And jumping right into the flow, here, this afternoon ....

With an update .....

Concerning America's SCOOTER .....

And DICK ....

Who was America's SCOOTER'S boss .....

And so ....

"Judge: Reporters must give Libby documents"

By TONI LOCY, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:06 p.m., Friday, May 26, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Time magazine must give I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby drafts of articles so the former White House aide can use them to defend himself against perjury and other charges in the CIA leak case, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton limited the scope of subpoenas that Libby's lawyers had aimed at Time, NBC News and The New York Times for e-mails, notes, drafts of articles and other information.

But in a 40-page ruling, Walton rejected the news organizations' argument that they have a broad right to refuse to provide such information in criminal cases.

Libby, 55, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.

He is accused of lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame and what he subsequently told reporters about her.

Walton said The New York Times might have to turn over drafts of articles and other information during Libby's trial if former Times reporter Judith Miller contradicts her previous statements about the case when she testifies as a government witness.

The judge ruled that Miller doesn't have to surrender two notebooks, her phone records or appointment calendars because the materials aren't relevant to Libby's defense.

NBC News also does not have to give Libby's defense team one page of undated notes taken by correspondent Andrea Mitchell because Walton said she is unlikely to testify at Libby's trial, which is set for January.

In granting in part and denying in part the media's challenges to Libby's subpoenas, Walton wrote, "The First Amendment does not protect a news reporter or that reporter's news organization from producing documents ... in a criminal case."

The news organizations indicated they are not likely to appeal the ruling.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The Times, said the newspaper is "gratified" that Walton did not order it to give Libby editorial materials.

Walton said Time magazine must turn over drafts of first-person stories that reporter Matthew Cooper wrote about his conversations with Libby because the judge found inconsistencies between them.

All of the news organizations had asked Walton to review the materials sought by Libby's lawyers in hopes of convincing him that the information was not relevant and that the defense was on a "fishing expedition."

During that review, Walton said, he found "a slight alteration between the several drafts of the articles" Cooper wrote about his conversations with Libby and the reporter's first-person account of his testimony before a federal grand jury.

"This slight alteration between the drafts will permit the defendant to impeach Cooper, regardless of the substance of his trial testimony, because his trial testimony cannot be consistent with both versions," Walton wrote.

A person familiar with Cooper's drafts described the inconsistencies as "trivial."

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Walton has warned the case's participants against talking to reporters.

Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert Novak named her in a column on July 14, 2003.

Novak's column appeared eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein's government had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon.

Wilson discounted the reports.

But the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

Libby's indictment grew out of conversations he had with Cooper, Miller and NBC's Tim Russert in June and July 2003, a two-month period in which the White House, according to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, was mounting a campaign to undermine Wilson's allegations about the Iraq war.

The key to Libby's defense is whose memory of those conversations is correct -- Libby's or those of the three reporters.

Walton said Cooper, Miller and Russert are central to the government's case and challenging their recollections will be "critical to the defense."

------

On the Net:

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

Time magazine: http://www.time.com

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com

NBC News: http://www.nbcnews.com

HEY, Jackie boy ....

Hey, Johnnie ...

What's the haps?

"U.S. Rep. John Sweeney: Grand Old Partier"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, April 28, 2006

Students at the Union College paper, The Concordiensis, found themselves in a media maelstrom Thursday after they published a front-page story -- and a photo -- about U.S. Rep. John Sweeney's late-night visit to a fraternity party last weekend.

John Tomlin, 20, a Union sophomore who wrote the story, reported the Clifton Park Republican was "acting openly intoxicated" at an Alpha Delta Phi party that lasted from Friday night into early Saturday morning.

Sweeney showed up with his longtime friend Paulie Lichorat, who owns Geppetto's, a bar across from the frat that's popular with Union students.

Tomlin said Sweeney was "very loud, cursing and slurring his words."

One student spotted the congressman drinking a Keystone Light beer.

Lichorat insisted Sweeney was not drunk.

He said he and the congressman were at the fraternity party for roughly 15 minutes and spent most of that time standing outside on the porch.

The two were offered beer, Lichorat said, but did not accept.

"He had a stromboli and half a glass of wine at my place," Lichorat said.

"He didn't slur his words."

"He wasn't falling all over himself."

"He was fine."

Melissa Carlson, Sweeney's deputy chief of staff, refused to comment beyond what she told student paper: that the congressman "enjoyed the discussion" at the party and "was impressed with the energy and enthusiasm the students displayed."

Sweeney was in Schenectady last Friday to attend a friend's wake, Carlson told The Concordiensis.

Union College is in the 21st Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty, D-Green Island.

The Concordiensis quoted Rebecca Winnick, a Union junior, who told Sweeney at the party that she worked for McNulty.

She characterized Sweeney's response to that piece of information as "very rude."

The photo printed in the paper was one of several taken via cellular phone by Kenneth Falcon, 19, a Union sophomore.

It shows Sweeney with his eyes half closed and his arms around three young men.

Behind him, another young man is smoking something he's holding between his thumb and forefinger.

Falcon said he took the photos at about 1 a.m. Saturday.

View all the snapshots at http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol.

The Alpha Delta party was formally registered with the Union College Dean of Students' office, Union spokesman Phil Wajda said.

That means the only alcohol allowed is beer.

Students with "specialized training" check the IDs of party-goers at the door.

Those over 21 get wristbands, allowing them access to booze.

Underage students can attend, but not drink.

Inside Politics asked Falcon and Tomlin whether students under 21 were consuming alcohol with the congressman.

Both professed not to know.

Inside Politics is compiled by staff writer Elizabeth Benjamin. Staff writer Carol DeMare contributed to this column.

end quotes

Old "Hey Jackie Boy Hey Johnnie" Sweeney is a real class act, alright ......

So it doesn't surprise anyone up here .....

That "Hey Jackie Boy Hey Johnnie" Sweeney ....

Runs with that REPUBLICAN crowd ...

Down there in Washington, D.C. .....

And so ...

"Like to like", they say .....

And I guess it is so .....

And so ....

"State leaders sagging in poll - In 18 of 20 issues, New Yorkers consider government is fair, poor"

Associated Press
First published: Friday, May 26, 2006

ALBANY -- Nearly three-quarters of New Yorkers said state government is doing only a fair or poor job on 18 of 20 issues residents consider most important, including taxes, education and jobs, according to a new poll.

New York Matters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group, released a report Thursday aimed at focusing the governor's race on issues most important to voters.

"We are finding that voters are in a particularly grumpy mood right now," said Lee Miringoff of the Poughkeepsie-based Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion, who worked with New York Matters on the poll.

The group includes the Center for Governmental Research, a Rochester-based independent think tank.

The group plans to hold forums around the state to promote serious discussion of key issues, according to Gannett News Service.

Its starting point was the poll, which found 72 percent of those polled have a low opinion of the job state government is doing.

Marist and other polls have recently found three-term Republican Gov. George Pataki at his most unpopular since he took office in 1995, and continued low marks for the Legislature and its leaders.

"People are going to be looking for a fresh start regardless who takes the governor's office next January," Miringoff said.

"The dissatisfaction is running very high."

Those polled were split -- at 38 percent -- over whether the highest budget priority next year should be reducing state taxes or maintaining programs and services.

Twenty-three percent said the highest priority should be reducing the state debt.

"I don't think the message is simply to cut taxes at any cost," said Kent Gardner, president and chief economist of New York Matters.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Two areas where the report found New Yorkers like government's performance -- public safety and promoting fair and open elections -- was in part questioned by a separate report released Thursday.

An analysis by the New York Public Interest Research Group showed New York's laws governing the use of campaign funds to be among the weakest in the nation, placing almost no restrictions on their use for a lawmaker's expenses.

States such as Maryland limit the use of funds only to campaigning, but New York lawmakers routinely use the money for meals, cars and holiday parties.

It's one of the perks of incumbency in New York that contributes to a better than 90 percent re-election rate.

And while we are on the subject of George W. Bush's NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND program ....

As it functions up here ...

In the REPUBLICAN-controlled EMPIRE of New York ....

"Schools said to hush up violence - Hevesi probe finds districts underreport incidents; Albany High called one of the worst offenders"

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

First published: Tuesday, May 23, 2006

ALBANY -- School officials across the state have been covering up and seriously underreporting the level of violence in their hallways and classrooms, according to state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who blamed both local school administrators and the state Department of Education for the mess.

Albany High School is among the worst offenders.

In releasing his study Monday, Hevesi painted a troubling picture of schools that either ignore violence, are too disorganized to keep track of incidents or simply lie about their problems for fear of public criticism.

"Here's what we found," Hevesi said.

"A really stunning failure of schools to adequately report" violence, including a "widespread cover-up" in which incidents are swept under the rug and the Education Department appears powerless to do anything about it.

At Albany High School, auditors found the school had reported to the state fewer than one-quarter of the serious assaults, muggings and incidents in which weapons were involved.

They even failed to report a bomb threat, said Hevesi.

While internal records at Albany High indicated 924 violent or disruptive incidents during the 2003-04 school year, school officials only reported 144 to the state.

As a result, state Education Department auditors plan to visit the school this month, and it may end up on the state's list of persistently dangerous schools.

Only five schools across New York, including Albany's Livingston Middle School, are on that list.

Hevesi's audit also found high schools in Schenectady and Hudson seriously underreported their violence, and Saratoga underreported by 9 percent.

Because officials at his office and the state Education Department had long suspected that schools are fudging their numbers, Hevesi had a crew of auditors last year look at 17 high schools in 15 districts across the state (they didn't do New York City although the city's comptroller plans a similar study).

They examined the 2003-04 school year.

Other findings: at least 10 schools failed to report incidents in which weapons were involved; schools were allowed to revise their reports with little documentation; and more than 2,300 schools submitted their reports late.

"This is very, very serious business, and the state Education Department is itself culpable," said Hevesi.

A few school officials said they were underreporting because they assumed that neighboring districts were doing the same and they didn't want to look bad, said Hevesi.

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills, who held a news conference two hours after Hevesi's, conceded that the violence reports have been beset with problems.

"The comptroller's audit confirms the concerns we have," Mills said.

He pointed out that the state Board of Regents has suspected for some time that the reports offered by the schools were misleading, and that they are in the midst of revamping the system.

Changes in the reporting rules, however, may have led to confusion with the audit, said officials from local districts, who essentially blamed part of the problem on Hevesi's auditors.

"There is confusion in the process," said Albany schools Superintendent Eva Joseph, who added:

"We reported our data in good faith."

Joseph said she believed auditors were learning about the various definitions of violent or disruptive incidents while they were doing their survey.

"They were not familiar with some of the definitions," Joseph said.

Joseph also noted that security at the high school has been beefed up since the 2003-04 school year.

"We believe we have a safe school," added Janice White, deputy superintendent at the Saratoga Springs district.

She explained that the definitions of reportable incidents changed during the 2003-04 school year, which may have some led to some misunderstanding by auditors.

Moreover, a memo from White to the comptroller's office alluded to confusion between suspension letters, which could involve several students, and recording of an incident.

"My sense would be they were double counting quite a bit of these," White said of the auditors.

Schenectady Superintendent Eric Ely agreed, adding he thought the audit was to assist the Education Department, not to expose problems in schools.

Hevesi spokesman Dan Weiller stressed that the audits were carefully reviewed for accuracy.

"There are many levels of quality control of our audits," he said.

For the past five years, schools have been required by the state to record and report a slew of incidents ranging from theft and threats to violent assaults and sexual attacks.

The state law conforms to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires that states produce annual lists of their "persistently dangerous" schools.

Students in those schools are supposed to be able to transfer to alternative schools.

But in many districts, there is only one comprehensive high school, meaning they really have no options.

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

Kenneth C. Crowe II contributed to this report.

"Gillibrand gets party boost - Dems see race against Sweeney as part of a larger national effort"

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

First published: Monday, May 22, 2006

ALBANY -- The second-highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives pledged at least $14,000 Sunday to help Kirsten Gillibrand unseat Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, part of a larger campaign that Democrats hope will propel them into the House majority for the first time in more than a decade.

U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, who would become the House majority leader if Democrats can pull off the 15-seat grab in November, admitted he did not know Gillibrand well when he spoke on her behalf Sunday evening at the Crowne Plaza.

But Hoyer, the House Democratic whip from Maryland, said he traveled to Albany because he believes the Republican control of the 20th Congressional District is vulnerable.

Gillibrand, he said, can help end the "culture of corruption, cronyism, cover-up and incompetence" in the nation's capital.

"This is one of the most important races in the United States of America," Hoyer declared, prompting raucous applause and whoops and hollers from the crowd that packed the small room on the first floor of the State Street hotel.

"You," Hoyer added later, "can make one-fifteenth of the difference in changing the course that America is on."

The fundraiser was held in Albany, which is not part of the district, and came a day after former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., came to Saratoga Springs and Brunswick to stump for Sweeney.

The district includes all or parts of Warren, Washington, Essex, Saratoga, Rensselaer, Otsego, Columbia, Greene, Delaware and Dutchess counties.

Democrats currently hold 201 of the 435 House seats, with 231 Republicans, one independent and two vacancies.

Citing statistics ranging from median household income to job creation, Hoyer said the country has not done as well under current Republican leadership as it did under the previous Democratic administration.

Gillibrand then took the podium, outlining her positions on issues that ranged from promoting energy independence by cultivating domestic technological innovation to ending the U.S. presence in Iraq, which includes agreeing to keep no permanent military bases in the country and renouncing a stake in its oil supplies.

Hoyer, who was called in after U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Chicago, had to cancel his appearance because of what Gillibrand's campaign called a family emergency, delivered two $2,500 checks from Emanuel and himself, promising more aid as the race continues.

Earlier in the evening, bouncing from one embrace and handshake to another, U.S. Rep. Michael R. McNulty, D-Green Island, could be heard responding confidently to a indistinct question, as he slapped a red-white-and-blue Gillibrand sticker on his dark suit.

"It," McNulty said, "will be better in November."

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

And of course ...

Everyone will be surprised ...

At this news ....

Yeah, right ....

"Oil prices higher ahead of long weekend"

By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer

2 hours, 41 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Oil prices edged higher Friday ahead of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of the U.S. summer driving season.

Trading volumes were low and there was little news to guide the energy markets, but prices were supported by the prospect of higher demand for gasoline going into the summer months, refinery outages, and the possibility of further supply disruption if this year's hurricane season, which begins on June 1, is an active one.

Prices at the pump have been slipping, but are still above $3 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline in some parts of the United States.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose 5 cents to settle at $71.37 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The market in New York closed early on Friday, and will be shut Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

"This is basically the start of the driving season, and traders lately have been a little apprehensive about being too short on the weekends," said Tom Bentz, analyst at BNP Paribas.

Also keeping prices afloat is the damage caused by last year's hurricane season to key oil infrastructure in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

"Gasoline demand from week to week to week is remaining pretty steady ... and there's still some refining infrastructure offline from last year's storms," said Mike Fitzpatrick, vice president of energy risk management at Fimat USA.

"That's going to remain a problem going forward."

Bolstering the case for bullish sentiment in energy markets, a Fimat research report noted that there has been a recent steep slowdown in U.S. oil import growth, while product imports account for a fast-growing share of total oil imports, and the United States is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign refining capacity to meet product demand.

Gasoline futures rose 3.24 cents Friday to settle at $2.1368 a gallon, while heating oil prices slipped more than a cent to settle at $1.9805 a gallon.

The average U.S. retail price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $2.862, down from $2.921 a month ago, according to AAA's daily fuel gauge report.

Worries about summer supply shortages had been reignited by reports of refinery snags, offsetting U.S. government data that showed gasoline inventories rose for a fourth consecutive week.

Pasadena Refining Systems briefly shut a key gasoline-producing unit at its 100,000 barrel-a-day Pasadena, Texas, refinery following an operational error Wednesday, according to a state environmental report.

An outage at Valero Energy's Texas City refinery lasted about seven days longer than expected, taking a total of about 210,000 barrels of gasoline and 560,000 barrels of distillate out of the market, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Meanwhile, total recovery from a fire at Valero's 48,000-barrels-a-day St. Charles refinery in Norco, La. will take four to six weeks, Dow Jones reported.

Also, Murphy Oil Corp.'s Meraux, Louisiana, refinery, shuttered since Hurricane Katrina, may not return to normal operations until the end of June — a month later than expected, according to a report published by JP Morgan late Wednesday.

Natural gas prices slipped 5 cents to settle at $5.925 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Data released Thursday by the U.S. Energy Department showed domestic natural gas inventories swelled by 83 billion cubic feet in the past week to 2.16 trillion cubic feet, or 50 percent above the five-year average for this time of year.

Natural gas futures are near a one-year low and some analysts say that if inventories continue to grow at this pace, the country could run out of natural-gas storage capacity before winter, a prospect which should exert downward pressure on prices.

Brent crude futures for July on London's ICE futures exchange fell 12 cents to settle at $70.59 a barrel.

"Official: Iraq civilian deaths unjustified"

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

1 hour, 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - Military investigators probing the deaths last November of about two dozen Iraqi civilians have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said Friday.

The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents.

A separate investigation is aimed at determining if Marines lied to cover up the events, which included the deaths of women and children.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq.

Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which President Bush said Thursday he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

The defense official discussed the matter Friday only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the investigation.

He said the evidence found thus far strongly indicated the killings in the insurgent-plagued city of Haditha in the western province of Anbar were unjustified.

He cautioned that the probe was not finished.

Once the investigation is completed, perhaps in June, it will be up to a senior Marine commander in Iraq to decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Three officers from the unit involved — 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. — have been relieved of duty, although officials have not explicitly linked them to the criminal investigation.

In an indication of how concerned the Marines are about the implications of the Haditha case, their top officer, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flew to Iraq on Thursday.

He was to reinforce what the military said was a need to adhere to Marine values and standards of behavior and to avoid the use of excess force.

