a sense of trustworthiness ....

That I could ever see, anyway ....

And right now, jeffmoskin ....

The inescapable truth is ....

That George W. Bush is into the wringer with IRAQINAM .....

All the way up to his **** .....

And so .....

No more military adventures for this Bushco, anyway .....

He is out of time ....

And OUR America ....

As a result ...

May well be, too .....

And it is only just begun ....

The end of the AGE OF THE ACQUISITORS .....

And so ....

Simply stated ....

George W. Bush ....

Is immensely popular ...

With a very small percentage of people ....

Here in OUR America .....

Where that small percentage ....

Constitute a political minority .....

Like the Baathists in IRAQINAM when Saddam Hussein was in power .....

That wants to rule .....

Well, guess what, BUSHISTS .....

This is not IRAQINAM, over here ...

And so ....

"Bush and Cheney go after the Democrats"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:15 p.m., Friday, March 24, 2006

INDIANAPOLIS -- President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney launched a one-two political punch against Democrats on Friday, saying they are ill-equipped to handle the economic recovery or the war on terror.

Shouldering dismal poll ratings, Bush worked to frame the debate ahead of this year's congressional elections by telling supporters that "the difference is clear" between the two parties on how to sustain the recovery.

"If you want the government in your pocket, vote Democrat," Bush said.

"If you want to keep more of your hard-earned money, vote Republican."

Cheney, speaking at a GOP fundraiser in Orlando, Fla., took on Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and party chairman Howard Dean by name.

He said leading Democrats have demanded a "sudden withdrawal from the battle against terrorists in Iraq -- the very kind of retreat that Osama bin Laden has been predicting."

"With that sorry record, the leaders of the Democratic Party have decided to run on the theme of competence."

"If they're competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on 'American Idol,'" Cheney said.

The remark drew robust laughter.

"I don't know why that's funny," Cheney said at the event for Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla.

Democrats were quick to counterpunch.

"Under this administration's watch, Iraq has become a training ground and launching pad for international terrorism, North Korea has likely quadrupled its nuclear arsenal, bin Laden remains on the loose, terror attacks across the world are on the rise, and Katrina exposed the staggering gaps in the administration's ability to protect America," said Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda said: "Instead of offering a plan for victory in Iraq, the vice president today again resorted to attacks to try to distract from the Bush administration's commitment to a failed strategy."

Bush and Cheney appeared to be repeating a page from the 2004 presidential campaign.

During a campaign stop then in Des Moines, Iowa, Cheney said a vote for Democrat John Kerry would risk another terror attack.

Making the "wrong choice" on Election Day would mean Kerry would follow a pre-Sept. 11 policy of reacting defensively, Cheney said.

Some wary Republicans on the ballot in November have been trying to stay at arm's length from the White House to avoid being tainted by Bush's job approval ratings, in the 30s.

But presidents attract crowds and supporters with deep pockets, and Bush remains the nation's most successful fundraiser.

Cheney, whose poll numbers are even lower than Bush's, is not far behind.

Both have raised tens of millions of dollars for GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates running in this year's midterm elections.

Bush spoke at a fundraiser for Rep. Mike Sodrel, raising more than $500,000 to help the freshman Republican beat Democrat Baron Hill.

The race is considered a toss-up in the GOP quest to retain control of the House.

He said the Republicans have an economic record to run on, and he urged Congress to make permanent various tax cuts due to expire within a few years.

He tried to draw a sharp contrast between the two parties' economic policies.

"In 2001, more than 90 percent of the congressional Democrats voted against cutting income tax rates," Bush said, referring to votes on his initial package of tax cuts.

He told the Republican audience that, by overwhelming margins, Democrats also voted to reject his legislation -- which eventually passed -- to provide tax relief for married couples, double the child credit and cut taxes on dividends and capital gains.

Later, the president traveled to an affluent Pittsburgh suburb to raise an estimated $700,000 for Sen. Rick Santorum.

Santorum, trailing Casey in polls, broke with Bush on a plan to have an Arab company based in Dubai run terminals at some U.S. ports and has raised concerns about the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq.

But Santorum met Bush at an airport in Pittsburgh, and the two smiled for cameras.

Democrats are hungry for a victory in Pennsylvania and hope to replace the two-term senator with State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., a Democrat who is against abortion.

"Senator Santorum and President Bush should publicly explain why they've advanced policies that have cost Pennsylvania over 180,000 manufacturing jobs and caused over 700,000 Pennsylvanians to lose their health insurance," said Casey spokesman Larry Smar.

"Senator Santorum should work for the people of Pennsylvania and not be a rubber stamp in order to gain campaign cash."

------

On the Net:

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

http://dr-joe.net/flash-files/Bush-Leno.htm

http://gprime.net/video.php/presidentialspeechalist

TO WHOM ARE GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY SELLING OUT OUR AMERICA IN ORDER TO GAIN ALL THIS CASH FOR THEM AND THEIRS?

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8757

March 25, 2006
Are the Neocons Losing It?

by Patrick J. Buchanan
While President Bush appears serenely confident about Iraq, the same cannot be said of the War Party propagandists who were plotting this conflict when Dubya was still a rookie governor of Texas.

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard now demands the firing of Donald Rumsfeld. William F. Buckley, whose National Review branded the antiwar Right "unpatriotic conservatives" who "hate" America, now calls upon Bush for an "acknowledgement of defeat."

Richard Perle says the administration "got the war right and the aftermath wrong." Self-described "humiliated pundit" Andrew Sullivan confesses to "a sense of shame and sorrow." Michael Ledeen says of Bush's war, "Wrong war, wrong time, wrong way, wrong place."

Frank ("The End of History") Fukuyama concedes that "Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at."

But it is a March 20 essay in The Wall Street Journal that suggests the neocons may be coming unhinged. Written by Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes, the piece urges Bush to begin the "rejuvenation of his presidency by shocking the media and political community with a sweeping overhaul of his administration."

The purge Barnes recommends would have caused Stalin to recoil.

Barnes calls on Bush to fire press secretary Scott McClellan, chief of staff Andy Card, political adviser Karl Rove, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary John Snow – and Vice President Richard Cheney.

"The trickiest issue is how to handle Karl Rove," says Barnes.

I don't think so, Fred. I think "the trickiest issue" will be how to handle Dick and Lynne when they are told by Dubya they must give up a constitutional office to which Cheney was elected by the nation, vacate the vice presidential mansion and turn the keys over to Condi Rice.

That's right, Barnes urges Bush to appoint Condi vice president and "anoint" her as "presidential successor."

Who would replace Condi at State? Pro-war liberal Joe Lieberman.

I should like to be in earshot when Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hears that he has been passed over for secretary of state by the junior Democratic senator from Connecticut.

"Mr. Cheney would probably be happy to step down and return to Wyoming," Barnes assures us.

Is he sure? Why would Cheney not regard any such attempt by Bush as a stab in the back by a friend to whom he has given years of service? For if Cheney is forced to quit his office, he goes down in history as a failed vice president and, along with Rumsfeld, the Bush-designated scapegoats of the Iraq war.

What, other than poor poll ratings, would be the rationale for removing Cheney, who is infinitely more qualified than Condi Rice by philosophy, experience and knowledge to take over the presidency?

All of Cheney's problems are tied to Iraq. But so are Bush and Condi tied to Iraq. Her failure at the National Security Council to screen the intelligence and ensure that Defense did due diligence for the occupation produced today's crisis. And what has Condi's crusade for democracy produced, other than historic gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas on the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Moqtada al-Sadr and the Shia clerics in Iraq?

Exactly what qualifies her to be president?

Well, says Barnes, it would be a "spectacular move."

I'll say. Putting Rice directly in the line of succession to the Oval Office would detonate an explosion far more ruinous to Bush than the Dubai ports deal. It would instantly jump-start the presidential campaign of 2008. Conservatives who consider Condi weak on life and a pro-affirmative-action social liberal would start carving her up before she reached the Senate hearing room.

Did not the firestorm over the Dubai deal wake these Beltway dreamers up?

Would John McCain stand aside for Rice? Would George Allen? Would the evangelical Christians? All would move to block her. And no one would worry about any damage this would do to a George Bush who was so arrogant as to try to impose, as his choice for the 2008 nominee of the GOP, another ex-staffer and spinster like Harriet Miers.