"Many of our Marines have been involved in life or death combat or have witnessed the loss of their fellow Marines, and the effects of these events can be numbing," Hagee said a statement announcing his trip.

"There is the risk of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life, as well as bringing dishonor upon ourselves."

A spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon, Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, declined to comment on the status of the Haditha investigation.

He said no information would be provided until the probe was completed.

According to a congressional aide, lawmakers were told in a briefing Thursday that it appears as many as two dozen civilians were killed in the episode at Haditha.

And they were told that the investigation will find that "it will be clear that this was not the result of an accident or a normal combat situation."

Another congressional official said lawmakers were told it would be about 30 days before a report would be issued by the investigating agency, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Both the House and Senate armed services committees plan to hold hearings on the matter.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the civilians killed at Haditha included five men who had been traveling in a taxi and others in two nearby houses.

The newspaper quoted an unidentified official as saying it was a sustained operation over as long as five hours.

Hagee met with top lawmakers from those panels this week to bring them up to date on the investigation.

"I can say that there are established facts that incidents of a very serious nature did take place," Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate panel, said Thursday.

He would not provide details or confirm reports that about 24 civilians were killed.

He told reporters he had "no basis to believe" the military engaged in a cover-up.

Separately, the Marines announced this week that a criminal investigation was under way in connection with an alleged killing on April 26 of an Iraqi civilian by Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad.

No details about that case have been made public.

In the Haditha case, videotape aired by an Arab television station showed images purportedly taken in the aftermath of the encounter: a bloody bedroom floor, walls with bullet holes and bodies of women and children.

An Iraqi human rights group called for an investigation of what it described as a deadly mistake that had harmed civilians.

On May 17, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a former Marine, said Corps officials told him the toll in the Haditha attack was far worse than originally reported and that U.S. troops killed innocent women and children "in cold blood."

He said that nearly twice as many people were killed as first reported and maintained that U.S. forces were "overstretched and overstressed" by the war in Iraq.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was being kept apprised.

Ruff said he did not expect any announcements in the next few days.
___

Associated Press Writer Lolita Baldor contributed to this report.

"Fallen troops' families split on Bush talk"

By RUSS BYNUM, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 1 minute ago

SAVANNAH, Ga. - It's been 10 months since a roadside bomb in Iraq killed Cathy Brunson's son and three fellow Georgia National Guardsmen — not long enough to heal, she says, and too late to take much comfort in President Bush's admission he's made mistakes in conducting the war.

"No matter what is said or done now, it's not going to bring back the 2,000-plus soldiers that were killed," Brunson of Sylvester, Ga., said Friday, a day after Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair offered sobering acknowledgments of missteps in their handling of Iraq.

Her son, 30-year-old Spc. Jacques "Gus" Brunson, a former prison guard, was among 11 Georgia citizen-soldiers killed over 11 days when the National Guard's 48th Infantry Brigade deployed to Iraq last year.

"For the families who have lost their sons, brothers, husbands, it is kind of late now to acknowledge that 'OK, we did make mistakes,'" said Brunson, who keeps a photo of her son on her desk at the tax assessor's office in south Georgia's rural Worth County.

The admissions by Bush and Blair drew strong, and divided, responses from families of soldiers killed in Iraq.

More than 2,460 U.S. service members have died in the war since it began in March 2003.

Blair, calling the violence in Iraq "ghastly," acknowledged underestimating the insurgency's determination.

Bush said he regretted some of his "tough talk" — such as saying Osama bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive" and challenging America's enemies to "bring it on."

Some family members criticized Bush for owning up to mistakes only after his poll numbers and public support for the war have reached all-time lows.

Others said they forgave the president and continue to support the goal of establishing a stable Iraqi democracy.

Eddie Mae Owens of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., lost her nephew, Sgt. 1st Class Brett Eugene Walden, 40, last August in Iraq when a civilian fuel truck crashed into his Army vehicle.

She says she still backs Bush's tough stance.

"I would rather have a president that's tough than trying to placate our enemy," Owens said.

"You can always do Monday morning quarterbacking."

"You can always say you would have done things different if you knew what the outcome would have been."

Arnold Tyrrell, a machine operator in Polo, Ill., said Bush and his allies "are doing the best they can, for better or for worse."

Tyrrell's 21-year-old son, Army Pvt. Scott Matthew Tyrrell, died in November 2003 from burns he suffered in Iraq.

"I feel the administration did the best they could with what information they had and they acted on it," Tyrrell said.

"They're saying, 'OK, so we're not perfect.'"

"You've got to jump sometimes and look back later."

John Adams of La Mesa, Calif., isn't as forgiving.

His 27-year-old son, Navy Lt. Thomas Mullen Adams, was killed in the war's opening days when two Navy helicopters collided.

"There has been a horrific mismanagement of the whole operation" in Iraq, Adams said.

"It might be a small step for someone who has demonstrated extreme arrogance to acknowledge there were miscues."

He added:

"It's sort of like trying to unring a bell."

"It can't really be done."

John Prazynski of Fairfield, Ohio, refuses to judge Bush a year after his son, 20-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Taylor Prazynski, died from shrapnel flung by an exploding mortar shell.

Prazynski has stayed active in support-the-troops efforts since his son's death.

He joined Bush and two wounded soldiers on opening day of the Cincinnati Reds' baseball season for pregame ceremonies last month.

"I'm certainly not going to pass judgment," Prazynski said.

"If you say, 'Oh, gosh, now it's hard, let's quit,' that would make us losers."

Celeste Zappala of Philadelphia has become a peace activist since her 30-year-old son, Army Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed by an explosion in Baghdad while deployed with the Pennsylvania National Guard.

She said she was pleased to hear Bush sounding "somewhat contrite."

"But I can't help but remember all the arrogance that has come before this day," said Zappala, who attended another soldier's funeral this week at Arlington National Cemetery.

"I'm still really appalled that (Donald) Rumsfeld is still the secretary of defense."

"How many mistakes do you have to make before you step aside?"

The Rev. Marc Unger of Exeter Baptist Church in Exeter, Calif., mourned the second anniversary Thursday of the rocket attack that killed his son, 19-year-old Army Spec. Daniel Unger.

They had been exceptionally close, playing together on the church band, ministering to inmates at the local juvenile hall, and even practicing karate — both were black belts.

Despite his grief, Unger remains as supportive of the war, and of the president, as his son was when he died.

"Bush is a good president, a good man trying to do the right thing," Unger said.

"He really cares."

"He has our absolute support."

Carol McKeever of Buffalo, N.Y., supported the war early on, but now she says Bush made a huge error by not pulling out of Iraq after Saddam Hussein's capture.

It's a mistake, she says, that cost her 25-year-old son his life.

Army Sgt. David McKeever was weeks away from returning to his wife and baby son when he was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Baghdad.

"If he (Bush) acknowledged that he made mistakes, well then that's a good thing."

"Better late than never, as long as they learn from it," McKeever said.

"I mean, everybody makes mistakes but these are costly ones."

"These are really costly ones."
___

Associated Press writers contributing to this story were Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y.; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; Tara Burghart in Chicago; Greg Risling in Los Angeles; Melissa Nelson in Pensacola, Fla; and Juliana Barbassa in Fresno, Calif.

"Analysis: Iraq, Vietnam have parallels"

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

Fri May 26, 1:26 PM ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The silhouettes that roar through the Baghdad twilight are sleeker than the helicopters of an earlier time.

The wind brings dust, not drenching monsoons.

The river snaking seaward is called Tigris, not Mekong.

And this war's not fought to the wail of Jimi Hendrix's guitar.

But half a world away and half a lifetime later, a long shadow from a long-ago conflict hangs over the U.S. war in Iraq — in its "body counts" and "turning points," its Claymore mines and Kalashnikovs, its "hearts and minds" and "search and destroy," its antiwar voices rising back home.

Steve Budnick felt the "deja vu" when mortar rounds fell as he settled into a civilian job with the U.S. reconstruction agency here.

"That's what took me back, the mortars," the 60-year-old ex-infantryman said.

"But these Iraqis can't aim worth a damn!"

"These guys are nothing compared with the North Vietnamese," said Jack Holley, now a U.S. logistics chief, then a young Marine officer.

"The NVA would have had us marked and crosshaired."

Unlike the single-minded foe in Vietnam, the anti-U.S. resistance here is fragmented, without a political program.

That war was bigger — 543,000 U.S. troops in 1969, facing hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fighters, compared with 130,000 Americans here, versus perhaps 20,000 insurgents.

It was a disgruntled, draftee U.S. Army then, unlike today's all-volunteer force.

And U.S. casualty rates were much higher: an average 19 Americans killed a day over eight years in Vietnam, compared with two a day here.

But for all the contrasts in scale, this U.S. military operation — far from American shores, bent on shaping the political future of another land, facing a resourceful resistance, trying to hand off the fight to local allies, and fast losing support at home — shows important parallels to Vietnam, the last counterinsurgency war fought by U.S. forces.

The parallels are obvious enough to prompt war veterans like the retired colonel Holley to look for lessons from Vietnam.

His: U.S. soldiers should fight shoulder to shoulder with Iraqi allies, something he said worked for Marines in Vietnam before all was lost.

Veteran scholars, too, find striking similarities between then and now.

Faulty intelligence helped to justify both wars — the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident, during which two U.S. warships off Vietnam mistakenly reported that they'd been fired upon, and Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

Even a mirror image of the old "domino theory" is at work in Iraq.

In Vietnam, U.S. leaders warned that other Southeast Asian states would fall, one by one, to communism if Vietnam was lost.

The Bush administration now presents Iraq as the first in a series of Arab dominoes that will fall to democracy.

Specialists at the U.S. Army War College hear the echoes.

"The two aspects of Vietnam and Iraq that show the most similarities involve an effort at state-building in an alien culture that is poorly understood by the United States, and the attempt to sustain U.S. domestic support for a prolonged war against an irregular enemy," the war college's W. Andrew Terrill and Conrad C. Crane wrote in a study of the Iraq war.

As with Vietnam, approval for the Iraq operation has plunged as U.S. casualties mount.

"Casualty for casualty, support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War," says political scientist John Mueller of Ohio State University, an expert on wars and U.S. public opinion.

An ABC News-Washington Post poll in early May, three years after the Iraq invasion, found that 59 percent of Americans now view it as a mistake.

It took six years after the major U.S. troop commitment to Vietnam before a similar majority — 61 percent in 1971 — called that war a mistake.

"If history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline," Mueller adds.

What the Americans are trying to do is "Iraqization," training a new Iraqi army to move into the front line against the largely Sunni Arab insurgents, so U.S. troops can pull back.

"As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down," Bush says.

It's an eerie refrain of another presidential voice.

"As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater," Richard M. Nixon said in announcing "Vietnamization" in 1969.

Four years later, the American withdrawal was complete, and two years after that, in 1975, so was the failure, as triumphant communist forces rolled into Saigon.

A dwindling number of upbeat observers see a potential turning point for Iraq, if the new, elected Iraqi government and growing Iraqi army begin pacifying the country.

But Stephen Biddle, a national security specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, contends that "Iraqization" is one lesson that shouldn't be taken from Vietnam.

"In a communal civil war, it throws gasoline on the fire," he writes in the journal Foreign Affairs.

In the worsening civil conflict among Iraq's Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds, the new army is viewed by Sunni Arabs as a Shiite and Kurdish force and its deployment deepens their hostility.

Biddle's solution: Maintain a strong U.S. military presence while Iraq's factions work out a balanced, durable constitutional agreement.

The United States, more and more, is in a Vietnam-like bind in Iraq, many commentators say.

It cannot stay; it cannot go.

"The most tragic comparison is becoming more real: In for a dime, in for a dollar," says Gordon Adams, a veteran defense scholar at George Washington University.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who was wounded as an Army sergeant in Vietnam, once favored a further U.S. buildup here.

But last year he concluded:

"We're locked into a bogged-down problem not dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam."

"The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have."

Veterans sense one difference, in the way the troops are viewed back home, and hope that doesn't change.

Bruce Oliver served three tours in Vietnam, a 20-year-old Marine when he landed there, now a 58-year-old Army National Guard sergeant who just returned home to Georgia after a year's duty in Iraq.

"It's not like Vietnam."

"When you came home from there people asked you, 'How many people did you kill?'" Oliver recalled.

"They treated you like second-class citizens."

For him and other soldiers, the shadow of war is a personal thing, whether old or new, Danang or Diyala, Fallujah or Phu Bai.

Budnick turns bitter at the memory.

"We were 'baby killers,' 'drug addicts,' et cetera," the Baghdad-based accountant told a reporter.

Now if things drag on in Iraq, if "negative press" persists, if "push comes to shove," then "it wouldn't take much to turn against the soldiers," he said.

"Like Vietnam."
___

EDITOR'S NOTE: Charles J. Hanley served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam.

In the case of Donald Rumsfeld .....

He gets to make an infinite number of mistakes ...

Which makes him an AMERICAN PATRIOT ....

To people like ex-general Tommy Ray Franks, anyway ....

And Donald never has to step down ...

Despite his infinitude of mistakes ...

Because he is an AMERICAN PATRIOT ....

And so ....

December 23, 2003

"Rumsfeld Made Iraq Overture in '84 Despite Chemical Raids"

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS, NY Times

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 — As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show.

Mr. Rumsfeld, who ran a pharmaceutical company at the time, was tapped by Secretary of State George P. Shultz to reinforce a message that a recent move to condemn Iraq's use of chemical weapons was strictly in principle and that America's priority was to prevent an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq war and to improve bilateral ties.

During that war, the United States secretly provided Iraq with combat planning assistance, even after Mr. Hussein's use of chemical weapons was widely known.

The highly classified program involved more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who shared intelligence on Iranian deployments, bomb-damage assessments and other crucial information with Iraq.

The disclosures round out a picture of American outreach to the Iraqi government, even as the United States professed to be neutral in the eight-year war, and suggests a private nonchalance toward Mr. Hussein's use of chemicals in warfare.

Mr. Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have cited Iraq's use of poisonous gas as a main reason for ousting Mr. Hussein.

The documents, which were released as part of a declassification project by the National Security Archive, and are available on the Web at http://www.nsarchive.org , provide details of the instructions given to Mr. Rumsfeld on his second trip to Iraq in four months.

The notes of Mr. Rumsfeld's encounter with Tariq Aziz, the foreign minister, remain classified, but officials acknowledged that it would be unusual if Mr. Rumsfeld did not carry out the instructions.

Since the release of the documents, he has told members of his inner circle at the Pentagon that he does not recall whether he had read, or even had received, the State Department memo, Defense Department officials said.

One official noted that the documents reflected the State Department's thinking on Iraq, but did not indicate Mr. Rumsfeld's planning for his meeting with Mr. Hussein nor his comments on the meeting after its conclusion.

Mr. Rumsfeld's trip was his second visit to Iraq.

On his first visit, in late December 1983, he had a cordial meeting with Mr. Hussein, and photographs and a report of that encounter have been widely published.

In a follow-up memo, the chief of the American interests section reported that Mr. Aziz had conveyed Mr. Hussein's satisfaction with the meeting.

"The Iraqi leadership was extremely pleased with Amb. Rumsfeld's visit," the memo said.

"Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a person."

When news emerged last year of the December trip, Mr. Rumsfeld told CNN that he had "cautioned" Mr. Hussein to forgo chemical weapons.

But when presented with declassified notes of their meeting that made no mention of that, a spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue in a meeting with Mr. Aziz.

Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday that there was no inconsistency between Mr. Rumsfeld's previous comments on his missions to Iraq and the State Department documents.

By early 1984, events threatened to upset the American-Iraqi relationship.

After pleading for a year for international action against the chemical warfare, Iran had finally persuaded the United Nations to criticize the use of chemical weapons, albeit in vague terms.

Pressure mounted on the Reagan administration, which had already verified Iraq's "almost daily" use of the weapons against Iran and against Kurdish rebels, documents show.

In February, Iraq warned Iranian "invaders" that "for every harmful insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it."

Within weeks, the American authorities intercepted precursor chemicals that were bound for Iraq.

Finally, on March 5, the United States issued a public condemnation of Iraq.

But days later, Mr. Shultz and his deputy met with an Iraqi diplomat, Ismet Kittani, to soften the blow.

The American relationship with Iraq was too important — involving business interests, Middle East diplomacy and a shared determination to thwart Iran — to sacrifice.

Mr. Kittani left the meeting "unpersuaded," documents show.

Mr. Shultz then turned to Mr. Rumsfeld.

In a March 24 briefing document, Mr. Rumsfeld was asked to present America's bottom line.

At first, the memo recapitulated Mr. Shultz's message to Mr. Kittani, saying it "clarified that our CW [chemical weapons] condemnation was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs."

The American officials had "emphasized that our interests in 1) preventing an Iranian victory and 2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq, at a pace of Iraq's choosing, remain undiminished," it said.

Then came the instructions for Mr. Rumsfeld:

"This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."

The American relationship with Iraq during its crippling war with Iran was rife with such ambiguities.

Though the United States was outwardly neutral, it tilted toward Iraq and even monitored talks toward the sale of military equipment by private American contractors.

Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said:

"Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980's, and it didn't make any difference to U.S. policy."

Mr. Blanton suggested that the United States was now paying the price for earlier indulgence.

"The embrace of Saddam in the 1980's and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances," he said.

"Shaking hands with dictators today can turn them into Saddams tomorrow."

Thom Shanker contributed reporting for this article.

end quotes

And America ...

Would be well advised ....

To not put little tin-pot dictators on its own throne, as well ...

ALTHOUGH THAT ADVICE .....

Is now six years too late to heed ...

And so ....

For a very nice picture ....

Of Donald Rumsfeld ....

Fawning all over Saddam Hussein ....

While shaking his hand ....

Click on this URL now:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82

GO FOR IT, JEANINE ....

If nothing else ...

It gets your name in the newspaper ...

And so ...

That is all it is about in American politics today, isn't it?

Exposure ....

Without any substance to back it up ...

And so ....

May 23, 2006

"Gas Prices Legitimate, Study Says"

By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, May 22 — Despite suspicions among consumers about rapidly rising gasoline prices and record oil industry profits, a federal investigation concluded Monday that the jump at the pump over the last year had not been the result of unlawful price manipulation.

The Federal Trade Commission said the sharp increase in fuel costs was attributable to market forces — namely big drops in supply and production and runs on inventories after major damage to refineries, ports and pipelines.

In a report that Congress ordered last year after hurricanes struck the nation's refining hub on the Gulf Coast, the commission found no evidence of price collusion or improper reductions of inventory or supplies to increase company profits.

"The evidence collected in this investigation indicated that firms behaved competitively," the commission said.

Since the report did not find an industry villain, it was not likely to quell voter anger over the high gas prices.

That is likely to add political pressure on Congress to take steps to lower prices or reduce the earnings of some oil companies.

It could also provide some impetus for legislation, already adopted by the House, to outlaw price gouging and impose high penalties for violations.

The commission said it found 15 examples of pricing by refineries, wholesale companies and retailers that technically fit the definition of "price gouging."

(It defined gouging as a price increase in the month after the hurricanes that was not attributable to the additional costs caused by weather-related damage.)

But it said that in nearly all of those instances, there was probably not gouging because of regional or local trends that justified the higher prices.

"Some price gouging by individual retailers did occur to a limited extent," the report said.

"Local or regional market trends, however, seemed to explain the price increases in all but one case."

"Exceptionally high prices on the part of individual retailers generally were very short-lived."

The report did not identify the retailer involved in the one case.

While the agency had been expected to reach the conclusions that it formally announced on Monday, senior commission officials said they expected the agency would come under criticism when the five commissioners appear before the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday.

Industry executives applauded the commission's findings.

"This investigation, like so many others conducted at the federal and state level, appears to vindicate the refining industry's actions post-Katrina, as well in the other areas that were the subject of the study," said Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

"We hope that Congress and the public will take full notice of its findings."

But Democrats in Congress, who have been the biggest critics of the commission for the way it monitors the industry, challenged the report's conclusions.

"The F.T.C. white paper on gas price gouging is a whitewash," said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon.

"They find substantial numbers of refiners engaged in anticompetitive practices."

"They don't like the remedy Congress is proposing, namely a law on price gouging."

"But they just walk away from responsibility and don't propose a remedy themselves."

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, also criticized the commission.

"It just defies belief that they didn't find price gouging because there is simply no price competition," he said.

Mr. Schumer said that the Senate "could do a lot if it had the backbone."

"We could issue subpoenas, we could call in the executives, we could get to the bottom of this," he said.

"The problem is that the Senate leadership believes, as the president does, that what's good for big oil is good for America."

The report, which in recent weeks has been cited by President Bush in response to questions about high gas prices, had been widely expected to exonerate oil producers, in part because it is difficult to define market manipulation and price gouging.

One commissioner, Jon Leibowitz, observed in a concurring opinion that price gouging "is the obscenity of antitrust law: difficult to define in theory but easily recognized at the pump."

Moreover, the industry suffered substantial damage last summer that proved to be highly disruptive, and previous reports by the agency over the years about the pricing habits of the oil industry had reached similar conclusions.

The hurricanes knocked out about a third of the nation's crude oil production, and in the days after Katrina alone, gas prices jumped an average of about 50 cents a gallon in some cities.

Just as the prices began to drop, a second hurricane, Rita, caused further significant damage to the region, and in its aftermath, prices increased by another 35 cents a gallon.

"In light of the amount of crude oil production and refining capacity knocked out by Katrina and Rita, the sizes of the posthurricane price increases were approximately what would be predicted by the standard supply and demand paradigm that presumes a market is performing competitively," the report said.

"Evidence gathered during our investigation indicated that the conduct of firms in response to the supply shocks caused by the hurricanes was consistent with competition."

Still, as lawmakers come under increasing pressure from voters, senior officials at the commission said in recent days that they were bracing for criticism.

Congress has been considering legislation to ease the burden on consumers or lower the profits of the oil industry.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved a measure to renegotiate more than 1,000 leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to revoke billions of dollars in government incentives to oil and gas producers.

Lawmakers say they will consider energy legislation after they return from the Memorial Day recess in June.

Gas prices have declined slightly in the last week, by 2 cents, to an average of $2.93, and could continue to drop in coming weeks, said Trilby Lundberg, an analyst who conducts surveys of gas stations around the nation.

And speaking of exposure ....

Without any substance, at all ....

We have ....

"Pataki supports Pirro in race - Former Westchester County district attorney only GOP candidate for attorney general"

By MARK JOHNSON, Associated Press
First published: Saturday, May 27, 2006

ALBANY -- Republican Gov. George Pataki endorsed former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro for attorney general on Friday.

"Jeanine Pirro is an experienced prosecutor who has the intellect, skills, and toughness to be a great attorney general for the people of New York state," Pataki said in a statement issued by his press office while he is on a three-day trip to Iowa.

Pataki previously endorsed Pirro's run for U.S. Senate, a campaign she abandoned in December after having trouble raising money and generating interest.

Pirro, who served as district attorney from 1994 through 2005, is the only Republican seeking the nomination to replace Democrat Eliot Spitzer, who is running for governor.

"I am gratified to have the governor's endorsement," Pirro said in a prepared statement.

Democrats noted the endorsement would draw little notice coming on a Friday before a long holiday weekend and just days before the state GOP convention in Garden City.

The Democratic nomination is being sought by Andrew Cuomo, the former federal housing chairman; Mark Green, who narrowly lost the 2001 New York City mayor's race; Charlie King, a former housing official in the Clinton administration; Denise O'Donnell, a former U.S. attorney from Buffalo, and Sean Patrick Maloney, a former aide to President Clinton.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that in head-to-head matchups, Cuomo beat Pirro 49 to 33 percent while Green beat Pirro 46 to 33 percent.

And pardon me here ...

But I have never seen such BULL **** come from down there in Washington, D.C. ....

As is coming from that place, right now ....

And so ...

"White House invokes privilege in spy cases"

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:45 p.m., Saturday, May 27, 2006

NEW YORK -- The Bush administration has asked federal judges in New York and Michigan to dismiss a pair of lawsuits filed over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, saying litigating them would jeopardize state secrets.

In papers filed late Friday, Justice Department lawyers said it would be impossible to defend the legality of the spying program without disclosing classified information that could be of value to suspected terrorists.

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte invoked the state secrets privilege on behalf of the administration, writing that disclosure of such information would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security.

The administration laid out some of its supporting arguments in classified memos that were filed under seal.

The government's motion, widely anticipated, involves two cases challenging an NSA program that allows investigators to eavesdrop on Americans who communicate with people outside the country suspected of terrorist ties.

In New York, the Center for Constitutional Rights has asked a judge to stop the program, saying it was an abuse of presidential power.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a similar lawsuit in Detroit.

For decades, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been required to seek court approval before using electronic surveillance on Americans.

That was not done by the NSA in the program at issue, but President Bush has said the eavesdropping was made legal by a congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Shayana Kadidal, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, called the administration's motion "undemocratic."

Ample safeguards could be put in place to allow the case to continue without disclosing classified information, he said.

The center has also argued that the court already has enough information to decide whether the program was legal.

"The Bush administration is trying to crush a very strong case against domestic spying without any evidence or argument," Kadidal said in a written statement.

"Can the president tell the courts which cases they can rule on?"

"If so, the courts will never be able to hold the president accountable for breaking the law."

Justice Department attorneys said in their legal brief that the legality of the president's actions could only be properly judged by understanding "the specific threat facing the nation and the particular actions taken by the president to meet that threat."

"That understanding is not possible without revealing to the very adversaries we are trying to defeat what we know about them and how we are proceeding to stop them," they wrote.

And so ....

For Memorial Day ...

Let's have a brief IRAQINAM RETROSPECTIVE in here ...

And so ...

And as we say out in the country ...

Maybe you'd better wear your hip boots ...

Because this boy Bush can really sling some **** ....

And pile it deep ....

And so ....

"Bush likens war on terrorism to Cold War"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:05 p.m., Saturday, May 27, 2006

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- President Bush, likening the war against Islamic radicals to the Cold War threat of communism, told U.S. Military Academy graduates on Saturday that America's safety depends on an aggressive push for democracy, especially in the Middle East.

The president took a subtle jab at Syria and the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

He chided previous U.S. administrations, saying that decades of excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make America safer.

"This is only the beginning," Bush said.

"The message has spread from Damascus to Tehran that the future belongs to freedom, and we will not rest until the promise of liberty reaches every people in every nation."

Bush delivered his 35-minute foreign policy address to 861 cadets, all clad in crisp white slacks and gray jackets.

Overcast skies threatened rain but did not dampen the graduates' enthusiasm for the president's tough talk against terrorism.

"The war began on my watch, but it's going to end on your watch," Bush told the cadets.

"By standing with democratic reforms across a troubled region, we will extend freedom to millions who have not known it and lay the foundation for peace for generations to come."

Bush compared his moment in presidential history to that of President Truman's.

"As President Truman put it towards the end of his presidency, 'When history says that my term of office saw the beginning of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we set the course that can win it.'"

"His leadership paved the way for subsequent presidents from both political parties -- men like Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan -- to confront and eventually defeat the Soviet threat," Bush said.

"Today, at the start of a new century, we are again engaged in a war unlike any our nation has fought before, and like Americans in Truman's day, we are laying the foundations for victory."

Truman told the class of 1952 at West Point that the quest for global peace depended on the active and vigorous work to bring about freedom and justice across the world.

"That same principle continues to guide us in today's war on terror," Bush told the class of 2006, the first to enter the academy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Bush recounted his strategy for fighting terrorism, saying that the U.S. continues to view anyone who harbors a terrorist equally guilty of being a terrorist.

He received loud applause, muffled only by the cadets' white gloves, when he told of his doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, attacking enemies abroad before they can attack U.S. soil.

The greatest danger America faces is the threat from terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction, Bush said.

"If our enemies succeed in acquiring such weapons, they will not hesitate to use them, which means they would pose a threat to America as great as the Soviet Union," he said.

"Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory."

Bush flew to New York from the Camp David presidential retreat in western Maryland, where he is spending the Memorial Day weekend.

One of Bush's guests at Camp David was former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a longtime Bush friend and possible replacement for Treasury Secretary John Snow, who has signaled his desire to step down when the White House finds a replacement.

And of course ....

When George W. Bush was down there at West Point, chiding previous U.S. administrations, saying that decades of excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make America safer to loud applause from the CORPS OF CADETS, muffled only by the cadets' white gloves .....

Who he really was chiding ...

WAS HIS OWN FATHER ...

The thin-lipped patrician .....

With no sand ....

No grit ....

No real back-bone, at all ........

The "WIMP FACTOR" member of the family ....

Named George H.W. Bush ....

And so .....

That is quite a statement ...

By young George W. Bush ....

When you come right on down to it ...

And so ...

What it comes down to ...

When you look at it head on ...

Is that the boy knows something ...

Or so he says, anyway ...

That his daddy sure didn't ...

And so .....

But me ...

Well .....

I'm from the country ...

Where BULL **** is used as fertilizer ....

And not "BRAIN FOOD" ...

Like it is down there in Washington, D.C. ....

Where they are awash in the stuff ....

Being prime producers of it ....

Them politicians that they got down there ...

And so .....

WHERE DID GEORGE W. BUSH LEARN ALL OF THIS **** THAT HE WAS SPOUTING TO THE WEST POINT CLASS OF 2006?

DID HE LEARN ALL THIS **** FROM A STUDY OF WHAT ALL THESE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS DID WRONG, PERHAPS?

In which case ...

One would think that young George was surrounded by capable teachers ....

Starting with his own pap, of course ...

The BUSH WITH NO SAND ...

As compared to his boy ...

THE BUSH WITH A LOT OF SAND ...

But unfortunately ....

NO BRAINS ...

And so ....

WHAT ABOUT RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY ....

Who now goes about calling himself just plain DICK .....

In chiding these previous administrations ...

To the lusty cheers of the WEST POINT CORPS OF CADETS .....

WAS GEORGE W. BUSH CHIDING DICK CHENEY?

And rightfully so ....

Since Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense for the WIMPY BUSH ....

And so ....

Clearly was a part of that particular administration ...

And so ....

IT WAS PROBABLY GOOD FOR GEORGE W. BUSH TO CHIDE HIM ....

And what about Colin Powell ....

Colin Powell is as much a part of the administration of George H. W. Bush, the STONELESS THIN-LIPPED BUSH ....

As Richard Bruce Cheney ....

And so ...

DID GEORGE W. BUSH LEARN ALL THIS **** HE WAS SPEWING TO THE WEST POINT CLASS OF 2006 FROM COLIN POWELL?

Or maybe it was Donald Rumsfeld who taught young George all this stuff that he knows today about the Middle East ....

Because if anyone in OUR America can be associated with these prior administrations that George W. Bush was chiding ...

To the cheers of the WEST POINT CORPS OF CADETS ....

It clearly would be Donald Rumsfeld ....

George W. Bush's own Secretary of Defense ....

And so .....

"A Justice uproar over Jefferson feud - Gonzales purportedly threatened to quit over evidence dispute"

New York Times
First published: Saturday, May 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and senior officials and career prosecutors at the Justice Department told associates this week that they were prepared to quit if the White House directed them to relinquish evidence seized in a search of a House member's office, government officials said Friday.

Gonzales was joined in raising the possibility of resignation by the deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty, the officials said.

Gonzales and McNulty told associates that they had an obligation to protect evidence in a criminal case and would be unwilling to carry out any White House order to return the material to Congress.

The potential showdown was averted Thursday when President Bush ordered the data sealed for 45 days to give Congress and the Justice Department a chance to work out a deal.

The evidence was seized by FBI agents during a Saturday night search on May 20 of the Capitol office of Rep. William J. Jefferson, D-La.

The search set off protest by House leaders in both parties, citing constitutional concerns.

According to The Associated Press, House leaders acknowledged Friday that FBI agents with a court-issued warrant can legally search a congressman's office, but they said they want more specific procedures established.

Tensions were high because some officials at the Justice Department and the FBI view the protest from Congress, led by Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Republicans, largely as a proxy fight for battles that are likely to come over criminal investigations into other Republican members of Congress.

Separate investigations into the activities of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Randy Cunningham, the former congressman from California, have placed a number of other Republicans under scrutiny; in the Cunningham case, federal authorities have asked informally to interview nine former staff members of the House Appropriations and intelligence committees, an inquiry that could lead to a broader investigation of the panels.

And as the November 2006 elections begin to loom larger on the horizon ....

"Turns of fortune - Democrats have the advantage over a divided GOP as the state election season starts"

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

First published: Sunday, May 28, 2006

ALBANY -- Democrats and Republicans will hold their state nominating conventions at opposite ends of New York this week, but the events might as well be on different planets.

Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff summed it up best:

"Basically, it's an uphill fight for the GOP, and the Democrats wish Election Day were tomorrow."

The Democrats have the party enrollment edge, and they're facing off against a state Republican Party whose trump card is a lame-duck governor with his approval rating at an all-career low.

The state GOP can't look to the national Republican Party for help, either.

President Bush's approval numbers are even lower in New York than Gov. George Pataki's.

So as Democrats prepare to crown two nationally known candidates to lead their ticket -- U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who's seeking re-election, and state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the gubernatorial front-runner -- they're indulging in dreams of a clean sweep come November.

If that happens, it will be the first time in modern political history that one party controls every statewide office in New York, observers said.

The Democrats will kick off their convention in Buffalo Monday night with a celebration at a downtown baseball stadium -- complete with fireworks -- for Spitzer and his running mate, Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, D-Harlem.

The atmosphere will likely be a lot less festive when the Republican convention gets under way Wednesday in Nassau County.

The normally primary-averse GOP is facing two internal battles at the top of its ticket.

The splits have occurred along ideological lines and threaten the political partnership between the Republican and Conservative parties.

Pataki threw the GOP into turmoil when he decided not to seek a fourth term and instead focus on a potential White House run in 2008.

A Siena Research Institute poll last week showed 61 percent of likely GOP primary voters still haven't decided which of two gubernatorial candidates they prefer.

Fifty-six percent believe the next governor will be a Democrat, and only 55 percent said Republicans will win at least one statewide office this fall.

In the governor's race, some Republicans favor former Assembly Minority Leader John Faso of Kinderhook, who is conservative on social issues and has been endorsed by the state Conservative Party.

No Republican candidate for statewide office has won without the support of the Conservatives since 1974.

Faso's critics favor the more moderate former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, who is trying to become only the second man in history to be governor of two states.

(The first was Sam Houston, of Tennessee and Texas).

State Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik supports Weld.

Pataki is widely seen as privately preferring Weld, too.

But the governor has not made a public endorsement.

The clash between moderate and conservative Republicans is playing out in the U.S. Senate race as well.

Former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, who opposes abortion rights and gay marriage, has been endorsed by the state Conservative Party to take on Clinton.

He's being challenged by Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, a pro-choice Manhattan resident who worked in national security under three Republican presidents.

Some see shades of 1994, when the GOP was fighting over the best candidate to take on Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo, in the current Republican upheaval.

Heading into the convention that year, party leaders were divided between the conservative Herb London and the more moderate Pataki, then a little-known state senator.

Ironically, an election confrontation between London and Pataki was avoided when Faso, then a candidate for state comptroller, stepped aside to let London run for that office instead.

Pataki handily defeated former state GOP Chairman Richard Rosenbaum in September and overcame the odds to oust Cuomo in the general election.

But the circumstances this time around are quite different.

Instead of trying to topple an unpopular governor who had been in office 12 years, the Republicans are now poised to battle a well-known, well-funded Democrat in a state that has more enrolled Democrats than it did in 1994.