That Bush is in trouble is undeniable. But his people are not Bush's problem. His policies are. It is these policies, not his advisers, that have given us huge deficits and a no-win war that is bleeding our country.

If Bush should follow Barnes' advice and throw his most loyal people to the wolves as a P.R. stunt, he will have earned their lasting contempt, and that of the country. For all will know he was scapegoating them for his own failures – failures that come of having listened to the neocons who are even now slipping out of camp, rehearsing alibis and blaming Bush for not heeding their brilliant advice.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

"Russia denies giving intelligence to Iraq"

By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press
Last updated: 8:35 a.m., Saturday, March 25, 2006

MOSCOW -- Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service on Saturday denied that Moscow provided information on U.S. troop movements and plans to Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The statement came a day after the release of an unclassified Pentagon report that cited two captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians collected information from sources "inside the American Central Command" and that battlefield intelligence was provided to then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.

The report also said the Russian government had sources inside the American military command as it planned and executed the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"Similar, baseless accusations concerning Russia's intelligence have been made more than once," Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov said, according to a duty officer in his department.

"We don't consider it necessary to comment on such fabrications."

The unclassified report does not assess the value or accuracy of the information Saddam got or offer details on Russia's information pipeline.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York, also said Friday the allegations were false.

"To my mind, from my understanding it's absolutely nonsense and it's ridiculous," she said, adding that the U.S. government had not shown Russia the evidence cited in the report.

"Somebody wants to say something, and did -- and there is no evidence to prove it."

Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected independent Moscow-based military analyst, said Friday that the report was within the realm of possibility.

"It's quite plausible," he told The Associated Press.

He said a unit affiliated with the Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department, known by its abbreviation GRU, was actively working in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The unit apparently was shut down after the fall of Baghdad.

He said at that time a Russian Internet site called "The Ramzay Files" was causing a stir in Moscow's military and diplomatic community.

The site, which was shut down after the invasion, posted striking insights, predictions and analysis into U.S. military activities as well Iraqi military and intelligence activities, he said.

He said former GRU officials told him that the type of information that was being posted -- both on the Iraqis and on the Americans -- appeared to be the kind of information that only highly placed Russian intelligence officials in Iraq would have had access to.

Russian intelligence officials repeatedly have denied having any links with Iraqi spy services.

9/11 & Bush's 'Negligence'
By Robert Parry
March 24, 2006


In the U.S. government’s pursuit of the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, FBI officials have inadvertently revealed how an even mildly competent George W. Bush could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people – and set the country on a dangerous course for revenge.

FBI agent Harry Samit, who interrogated Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, sent 70 warnings to his superiors about suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative had been taking flight training in Minnesota because he was planning to hijack a plane for a terrorist operation.

But FBI officials in Washington showed “criminal negligence” in blocking requests for a search warrant on Moussaoui’s computer or taking other preventive action, Samit testified at Moussaoui’s death penalty hearing on March 20.

Samit’s futile warnings matched the frustrations of other federal agents in Minnesota and Arizona who had gotten wind of al-Qaeda’s audacious scheme to train pilots for operations in the United States. But the agents couldn’t get their warnings addressed by senior officials at FBI headquarters.

Another big part of the problem was the lack of urgency at the top. Bush, who had been President for half a year, was taking a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and shrugged off the growing alarm within the U.S. intelligence community.

Separate from the FBI field agents, the Central Intelligence Agency was piecing the puzzle together from tips, intercepts and other scraps of information. On Aug. 6, 2001, more than a month before the attacks, the CIA had enough evidence to send Bush a top-secret Presidential Daily Briefing paper, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.”

The CIA told Bush about “threat reporting” that indicated bin-Laden wanted “to hijack a US aircraft.” The CIA also cited a call that had been made to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May 2001 “saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.”

“The system was blinking red” during the summer of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet later told the 9/11 Commission.

Bush’s Justice Department and FBI headquarters were in the loop on the CIA reporting, but didn’t reach out to their agents around the country, some of whom, it turned out, were frantically trying to get the attention of their superiors in Washington.

Then-acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard told the 9/11 Commission that he discussed the intelligence threat reports with FBI special agents from around the country in a conference call on July 19, 2001. But Pickard said the focus was on having “evidence response teams” ready to respond quickly in the event of an attack.

Pickard “did not task field offices to try to determine whether any plots were being considered within the United States or to take any action to disrupt any such plots,” according to the 9/11 Commission’s report.

Contrasting Styles

Amid this bureaucratic inertia, Bush’s role was crucial. As President, he was the best-positioned official to force the various parts of the government to undertake a top-down review of what was known, what evidence was being missed, what could be done.

Richard Clarke, who had been President Bill Clinton’s counterterrorism chief and stayed in that job after Bush took office, said the Clinton administration reacted to such threats with urgent top-level meetings to “shake the trees” at the FBI, CIA, Customs and other relevant agencies.

Clarke said senior managers would respond by going back to their agencies to demand a search for any overlooked information and to put rank-and-file personnel on high alert, as happened when an al-Qaeda plot to bomb Millennium celebrations was thwarted in 1999.

“In December 1999, we received intelligence reports that there were going to be major al-Qaeda attacks,” Clarke said on CNN’s “Larry King Live” two years ago. “President Clinton asked his national security adviser Sandy Berger to hold daily meetings with the attorney general, the FBI director, the CIA director and stop the attacks.

“Every day they went back from the White House to the FBI, to the Justice Department, to the CIA and they shook the trees to find out if there was any information. You know, when you know the United States is going to be attacked, the top people in the United States government ought to be working hands-on to prevent it and working together.

”Now, contrast that with what happened in the summer of 2001, when we even had more clear indications that there was going to be an attack. Did the President ask for daily meetings of his team to try to stop the attack? Did (national security adviser) Condi Rice hold meetings of her counterparts to try to stop the attack? No.”

In a March 19, 2006, speech in Florida, former Vice President Al Gore also noted this contrast between how the Clinton administration reacted to terrorist threats and how the Bush administration did in the weeks before Sept. 11.

“In eight years in the White House, President Clinton and I, a few times, got a direct and really immediate statement like that (Aug. 6, 2001 warning), in one of those daily briefings,” Gore said.

“Every time, as you would want and expect, we had a fire drill, brought everybody in, (asked) what else do we know about this, what have we done to prepare for this, what else could we do, are we certain of the sources, get us more information on that, we want to know everything about this, and we want to make sure our country is prepared.

“In August of 2001,” Gore added, “such a clear warning was given and nothing – nothing – happened. When there is no vision, the people perish.” [To see Gore’s speech on C-Span, click here.]

Gone Fishing

After receiving the CIA’s Aug. 6, 2001, warning, Bush is reported to have gone fishing and cleared brush at his ranch. There is no evidence that he did anything to energize or coordinate the government response to the expected attack.

“No CSG (Counterterrorism Security Group) or other NSC (National Security Council) meeting was held to discuss the possible threat of a strike in the United States as a result of this (Aug. 6) report,” the 9/11 Commission wrote. “We have found no indication of any further discussion before Sept. 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al-Qaeda attack in the United States.”

Talking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on April 4, 2004, the commission’s chairman and vice chairman, New Jersey’s Republican former Gov. Thomas Kean and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., said they believed the Sept. 11 attacks were preventable.

“The whole story might have been different,” Kean said, citing a string of law-enforcement blunders including the “lack of coordination within the FBI” and the FBI’s failure to understand the significance of suspected hijacker Moussaoui’s arrest in August 2001 while training to fly passenger jets.

However, from the recent testimony at Moussaoui’s sentencing hearing, it’s now clear that FBI agents in Minnesota did grasp the significance of the flight training and did send alarming messages to Washington-based FBI officials responsible for counterterrorism. But those officials at headquarters apparently missed or ignored the warnings.

Moussaoui’s defense attorney, Edward B. McMahon Jr., asked Michael E. Rolince, who was chief of the FBI’s International Terrorism Operations Section, if he was aware that FBI agent Samit had sent a memo to Rolince’s office on Aug. 18, 2001, warning that Moussaoui was a potential terrorist.

“No,” Rolince answered. “What document are you reading?”