And, for the first time since Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey decided not to seek a third term in 1982, the governor's race is wide open.

The bottom line?

The Republicans are in the unenviable position of being the victims of voter fatigue.

Democrats in Buffalo

New York Democrats, noted for their infighting and bruising primaries, are unusually unified behind the top of their ticket.

"We've learned that when we're disciplined we do better," said state Democratic Chairman Herman "Denny" Farrell Jr.

"Maybe we've been out long enough now that we can taste victory, and we're not going to do anything to snatch defeat from victory's jaws."

Yet the Buffalo convention won't be completely devoid of competition and controversy.

A primary in the attorney general's race is a possibility.

Five candidates are competing for their party's nod.

Former U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who angered Democrats in 2002 by challenging their favored candidate for governor and then quitting the race one week before the primary, is the front-runner in county committee support, opinion polls and campaign cash.

Former New York City public advocate Mark Green, who's running a distant second to Cuomo, recently told Democrats he is about 5 percentage points shy of the 25 percent committee vote threshold to get on the ballot.

Former U.S. Attorney Denise O'Donnell, the only woman and only upstater in the attorney general's race, has picked up some support from county organizations in recent weeks.

But their efforts may be too late.

Party leaders say it appears Cuomo has more than 50 percent of the weighted state committee vote, which would make him the Democratic designee and leave room for only one other candidate on the ballot.

Cuomo's challengers have asked party leaders to change the 25 percent rule to allow all five attorney general candidates on the ballot, but they have refused.

Spitzer has declined to intervene.

Charlie King, a Rockland County attorney who ran two unsuccessful lieutenant governor campaigns (once as Cuomo's running mate), called the 25 percent rule "undemocratic."

It's easier for candidates to get onto the ballot in Mississippi than in New York, he said.

"The right to vote that we fought for in the civil rights movement in the '60s means nothing if you don't have the right to choose among qualified candidates," King said.

He vowed to petition his way onto the ballot.

Another long-shot candidate, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, who's mounting a primary challenge to Spitzer, will provide a voice of Democratic dissent.

Suozzi isn't going to the convention because he doesn't have the 25 percent of the state committee vote necessary to both speak to the delegates and land a spot on the ballot.

He vows to collect the signatures of 15,000 enrolled Democrats statewide to get on the ballot.

Suozzi, however, is holding a rally not far away from the convention hall in downtown Buffalo Tuesday -- the day Spitzer is scheduled to become his party's designee.

Both Suozzi and Spitzer plan post-convention tours of the state -- Spitzer in a bus and Suozzi in what he calls the "Fix Albany Repair Van."

Before the convention ends Wednesday, it's possible Clinton will suffer some fallout for her support of the Iraq War and her refusal to call for the immediate withdrawal of American troops.

Jonathan Tasini, a labor activist, is riding his bicycle from New York City to Buffalo and collecting signatures on a petition asking the state Democratic Party to adopt a resolution to end the Iraq War.

He plans to deliver the signatures to the convention Tuesday.

Tasini, aware of the quixotic nature of his candidacy and Clinton's support among delegates, is also mounting a petition drive to get his name on the September primary ballot.

Republicans on Long Island

The state GOP may be careening toward two primaries that each pit a moderate against a conservative, but party Chairman Stephen Minarik refuses to accept the notion that this election is an ideological battle.

However, he does concede that New York's Republican Party is in "a transition period," from having an incumbent governor to "we don't know what."

"It's a change in direction, and maybe even in the composition of the party," Minarik said.

"We're moving from one period to another, and I don't know what the next period will be."

In some ways, the upcoming GOP convention will be a referendum on Minarik himself.

The Monroe County Republican chairman supports Weld for governor, although he is backing Spencer, a conservative, against the more moderate McFarland.

Minarik has said Faso can't win the general election, yet he has failed to generate overwhelming support for Weld among the county chairs, some of whom say they feel like the former Massachusetts governor was forced on them.

Onondaga County GOP Chairman Bob Smith, a Faso supporter who has been mentioned as a potential successor to Minarik, feels that if the party is in danger of losing the governor's office, then it should at least take a principled stand.

"The race isn't over, and I'm not one for throwing it in," Smith said.

"But I'm so sick and tired of trying to decide what Democrat-like candidate we're going to run."

"At some point, if we're not going to win the race, we have to start re-establishing our identity; it's critical."

If Weld doesn't win more than 50 percent of the weighted convention vote to become the party's designated candidate, Minarik's chairmanship, which officially ends in September 2007, might not survive, Smith said.

Former U.S. Senate candidate Ed Cox and former state Secretary of State Randy Daniels, who quit the governor's race in April, have also been mentioned as potential new chairmen.

Faso has picked up support from several large, key counties, including Westchester and Suffolk, as well as from upstate counties whose GOP chairs used to support Weld.

A key unanswered question is whether Nassau County GOP Chairman Joseph Mondello, who controls the largest portion of the state committee vote (10.45 percent), will endorse a candidate.

So far he is uncommitted, although he is an ally of state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick, who has publicly pledged to help Faso get 25 percent of the committee vote to get on the ballot.

Bruno, though, prefers to forgo a primary altogether by forming a Weld/Faso ticket.

Both Weld and Faso have rejected that idea, but Minarik is still trying to convince them.

Faso has tapped his own running mate, Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef.

Weld hasn't yet chosen a No. 2.

Faso also got a boost when he picked up the endorsement of the state Conservative Party.

Conservative Chairman Mike Long said he made the unusual decision to schedule his party's convention before the GOP gathered in Long Island in part to dispel rumors Faso wasn't committed to the race for the long haul.

Long hopes the Conservative and Republican parties will be able to agree on a ticket for November and their long-standing political partnership will continue.

"We're a minor party, and we're smaller than they are," Long said.

"But I also understand that John Faso has the best chance of energizing both the Republican and Conservative parties."

"It is my desire to come together."

Elizabeth Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

Old George W. Bush is always ready ...

To give himself a hearty slap on the back ...

And to give himself a rousing cheer .....

For things that have not yet happened ...

Like major combat operations in IRAQINAM being over ....

And for things that might never be ....

Like a true democracy in IRAQINAM ....

Instead of one ...

Imposed by George W. Bush ...

At the point of a bayonet ....

Accompanied by the wanton killing of Iraqi women and children .....

By George W. Bush's IMPERIAL ARMY OF LIBERATION ...

Must be all those years of having been a cheerleader .....

Down there at Yale ....

Old George W. just can't shake the habit, it seems ...

Of cheering for himself .....

Whatever the occasion ...

And whatever the reality might really be ...

Versus the BULL **** that George is cheering about ....

And so ....

"Iraqi PM fails to name new officials"

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:46 a.m., Sunday, May 28, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki once again failed to reach agreement Sunday on naming a new defense and interior minister as parliament reconvened after a four-day break.

Naming strong but neutral ministers is considered crucial for any plan to restore security and stability to strife-torn Iraq.

Rampant violence claimed three lives and injured 21 people just after dawn when a pair of bombs ripped through central Baghdad.

The bombs, designed to kill the maximum number of people, were planted next to each other and were detonated in succession in Baghdad's Tahariyat Square, police 1st Lt. Thaeir Mahmoud said.

Many of the injured were gawkers who had rushed to the scene of the fist explosion.

The head of the provincial council in Diyala, a mixed but tense province north of Baghdad, escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his bodyguards and injured six others.

Ibrahim Bajlan was uninjured when a car bomb detonated next to his convoy in the Imam Weis area, 44 miles north of the provincial capital Baqouba.

The fresh violence came amid rising fears in the Iraqi capital that extremists seeking to force Baghdad residents to follow strict Islamic practices were now targeting men in shorts, liquor stores and even barbers.

Gunmen in recent months have even killed people drinking beer along the banks of the Tigris river.

Last week, gunmen in Baghdad stopped a car carrying a Sunni Arab tennis coach and two of his Shiite players, asked them to step out and then shot them.

Extremists have been distributing leaflets warning people in the mostly Sunni neighborhoods of Saidiyah and Ghazaliyah not to wear shorts, police said.

The U.S. military has said the bodies regularly turn up of people killed in sectarian attacks, by death squads and criminal violence -- including 33 last week in Baghdad province.

U.S. military officials consider it one of their biggest problems in the Baghdad area.

An Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death last week in Baghdad because they were wearing shorts.

There was no word on the fate of the two missing crew members of a U.S. Marine AH-1 Cobra helicopter which crashed Saturday in volatile western Anbar province.

Hostile fire was not suspected as the cause of the crash, the U.S. military said.

Iraq's fractious political, ethnic and sectarian parties again failed to reach agreement on who will run the interior and defense ministries, despite a promise by al-Maliki to do so within a few days of his Cabinet being sworn in just over a week ago.

"They will not be named today," Shiite deputy Baha al-Araji said.

"We hope within three days."

There had been hopes that al-Maliki would swear in the two new ministers when the 275-member parliament convened Sunday after the Iraq weekend.

The Shiite-dominated interior ministry has been promised to that community, while Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry.

It is hoped the balance will enable al-Maliki to move ahead with a plan to take over security around Iraq over the next 18 months and also attract army recruits among Sunni Arabs, who make up the core of the insurgency .

The list however, has been whittled down to two candidates for the interior ministry and three for defense.

During what appeared to be a stormy closed-door session, deputies argued over a demand by the Shiite and Kurdish coalitions to curb the power of Sunni Arab parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

They demand that he be obliged by parliamentary regulation to consult his Shiite and Kurdish deputy speakers before taking any decisions.

The demand, staunchly opposed by Sunnis, was an indication the struggle for more power and authorities among Iraq's factions.

The speaker has little authority.

"We have not reached agreement," said Salim Abdullah, a deputy with the main Sunni Arab Accordance Front said before the start of a second closed-door session.

Iraq's Foreign Ministry said Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered a list of charges against Saddam Hussein.

It provided no details, including when the charges would be submitted, but Iran has in the past said it wants to put Saddam on trial for crimes from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, including the alleged use of chemical weapons.

The trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants was to resume Monday on charges they ordered the killing of 148 Shiites for allegedly taking part in a botched 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader.

------

Associated Press writers Kim Gamel and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this story from Baghdad.

"Official sees security handover in Iraq"

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
Last updated: 8:06 p.m., Saturday, May 27, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- American-led coalition forces could begin transferring security control over some Iraqi provinces to civilian authorities and police by autumn, a senior U.S. military official said Saturday.

But the capital Baghdad will not be handed over before the end of the year, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said that Iraqi security forces will start assuming full responsibility for some provinces and cities next month, beginning a process leading to the eventual withdrawal of all coalition forces.

The U.S. military official estimated that provisional control could be handed over to local governors in the relatively peaceful provinces of Najaf, Karbala and Babil by the fall.

But he said Baghdad would probably be transferred by the end of the year.

Al-Maliki said last week during a visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that "responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security" would be transferred to Iraqi control by December -- with Iraqi forces taking control of all 18 provinces within 18 months.

The prime minister said two of Iraq's most violent provinces, Baghdad and Anbar, would be the last where coalition forces maintain control.

Handing over control of provinces does not necessarily mean the Americans would pull out entirely.

Instead, the U.S. official said it means the provincial governor would have control, and Iraqi civilian police would be the first to respond.

U.S.-led coalition forces would only nominally intervene following a request from Iraqi officials.

He stressed that such a handover should not be equated with withdrawal or a timetable for the departure of foreign forces, but was part of an established plan to gradually give control to Iraqi security services "as conditions allow."

That would fit in with the overall strategy so far.

American and international forces hand over security control for specific regions and redeploy to larger bases -- where they can act in a support or reserve role.

A final future stage would involve the drawdown of troops from those bases.

President Bush and Blair refused on Thursday to set a timetable for withdrawal of their troops, although British officials have said most coalition forces could be withdrawn by 2010.

"Republican Senate still endures"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, May 28, 2006

If the presumed state Democratic ticket of Eliot Spitzer for governor and David Paterson for lieutenant governor were a dog, it would be a puppy with two heads and no tail to wag.

Both are strong, if not competing, personalities and it is a little surprising how independent David Paterson appears to be.

The Senate minority leader has his own campaign offices that don't even mention Spitzer on the marquee, and he's taken a position on a key issue like the death penalty that is the opposite of Spitzer's.

Paterson is against it.

Word is, this is not proving to be an easy marriage.

There are stresses.

How that manifests itself, if at all, will be one of the many curiosities to look for during the intensely political week ahead, with state conventions in Buffalo for the Democrats and Long Island for the Republicans.

The featured event in the two-day GOP fandango is the expected mud wrestle between William Weld and John Faso to decide who gets to lose to Spitzer-Paterson in November.

The mud will surely fly in Garden City, and stick as much to the handlers and supporters of the two as to the candidates themselves.

Not so far behind the scenes, Governor Pataki has been cuddling up to Weld while Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is seemingly inclined toward bolstering Faso.

Upstater Faso appears to have the momentum going in.

Although the convention is about endorsing a total ticket, Bruno's main focus and intense preoccupation remains keeping a Republican Senate majority.

A contrast to what we're seeing from David Paterson.

Paterson may give the best sound bite of any state legislator.

He is funny, articulate and as bright as they come.

But the knock on him from his own conference members is that he has not been a particularly effective leader in mobilizing resources to unseat vulnerable majority members.

And, that Patterson's considerable talents have been conspicuously recentered toward self-promotion and advancing his own agenda.

Regardless of how valid those criticisms might be, just how realistic is it for the Democrats to achieve their anticipated "historic inevitability" and take the Senate majority this year?

After all, 47 percent of New Yorkers are enrolled Democrats, and only 27 percent are Republicans.

Both of our U.S. senators are Democrats, and both our congressional delegation and state Assembly are heavily Democratic, roughly reflecting those enrollment proportions.

Yet the state Senate is controlled 35 to 27 by Republicans, and it has been ruled by a Republican majority continuously since 1939.

That's a national record.

Now, up to 1958, there were more enrolled Republicans in this state than Democrats, so early on, it figured.

But since then, enrollments have gone dramatically the other way.

So how do the Republicans do it?

By drawing themselves very favorable redistricting lines after each census.

By carefully selecting candidates tailored to each district.

Ultimately, every election is one against one.

Also, by sending the pork back to those districts and campaigning like maniacs.

And when it comes to fiendish campaigning and mustering party discipline, nobody is better at it than Joe Bruno.

So at this juncture, the chances of the Republicans losing the Senate appear slim to none.

"Historic inevitability" will have to wait for another election cycle or two, when the Democrats get their own focus back and want it badly enough.

Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

And checking in ....

On things in IRAQINAM ....

Before we close out for the evening in here ....

We have ....

"Sunni Arab tribal chief murdered in Iraq"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press
Last updated: 3:55 p.m., Sunday, May 28, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A tribal chief who challenged Iraq's most feared terrorist and sent fighters to help U.S. troops battle al-Qaida in western Iraq died in a hail of bullets Sunday -- the latest victim of an apparent insurgent campaign against Sunni Arabs who work with Americans.

The prime minister, meanwhile, was frustrated again in trying to fill key security posts, and his spokesman hinted at a deadline if the impasse continued.

Nouri al-Maliki is trying to get Shiite and Sunni politicians to agree on candidates who are independent and not tied to sectarian militias.

Shootings and bombings killed nine people and wounded 35 across the country Sunday, and the bodies of at least 10 more people were found in Baghdad, possible victims of the sectarian bloodshed tearing at Iraq.

The most significant killing involved Sheik Osama al-Jadaan, who was ambushed by gunmen as he was being driven in Baghdad's Mansour district, a predominantly Sunni Arab area.

Al-Jadaan's driver and one of his bodyguards also were killed, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said.

Al-Jadaan was a leader of the Karabila tribe, which has thousands of members in Anbar province, an insurgent hotbed stretching from west of Baghdad to the Syrian border.

He had announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help security forces track down al-Qaida members and foreign fighters.

U.S. troops also raised a scout force from al-Jadaan's followers known as the "Desert Protectors" to help find insurgents living under the protection of a rival tribe in Qaim and a cluster of nearby towns in Anbar.

U.S. officials described the area as a staging ground for smuggling weapons, ammunition and fighters into Iraq.

Al-Jadaan claimed in March that his people had captured hundreds of foreign fighters and handed them over to authorities.

He also issued a warning to al-Qaida in Iraq's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is blamed for many of the country's worst terror bombings.

"Under my leadership and that of our brothers in other tribes, we are getting close to the shelter of this terrorist," al-Jadaan said.

"We will capture him soon."

The drive, dubbed Operation Tribal Chivalry, was designed to secure Iraq's borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to prevent foreign fighters from sneaking in.

Anti-American sentiments have been strong in Anbar since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, which was dominated by the Sunni Arab minority.

But relations between Anbar locals and foreign fighters soured when the outsiders started killing Iraqis suspected of having links to the Americans or even those holding government jobs.

The rift worsened with a wave of assassinations and bombings that killed dozens of Anbar residents after tribal and religious leaders, former army officers and ordinary Iraqis met with U.S. officers to discuss what could be done to speed the withdrawal of the U.S.-led military coalition.

A suicide bombing Jan. 5 aimed at a line of police recruits in the Anbar city of Ramadi killed at least 58 people, including U.S. soldiers.

Stunned city residents turned on al-Qaida, and al-Jadaan announced his agreement with Iraq's government to help with security.

U.S. officials hope Iraqis will be able to take on more security duties soon, allowing American forces to begin pulling out.

But a week after al-Maliki's unity government took office, Iraq's ethnic, sectarian and secular parties are struggling to agree on who should run the crucial interior and defense ministries, which control the various Iraqi security forces.

The continued impasse dashed hopes that al-Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shiite majority, could swear in the two new ministers when the 275-member parliament convened Sunday after a four-day recess.

Al-Maliki's spokesman, Yassin Majid, said if negotiations took much longer, the prime minister would ask the political blocs to present three names for each ministry so he could decide.

"There is no deadline for that, but it could happen this week," Majid said.

Hassan al-Sineid, a Shiite legislator who belongs to al-Maliki's Dawa Party, said that step might come by Wednesday.

Sunni Arab lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq emphasized the importance of finding neutral parties to fill the posts.

"It is very important that the persons who take over should be independent and bold figures" who will resist pressure from their own political blocs, he said.

The Shiite-dominated interior ministry, which controls the police forces, has been promised to that community.

Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry, overseeing the army.

It is hoped the balance will enable al-Maliki to move ahead with a plan for Iraqis to take on all security duties over the next 18 months.

He wants to try to attract army recruits from among the Sunni Arab minority, which provides the core of the insurgency.

The sectarian divisions have proved a daunting problem for Iraq's politicians.

In an indication of the problem, legislators apparently held a stormy closed-door session Sunday arguing over parliament's Sunni Arab speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

The Shiite and Kurdish coalitions want parliamentary rules changed to require al-Mashhadani to consult with his Shiite and Kurdish deputy speakers before making any decisions, even though his post has little real power.

Sunnis staunchly opposed the demand.

I think "THE MESSAGE" .....

From George W. Bush ...

The erstwhile PRINCE OF PEACE ...

Sent down ....

By a loving god ...

According to George's sycophants ....

And press poodles ....

To be the shepard of all peoples ...

And all races ...

And all nationalities ...

And all nations ...

Even those of the dogs and cats ....

Down here in this earth of ours ....

I think his MESSAGE ....

This BUSHONIAN PROMISE OF LIBERTY ....

Has even reached Kabul ....

And so ....

"Riot erupts after Kabul traffic accident"

By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:56 a.m., Monday, May 29, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A deadly traffic accident involving U.S. troops sparked a riot in the Afghan capital on Monday, with U.S. and Afghan security forces firing on protesters, police and witnesses said.

At least four people were killed.

Hundreds of protesters marched on palace of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai in the city center after the incident, shouting "Death to Karzai! Death to America!"

Gunfire was also heard near the U.S. Embassy.

The staff was moved to a secure location within the heavily fortified compound, said Chris Harris, an embassy spokesman.

Rioters broke into shops and stole household items, and an AP reporter said he saw several demonstrators pull a foreign man from a vehicle and beat him.

The man escaped and ran to a line of police, who fired shots over the heads of the demonstrators.

Afghan troops deployed around Kabul, and two tanks of NATO peacekeepers drove at high speed through the city center.

Rioters smashed police guard boxes and set fire to police cars.

Witnesses said the incident began when a convoy of at least three U.S. Humvees came into the city from the outskirts and hit several civilian cars in rush-hour traffic jam.

"The American convoy hit all the vehicles which were in their way."

"They didn't care about the civilians at all," said Mohammad Wali, 21, a shopkeeper.

Three people were killed and 16 wounded in the crash, said Sher Shah Usafi, a Kabul police chief.

U.S. forces then fired on the crowd, killing one person and wounding two, he said.

A commander with the city's traffic police who was at the scene said he also saw U.S. forces firing on protesters.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, confirmed U.S. troops were involved in the accident but said the military had "no indication that U.S. forces fired any shots."

He said an investigation was continuing.

Associated Press TV footage showed hundreds of angry young men hurling rocks at what appeared to be three U.S. military trucks and three Humvees as they sped from the area after the crash, their windscreens cracked by the stones.

A center-mounted machine gun on one of the Humvees was seen firing into the air over the crowd as the vehicle sped away.

The video footage also showed an Afghan man apparently hurt in the riots lying on the ground, being comforted by others around him.

An AP reporter at the scene said he saw about 10 Afghan police firing into a crowd of about 50 demonstrators, and that U.S. troops had already left the area.

The protesters scattered when the firing erupted, but later regrouped.

Two helicopters belonging to a NATO-led peacekeeping force hovered over the area.

Phones in Kabul were only working sporadically.

Repeated attempts to get through to the city's hospitals to get the latest casualty toll from the unrest were unsuccessful.

State television cut transmission of a live broadcast of parliament when one angry lawmaker interrupted the proceedings to protest the incident.

"I have seen the incident."

"... I come from that area and I have to tell you," Taj Mohammed Mujahid shouted before the house speaker ruled him out of order and the screen went black.

Transmission resumed minutes later and parliamentary speaker Yunus Qanooni called for calm.

"We call on the people to be tolerant because there is the risk this could be exploited by our enemies," he said, referring to Taliban rebels who are waging a fierce insurgency in the country's southern and eastern regions.

He said the Cabinet was discussing the matter.

Afghans often complain about what they call the aggressive driving tactics of the U.S. military.

Convoys often pass through crowded areas at high speeds and sometimes disregard road rules.

The U.S. military says such tactics are necessary to protect the troops from attack.

------

Associated Press correspondents Amir Shah, Daniel Cooney and Edward Harris contributed to this report.

end quotes

Ah, yes ...

Each day ...

"THE MESSAGE" reaches more and more ...

Hearts and minds .....

All across the world .....

"AMERICA IS A THUG" .....

"AMERICA IS A THUG" .....

"AMERICA IS A THUG" .....

"AMERICA IS A THUG" .....

Ad infinitum .....

Ah, yes ...

"THE MESSAGE" .....

"Iraq poised to become main Iranian ally"

By TAREK AL-ISSAWI, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:22 a.m., Monday, May 29, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran -- To Iran's west lies a natural ally and perhaps its most potent weapon in the international fray over its nuclear program.

While Iran and Iraq were arch enemies during the rule of Saddam Hussein, all signs point to an increasingly robust relationship now that Shiites have achieved a dominant role in the Iraqi leadership.

It's a bond that has yet to reach its potential -- in large part because the U.S.-led invasion is responsible for Iraqi Shiites being at the top of the political heap for the first time in modern history.

Iraqi Shiites are not looking the gift horse in the mouth.

But Iran and Iraq share a Shiite Muslim majority and deep cultural and historic ties, and Tehran's influence over its neighbor is growing.

Iran will likely try to use Iraq as a battleground if the United States punishes Tehran economically or militarily, analysts say.

Many key positions in the Iraqi government now are occupied by men who took refuge in Iran to avoid oppression by the Saddam's former Sunni Muslim-dominated Baathist regime.

Iraq's powerful militias, meanwhile, have strong ties to Iran and have deeply infiltrated Iraqi security forces.

They can be expected to side with Iran if the West should attack, said Paul Ingram of the British American Security Information Council.

"Iran has ties with Iraq which have not been mobilized as they could have been," Ingram said.

"The militias based in Iraq received much of their training from Iran and they have not taken any instructions yet."

The Mahdi Army, loyal to firebrand anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, both have significant links to Iran.

The latter group is led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the turbaned pro-Iranian cleric who headed the Shiite ticket that won Iraq's national elections in January.

If Iran is attacked, "Iraqi Shiites will not take this lightly."

"They will not sit and watch," said Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based analyst.

Iran's reach in Iraq goes well beyond the links to the powerful armed groups.

After the U.S.-led invasion three years ago, the Iranian government quickly dispatched medical, humanitarian and religious assistance, especially to the predominantly Shiite cities in southern Iraq.

Iran now is waiting for its investment in Iraq to accrue interest.

"Iran has a clear strategic depth in Iraq and there is an alliance between Iran and the upcoming Iraqi powers," said Iranian political analyst Mashallah Shamsolvaezin.

"Iran hasn't utilized that option yet and it's a card that will be very influential."

But Iraqi Shiites, dependent on American military power to keep their country from spiraling into chaos, are in no hurry to confront the United States over Iran.

"The Shiite political class in Iraq believes that if they generally cooperate with the U.S. and Britain, eventually they will withdraw and leave the Shiites in power," asked Juan Cole, a Middle East political analyst at the University of Michigan.

"So far things have worked out wonderfully."

"Why rock the boat?"

Still, Iran got a boost last week when Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Tehran had the right to peaceful nuclear research -- a stance that ran counter to U.S. efforts to force Iran to stop all nuclear activities amid fears it is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

Zebari's comments came during a visit by his Iranian counterpart, the second high-level visit by an Iranian delegation since Saddam was ousted in April 2003.

The United States has acknowledged Iran's influence in Iraq, publicly calling for talks between Iranian officials and Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington's ambassador to Baghdad.

The Iranians, after initially warming to the possibility, have now declined, claiming the U.S. wants to expand the discussions beyond the mutual interest in Iraq to include the nuclear dispute.

The talks would be the most public bilateral exchanges between the United States and Iran since soon after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

With Tehran's Taliban enemy no longer ruling Afghanistan to the east and with Saddam gone in the west, Iran is seeking to assert its regional muscle and wants the international community to accept that role -- including the right to develop its nuclear program for what it says are peaceful purposes.

Iran has serious concerns over the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and also looks to the Persian Gulf with unease because of the vast American military presence there.

Iran views the Gulf as its sphere of influence and sees the American military presence as both a potential military threat and an attempt to control the region's vast oil resources.

Compounding the nuclear dispute with Iran is the U.S. memory of the Islamic revolution in 1979 and the subsequent crisis after Iranians took over the American Embassy and held hostages there for 444 days.

Both issues have left the West eager to contain Iranian influence.

"Gen. Pace: Wait for probe of Iraq deaths"

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:35 p.m., Monday, May 29, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday "it would be premature for me to judge" the outcome of a Pentagon investigation into the killing of as many as a dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines.

But at the same time, Marine Gen. Peter Pace said he believes its critically important to make the point that if certain service members are responsible for an atrocity there, they "have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have."

Interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show" as the nation observed Memorial Day honoring men and women lost in war, Pace pledged that "we'll get to the bottom of the investigation and take the appropriate action."

Pace's interview came a day after Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Marine war veteran and prominent critic of Iraq policy, said the incident could undermine U.S. efforts there more than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did.

Murtha, D-Pa., also charged that the shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered up.

"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said Sunday on "This Week" on ABC.

"We don't know how far it goes."

"It goes right up the chain of command."

A bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.

Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Murtha, who has been briefed by officials.

Iraqis who identified themselves as survivors of the killings described Marines shooting to death 19 people in three homes, among them a 77-year-old man in a wheelchair and a 4-year-old boy in one home and five children, ages 3 to 14, in another home, The New York Times reported Monday.

Those interviewed for the New York Times story said the men killed in the taxi were four students and the driver, all between the ages of 18 and 25.

In one of the homes, according to the people interviewed for the story, Marines forced all the women to leave and then killed the four brothers they had detained.

One of the Marines in Haditha that day, Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones of Hanford, Calif., told the Los Angeles Times that he took photos and carried out bodies as part of a cleanup crew dispatched to the homes after the shootings.

He said he did not witness their deaths.

"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females."

"I'll never be able to get that out of my head."

"I can still smell the blood."

"This left something in my head and heart," Briones, 21, told the Los Angeles Times for a story published Monday.

Murtha said Sunday that high-level reports he received indicated that no one fired upon the Marines or that there was any military action against the U.S. forces after the initial explosion.

Yet the deaths were not seriously investigated until March because an early probe was stifled within days of the incident, he said.

Said Pace on Monday:

"This investigation is ongoing."

"It would be premature for me to judge the outcome."

Asked how such a thing could have happened, he replied, "Fortunately, it does not happen very frequently, so there's no way to say historically why something like this might have happened."

"We'll find out."

Pace's predecessor, retired Gen. Richard Myers, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that he had "no idea" what happened but that there "has been and there is an ongoing, thorough investigation."

Murtha repeated his view that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily and needs political solutions, which he said were damaged by such incidents involving the U.S.

"This is the kind of war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people," he said.

"And we're set back every time something like this happens."

"This is worse than Abu Ghraib."

The U.S. effort to win over Iraqis and others in the Arab world by fostering a democratic government was severely damaged when it was revealed that U.S. military personnel had abused and humiliated people held at Abu Ghraib, a prison outside of Baghdad.

The incident at Haditha has sparked two investigations -- one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether Marines sought to cover up what actually occurred and, in doing so, lied about having killed civilians without justification.

A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press on Friday that evidence gathered so far strongly indicated that the Haditha killings were unjustified.

Early this year, a videotape of the aftermath of the incident, showing the bodies of women and children, was obtained by Time magazine and Arab television stations.

The military then undertook another investigation.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into the shootings is not expected to be completed earlier than in June.

Whether violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including murder, would be pursued would be determined by a senior Marine commander in Iraq.

The NCIS also is conducting a criminal investigation into another incident, the death of an Iraqi civilian on April 26, involving Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad.

And now ...

Once again ...

For something completely different ....

We have ....

"A new view of a storied location - Platform offers vantage point to see cave made famous by author"

By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Monday, May 29, 2006

SOUTH GLENS FALLS -- After five years of planning and construction, the Cooper's Cave viewing platform is open to the public.

The gate blocking the pedestrian bridge to the platform was unlocked at 8 a.m. Saturday and people trickled in throughout the day, checking out one of the area's most famous spots.

The cave, a narrow limestone opening in the Hudson River gorge, is the famed hiding place of sisters Cora and Alice Munro in the James Fenimore Cooper novel "The Last of the Mohicans."

The site is located underneath the bridge that connects the village of South Glens Falls to the city of Glens Falls.

The viewing platform and pedestrian bridge were completed in November 2004, said South Glens Falls Mayor Robert Phinney, but the village had to wait for land easements to be approved before the site could be open to the public.

Christopher and Jennifer McDonald, a couple from Key West, Fla., driving up the East Coast on their honeymoon, went looking for the site after locals told them that it opened Saturday.

Staring out over the limestone ledge under which the cave is located, Christopher McDonald said the rock formations were unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

The couple had seen the 1992 film "The Last of the Mohicans," based on Cooper's book, which starred Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe, and were interested in seeing what the real cave looked like.

"To see what was actually being talked about makes it easier to relate," Christopher McDonald said.

"To see what they were actually talking about adds clarity."

Visitors get to the platform across a footbridge constructed of synthetic materials made to look like wooden planks.

Once across, they can read placards about the different bridges that spanned the Hudson there, the characters in the book and other aspects of the spot.

From the platform, visitors look down toward the river through metal bars to see the cave.

While McDonald said it gave him perspective, Angel Garcia and his daughter Nikki Garcia were disappointed.

"Usually when you visit a cave, you can go into it."

"This is it?" Garcia asked, looking around at the platform.

"This is isn't much to see."

The Queens man and his family were vacationing in Lake George and found out about the site on a brochure.

Nikki Garcia, 22, expected to see the rushing waterfall from the movie, she said, not a hydroelectric plant spewing water into the river.

Phinney said the platform is as close as tourists will ever get to the cave.

"For years there was a spiral staircase that went down into Coopers' Cave and people loved to go down and see it," Phinney said.

"But the state discontinued that because of liability."

Still, he's confident that the Cooper's Cave tourist area will attract visitors from all over.

Since the platform and bridge were completed in November 2004, 10 tour groups have come to check out the site with special permission.

The site is part of a larger $186,000 project, Phinney said, which will include the paving of all the roads and the parking lot leading to the platform and the addition of sidewalks when it is completed later this fall.

A walkway will also be installed heading south from the Cooper's Cave site, along the Betar Byway to the South Glens Falls Historic Park.

A picnic area will be added to the park.

Kate Perry can be reached at 454-5420 or by e-mail at kperry@timesunion.com.

What: Cooper's Cave

Where: South side of Route 9 bridge over the Hudson River between Glens Falls and South Glens Falls

Hours: 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend

Admission: Free

Directions: I-87 north to Exit 17N, go north on Route 9, bear left onto Main Street in South Glens Falls.

Turn left at the light just before the bridge. Parking lot is on the right.

Info: http://www.sgfny.com/ and click on Cooper's Cave

"Defying Spitzer juggernaut, Suozzi soldiers on"

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press
Last updated: 11:36 a.m., Monday, May 29, 2006

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- When Eliot Spitzer arrives here Tuesday to claim the endorsement of the state Democratic convention, it will be just one stop on what has so far been a glide path to the party's nomination for governor.

But for his primary opponent, Tom Suozzi, the Buffalo gathering will be just the latest repudiation in his effort to transform the Spitzer coronation into something resembling a real race.

Three months after announcing his underdog candidacy, Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, remains little more than a speed bump beneath the Spitzer juggernaut.

Recent polls show Suozzi with about 12 percent support among Democratic voters, a number that has barely budged despite a rigorous schedule of campaign appearances and a substantial statewide television ad buy in March.

A dynamic speaker with a thorough command of public policy, Suozzi so far has simply been unable to shake up the dynamics of the race.

But it hasn't been for lack of trying.

He has laid out detailed plans to reduce property taxes, bolster the upstate economy and combat Medicaid fraud, and has challenged Spitzer to do the same.

But Spitzer, the state attorney general who leads Suozzi by as much as 60 percent in some polls, has steadfastly refused to engage.

Suozzi has also called for twice-monthly debates, but Spitzer has so far agreed to just one, in late July.

That prompted Suozzi to engage in a bit of campaign theatrics, traveling to Fort Ticonderoga earlier this month to debate the proverbial empty chair.

A self-described political outsider, Suozzi has tried to paint Spitzer as a hidebound creature of Albany who'd be unable to stare down the Capitol's power brokers.

To that end, Suozzi has even called on the state's top lawmakers -- Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican Senate President Joe Bruno -- to resign, a move Silver dismissed as the rantings of a "desperate candidate."

Recently, Suozzi's own reformer credentials have been challenged by allegations by a former aide who said he did political work for Suozzi while on the Nassau County payroll.

And last week, amid an uproar from commuters and editorial boards, Suozzi sought to backtrack on a proposal to charge motorists an extra fee to drive on congested highways during peak hours.

The experience has proved a frustrating challenge for Suozzi, who, with almost no statewide name recognition and no real base outside Nassau County, must somehow persuade a majority of Democratic voters to come his way.

"I'm getting crushed," Suozzi conceded in a recent interview, while insisting he will stay in the race through the Sept. 12 primary.