Samit’s report “sent to your office,” McMahon replied. Rolince said he never saw the urgent memo. [Washington Post, March 22, 2006]

When the 9/11 Commission interviewed Rolince for its 2004 report, Rolince “recalled being told about Moussaoui in two passing hallway conversations but only in the context that he [Rolince] might be receiving telephone calls from Minneapolis complaining about how headquarters was handling the matter,” though the calls never came, the report said.

But Rolince was not the only senior FBI official oblivious to the missed clues. The 9/11 report said acting FBI director Pickard and assistant director for counterterrorism Dale Watson weren’t briefed on Moussaoui prior to Sept. 11, either.

The significance of the new information from Moussaoui’s hearing – which followed his guilty plea to charges that he had conspired with al-Qaeda to commit acts of terrorism – is that there’s no longer any doubt that key pieces of the puzzle were tantalizing close to the FBI officials who could have done something.

FBI headquarters also blew off a prescient memo from an FBI agent in the Phoenix field office. The July 2001 memo warned of the “possibility of a coordinated effort by Usama Bin Laden” to send student pilots to the United States. The agent noted “an inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest” attending American flight schools.

No action was taken on the Phoenix memo before Sept. 11.

How Incompetent?

Yet, if President Bush had demanded action from on high, the ripple effect through the FBI might well have jarred loose enough of the pieces to make the overall picture suddenly clear, especially in view of the information already compiled by the CIA.

Ironically, that is almost the same argument that federal prosecutors are making in seeking Moussaoui’s execution. It’s not that he was directly involved in the Sept. 11 plot, they say; it’s that the government might have been able to stop the attacks if he had immediately confessed what he was up to.

To some civil libertarians, the case raises troubling Fifth Amendment issues by creating a precedent for putting someone to death who didn’t promptly confess and thus didn’t provide clues that might have prevented a separate murder that the defendant didn’t specifically know about and wasn’t directly involved in.

In effect, the government is basing its demand for Moussaoui’s death on the notion that the failure to do something that might have prevented the tragedy of Sept. 11 should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

However, the Bush administration has taken almost the opposite position on its own culpability. Despite a strong case for criminal negligence – beginning with FBI officials and reaching up to the Oval Office – Bush and other senior officials have insisted they have nothing to apologize for.

Indeed, Bush has made his handling of the Sept. 11 terror attacks the centerpiece of his presidential legacy. Arguably, he rode the whirlwind from the attacks right through the war in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq to his second term as President.

Only recently – after a similar case of botched leadership during the Hurricane Katrina disaster – has the air whooshed out of the Bush balloon. Add in the disastrous decisions around the Iraq War and many Americans see a pattern of arrogant, incompetent leadership that fails to give adequate heed to evidence or attention to details.

For other Americans, the theory of Bush’s incompetence doesn’t go nearly far enough to explain the breathtaking lapses that let the Sept. 11 attacks happen.

Some 9/11 skeptics have come to believe that the destruction of the Twin Towers and the damage to the Pentagon must have been an “inside job” with some elements of the Bush administration conspiring with the attackers to create a modern-day Reichstag Fire that would justify invading Iraq and consolidating political power at home.

The new Moussaoui evidence, however, tends to support the theory of incompetence, though of a kind so gross that it would border on criminal negligence, at the FBI as well as the White House.

Perceptive field agents did their job in sending up warning flares to Washington, but a vacationing President and an inattentive FBI bureaucracy failed to take note or take the necessary actions to head off the tragedy.

Then, with the Twin Towers and the Pentagon still smoldering, Bush and his neoconservative advisers saw in the nation’s anger and fear the emotions needed to implement an agenda of authoritarian rule at home and preemptive wars abroad.


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

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/colu.../printstory.jsp
Worldview | Bush gives new life to failed doctrine

By Trudy Rubin


If you were wondering what the White House has learned from three years of Iraq errors, the past week won't offer much comfort.

President Bush has been giving speeches assuring Americans that things are going well, with a few speed bumps. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that "the terrorists... are losing." But the most unsettling event was the unveiling of a new national security strategy that reaffirms the 2002 Bush doctrine of preemptive war.

Preemptive war, you may recall, is the concept that America will attack its enemies - whether state or terrorist group - before they attack us, especially if we think they may use weapons of mass destruction. "We do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur," the strategy reads, "even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack."

On the surface, there is nothing exceptional about the doctrine. For example, in 1967, Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and Syria after Egypt had blocked one of Israel's main waterways and kicked out U.N. observers. One could imagine U.S. forces attacking terrorists who were sheltered by a weak state and were plotting to bomb an American city.

But the Bush doctrine is a much more explosive strategy that has already gotten us into big trouble in Iraq; it goes way beyond the concept of getting them before they get you.

In Iraq, the preemption doctrine was used to overthrow a ruler based on speculation about what he might do in the future. The assumption was that Saddam would get nuclear weapons and hand them off to terrorists who would use them against us. This was preventive war against a highly unlikely threat for which good intelligence was lacking. If other countries tried preventive war, imagine our reaction.

Everyone should know by now that most White House premises for the war were specious. Even in 2002, the administration knew that intelligence about Saddam's nuclear weapons program was thin. It was ludicrous to think he would give a bomb to radical Islamists who wanted to destroy him, and whose bomb could be traced back to him.

The White House could have made a different case against Saddam: that he was an international pariah, in flagrant violation of U.N. resolutions, who would revive his nuclear program once sanctions were lifted and threaten the entire Mideast.

But the President chose to invoke a broad new doctrine that gave America carte blanche to overthrow any regime on the basis of evidence we chose. This doctrine unnerved even close allies. When we failed to find WMD in Iraq, it shredded Bush's credibility abroad.

Yet the doctrine of preemption survives as the guts of Bush's security strategy. More to the point, in a 49-page document, the doctrine is spelled out just two pages before the U.S. case against Iran.

The strategy paper states that America faces "no greater challenge from a single country than Iran"; speculation is rife as to whether Iran is the next candidate for preemption. The paper says America's concerns with Tehran's nuclear program can be solved only if Iran opens up its political system. This feeds the global buzz over whether America intends to bomb Iran's nuclear sites and topple the regime.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, insisted last week that the doctrine was not aimed specifically at Iran. He said preemption should not be seen "in the context of regime change," and he argued that America preferred to use diplomacy with Iran.

But the preemption doctrine is associated with Iraqi regime change, at which we have proved hapless. Americans are not cut out to play a British-style imperial role. Yet Bush's language on Iran sounds as if we want to try it again in Tehran.

Even if Iraq has dulled the President's enthusiasm for regime change, making preemptive war the centerpiece of security doctrine is still a very bad idea - especially with Iran.

Such a doctrine no doubt has increased Tehran's appetite to build a nuclear weapons program swiftly. Presumably, Iran noticed that the doctrine doesn't threaten North Korea as harshly - perhaps because North Korea already has several bombs. The doctrine has certainly increased Iran's incentive to make trouble for Americans inside Iraq.

Moreover, as Francis Fukuyama points out in his new book, America at the Crossroads, preventive strikes aren't likely to destroy budding nuclear programs. Iran learned a lesson from Israel's destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor and has dispersed its program underground.

Fukuyama, a leading neocon turned critic of administration policy, adds another caution. Although an attack might slow Iran's nuclear program, the political damage would be immense. Nationalistic Iranians would rally round their regime. "The doctrine as a whole needs to be... revised," Fukuyama says.

In other words, a broad preemption doctrine will rile our allies, whom we need by our side to isolate Iran. It will make more problems for national security than it solves. Iraq would seem a glaring case study of its failure.

However, there it stands, the centerpiece of our national security doctrine. Lessons not learned.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact columnist Trudy Rubin at 215-854-5823 or trubin@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/trudyrubin.

http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/ritter/33788/

It's criminal

Posted by Scott Ritter at 9:59 AM on March 20, 2006.


Impeachment is the only recourse that can bring a halt to the madness in Iraq, and the insanity being planned in Iran and elsewhere. Blog Tools

As America reaches the third anniversary of President Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq, there is for the first time the unsettling realization brought about by the clarity of acts that emerges only after the passage of time that something horrible has happened.

This awakening of collective awareness on the part of the American people is reflected not only in the numerous polls which show President Bush's popularity plummeting to all-time lows, largely because of the war in Iraq, but also the collective shrug of the shoulders on the part of the one-time cheerleaders for the war in Iraq -- the mainstream American media -- when covering the hollow rhetoric of the President as he tries to rally a nation around a cause that has long since lost its allure.

No amount of flowery language and repeated pulls at the patriotic heartstrings of America, no repeated assault on the senses and sensibilities through repetitious referral to the events of 9/11 can jump start a second phase of the kind of mindless nationalistic fervor that greeted the erstwhile Cowboy President when he first herded a compliant America down the path of war with Iraq three years ago.

Looking back on the string of unfulfilled objectives, broken promises, squandered dreams, shattered bodies and eviscerated lives that was and is the war in Iraq, one thought emerges plain and clear. This isn't simply a result of bad governance. This is criminal.

Bad governance is telling the American people that a war with Iraq would be concluded in a manner of months, and would cost the American taxpayer less that $2 billion, when in fact the war has gone on for three years now, with no end in sight, and over a quarter-trillion dollars have been expended, with untold billions more to be spent.

Criminal governance is the fabrication of a justification for war (weapons of mass destruction), hiding the President’s true intentions from the American people and the Congress of the United States (Bush signed off on the Iraq war plans in late August 2002, and yet continued to publicly state that no decision for military action had been made), and shredding international law by waging an aggressive war of pre-emption void of any United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing such actions.

Bad governance is manipulating war planning on the part of military professionals so that we enter into a conflict with far too few troops for the task, with no plan for how to proceed once the fighting ended and the reality of occupation set in.

Criminal governance is violating every principle of the laws of war in the conduct of the occupation of Iraq, manipulating the economic and political direction of Iraq, suppressing its population, and engaging in wanton acts of widespread murder, torture and abuse of the Iraqi people.

The fact is the war in Iraq has degenerated into one giant hate crime.

American soldiers and Marines are being thrown into a cauldron of our own making, scalded by a conflict with no purpose or direction, with the end result being that in order to survive these fighting men and women have dehumanized the totality of the Iraqi people.

The ancestors of ancient Babylon have become nothing more than "sand "epithet deleted"", "rag-heads", "camel jockeys", "ninja women" or "haji" in the hearts and minds of American fighting men who are now killing Iraqis in ever increasing numbers. Gone is any talk of rebuilding Iraq. We are there to destroy it. The criminal nature of the war in Iraq is starting to become common knowledge among observers of the war.

It has long sense been common knowledge on the part of those waging it. In Vietnam Americans were shocked by the revelations of Mai Lai and the murder of innocent Vietnamese civilians by American fighting men. But Mai Lai is repeated in bits and pieces every day in Iraq, with the American military occupation slaughtering family after family of Iraqis in the name of bringing peace and security.

The realization that something has gone horribly wrong in Iraq, however, has not translated into any kind of discernable action on the part of the American people. While pundit after pundit breaks ranks with the Bush administration on Iraq, often repudiating their own pre-war chest beating and encouragement of the war, the fact is that the manifesto which manifested itself in the invasion of Iraq -- the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States -- continues to dictate the manner and nature of America's interfacing with the rest of the world in unquestioned fashion.

Indeed, President Bush has, on the eve of the third anniversary of the Iraqi war, promulgated a new, improved version of this manifesto, the 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States, which re-affirms America's commitment to the principles of pre-emptive war. In short, the President has re-certified America as the greatest threat to international peace and security in modern times, especially when one considers that even as America is engaged in the brutal rape and occupation of Iraq, President Bush has his eyes firmly set on another war of aggression in Iran.

What are the American people doing in response? There is a huge difference between becoming aware and taking action. While poll numbers on Iraq reflect a growing unease about the war, this unease has not manifested itself into any discernable reaction of consequence. The Democratic Party has remained largely mute, largely because of the culpability on the part of much of its membership in facilitating and sustaining the Iraqi war and its underlining doctrine of global domination by the United States.

But in the face of the near total subservience on the part of the Republican Party in supporting the policies of President Bush no matter how illegal and harmful they are to America and the world, the Democratic Party must shake itself free of the doldrums it currently finds itself stuck in. The time for passive recognition that the war in Iraq has gone bad is long past.

The time for concrete political action has arrived. The Democrats need to recognize that the political struggle in America today is not a trivial extension of the partisan Red State-Blue State nonsense the American media likes to bandy about, but rather a far more serious struggle of national survival, if one in fact defines the American nation as being reflective of the ideals and values set forth by the Constitution of the United States.

The Iraq War, if anything, is a reflection of the total abrogation of constitutional responsibility and process by the Congress of the United States. As a result, the President has led a nationdown the path of illegal war of aggression which has damaged America's reputation abroad, and its very fabric here at home. The Republican-controlled Congress has done little to stop this collective march towards national self-destruction, rubber-stamping the president's illegal actions with little regard to either the rule of law or Congress's status as a second but equal branch of government.

This must end.

The fact is that America today stands on the brink of having everything we stand for as a nation being swept away by a power-crazed President and a compliant Congress, both of whom are Republican. Whatever direction the Democratic Party takes in the future, it must be with the recognition that the hopes and dreams of saving the United States as a nation of laws founded in the words and principles of the Constitution rest heavily on their shoulders. The Democratic Party must become laser-like in its rejection of the war in Iraq, resolute in condemning this war for what it is, an illegal war of aggression,and determined in fighting for the concept of a nation governed by the rule of law by holding President Bush accountable for his illegal actions.

In short, the rallying cry of the Democratic Party must become impeachment. Given the magnitude of the crimes committed by the United States in Iraq under the direction and leadership of President Bush and his administration, there is simply no other recourse that can bring a halt to the madness in Iraq, and the insanity being planned in Iran and elsewhere.

The remedy is clear. The question now is whether the Democratic Party is up to the task.

Scott Ritter served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until his resignation in 1998. He is the author of, most recently, Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the U.N. and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Nation Books, 2005).

BINGO, Snuf .....

And once again ...

As is my habit .....

I have gone "back to the beginning" .....

Of this thread, anyway ...

What it was that I was thinking ....

Way back when ...

When I came onto this brand new forum ....

And introduced myself ...

And this thread ....

Which has become several volumes since then ...

And so ....

I myself am just a common human being, actually ....

I was never a power forward for the Boston Red Sox ....

Nor did I play short-stop for the Toronto Maple Leafs .....

And I was never a CEO of a fortune-five-hundred company, either ...

And so ....

Actually ...

Like the peasants ....

And serfs ....

And plebeians ....

Of days of yore ....

I am really quite obscure as regards being a DANCER ....

On life's stage .....

And actually ...

I kind of like it that way ...

To be truthful ...

HOWEVER ....

Unlike the serfs and peasants of days of yore ....

I AM AN AMERICAN ...

And so ...

I bring into here ...

ALL THAT I BELIEVE ....

THAT ONE WORD CONNOTES ....

And so ....

When I was young ....

I was taught at a very early age ...

That being an American ....

Was one of the hardest things ....

That I would ever have to confront ....

BECAUSE AMERICANS ARE FREE ....

And freedom is one of the hardest things that there can ever be ...

To have to deal with ...

BECAUSE FREEDOM CANNOT EXIST ...

WITHOUT RESPONSIBILTY ....

And so ...

MINE was to learn ...

At that early age ...

What responsibility ...

Really was all about ...

At least in MY COMMUNITY ....

Or classroom at school ...

And so ...

That is how I was "made" ....

Me ...

And since that time ...

Well ...

Suffice to say ...

Times have changed ...

In some cases ...

To me, anyway ...

An admitted PROVINCIAL, here in OUR America ...

Radically so ....

BUT ....

To me ....

An admitted PROVINCIAL here in OUR America ....

One who has spent some time learning about OUR America ...

And my place in it ...

At least from the perspective of my own teachers ...

When I was young ....

THAT WAS ALWAYS THE PROMISE ....

That when people here in OUR America ....

No longer chose to be knowledgeable ....

About OUR America ...

OUR REPUBLIC ...

And what is required of each citizen by that REPUBLIC on a daily basis ...

Something that I would simply call "OUR EXCELLENCE" on that day ...

At that moment in time ....

That we would be in danger of losing that REPUBLIC ...

AND ITS PROMISE ...

And so ....

WHERE ARE WE ON THAT ROAD TODAY?

That is the "question" ....

That underlies this thread ....

And so .....

WHAT WILL THE ANSWER BE?

And the answer to that is and remains ....

WHO REALLY DOES KNOW?

Outside of the Shadow, of course .....