To hear him tell it, the campaign has gone much as he had expected when he made the audacious decision to challenge Spitzer, whose high-profile investigations of corporate corruption have made him a towering figure in New York and nationally.

"I'm running against someone who has become very well known over the last five years or so, and who people think has done a lot of good things," Suozzi said.

"My job is to become better known."

To do that, Suozzi needs to finance a statewide television ad campaign to boost his profile in the weeks before the primary.

In January, he reported about $5 million in the bank, but his March ad buy depleted much of that.

Spitzer reported $19 million on hand in January.

Much of Suozzi's money came from friends and associates of Ken Langone, the billionaire founder of Home Depot whom Spitzer sued as part of the compensation controversy involving former New York Stock Exchange chief executive Richard A. Grasso.

Langone was one of several anti-Spitzer business leaders who'd been expected to contribute generously to Suozzi's campaign.

Candidates aren't required to file another financial disclosure until July 15, and Suozzi refuses to discuss the state of his fundraising until then.

At the heart of Suozzi's message are his credentials as a manager and zeal for government reform.

In 2002, with a $105 million bailout from Albany, he engineering a near-miraculous turnaround in Nassau County, which had been labeled the nation's "worst run" county in a Syracuse University study.

His 2004 "Fix Albany" campaign, which demanded greater accountability from state government, helped force legislators to enact several reforms and helped defeat two incumbent lawmakers.

The lingering fallout of that effort, on top of his campaign to topple Spitzer, has left Suozzi with few friends among establishment Democrats.

And while Suozzi touts that as an asset, many observers believe it could wound him if he runs for another office in the future.

But former state Democratic Party chairman John Marino, a Spitzer supporter, said doesn't foresee that as a serious problem.

"You make enemies in this business, but attractive candidates like Tom Suozzi have the ability to come back," Marino said.

"No one is rooting for Tom to be destroyed by this race."

"He's a good guy, and has a great record."

Barred from party rules from addressing the Democratic convention since he has not won the support of 25 percent of the delegates, Suozzi will instead host a rally outside the gathering, ostensibly to draw attention to his outsider status.

His campaign must now secure 15,000 valid signatures to place his name on the ballot.

For his part, Suozzi says that if he loses, he will complete his term as county executive and return to private life.

He says he has no political plans beyond his current, excruciating quest.

"I'm running to help make life better for ordinary New Yorkers," Suozzi said.

"If I win, it'll be great."

"And if I lose, it'll be really, really bad."

http://www.tomsuozzi.com

end quotes

For those of us who live upstate ...

It will be really, really bad ...

If Eliot Spitzer ...

WHO IS SOFT ON GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION ....

Wins ...

And so .....

Today is supposed to be Memorial Day ....

Or so they say, anyway ....

And as a disabled combat veteran ...

It was my habit to march on Memorial Day ....

In my suit and tie ....

And usually I would carry the folded American flag ....

As I marched with my veterans' group ....

But not this year ....

No marching for me this year ...

For a lot of reasons, I suppose ...

Including the cost of gas ....

Which has become a luxury item for me, anyway ....

But chiefly ...

I would say ...

That I did not march this year ....

Because George W. Bush has put such a stink on the American flag ....

That I did not want it touching my hand ....

Or coming anywhere near me today ....

As I think on those I knew from Viet Nam ....

Who got their chance ....

To DIE FOR THE BIG LIE, back then ...

And I also did not march today ...

Because George W. Bush ...

Has put such a stink on being an American soldier ....

That today ...

I wanted no part in being remembered as one ....

Nor did I feel inclined to heed George W. Bush's PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE ....

That I have to honor his veterans ...

Of his wars of aggression ....

And perversion ......

And beastiality ......

And so ....

George says its either his way ...

Or the highway ...

And me ..

Well ....

To HELL with George ....

I took the highway ...

And just stayed home ...

And so ....

"Bush gets more bad news from Iraq"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
Last updated: 6:15 p.m., Monday, May 29, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Just when President Bush was trying to accentuate the positive in Iraq and declare a new beginning in the war on terror, a rash of bad news comes from multiple fronts in the global struggle.

New details are emerging in the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians at the hands of Marines.

Anti-American protesters are staging riots in Afghanistan after a U.S. military convoy rammed into several civilian cars.

And a reported 75 military detainees at Guantanamo Bay are on a hunger strike to protest their continued imprisonment without charges.

Add the trouble to the continuing daily violence in Iraq -- at least 40 were killed in a series of bombings Monday, including two from a CBS News crew -- and Bush could be in danger of losing even more support for his mission.

Bush has tried to keep the nation behind him with repeated talk about the importance of defeating the terrorists abroad so they cannot attack the United States again.

He has expressed confidence that the U.S. will prevail and spread democracy.

And he has acknowledged costly mistakes along the way.

In the past week, Bush has spoken about a new chapter in the nation's relationship with Iraq since a new government has taken control.

But that hasn't kept the violence and unrest out of the headlines every day, and some in the White House have been arguing that he needs to do more to push back.

His public relations blitzes on the war have helped build support in the past, according to public opinion polls taken before and after his campaigns.

At a press conference last week, Bush said the war has featured personal mistakes -- specifically his "tough talk" about capturing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" and challenging U.S. foes to "bring it on."

And he said the worst mistake the country has made in Iraq was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

"We've been paying for that for a long period of time," Bush said.

He has not yet commented publicly on an incident in Iraq that Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Marine war veteran and prominent critic of Iraq policy, has contended could undermine U.S. efforts there even more than Abu Ghraib did.

Murtha, D-Pa., has spoken critically about reports that Marines killed two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, last November in Haditha, a city western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents.

The congressman also believes that the deaths were initially covered up by the military.

The killings came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.

Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into homes and shot other people, according to Murtha, who has been briefed by officials.

The Pentagon is investigating the deaths in Haditha, along with the events in Afghanistan that sparked rioting there Monday.

Witnesses said the incident began when a convoy of at least three U.S. Humvees came into the city from the outskirts, then rammed into a rush-hour traffic jam, hitting several civilian cars.

There were disputes about the number of deaths, but at least one person died.

The crash sparked a riot by dozens of stone-throwing Afghans who shouted "Down with America."

Witnesses said U.S. forces then fired on the crowd, and the violence escalated.

Hundreds of Afghan army troops and NATO peacekeepers in tanks were deployed around the city, as chanting protesters marched on the presidential palace and rioters smashed police guard boxes, set fire to police cars and ransacked buildings.

The military also is dealing with defiant prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who are trying to draw attention to the fact that some have been held for up to 4 1/2 years without charges and with little contact with the outside world.

The U.S. military holds about 460 men at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Human rights groups say many innocent people have been swept up in the Bush administration's war on terrorism and sent to the prison at the Cuban base in Guantanamo Bay, with no end in sight to their incarceration.

Only 10 of the detainees have been charged with crimes.

Their military trials, the first held by the United States since the World War II era, are set to begin within months.

The Supreme Court, however, is expected to rule in June on whether Bush overstepped his authority by ordering war-crimes trials for some of those held at Guantanamo Bay.

------

EDITOR'S NOTE: Nedra Pickler covers the White House for The Associated Press.

------

On the Net:

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

And the SPITZER JUGGERNAUGHT rolls on ....

"Spitzer's dreams are coming true - On eve of all-but-certain nomination for governor, he gets a boat ride that was denied 40 years ago"

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

First published: Tuesday, May 30, 2006

BUFFALO -- On the eve of his anointment by fellow Democrats as their standard-bearer this fall, gubernatorial front-runner Eliot Spitzer fulfilled a childhood dream and also picked a fight with the Pataki administration.

The state attorney general arrived Monday afternoon in Buffalo, where Democrats are poised to make him their designated candidate for governor today at the party's state convention.

Spitzer kicked off the first leg of his statewide convention bus tour by traveling from Buffalo Niagara International Airport to Niagara Falls, where he rode the Maid of the Mist -- the iconic boat that brings visitors to the foot of the falls to be drenched by its spray.

Before the ride -- an experience Spitzer said he was denied when he first visited the falls with his parents as a little boy because he didn't meet the boat's height requirement -- the attorney general sat for several television interviews in the airport parking lot.

During one interview, Spitzer took a shot at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which has been charged with rebuilding ground zero -- the signature project of the outgoing Pataki administration.

Spitzer called the LMDC "an abject failure" for its lack of progress since Sept. 11, and compared it to an "Enron-style debacle."

"I don't know where they have been, what they've been doing, or what they've been up to," Spitzer said, adding that the LMDC's failings are due to "a complete lack of leadership."

Spitzer has been critical of the LMDC before, but these comments went further than his previous statements, according to a campaign aide.

David Catalfamo, communications director for Gov. George Pataki, interpreted Spitzer's words as an attack on former LMDC board Chairman John Whitehead, a former Wall Street executive and U.S. Navy veteran with whom Spitzer has a contentious history.

"On the day our nation set aside to honor our heroes, Eliot Spitzer continued his ill-conceived personal vendetta against John Whitehead," Catalfamo said.

"A petulant vendetta based in trying to silence the very freedom of expression that John Whitehead fought to preserve on the beaches of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Normandy."

Whitehead, who stepped down from his LMDC post earlier this month, wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal last winter in which he accused Spitzer of threatening him by telephone eight months earlier.

Whitehead, who said he took notes on the conversation but did not tape it, claims Spitzer told him:

"I will be coming after you."

"You will pay the price," for publicly criticizing Spitzer's investigation of a Whitehead ally, insurance magnate Maurice Greenberg.

Spitzer has repeatedly denied making that statement to Whitehead, which Republicans seized on as an example that the attorney general does not have the disposition to be governor.

Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat mounting a long-shot primary challenge to Spitzer, also criticized the attorney general for "blaming the LMDC for the problems at ground zero" without suggesting solutions of his own.

Suozzi said this is indicative of Spitzer's style of politics, which, the county executive said, "could best be described as 'attack first, offer ideas later -- much later.' "

Spitzer campaign spokeswoman Christine Anderson said the attorney general's comments were not necessarily targeted at any one person, but "about a systematic failure that can only be solved by leadership from the top."

By contrast, Spitzer's Niagara Falls visit was controversy-free and full of photo ops.

Joined by his wife, Silda Wall; 12-year-old daughter, Jenna; as well as his mother and father and his running mate, Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, Spitzer donned a rain jacket, traded his black leather dress shoes for worn Nikes and eagerly boarded the Maid of the Mist.

Later, his wet hair sticking to his balding pate, Spitzer, 46, proclaimed the ride "awesome," adding:

"I waited 40 years to go on that trip."

His mother, Anne Spitzer, confirmed her son had been very upset by the missed boat trip all those years ago.

"He cried and cried," she said.

Spitzer, who traded his usual suit and tie for an open-necked red golf shirt, khakis and a blue blazer, appeared relaxed.

He joked with reporters who followed his every move Monday and professed not to be nervous about the acceptance speech he's slated to deliver today.

Even the sparse turnout at a rally held adjacent to the falls did not appear to jar Spitzer, who gave a consolidated version of a stump speech that focuses on reform and returning hope, jobs and energy to New York, as confused tourists looked on.

"We're tired of hearing people say it can't be done," Spitzer said.

"There's nothing worse than defeatism."

"There's nothing worse than people who say: It can't be changed, our day has come and gone."

"... To anybody who says it can't be done, I say, 'You are not a true New Yorker at heart."

"True New Yorkers at heart never give up.' "

Spitzer got a more enthusiastic reception at the day's final rally at Dunn Tire Park, a downtown Buffalo baseball stadium, which was packed with hundreds of supporters, convention delegates and not a few lobbyists who had made the trip from Albany.

What kind of a nation ....

Makes such a loser ....

As George W. Bush ....

Its leader?

"Parents: Iraqi deaths traumatized Marines"

By JUSTIN M. NORTON, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:45 a.m., Tuesday, May 30, 2006

HANFORD, Calif. -- Family members of two Marines say their sons were ordered to photograph and clean up corpses of unarmed Iraqi civilians that members of their unit are suspected of killing, and they have been traumatized ever since.

In separate interviews with The Associated Press on Monday, the parents of Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21, said their sons told them the events of last November remain seared in their memories.

Wright and Briones were members of a Marine unit based at Camp Pendleton that was sent into the western Iraqi city of Haditha to help remove the bodies of as many as two dozen Iraqis, including women and children, who were shot.

While there, the two were ordered to photograph the scene with personal cameras they happened to be carrying the day of the attack, the families said.

Briones' mother, Susie, said her son told her he saw the bodies of 23 dead Iraqis that day.

"It was horrific."

"It was a terrible scene," Susie Briones said in a tearful interview at her home in California's San Joaquin Valley.

Navy investigators confiscated Briones' camera, his mother said.

Wright's parents, Patty and Frederick Wright of Novato, declined to comment on what might have happened to the photos their son took but said he turned over all of his information to the Navy.

"He is the Forrest Gump of the military," Frederick Wright said.

"He ended up in the spotlight through no fault of his own."

Ryan Briones told the Los Angeles Times that Navy investigators had interrogated him twice in Iraq and they wanted to know whether bodies had been tampered with.

He turned over his digital camera but did not know what happened to it after that.

Susie Briones called the Nov. 19 incident a "massacre" and said the military had done little to help her son, who goes by his middle name, deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I know Ryan is going through some major trauma right now," said Susie Briones, 40, an academic adviser at a community college.

"It was very traumatic for all of the soldiers involved with this thing."

The details of what happened in Haditha are still murky.

What is known is that a bomb rocked a military convoy and left one Marine dead.

Marines then shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot other people, according to Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials.

The incident has sparked two investigations -- one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up.

The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday on CBS's "The Early Show" that "it would be premature for me to judge" the situation.

But, he added, if certain service members are responsible for an atrocity, they "have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have."

Briones' best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, had been killed the day of the attack by the roadside bomb, his mother said.

Briones was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.

"He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."

The Wrights declined to say whether their son witnessed the killings or what he thought of the allegations against other members of his unit.

Wright and Briones are both recipients of the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in battle.

Wright was injured during an assault on Fallujah in January 2005.

He voluntarily rejoined his unit at Camp Pendleton the next month.

Briones was on his second tour of duty in Iraq.

He received a Purple Heart during his first tour.

On Monday, both Marines were back at Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, where base officials said several members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division were being confined during the investigations.

Lt. Lawton King, a Camp Pendleton spokesman, declined to comment Monday.

Sgt. Ian Moore, who was relaxing on the base Monday, said he and other Marines in the battalion were waiting to hear results from the investigations.

"A lot of these things are being played out in the court of public opinion and it's unfair on the Marines," said Moore, who spent time in Haditha on his previous tour in Iraq.

------

Associated Press writers Thomas Watkins in Camp Pendleton and Juliana Barbassa in Novato contributed to this report.

"Oil shortages hit Iraq with onset of summer heat"

by Kamal Taha

Sun May 28, 7:48 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - As Iraq's brutal summer heat sends temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), a dire shortage of petroleum products is damaging the economy and cutting electricity supplies in Baghdad to new lows.

The shortage is due to a host of reasons, including rivalries among political parties in the south, but an interior ministry spokesman said the security situation was a major cause.

"In addition to attacks on pipelines, trucks carrying petroleum products are in the sights of the rebels."

"Some gas stations had to close after their drivers refused to go pick up gasoline and other products stored in the dangerous areas around Baghdad," said Assem Jihad.

The capital has some 160 gas stations, of which half are privately run, and long lines of motorists stretch in front of those still selling gasoline.

"The daily consumption of gasoline reaches 20 million liters (five million gallons) for the country, of which six to seven million is for Baghdad," where six million people live, said Jihad.

"And supply is well below demand."

Sabotage of the oil infrastructure is also ongoing, aggravating the situation, he added, noting there had been two attacks in the past week on pipelines to the north and south of the capital.

"Two units of the Baiji refinery were closed last week and this cut production," said Jihad, who also reported a fire in the offshore terminal of Khor al-Amaya in the Gulf.

"Certain countries have stopped providing Iraq with petroleum products," he said, without elaborating, after the government halved the six billion dollars allocated to pay for imports.

An oil ministry official, however, singled out the actions of "an internal party that is trying to hinder the improvement of the supply situation".

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, was alluding to the Shiite party Fadhila, which holds 15 seats in parliament and forms part of the dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.

But it angrily walked out of talks on forming a new government after it failed to secure the oil ministry.

The party reportedly is interfering with oil supplies heading north to Baghdad, while threatening a strike action, and demanding a cut of export royalties.

Fadhila is powerful in the southern port city of Basra which dominates the drilling and export of the vast majority of Iraq's oil resources.

The party has publicly denied putting pressure of the oil ministry, which is now headed by Shiite independent Hussein Shahristani, despite reports from the southern oil-rich provinces to the contrary.

Electricity production has been affected as well by the oil shortages.

Since the US-led invasion of March 2003, Baghdad residents have always suffered from a lack of electricity, with some neighborhoods receiving power only one hour out of five.

As a result, gasoline-consuming generators are a common sight throughout the city, sometimes powering whole blocks.

With soaring temperatures sending residents scurrying to air conditioners, power consumption has risen steeply.

Many of those waiting in the long gas lines carry jerry cans for their generators rather than their cars.

The shortage is only exacerbating the hardships of the Iraqi capital's residents and increasing their criticism of the government which was only sworn in a week earlier.

But I thought we were were the world's only SUPERPOWER .....

SO ....

How come we're not SUPER?

"Study: Canadians healthier than Americans"

By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:25 p.m., Tuesday, May 30, 2006

ATLANTA -- You can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans.

Americans are 42 percent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 percent more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found.

That is according to a survey in which American and Canadian adults were asked over the telephone about their health.

The study comes less than a month after other researchers reported that middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their counterparts in England.

"We're really falling behind other nations," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the Canadian study.

Canada's national health insurance program is at least part of the reason for the differences found in the study, Woolhandler said.