And since he is never definitive as to what he really does know ...

As for the rest of us ...

We will just have to .....

STAY TUNED ....

And see ...

Live ...

Unrehearsed ....

Totally spontaneous ....

As it happens ....

Life ...

In OUR America .....

WHAT WILL IT BE?

And why ....

And that America ...

Is up to you ....

And so ....

"Feingold's Censure Call Gives Him Boost"

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer

Sun Mar 26, 11:36 AM ET

WASHINGTON - While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008.

Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, insists his proposal has nothing to do with his political ambitions.

But he does challenge Democrats who argue it will help energize Republicans.

"Those Democrats said that within two minutes of my announcing my idea," Feingold said in a telephone interview last week.

"I don't see any serious evidence of that."

A Newsweek poll taken March 16-17 found that 50 percent of those surveyed opposed censuring Bush while 42 percent supported it, but among Democrats, 60 percent favored the effort.

Feingold's resolution would censure the president for authorizing a warrantless surveillance program, which the senator contends is illegal.

Co-sponsors are Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California.

Other Democrats have said bringing up such a punishment is not helpful before an investigation of the eavesdropping program is complete.

"I think to say that you should censure the president before you have had the inquiries is premature, so I don't think it's helpful to reach that conclusion at this point," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told "Fox News Sunday."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., agreed that it is too early to consider censure.

He would not, however, rule out voting for such a measure if the Bush administration stonewalls a congressional investigation.

"It's a close case," Kennedy said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

The White House argues that Bush was authorized to order eavesdropping on American citizens under his wartime powers as commander in chief.

Feingold said his sole purpose was to hold Bush accountable, but he argued that it's also good politics.

"These Democratic pundits are all scared of the Republican base getting energized, but they're willing to pay the price of not energizing the Democratic base," he said.

"It's an overly defensive and meek approach to politics."

Some Democrats have accused Feingold of putting his 2008 presidential ambitions over helping Democrats try to recapture the House and Senate in this year's midterm elections.

Should Feingold run, his opposition to the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and the spying program would help position him as the liberal candidate.

Many also see his effort as a distraction at a time when the administration was on the ropes over Iraq and a since-scuttled port deal.

"It just takes us off discussions we ought to be having in this country on issues that really matter in people's lives," said Rep. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat from Ohio who is running for Senate.

Some Republicans have been thanking Feingold for what they consider a political fumble.

"This is such a gift," Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show.

The National Review came to the same conclusion.

In an online editorial titled, "Feingold's Gift to the GOP," the conservative magazine wrote that Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman would hug Feingold if given the chance.

The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing Friday on Feingold's resolution.

Mehlman, visiting Wisconsin last week, skipped the hug and instead criticized Feingold.

That reinforced an RNC radio ad buy in the state, in which a narrator says, "Call Russ Feingold and ask him why he's more interested in censuring the president than protecting our freedom."

Feingold's response, essentially, is bring it on.

"I welcome their attempt to make a campaign issue of the question of whether there will be accountability for the president's breaking the law," he said.

"They will remind people every minute that the president thumbed his nose at the law."

end quotes

STAND YOUR GROUND, SENATOR FEINGOLD ....

DON'T LET THE CRAVENS IN YOUR PARTY DRAG YOU DOWN ....

AND AS TO MEHLMAN AND THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE ....

THEY ARE JUST A BUNCH OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL ...

THEY HAVE NO INTEGRITY ...

THEY HAVE NO CREDIBILTY .....

THEY CERTAINLY HAVE NO PLAN TO KEEP OUR AMERICA SAFE ....

AND THEY HAVE MADE A DOG'S DINNER OUT OF IRAQINAM .....

AND THEY ARE THE VERY EMBODIMENT ....

OF CORRUPTION IN OUR GOVERNMENT ....

AND SO ....

"U.S. to probe Russia on Iraq intel report"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:35 p.m., Sunday, March 26, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration will ask Russia about a report that Moscow turned over information on American troop movements and other military plans to Saddam Hussein during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

"Any implication that there were those from a foreign government who may have been passing information to the Iraqis prior to the invasion would be, of course, very worrying," Rice said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"I would think the Russians would want to take that very seriously as well," she said.

A leading Senate Democrat said if the report is found to be true, the administration should reassess its relationship with Russia and reconsider President Bush's participation in a July summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, of the world's economic powers.

Rice declined to speculate on whether Russia's actions, as detailed in a Pentagon report based on captured Iraqi documents, resulted in casualties among U.S. troops or what Russian President Vladimir Putin knew about any possible Russian involvement.

"We will certainly raise it with the Russian government."

"We want to take a real hard look at the documents and then raise it with the Russian government," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has dismissed the allegation that Moscow provided information to Saddam, whose government was toppled in the invasion.

"I think we need an entirely new assessment of our relationships with Russia, should this be true," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told CBS' "Face the Nation."

He questioned whether Bush should attend the Group of Eight meeting in the summer.

"Clearly, we're not going to have business as usual," Kennedy said.

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said "anything is possible in the area of intelligence."

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan said if the report proved true, "it would be obviously plenty discouraging as well as disgusting" and the U.S. should find ways to let the Russians know "that kind of conduct is not going to be acceptable to us."

A Pentagon report released last week said that two captured Iraqi documents indicate that Russia obtained information from sources "inside the American Central Command" in Qatar.

Russia passed battlefield intelligence to Saddam through the former Russian ambassador in Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko, according to the Pentagon report.

"I will tell you that we take very seriously any suggestion that a foreign government may have passed information to the Iraqis prior to the American invasion that might have put our troops in danger," Rice told "Fox News Sunday."

"I do think we owe it to everyone to take a hard look at the reports and to really understand what's there."

Rice, who was Bush's national security adviser at the time of the invasion, said she knew nothing of these reports back then.

"I would not jump to the conclusion that this -- if, indeed, the reports are true -- that it had to be Moscow-directed," Rice said.

Calls to the Russian Foreign Minister on Sunday went unanswered.

A statement posted on the ministry's Web site noted that Rice and the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, spoke by telephone Friday about Iran and "a series of international problems," but did not mention the newly released Pentagon report.

"Bush's EPA shows us two faces"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, March 24, 2006

New Yorkers enjoy the worst air to breathe in the country and the highest cancer risk as a result.

That's the latest news from the Environmental Protection Agency, although technically we're tied with California as most awful.

Undeniably, both states have contributed heavily to their own dilemmas with too much vehicle exhaust.

But where we differ from California is that a goodly share of our problem is airborne pollution from Midwestern states -- not in our control at all -- and that's been thoroughly documented for decades.

Even the specific guilty smokestacks among coal-burning utilities have been pinpointed.

None of this is a mystery to us, or the very same Environmental Protection Agency telling us our air is hazardous.

What the EPA and the Bush Administration know about unhealthy air quality, and how to control it, tempers my enthusiasm for the blockbuster win eastern states enjoyed last week in a federal court case against the EPA.

A three-judge panel, including one Bush appointee, didn't just refute the EPA's contention that it could skirt the Clean Air Act, specifically an arcane provision called New Source Review; the panel hammered it.

What the Bush-Cheney pro-utilities EPA was trying to get away with was encouraging dirty utilities to avoid or ignore costly pollution control technology when making modifications or improvements.

In essence, the EPA was abetting the worst polluters in the Midwest at the expense of our lungs in New York and other northeastern states.

At the same time, the EPA blithely informs us that, yes, our air stinks.

Now that's brassy.

We should be heartened that the federal courts kicked the EPA's butt right over the moon.

But, let's be realistic.

If the Bush administration was willing to sacrifice our health in the first place to promote its agenda, there is no assurance it won't go right back to the drawing board and try to find another avenue.

When we do not, as now, have an administration operating in good faith for all the states of the United States, our only recourse is the courts.

Congress may pass even-handed legislation, like the Clean Air Act, but without good faith in administration of those laws, what results is a perversion of congressional intent.

As Neil Woodworth, counsel for the Adirondack Mountain Club, points out, the best news that's apt to emerge from this decision is what our top lawyers can now do with the unequivocal message from the bench.

"This ruling clears the way for a series of New Source Review-based lawsuits filed by the northeastern states against power plant operators in the Midwest that rebuilt coal-fired utilities without installing scrubbers," says Woodworth.

Sure, there's no question this is great news.

Just before the Bush EPA tried to play games with New Source Review, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and his counterparts in the frigid Northeast were having pretty good success with offending utility polluters in the courts.

But that all went on hold for years while the EPA's attempted evisceration of the Clean Air Act went to court.

Now we can go back to business, and with a vengeance -- even though an appeal, however unlikely, is possible.

Not to be forgotten, though, is that when we see the end of acid rain and mercury pollution and can breathe clean air again, it's the courts we can thank.

Not the federal agency created to protect our health, or the White House either.

Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

And shades of jeffmoskin's Los Angeles here .....

With this next story ....

Get your poodles in, folks ....

The coyotes are coming ....

And so ....

"A wild chase ends in Central Park - Adventurous coyote is finally captured after eluding NYPD for more than 24 hours"

Associated Press
First published: Thursday, March 23, 2006

NEW YORK -- He's one tourist officials hope won't be coming back.

A young coyote made the most of his visit to the Big Apple, at one point leaping over an 8-foot fence as he led dozens of police officers on foot and in a helicopter on a chase through Central Park before being captured Wednesday.

"For a coyote to get to midtown, he has to be a very adventurous coyote," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

Officials said the tawny animal, nicknamed Hal by park workers, was about a year old and weighed about 35 pounds.

Hal proved adept at avoiding capture, jumping into the water, ducking under a bridge and scampering through the grounds of an ice skating rink after authorities thought they had him cornered Wednesday morning.

Hal was caught near Belvedere Castle, close to 79th Street and Central Park West, around 10 a.m.

All the while, news helicopters hovering overhead tracked every turn in the chase.

Benepe said a NYPD officer shot the animal with a tranquilizer gun at close range.

The hunt began Tuesday afternoon when Benepe, among others, spotted the animal in the southeast corner of Central Park, near Fifth Avenue, before he leaped over a fence and disappeared.

Authorities said he had been hit by a tranquilizer dart, apparently to no effect.

It's unclear when Hal arrived in the city, but the first reported sightings of the animal came early Sunday.

Hal is only the second coyote ever to be spotted in Central Park, Benepe said, the last being seven years ago.

Benepe said both coyotes strayed into the same area, the Hallett Wildlife Sanctuary.

"It's an area closed to people and dogs, so it's a good place for a coyote to hunt for birds," he said.

Benepe had warned that park visitors should keep their dogs leashed to protect the pets.

The coyote may have wandered into the city from Westchester County, or perhaps come across the Hudson River from New Jersey, Benepe said.

end quotes

Or he snuck in here from California, maybe ....

Or would that be "emigrated"?

jeffmoskin, are you missing any of your coyotes by chance?

Yes, George .....

In this new century ....

OUR world does need a new definition of security ....

BECAUSE ...

The one you have given us ...

Is nothing but ...

PURE BULL **** ....

And lies ...

And torture ....

And a lot more lies ...

And a lot more BULL **** .....

And perverted practices ....

And so ...

George, you are right ....

Your FLAWED VISION is .....

SO WRONG for OUR America ..

And the world ....

And so ....

It is really time ...

For you ...

And all your pack of inept and corrupt REPUBLICANS ....

To go ....

OUR world, George ...

Does not need lawless rogue world leaders like you ....

And so ...

"15 Killed in Bombing on U.S.-Iraqi Base"

By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer

55 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base in northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 15 people and wounding as many as 30, the Iraqi military said.

At least 21 more bodies were found — many with nooses around their neck — and mortar and bomb attacks killed at least four people.

The nationalities of the victims in the suicide bombing about 20 miles east of the ancient city of Tal Afar were not immediately known.

The bomber struck shortly after noon at an Iraqi army recruiting center in front of the base.

President Bush singled out Tal Afar in a recent speech as a success story for American and Iraqi forces in the drive to quell the insurgency.

Iraqi army Lt. Akram Eid told The Associated Press that many of the wounded were taken to the Sykes U.S. Army base on the outskirts of Tal Afar.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said it was checking the report.

Details of a joint U.S.-Iraqi Special Operations attack in northeast Baghdad late Sunday continued to filter out.

The military, in an updated report, said the joint operation "killed 16 insurgents and wounded three others during a house-to-house search on an objective with multiple structures."

"They also detained 18 other individuals, discovered a significant weapons cache and secured the release of an Iraqi being held hostage," the statement said.

AP reporters who visited the scene Monday morning said the site of the attack was clearly a neighborhood Shiite mosque complex, although the American military insisted, "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation."

Baghdad police said at least 22 were killed in the attack after gunmen fired on the joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol from a position in the neighborhood but not from the mosque.

Police and representatives of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who holds great sway among poor Shiites in the eastern section of Baghdad, said all those killed were in the complex for evening prayers and no gunmen were there.

AP Television News videotape shot Monday showed crumbling walls and disarray in a compound used as a gathering place for prayer.

It was filled with religious posters and strung with banners denoucing the attack.

Mourners were gathering for funerals for the dead.

Sunday night video showed a tangle of dead men with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's living quarters, attached to the mosque itself.

The compound, once used by Saddam Hussein's government, consists of a political party office, the mosque and quarters for the imam.

The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor.

U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition.

A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn across the blood-smeared floor.

In an audiotape broadcast Monday, Saddam's chief deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who has eluded capture since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq three years ago, purportedly called for Arab leaders to back Iraq's Sunni-backed insurgency.

The tape, which Al-Jazeera television said was made by al-Douri, appeared to be an address to the Arab League summit in Khartoum, Sudan, this week.

The voice on the tape said Iraq's Sunni-led insurgency was "the sole legitimate representative of the Iraqi people."

The tape's authenticity could not be verified.

Al-Douri was sixth on the U.S. deck of cards that enumerated the most-wanted members of Saddam's regime.

He had been Revolutionary Command Council vice chairman and a longtime Saddam confidant.

Al-Douri, who is at least 62, was among Saddam's oldest and closest associates.

In the capital, a bomb exploded in a bus headed for the Sadr City slum of east Baghdad, killing two passengers and wounding at least four others, police Col. Hassan Jaloob said.

The bomb had been left in a bag, he said.

A car bomb at the entrance to Sadr City also exploded, though reports on casualties were not immediately available.

The latest violence came a day after 69 people were reported killed in one of the bloodiest 24-hour periods in weeks.

Most of the dead appeared to be victims of the shadowy Sunni-Shiite score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Thirty victims of the continuing sectarian slaughter — most of them beheaded — were found dumped on a village road north of Baghdad.

Of the 21 bodies reported Monday, nine were found in west Baghdad, handcuffed, blindfolded and with ropes around their necks, police Lt. Akeel Fadhil said.

Two men and a woman who were shot in the head were found late Sunday in east Baghdad, police said.

At a farm east of Baghdad, the bodies of nine men kidnapped a day earlier were discovered by relatives, police said.

All had been shot in the head.

Mortar rounds slammed into streets in east Baghdad's Zaiyona district and the central area of Karradah, killing one bystander and wounding at least five others, police said.

Another mortar hit a home in Baladiyat in the east, but no casualties were reported.

Two separate roadside bombs targeting police patrols wounded two policemen and three civilians in west and southwest Baghdad, police said.

Another bomb targeting a U.S. convoy exploded in Zaiyona, but there was no word on casualties, police said.

Much of the recent killing in Iraq is seen as the work of Shiite militias or death squads that have infiltrated or are tolerated by Iraqi police under the control of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry.

In an apparent effort to clamp down on police wrongdoing, American troops raided an Interior Ministry building and briefly detained about 10 Iraqi policemen after discovering 17 Sudanese prisoners in the facility, Iraqi authorities reported.

The report was reminiscent of a similar U.S. raid last November that found detainees apparently tortured.

That discovery set off a round of international demands for investigations and reform of Iraqi police practices to ensure observance of human rights.

In this case the Americans quickly determined the Sudanese were held legitimately and had not been abused, said Maj. Gen. Ali Ghalib, a deputy interior minister.

The U.S. military command did not comment.

The raid in Baghdad came a day after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad spoke out on the need to cap the sectarian, militia-inspired killing, saying "More Iraqis are dying today from the militia violence than from the terrorists."

He did not say which militias he meant nor did he define who the terrorists were.

The two major militia forces in the country are Shiite organizations — the Mahdi Army of al-Sadr and the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Both have ties with Iran.