Universal coverage makes it easier for more Canadians to get disease-preventing health services, she said.

James Smith, a RAND Corp. researcher who co-authored the American-English study, disagreed.

His research found that England's national health insurance program did not explain the difference in disease rates, because even Americans with insurance were in worse health.

"To me, that's unlikely," he said of the idea that universal coverage explains international differences.

Woolhandler said her findings were different in at least one important respect: In the Canadian study, insured Americans and Canadians had about the same rates of disease.

It was the uninsured Americans who made the overall U.S. figures worse, she said.

The study, released Tuesday, is being published in the American Journal of Public Health.

It is based on a telephone survey of about 3,500 Canadians and 5,200 U.S. residents in 2002-03.

Those surveyed were 18 or older.

The results are based on what those surveyed said about their health.

In contrast, the researchers in the American-English study surveyed participants and also examined people and conducted laboratory tests on them.

The new study found that 6.7 percent of Americans and 4.7 percent of Canadians reported having diabetes; 18.3 percent and 13.9 percent, respectively, reported having high blood pressure; and 17.9 percent and 16.0 percent said they had arthritis.

The Americans also reported more heart disease and major depression, but those difference were too small to be statistically significant.

About 21 percent of Americans said they were obese, compared with 15 percent of Canadians.

And about 13.5 percent of the Americans admitted to a sedentary lifestyle, versus 6.5 percent of Canadians.

However, more Canadians were smokers -- 19 percent, compared with about 17 percent of Americans.

About 42 percent of the Americans rated their quality of health care as excellent, while 39 percent of Canadians did.

Also, 92 percent of American women said they had a Pap test within the last five years, while 83 percent of Canadian women had.

But Canadians have lower death rates from cervical cancer.

"It's a little hard to interpret," Woolhandler said.

One more plus for the Americans: Fewer than 1 percent said they were unable to get needed care because of long waits, compared with 3.5 percent of Canadians.

However, about 80 percent of Americans had a regular doctor, while 85 percent of Canadians did.

And nearly twice as many Americans said there were medicines they needed but couldn't afford (9.9 percent versus 5.1 percent).

"Pentagon: Iraq insurgency steady until '07"

By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:16 p.m., Tuesday, May 30, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The Sunni Arab heart of the Iraqi insurgency seems likely to hold its strength the rest of the year, and some of its leaders are now collaborating with al-Qaida terrorists, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

In a report assessing the situation in Iraq, required quarterly by Congress, the Pentagon painted a mixed picture on a day when the U.S. military command in Baghdad said 1,500 more combat troops have arrived in the country.

The extra troops are part of an intensified effort to wrest control of the provincial capital of Ramadi from insurgents.

The report to Congress offered a relatively dim picture of economic progress, with few gains in improving basic services like electricity, and it provided no promises of U.S. troop reductions anytime soon.

On the other hand, it said the Iraqi army is gaining strength and taking lead responsibility for security in more areas.

The U.S. government has struggled for three years to understand the shadowy insurgency in Iraq, which began in the Sunni Triangle west and north of Baghdad.

In Tuesday's report, the Pentagon said the "rejectionists" who are a key element of the insurgency are holding their own against U.S. and Iraqi forces.

"MNF-I expects that rejectionist strength will likely remain steady throughout 2006, but that their appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007," the report said.

The term MNF-I refers to the Multinational Force-Iraq, the top American military command in Baghdad.

It also said for the first time that the Sunnis who reject the U.S.-based government are collaborating with al-Qaida.

"Some hardline Sunni rejectionists have joined al-Qaida in Iraq in recent months, increasing the terrorists' attack options," the report said.

It said a separate element of the insurgency that U.S. officials describe as former loyalists of the Saddam Hussein regime remains an important enabler of the violence in Iraq.

But the Saddam loyalists have "mostly splintered" into other groups.

As a result, they are now "largely irrelevant" as a threat to the fledgling Iraqi government, said Lt. Gen. Victor E. Renuart, the head of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who helped prepare the report.

The report also said that while security in much of Iraq has improved, total attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces have increased in recent months, following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

President Bush said he remained hopeful that the new Iraqi government will succeed in stabilizing the country.

"Although there's been some very difficult times for the Iraqi people, I'm impressed by the courage of the leadership, impressed by the determination of the people," Bush said Tuesday in the Oval Office during the credentialing ceremony for Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United States.

The troop move announced Tuesday involves about 1,500 soldiers from an armored brigade on standby in Kuwait and reflects a deteriorating security situation in the volatile provincial capital of Ramadi.

It raises the number of U.S. military brigades in Iraq from 15 to 16 -- just five months after the number was cut from 17 to 15.

A brigade has at least 3,500 troops.

The administration is under election-year pressure to demonstrate concrete progress in Iraq and to begin reducing U.S. troop levels at a time when the Army and Marines in particular are stretched thin by war deployments.

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq watcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Tuesday there is no clear basis for believing U.S. troop levels can be reduced anytime soon without risking further deterioration in the security situation.

He said the best measure of progress is not the number of U.S. troops in Iraq but the degree to which their role in counterinsurgency operations is assumed by Iraqis.

"I think, in honesty, that now looks a lot more like 2007 at the earliest (for) really having serious reductions in the U.S. combat role (and) being certain that the U.S. casualty levels are going down on a lasting basis and being able to reduce the costs of the war," Cordesman said in a telephone interview.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there are 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

It was not clear whether that included the 1,500 soldiers from two battalions of the 2nd brigade of the 1st Armored Division whose deployment to the Ramadi area was described as "short term" in a U.S. military statement from Baghdad.

A defense official said the two battalions were expected to be in Anbar for a maximum of four months, operating as part of a Marine force.

The official was not authorized to discuss such details and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

A third battalion from the brigade in Kuwait was sent to Baghdad in March as part of a broader plan to improve security in the capital during the formation of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's new cabinet.

That cabinet was announced and put in place more than a week ago but still lacks ministers of defense and interior, who control the Iraqi army and police.

Whitman said that battalion is still operating in the Baghdad area.

------

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

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

And starting out the day with .....

What else in this election year ....

But politics ....

"Party choice shows unity - Democrats designate Spitzer their candidate for governor as he promises extensive, rapid reform of state government"

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

First published: Wednesday, May 31, 2006

BUFFALO -- Pledging swift and far-reaching reform of state government, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Tuesday was designated the candidate for governor by an unusually united Democratic Party hungry to win back the executive mansion after nearly 12 years.

Spitzer minced no words in lambasting Albany, which he said "had stood remarkably still," causing the state's economy to stagnate as the rest of the nation, and the world, advance.

"In this campaign, we are fighting for the very soul of government; the very future of New York," Spitzer said.

"The crowd in charge in Albany is out of touch, out of ideas, and come Jan. 1, they'll be out of time."

"Because on Day One of a Spitzer administration, everything changes."

Spitzer promised to overhaul Albany with the same fervor with which he investigated the insurance and finance industries, earning him national renown as "the Sheriff of Wall Street."

Without getting into specifics, Spitzer said that if elected he will immediately focus on health care reform, property tax relief, full public education funding, revitalization of urban downtowns, investment in transportation, broadband infrastructure, energy systems, high-tech industries and assistance to small businesses.

"It's gonna be a busy first day," Spitzer joked.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver delivered the most red meat of the convention speakers, condemning the Pataki administration as "a 12-year-long plague that has sucked the life out of communities from Van Buren Point to Montauk Point."

Silver said he did not take Spitzer's remarks about Albany as an attack on him or the Assembly Democratic majority, but that the target was "clearly the second floor" of the Capitol, where the offices of Gov. George Pataki and his top staff are located.

Observers have speculated the relationship between Spitzer and Silver, who has been the state's top Democrat since he became speaker in 1994, will sour if Spitzer is elected.

But Silver said he doesn't believe that will be the case.

"As far as myself and my colleagues, we are delighted to have a partner to work with," Silver said.

"We're committed to bring about change on a number of fronts," including the budget.

"It was clear he's going to have the Legislature working, which is fine," Silver said.

David Catalfamo, Pataki's communications director, accused Spitzer of coming late to the government reform discussion, and said Silver, whose chamber has been roiled by sex and ethics scandals, is part of the problem.

"After almost eight years as Shelly Silver's silent partner in Albany, Rip Van Spitzer awoke from his slumber to talk about ethics in government," Catalfamo said.

"New York's top law enforcement official needs to look no further than across the convention hall to see his pal Speaker Silver for the most obvious source of concern."

With no opposition on the convention floor, Spitzer and his hand-picked running mate, Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, D-Harlem, were both approved by a voice vote.

Democrats were positively gleeful about the prospect of taking back the governor's mansion, which they lost after Pataki in 1994 beat former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

Given the state GOP's disarray, some Democrats are hoping for a sweep in November, which would put one party in control of state government for the first time since 1949.

"With Eliot Spitzer and (U.S. Sen.) Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket, we are going to have the biggest Democratic victory of our lifetime," said U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty, D-Green Island.

The overwhelming support sharply contrasted with Spitzer's first run for attorney general in 1994.

Without enough support at the Democratic convention to get on the ballot, he petitioned his way on, and finished last in a four-way primary.

Four years later, Spitzer received 25 percent of the convention's weighted vote, but was not its designee for attorney general.

He went on to win both a primary and a tight race in the general election against Republican Dennis C. Vacco.

At this convention, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, who is mounting a long-shot primary challenge to Spitzer, finds himself in straits similar to those Spitzer faced in 1994.

Lacking sufficient party support to get on the ballot or even address the delegates, Suozzi skipped the convention and held a rally several blocks away in downtown Buffalo.

"Down the street they're holding the clubhouse convention," Suozzi cried at a rally at which blues music and free hot dogs and soda attracted a few hundred people.

Billing himself as an underdog who shouldn't be counted out, Suozzi told the crowd he's the only candidate with the guts to challenge "the establishment."

Suozzi, who had his parents and wife, Helene, with him, said Spitzer is unlikely to really fix Albany because he's bound to the status quo and the dysfunctional government that is causing taxes to rise and the economy to fail.

He said Spitzer, underwritten by lobbyists, trial lawyers and those who profit from health care spending, has refused to specify what he would do if he became governor.

"What are Eliot Spitzer's priorities?" Suozzi asked again and again.

After his rally, Suozzi worked the crowd and refused to take questions from reporters.

He drove off in what he has dubbed the "Fix Albany" van to begin what he said will be a statewide tour.

Citizen Action of New York, a grass-roots group that has endorsed Spitzer and often defends him from Suozzi's attacks, issued a statement declaring the county executive's "Fix Albany" van in "need of drastic repair" because he has accepted campaign contributions from Ken Langone, a Home Depot co-founder who's been sued by Spitzer, and from people who do business with Nassau County.

Benjamin can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at ebenjamin@timesunion.com.

Staff writer James Odato contributed to this report.

As Attorney General for the State of New York ....

Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer ....

Has been in a position ...

For these last years ...

Of where he could have rooted out CORRUPTION in New York State government ....

IF HE HAD WANTED TO ....

And in fact, "Old Oncle Eliot" was in the prime position in the State of New York ...

To have done just that .....

ROOT OUT CORRUPTION IN NEW YORK STATE GOVERNMENT ....

BUT HE DID NOT ...

To the contrary ...

I would say ....

That if anyone in New York State government today ....

Is a certified CHAMPION OF CORRUPTION ......

It would be the HYPOCRITE Eliot "Big EL" Spitzer .....

And so ....

And in the meantime ....

What's up with "GOD'S OWN PARTY" .....

Here in the corrupt State of New York ....

Where government corruption ...

Has nothing to fear ...

As long as Eliot Spitzer is here ...

Serving as the alleged "top law enforcement official" ....

In the State of New York ....

"Faso's camp wants their votes back - Republican state convention delegates seek to rescind proxy pact with Weld supporter"

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

First published: Wednesday, May 31, 2006

GARDEN CITY -- A behind-the-scenes battle over proxy votes is brewing at the Republican convention as rank-and-file delegates from at least one county are revolting against their leader over whom to support for governor.

Several committeemen from Orange County who support John Faso are said to be trying to revoke the proxy votes they earlier gave their county chairman, Bill DeProspo, a supporter of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld.

With Faso, a former Assembly minority leader, gaining support, the committeemen plan to attend and vote rather than let DeProspo vote for them by proxy, insiders said.

DeProspo has been a big Weld backer, having earlier this month sent out a letter criticizing Faso as being too far to the right to get elected in New York, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-3.

Regardless of how it plays out, the proxy fight has been symptomatic of the Weld-Faso conflict leading up to this week's GOP convention.

Weld has the support of state Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik and is considered to have Gov. George Pataki's tacit backing.

Weld's supporters say his socially moderate stance on issues like abortion and gay marriage make him the most viable Republican candidate for New York.

But Faso has been gaining momentum, with his supporters, many of whom are county committee members, saying Republicans should stick to their principles, even if it means fielding a conservative candidate in New York, one of the most Democratic, and liberal, states.

On Tuesday, the Erie County Republican Committee supported Faso.

Last week, Albany County committee members held a Faso fundraiser, and he drew a lot of support from members of the Saratoga County committee as well, despite talk that those counties' leaders were under pressure from the governor's office to deliver Weld votes.

And starting off with something completely different, this evening ....

From what we otherwise might have started out with ..

We have ....

What is quite old news, actually ....

As follows ....

"Scientists say Arctic once was tropical"

By SETH BORENSTEIN, Associated Press
Last updated: 4:26 p.m., Wednesday, May 31, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees.

It's smack in the middle of the Arctic.

First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show.

The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer-than-thought polar region heated by run-amok greenhouse gases that came about naturally.

Skeptics of man-made causes of global warming have nothing to rejoice over, however.

The researchers say their studies appearing in Thursday's issue of Nature also offer a peek at just how bad conditions can get.

"It probably was (a tropical paradise) but the mosquitoes were probably the size of your head," said Yale geology professor Mark Pagani, a study co-author.

And what a watery, swampy world it must have been.

"Imagine a world where there are dense sequoia trees and cypress trees like in Florida that ring the Arctic Ocean," said Pagani, a member of the multinational Arctic Coring Expedition that conducted the research.

Millions of years ago the Earth experienced an extended period of natural global warming.

But around 55 million years ago there was a sudden supercharged spike of carbon dioxide that accelerated the greenhouse effect.

Scientists already knew this "thermal event" happened but are not sure what caused it.

Perhaps massive releases of methane from the ocean, the continent-sized burning of trees, lots of volcanic eruptions.

Many experts figured that while the rest of the world got really hot, the polar regions were still comfortably cooler, maybe about 52 degrees Fahrenheit.

But the new research found the polar average was closer to 74 degrees.

So instead of Boston-like weather year-round, the Arctic was more like Miami North.

Way north.

"It's the first time we've looked at the Arctic, and man, it was a big surprise to us," said study co-author Kathryn Moran, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island.

"It's a new look to how the Earth can respond to these peaks in carbon dioxide."

It's enough to make Santa Claus break into a sweat.

The 74-degree temperature, based on core samples which act as a climatic time capsule, was probably the year-round average, but because data is so limited it might also be just the summertime average, researchers said.

What's troubling is that this hints that future projections for warming, several degrees over the next century, may be on the low end, said study lead author Appy Sluijs of the Institute of Environmental Biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Also it shows that what happened 55 million years ago was proof that too much carbon dioxide -- more than four times current levels -- can cause global warming, said another co-author Henk Brinkhuis at Utrecht University.

Purdue University atmospheric sciences professor Gabriel Bowen, who was not part of the team, praised the work and said it showed that "there are tipping points in our (climate) system that can throw us to these conditions."

And the new research also gave scientists the idea that a simple fern may have helped pull Earth from a hothouse to an icehouse by sucking up massive amounts of carbon dioxide.

Unfortunately, this natural solution to global warming was not exactly quick: It took about a million years.

With all that heat and massive freshwater lakes forming in the Arctic, a fern called Azolla started growing and growing.

Azolla, still found in warm regions today, grew so deep, so wide that eventually it started sucking up carbon dioxide, Brinkhuis theorized.

And that helped put the cool back in the Arctic.

Bowen said he has a hard time accepting that part of the research, but Brinkhuis said the studies show tons upon tons of thick mats of Azolla covered the Arctic and moved south.

"This could actually contribute to push the world to a cooling mode," Brinkhuis said, but only after it got hotter first and then it would take at least 800,000 years to cool back down.

It's not something to look forward to, he said.

George W. Bush's MESSAGE ....

Leaves me feeling quite queasy ..

And sick at my stomach ...

IN ABSOLUTE DISGUST ...

At the thought ...

That OUR America ....

Is ruled by a CRO-MAGNON ....

Or a NEANDERTHAL ....

Or some kind of BRUTE, anyway ....

Far removed from rational humanity ....

And so ....

BRUTE IS ....

AS BRUTE DOES ...

And so ....

Here is some of the NEANDERTHAL'S handiwork, now ....

"U.S. troops kill pregnant woman in Iraq"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:17 p.m., Wednesday, May 31, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women -- one of them about to give birth -- when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday.

Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.

Jassim, the mother of two children, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the U.S. forces, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed and witnesses.

The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.

"Shots were fired to disable the vehicle," the military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

"Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds ... and one of the females may have been pregnant."

Jassim's brother, who was wounded by broken glass, said he did not see any warnings as he sped his sister to the hospital.

Her husband was waiting for her there.

"I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans."

"It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped," he said.

"God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here."

"They have no regard for our lives."

He said doctors tried but failed to save the baby after his sister was brought to the hospital.

The shooting deaths occurred in the wake of an investigation into allegations that U.S. Marines killed unarmed civilians in the western city of Haditha.

The U.S. military said the incident in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, was being investigated.

The city is in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle and has in the past seen heavy insurgent activity.

"The loss of life is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them," the military said.

The women's bodies were wrapped in sheets and lying on stretchers outside the Samarra General Hospital before being taken to the morgue, while residents pointed to bullet holes on the windshield of a car and a pool of blood on the seat.