Following the mosque raid Sunday night, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, expressed concern and telephoned Iraqi military leaders and U.S. Gen. George Casey to "discuss the situation," said spokesman Abdul Rezzaq Al-Kadhimi.

He said the prime minister promised government compensation for families of those killed in the raid and called for Iraqis to be patient until an investigation was completed.

And while George W. Bush and his pack of inept, lawless, rogue REPUBLICANS are attempting to take over the world ....

It looks like they are trying to "BUY" an election in the State of New York, as well ....

And so ....

"Clinton's foe draws out-of-state money - Two-thirds of larger contributions to Spencer aren't from New Yorkers"

By JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, March 27, 2006

ALBANY -- More than two-thirds of U.S. Senate candidate John Spencer's larger contributions have come from outside New York, with people from Maine to Alaska and Hawaii donating to the conservative who hopes to unseat Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Federal Election Commission records show less than 29 percent of the itemized donations to Spencer's campaign came from New York.

Fewer than one in five of those donors -- 19.6 percent -- were from the state.

Spencer, a former Yonkers mayor seeking the Republican and Conservative lines against Clinton, had the fourth-highest rate of known out-of-state contributions among House or Senate challengers in the country, according to statistics compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Spencer's campaign spokesman, Christian Winthrop, said the numbers don't give a full picture because they don't include the "thousands" of people who sent in smaller contributions that don't need to be itemized on federal campaign finance reports.

Only contributions of $200 or more must be itemized.

As of his most recent federal filing, Spencer had raised $689,402, of which $92,150 was itemized.

"Senator Clinton has the Hollywood elite who are dropping $4,200 on her campaign," said Winthrop.

Spencer's backers, he said, are "just grass-roots everyday voters who just want to see Hillary Clinton out of the Senate."

He added that the next filing in April will show that Spencer has raised about $1.6 million, and that donations will have come from some 50,000 people nationwide.

To be sure, Clinton's itemized contributions show she, too, took in more money from out of state than in-state.

But the percentage was far less -- 55 percent, compared with Spencer's 71 percent.

In terms of individuals, 43 percent of Clinton's donors were from New York, 57 percent were not.

Clinton's campaign spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said Spencer's low numbers in his home state suggest "he has very little support in New York."

Spencer, he said, is using an "extreme, over-the-top" conservative message to raise funds nationally.

"John Spencer is not running to represent the people of New York in the U.S. Senate," Wolfson said.

"He's running to rough up Hillary Clinton."

Spencer's finances are not entirely surprising, given his broad-based efforts to tap into anti-Clinton sentiment -- and assumptions that she'll run for president in 2008 -- to underwrite his campaign.

Interviews with some of his more generous donors suggest the strategy is working, albeit modestly.

Donors interviewed in various states said they received multiple mailings asking them to donate to Spencer.

And while some felt familiar with him and others didn't, they shared one thing in common: they were happy to give to someone opposing Clinton.

"Anything that can beat Hillary Clinton and put her out of the running, that would be good," said George Benesch, a retiree from Anchorage, Alaska, who gave Spencer $2,100.

He reasoned the Senate is her "first step" to the White House.

Like others who were interviewed, Benesch said he received "quite a bit of correspondence" on Spencer, who struck him as a "worthwhile" candidate.

Admittedly, Spencer has a long way to go before he catches up to the incumbent Democrat.

As of last month, he had $243,845 on hand.

She had $17.1 million.

Joan Camp of Kahaluu, Hawaii, chairwoman of a construction supply firm, said she thinks Spencer's "got a snowball's chance in hell," but she nonetheless gave his campaign $750, one of the few political donations she's made.

"Anyone to go up against Hillary Clinton," she said.

"We're not too happy with her."

While one might think such heavy out-of-state donations would be normal for candidate running against a nationally known political lightning rod, a look at other races shows that isn't a clear rule.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group based in Washington, D.C., that tracks money in politics, challengers in eight out of 26 Senate races took in more of their money from outside their home state than from within.

The analysis involved contests where challengers raised at least $50,000 in itemized contributions.

Those races included challenges to at least one fairly well-known incumbent -- Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

But in other races with high-profile names, such as Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, both the incumbents and their challengers have gotten most of their money from their home states.

"I wouldn't overgeneralize," cautioned Joseph Zimmerman, a political science professor at the University at Albany.

Historically, Zimmerman said, "you do get candidates who have most of their money come from out of state," and a variety of factors can be in play.

In this case, for example, conservative groups that strongly oppose Clinton may be helping fuel Spencer's out-of-state numbers, although Winthrop said no such help has come in.

The Republican Party, too, may be looking to see how strong a performance it can get out Spencer as it grooms candidates for the future.

Jay Jochnowitz can be reached at 454-5424 or by e-mail at jjochnowitz@timesunion.com.

"Bush told Blair determined to invade Iraq without UN resolution or WMD"

Mon Mar 27, 2:13 AM ET

NEW YORK (AFP) - US President George W. Bush made clear to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in January 2003 that he was determined to invade Iraq without a UN resolution and even if UN arms inspectors failed to find weapons of mass destruction in the country, The New York Times reported.

Citing a confidential British memorandum, the newspaper said the president was certain that war was inevitable and made his view known during a private two-hour meeting with Blair in the Oval Office on January 31, 2003.

Information about the meeting was contained in the memo written by Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," the paper quotes David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, as noting in the memo.

"'The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,' Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president.

"'This was when the bombing would begin'," the paper continued.

The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment, the paper said.

Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, then US secretary of state Colin Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.

Stamped "extremely sensitive," the five-page memorandum had not been made public, according to the report.

Several highlights were first published in January in the book "Lawless World," which was written by British lawyer and international law professor Philippe Sands.

In early February, Channel 4 in London first broadcast excerpts from the memo.

But since then, The New York Times has been able to review the five-page memo in its entirety.

The document indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable, the paper said.

Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups."

Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq, The Times noted.

Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a US surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

"U.S. Raid Irks Shiites; Bombing Kills 40"

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 15 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shiite politicians raged at the United States and halted negotiations on a new government Monday after a military assault killed at least 16 people in what Iraqis claim was a mosque.

Fresh violence erupted in the north, with 40 killed in a suicide bombing.

The firestorm of recrimination over Sunday's raid in northeast Baghdad will likely make it harder for Shiite politicians to keep a lid on their more angry followers as sectarian violence boils over, with at least 150 dead since Sunday.

A unity government involving Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds is a benchmark for American hopes of starting to withdraw troops this summer.

The U.S. military said in a statement that "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation."

It said the raid targeted a building used by "insurgents responsible for kidnapping and execution activities."

The military said the building had been under observation for some time and that gunmen opened fire as Iraqi special operations troops closed in with U.S. forces in a backup role.

It said the troops killed 16 insurgents and wounded three "during a house-to-house search," detained 18 others, found a significant weapons cache and secured the release of an Iraqi hostage.

"In our observation of the place and the activities that were going on, it's difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman.

"It was not identified by us as a mosque, though we certainly recognized it as a community gathering center."

"I think this is frankly a matter of perception."

Associated Press reporters who visited the scene Monday said the site of the attack clearly was a neighborhood Shiite mosque complex.

Television footage showed crumbling walls and disarray in a compound used as a gathering place for prayer.

It was filled with religious posters and strung with banners denouncing the attack.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr angrily rejected the U.S. account and demanded a "clear explanation."

"Entering the Mustafa Shiite mosque and killing worshippers was unjustified and a horrible violation from my point of view," Jabr said on the Al-Arabiya TV network.

"Innocent people inside the mosque offering prayer at sunset were killed."

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said he called U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and that they decided to form an Iraqi-U.S. committee to investigate.

"I will personally supervise, and we will learn who was responsible."

"Those who are behind this attack must be brought to the justice and punished," Talabani said.

The United Iraqi Alliance, the largest Shiite bloc in parliament, canceled Monday's session of negotiations to form a new government because of the raid, said lawmaker Jawad al-Maliki.

"We suspended today's meetings to discuss the formation of the government because of what happened at the al-Moustafa mosque," al-Maliki said, adding that the alliance was expected to decide Tuesday when to resume the talks.

The Baghdad governor said he cut ties with U.S. forces and diplomats.

And all 37 members of the Baghdad provincial council suspended cooperation with the United States in reconstruction projects planned for the remainder of the year, as well as political and security coordination, said council chairman Moeen al-Khadimi.

He said the local government would try to rely instead on the budget allocated to it by the Finance Ministry and on the money that comes from donor countries.

Explaining the mosque raid, Iraqi police said gunmen fired on the joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol from a position in the neighborhood but not from the mosque.

Police and representatives of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who holds great sway among poor Shiites in eastern Baghdad, said all those killed were in the complex for evening prayers and none was a gunmen.

Police said 22 people were killed.

The al-Sadr officials put the death toll at 17.

Other AP video from Sunday night showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor.

The cameraman narrating the video said it was taken in the living quarters of the imam of the small mosque, part of a compound once used by Saddam Hussein's government.

It also now houses a Shiite political party office in addition to the room for prayers and quarters for the imam.

The video showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered on the floor.

U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition and have provided it to Iraqi special operations troops.

The U.S. statement described the kidnappers and killers they were targeting as "insurgents," which was unusual because the operation took place at a Shiite facility.

The insurgents who have been carrying out nearly daily bombings are Sunnis, while those believed responsible for execution-style slayings are primarily Shiite militias or death squads working inside the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, which runs the police.

Monday's major suicide bombing took place at an Iraqi army recruiting office near the gate of a U.S.-Iraq military base about 20 miles east of Tal Afar, an ancient city not far from the Syrian border.

The bomber, wearing an explosives vest, struck shortly after noon, killing at least 40 Iraqis and wounding 30 others, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said.

The U.S. military said no American troops were hurt in the attack.

U.S. troops helped secure the area after the attack and treat the wounded.

In yet one more gruesome discovery — a nearly daily occurrence since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad — 29 more bodies were found, nine with a noose around their necks.

A variety of attacks with guns, bombs, mortars and rockets killed at least 12 other people, police said.

The country's senior Shiite politician, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, told CNN that the bombing of the shrine in Samarra "was similar to what happened on 9/11 in the U.S."

As a result of the attack, he said it is much more difficult to control the streets.

He said Shiites had earlier exercised restraint in the wake of attacks by Sunni insurgents.

"For three years we've been burying the slaughtering, killing, explosions, attacking of our scholars, our mosques, our facilities, our pilgrims, our barbers, our bakers, our innocents," al-Hakim said.

"We are always speaking to people to restrain themselves and calm down."

In Monday's largest single attack aside from the suicide bombing, a rocket hit a building in southeast Baghdad that housed the headquarters of the Shiite Fadhila party, killing seven people and wounding at least 35, including children, police Capt. Ali Mahdi said.

Later, gunmen kidnapped 16 employees of an Iraqi trading company, an Interior Ministry official said.

The men arrived at the headquarters of the Saeed import and export company in four civilian cars and appeared to rifle through papers and computers before driving away with the employees, Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said.

Also, gunmen kidnapped a university president after barging into his home in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, a relative said.

Four men grabbed Anbar University chief Abdul Hadi Rajab al-Hitawi and shoved him into a black car, said his brother-in-law, Khaldoun al-Ani.

end quotes

Donald Rumsfeld made it plain as day ...

On many occasions ...

That under his guidance ...

OUR American military ...

Was going to be turned into something ...

That was untruthful .....

Which is to say ...

A LIAR ....

And so ....

It is ....

And thanks to Donald Rumsfeld ...

It always will be ...

And so ...

Well ...

How about this, then ....

This is life in OUR America ...

And that is a fact ....

"Andrew Card Resigns as White House Chief of Staff"

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; 8:24 AM

White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. plans to announce his resignation this morning after nearly 5-1/2 years as President Bush's top aide and will be replaced by Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, a senior administration official said.

Bush plans to make the announcement in the Oval Office at 8:30 a.m.

Card will serve until April 14 to provide a transition period, but the move could presage broader staff changes as Bolten takes over an operation hobbled by political problems heading into a crucial midterm election season.

Card has held the top staff job at the White House longer than any person since Sherman Adams under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and had earned enormous respect within the building and around Washington for his calm professionalism and stamina.

But his stewardship of the Bush team had come under question in recent months after a series of mishaps, including the failed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, the slow public disclosure of Vice President Cheney's shooting accident and the unexpected Republican revolt over a plan to turn management at a half dozen ports to an Arab-owned company.

The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the president's announcement, said Card approached Bush earlier this month about the possibility of stepping down and then two had several discussions about the idea.

Card then went with Bush to Camp David last weekend, where they settled on a decision and timing.

"He's been here 5-1/2 years."

"The average tenure of chief of staff is two years," said the official.

"Change can be good and necessary and that's what they had discussed about."

The official said the decision was Card's, not Bush's.

"Andy initiated it with the president," the official said.

Bolten is among the most respected officials within the administration and a trusted confidant of the president's.

His selection as chief of staff suggests the likelihood of a smooth transition, but officials anticipate that he might want to make further changes to a team that has largely been intact since the beginning of the Bush presidency in January 2001.

Bolten served as deputy White House chief of staff in Bush's first term and then was moved over to head the budget office at a time when spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Medicare benefits and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina pushed up deficits.

In an attempt to deal with the new spending demands, Bolten oversaw two consecutive budgets that actually cut overall non-security discretionary domestic spending.

But many Republicans in Congress have complained that the administration has not done enough to tighten the federal belt.

ANDREW H. CARD JR.

Card, 59, served as secretary of transportation for President George H.W. Bush.

He was previously a vice president at General Motors, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Card is married with three children.

Pressure Cooker: Andrew Card Has the Recipe for Chief of Staff Down Pat (Jan. 5, 2005)

From the Post Archives: 'Bush Sets Key Role For a Longtime Family Foot Soldier' (Nov. 28, 2000)

And this is life in OUR America as well ....

Although the "America" that this is life in ....

Seems to get stranger and stranger ....

As the days go by ....

"STALINIST MURRIKA" .....

That is what it should be called ...

To reflect reality ....

And so ....

"NYCLU fights court secrecy in terror sting case - Civil liberties group wants ruling unsealed"

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press
First published: Tuesday, March 28, 2006

NEW YORK -- A civil liberties group asked an appeals court on Monday to force a federal judge to unseal a ruling he made in a terrorism case involving two members of an Albany mosque and the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said in a submission to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the First Amendment requires the ruling in the case of two Muslims accused of supporting terrorism be made public.

"Courts do not have authority to issue entire opinions in secret," the NYCLU said.

It said it was unprecedented that a judge would seal a ruling without explaining why.

The NYCLU asked to intervene three days after defense lawyers for the men asked the same appeals court to say the judge erred in letting authorities keep information about wiretaps secret.

The two men, Yassin Aref, imam at an Albany mosque, and Mohammed Hossain, a pizzeria owner and mosque member, are accused of laundering money in 2003-04 for an FBI informant, a Pakistani businessman posing as an arms dealer.

The mosque was raided by federal agents on Aug. 5, 2004, following a yearlong sting aimed at Aref.

The defense lawyers argued that charges against their clients should be tossed out and evidence from wiretaps should be suppressed because illegal wiretaps may have been used.

The NYCLU noted in its papers that the judge rejected the defendants' suppression motion less than two hours after the government on March 10 submitted a secret court document opposing it.

It said the First Amendment requires U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy in Albany to make public his ruling and the government's submission or to find a narrowly tailored response to the need to protect classified national security information.

The NYCLU asked the appeals court to order the judge to release his opinion publicly with redactions only to the extent necessary to protect classified information.

"We do not have secret courts in this country," said Chris Dunn, NYCLU associate legal director.

"It's not a surprise that the government wants this to be secret, but it's extraordinary for a court to go along."

Assistant U.S. Attorney William C. Pericek declined to comment.

end quotes

But, of course, we do ....

Have secret courts, that is ...

And here is one staring us right in the face .....

This, America, is George W. Bush's vaunted "judicial philosphy" .....

In spades ....

The EXECUTIVE IS THE LAW ...

And the courts are merely an extension of the EXECUTIVE .....

Which is how it should be, afterall ...

In the world of George W. Bush, anyway ...

Which is rapidly becoming ...

All the "world" we have left, anymore ....

As distasteful as that "BUSH WORLD" may be ...

And so ...

Nope.

Both of them are present and accounted for.

But with Barbeque season approaching, we'll have to keep our eyes open.