Khalid Nisaif Jassim, the pregnant woman's brother, said American forces had blocked off the side road only two weeks ago and news about the observation post had been slow to filter out to rural areas.

He said the killings, like those in Haditha, were examples of random killings faced by Iraqis every day.

The killings at Haditha, a city that has been plagued by insurgents, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated war veteran who has been briefed by military officials, has said Marines shot and killed unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene and went into two homes and shot others.

Military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said last week.

In his first public comments on the incident, President Bush said he was troubled by the allegations, and that, "If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment."

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi told the BBC that the allegations have "created a feeling of great shock and sadness and I believe that if what is alleged is true -- and I have no reason to believe it's not -- then I think something very drastic has to be done."

"There must be a level of discipline imposed on the American troops and change of mentality which seems to think that Iraqi lives are expendable," said Pachachi, a member of parliament.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq.

Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which Bush said he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

Once the military investigation is completed, perhaps in June, it will be up to a senior Marine commander in Iraq to decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The incident has sparked two investigations -- one into the deadly encounter itself and another into whether it was the subject of a cover-up.

The Marine Corps had initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to the car bombing and a firefight with insurgents, eight of whom the Marines reported had been killed.

"People in Samarra are very angry with the Americans not only because of Haditha case but because the Americans kill people randomly specially recently," Khalid Nisaif Jassim said.

end quotes

George W. Bush is like some creature up from Hell ....

And everything that he touches ...

Turns to **** ....

And so ....

And George W. Bush's PROMISES ....

Are empty ...

Worthless ...

Not worth the paer they are printed on ...

And so ....

"Bush upset with Iraq killings reports"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
Last updated: 5:46 p.m., Wednesday, May 31, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush promised on Wednesday that any Marines involved in the alleged murders of Iraqi civilians will be punished.

A senior officer said the case could undermine Iraqis' support for the presence of American troops.

"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said in his first public comments about the deaths of about two dozen civilians at Haditha last January.

"I'm mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on."

"If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."

Military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said last week.

The shootings came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.

Residents of Haditha said Marines then went into nearby houses and shot members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl.

At first, the American military 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 Marine.

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

With some in Congress alleging a cover-up, the Bush administration offered assurances the facts will be made public.

Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, urged patience as the Marines conduct what he called a vigorous investigation.

He said a report will come out in "a matter of weeks, not a matter of months" and include public release of photographic evidence.

"We're going to see everything," Snow said.

Once that investigation is completed, a senior Marine commander in Iraq will decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

At the Pentagon, Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham would not discuss any aspect of the probe, but he stressed the potential harm caused by allegations alone.

"Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of U.S. forces to continue to operate," said Ham, a deputy operations director for the Joint Staff and a former commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq.

"We do rely very heavily -- and more importantly, the Iraqi security forces rely heavily -- on the support from the Iraqi people," Ham said.

"And anything that tends to diminish that, obviously, is not helpful to what we're trying to do."

The toll of Iraqi civilians climbed on Wednesday when two women, including one being taken to a maternity hospital, died when coalition troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said the vehicle entered a clearly marked prohibited area but failed to obey repeated warnings.

The president was asked about the Haditha allegations during a photo opportunity with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.

Bush said he had discussed Haditha with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"He's a proud Marine."

"And nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps."

"The Marine Corps is full of honorable people who understand the rules of war."

"If in fact these allegations are true," Bush said, "the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture -- that proud culture -- will be reinforced."

"And that those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished."

Until now the most infamous violation of military law in Iraq was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004.

Bush said last week he considered Abu Ghraib to be the most costly U.S. mistake of the war.

------

Associated Press military writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

"If in fact these allegations are true," Bush said, "the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture -- that proud culture -- will be reinforced?"

Uh, George ...

If I understand what you are saying here ....

These killings of these civilians ....

Were because of PRIDE ...

YOUR PRIDE, IN FACT .....

And you want that reinforced in the Marine Corps?

What a sick idea that is, George ....

But typical ....

And so ...

I fear that our soldiers in Iraqniam are tired, frustrated, even p*ssed off.

That is a bad situation waiting to turn into a DISASTER.

One of your men is blown up by an IED.

You go ballistic.

"Sh*t happens" - Ronald Dumbsfeld.

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/iraq.html



BUSH'S DEEP REASONS FOR WAR ON IRAQ: OIL, PETRODOLLARS, AND THE OPEC EURO QUESTION
(Updated 5/27/03)


As the United States made preparations for war with Iraq, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, on 2/6/03, again denied to US journalists that the projected war had "anything to do with oil." <1> He echoed Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld, who on 11/14/02 told CBS News that "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil."

Speaking to British MPs, Prime Minister Tony Blair was just as explicit: "Let me deal with the conspiracy theory idea that this is somehow to do with oil. There is no way whatever if oil were the issue that it would not be infinitely simpler to cut a deal with Saddam...." (London Times 1/15/03).

Nor did Bush's State of the Union Message, or Colin Powell's address to the United Nations Security Council, once mention the word "oil." Instead the talk was (in the president's words) of "Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups."

However our leaders are not being candid with us. Oil has been a major US concern about Iraq in internal and unpublicized documents, since the start of this Administration, and indeed earlier. As Michael Renner has written in Foreign Policy in Focus, February 14, 2003, "Washington's War on Iraq is the Lynchpin to Controlling Persian Gulf Oil."

But the need to dominate oil from Iraq is also deeply intertwined with the defense of the dollar. Its current strength is supported by OPEC's requirement (secured by a secret agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia) that all OPEC oil sales be denominated in dollars. This requirement is currently threatened by the desire of some OPEC countries to allow OPEC oil sales to be paid in euros.

The Internally Stated US Goal of Securing the Flow of Oil from the Middle East

As early as April 1997, a report from the James A. Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University addressed the problem of "energy security" for the United States, and noted that the US was increasingly threatened by oil shortages in the face of the inability of oil supplies to keep up with world demand. In particular the report addressed "The Threat of Iraq and Iran" to the free flow of oil out of the Middle East. It concluded that Saddam Hussein was still a threat to Middle Eastern security and still had the military capability to exercise force beyond Iraq's borders.

The Bush Administration returned to this theme as soon as it took office in 2001, by following the lead of a second report from the same Institute. <2> This Task Force Report was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, another group historically concerned about US access to overseas oil resources. The Report represented a consensus of thinking among energy experts of both political parties, and was signed by Democrats as well as Republicans. <3>

The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century, concluded: "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments."

The Task Force meetings were attended by members of the new Bush Administration's Department of Energy, and the report was read by members of Vice-President Cheney's own Energy Task Force. When Cheney issued his own national energy plan, it too declared that "The [Persian] Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy." It agreed with the Baker report that the U.S. is increasingly dependent on imported oil and that it may be necessary to overcome foreign resistance in order to gain access to new supplies.

Later the point was made more bluntly by Anthony H. Cordesman, senior analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies: "Regardless of whether we say so publicly, we will go to war, because Saddam sits at the center of a region with more than 60 percent of all the world's oil reserves."


The Unstated US Goals of Increasing the Flow of Oil from the Middle East, and US Dominance of the Area

Behind the acknowledged concern about the "free flow" of Persian Gulf oil are other motives. Following the recommendations of the Task Force Report, the Bush administration wishes to increase international (which may well turn out to mean US) investment in the under-developed Iraq oilfields. On 1/16/03 the Wall Street Journal reported that officials from the White House, State Department, and Department of Defense have been meeting informally with executives from Halliburton, Schlumberger, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips to plan the post-war expansion of oil production from Iraq (whose oilfields were largely held by US companies prior to their nationalization). The Journal story has since been denied by Administration officials; but, as the Guardian noted on 1/27/03, "It stretches credulity somewhat to imagine that the subject has never been broached." <4>

It is worth pointing out that Saddam Hussein already has offered exploratory concessions (which remained inactive because of the UN sanctions) to France, China, Russia, Brazil, Italy, and Malaysia. If Saddam is replaced by a new client regime, it seems likely that these concessions will be superseded, although there are reports that the US has offered France, Russia and China a share of post-war Iraqi oil, as an inducement to get their support in the Security Council. <5> Last September former CIA Chief Woolsey threatened in the Washington Post (9/15/02) that the price for participation by France and Russia in the post-war Iraq oil bonanza should be their support for "regime change." <6> It would not take much of such menacing talk from official sources to turn the Bush campaign against Iraq into a campaign against Europe (see Postscript).

Iraq's proven oil reserves are 113 billion barrels, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia, and eleven percent of the world's total. The total reserves could be 200 million barrels or more, all of it relatively easy and cheap to extract. Thus increasing Iraqi oil production will diminish the market pressure on oil-importing countries like the US. It will also weaken the power of OPEC to influence oil markets by decisions to restrict output. Indeed, were Iraqi oil production to expand to near its capacity, the quotas established by OPEC would cease to be honored in today's market. <7>

But the US is not just interested in oil from Iraq, it is concerned to maintain political dominance over all the oil-producing countries of the region. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a glimpse of US intentions when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 6 that success in the Iraq war "could fundamentally reshape that region in a powerful, positive way that will enhance U.S. interests." In conceding that it will be necessary to station US troops in occupied Iraq for the foreseeable future, the US is serving notice to Iran and to Saudi Arabia (both of which were once secure bases for US troops but are so no longer) that the US will reassert its presence as the dominant military power in the region.

The Unstated US Goal of Preserving Dollar Hegemony Over the Global Oil Market

Dominance of Middle Eastern oil will mean in effect maintaining dollar hegemony over the world oil economy. Given its present strategies, the US is constrained to demand no less. As I explain in this extract from my book, Drugs, Oil, and War (pp. 41-42, 53-54), the present value of the US dollar, unjustified on purely economic grounds, is maintained by political arrangements, one of the chief of which is to ensure that all OPEC oil purchases will continue to be denominated in US dollars. (This commitment of OPEC to dollar oil sales was secured in the 1970s by a secret agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia, before the two countries began to drift apart over Israel and other issues.) <8>

The chief reason why dollars are more than pieces of green paper is that countries all over the world need them for purchases, principally of oil. This requires them in addition to maintain dollar reserves to protect their own currency; and these reserves, when invested, help maintain the current high levels of the US securities markets.

As Henry Liu has written vividly in the online Asian Times (4/11/02),

"World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies. To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, the world's central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making it stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.

"By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets."

But central bankers around the world do not expect either the US dollar or the US stock markets to sustain their current levels. As William Greider in The Nation (9/23/02) has pointed out:

"US economy's net foreign indebtedness--the accumulation of two decades of running larger and larger trade deficits--will reach nearly 25 percent of US GDP this year, or roughly $2.5 trillion. Fifteen years ago, it was zero. Before America's net balance of foreign assets turned negative, in 1988, the United States was a creditor nation itself, investing and lending vast capital to others, always more than it borrowed. Now the trend line looks most alarming. If the deficits persist around the current level of $400 billion a year or grow larger, the total US indebtedness should reach $3.5 trillion in three years or so. Within a decade, it would total 50 percent of GDP."

There is also a major potential threat to the overpriced dollar in Japan's unresolved deflationary crisis. As observers like Lawrence A. Joyce have commented, the dollar would take a major pummeling if the Japanese government (as seems quite possible) were suddenly required to fulfil its legal obligations to bail out failed Japanese banks (which could easily happen if a sustained scarcity of oil were to keep oil prices at $40 a barrel or higher):

"There is only one place where the Japanese government can get enough money to bail out its banking system: The Japanese government owns about 15% of our U.S. Treasury securities. And it would have to start selling them if it found itself facing a major banking crisis.

"That would send the already ailing dollar down even further. And the initiation of a sale of our Treasury securities by Japan, of course, would immediately trigger a worldwide stampede to do the same before the securities become worth only a fraction of what they were purchased for. At the same time, interest rates in the U.S. would immediately go through the roof."

Washington is of course aware of these problems, and believes that overwhelming military strength and the will to use it supply the answer, persuading or forcing other countries to support the dollar at its artificial level as the key to their own security. In an article entitled "Asia: the Military-Market Link," and published by the U.S. Naval Institute in January 2002, Professor Thomas Barnett of the US Naval War College, wrote: "We trade little pieces of paper (our currency, in the form of a trade deficit) for Asia's amazing array of products and services. We are smart enough to know this is a patently unfair deal unless we offer something of great value along with those little pieces of paper. That product is a strong US Pacific Fleet, which squares the transaction nicely."

There is some merit to this argument with respect to friendly countries like Japan, whose defense costs have been lowered by the US presence in Asia. But of course the Islamic countries of the world are less likely to appreciate the "great value" of a threatening US presence. Instead they are more likely to follow the example of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and turn to the Islamic gold dinar as a way to diminish dollar hegemony in world markets and increase the power of Islamic nations to challenge US policies.

The United States has at present little reason to fear a challenge to the dollar from Malaysia. But Malaysia is an Islamic country; and the US has every reason to fear a similar challenge from the Islamic nations in OPEC, were they to force OPEC to cease OPEC oil sales in dollars, and denominate them instead in euros.

The Unstated US Goal of Preserving Dollar Hegemony Against Competition from the Euro

As noted in a recent article by W. Clark, "The Real But Unspoken Reasons for the Iraq War", the OPEC underpinning for the US dollar has shown signs of erosion in recent years. Iraq was one of the first OPEC countries, in 2000, to convert its reserves from dollars to euros. At the time a commentator for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty predicted that Saddam's political act "will cost Iraq millions in lost revenue." In fact Iraq has profited handsomely from the 17 percent gain in the value of the euro against the dollar in that time. <9>

Other countries have gradually been climbing on to the euro bandwagon. An article in the Iran Financial News, 8/25/02, revealed that more than half of Iran's Forex Reserve Fund assets had been converted from dollars to euros. In 2002 China began diversifying its currency reserves away from dollars into euros. According to Business Week (2/17/03) Russia's Central Bank in the past year has doubled its euro holdings to 20 percent of its $48 billion foreign exchange reserves. And for a very good reason, according to its First Deputy Chairman Oleg Vyugin: "Returns on dollar instruments are very low now. Other currency instruments pay more."

Business Week continues:

`The story is the same across the globe. Money traders say that institutions as diverse as Bank of Canada, People's Bank of China, and Central Bank of Taiwan are giving more weight to the European currency. By the end of this year, they predict, the euro could account for 20% of global foreign currency reserves, which today amount to a cool $2.4 trillion. Little more than a year ago, the euro made up just 10%. "No one is saying that the euro's going to replace the dollar as the premier reserve currency," says Michael Klawitter, a currency strategist at WestLB Research in London. "But it will increase in importance for many central banks."...

`The shift to the euro has big implications for the foreign exchange markets and the U.S. and European economies. Currency specialists say the yawning U.S. current account deficit, now at 5%, is bound to drive the dollar down further, and the euro still higher, over the next two to four years. Although the greenback may stage a short-term recovery once the looming war with Iraq is over, predictions are that it will then continue its downward trend, and that central banks will play their part in the descent. "Even if central banks increase their euro holdings by just a few percent, it will have a major impact in the markets," says Klawitter. "We're talking many billions of dollars."'

If not deterred, OPEC could follow suit. Libya has been urging for some time that oil be priced in euros rather than dollars. Javad Yarjani, an Iranian senior OPEC official, told a European Union seminar in April 2002 that, despite the problems raised by such a conversion, "I believe that OPEC will not discount entirely the possibility of adopting euro pricing and payments in the future."

Meanwhile Hugo Chavez has been taking Venezuelan oil out of the petrodollar economy by bartering oil directly for commodities from thirteen other third world countries. Although this has not yet qualified Venezuela for official membership in Bush's "axis of evil," the heavy hand of the Bush Administration in the recent coup attempt against Chavez was only too obvious. (See "Venezuela Coup Linked to Bush Team," London Observer, 4/21/02, for details about the roles of US officials Elliot Abrams, Otto Reich, and John Negroponte.) <10>

Conclusion: How Should the US Be Addressing These Real Problems?

To conclude, the Bush administration is not threatening Iraq out of pique or whim. The recent policies of both parties have indeed made the US vulnerable to foreign oil and petrodollar pressures. But hopefully decent Americans will protest the notion that it is appropriate to rain missiles and bombs upon civilians of another country, who have had little or nothing to do with this crisis of America's own making.

Some in addition will continue to explore avenues whereby America's oil and financial vulnerabilities can be diminished without continuing down the road to Armageddon. These problems are serious, but economists have put forward proposals for diminishing them peacefully and multilaterally. With respect to oil, Ralph Nader has just written, "The demand is simple: Stop this war before it starts and immediately establish a sane national energy security strategy." In fact one key ingredient of such a strategy, restriction of demand, can be found in saner parts of the Baker Institute reports that the Bush administration has mostly chosen to ignore.

But an energy strategy for the United States must be addressed in the larger context of an economic and financial restructuring of global institutions and currency flows. With respect to the more esoteric financial problems of the dollar, the economist and futurist Hazel Henderson has written that "My recommendations for reforming current international institutions, revitalizing the UN and expanding civic society are summarized in Beyond Globalization (1999). A more balanced world order must center on reforming global finance, taxing currency exchange and reducing the dollar's unsustainable role as the world's de facto reserve currency (which is destructive for all countries -- even the US itself). I favor a global reserve currency regime based on the parity of the US dollar and the euro. The fundamentals in the USA and the EU suggest that the G-8 has an opportunity to peg the dollar and the euro into a trading band. This, together with the new issue of SDR's [Special Drawing Rights]. proposed by all the IMF country members, promoted by George Soros and opposed only by the USA, would lend to more stable currency markets."

Without endorsing these specific proposals, I wish to second two rather obvious principles:

1) The problems of global financial instability must be addressed. As George Soros, famed as the man who broke the British pound in 1992, wrote later in the Financial Times,” "To argue that financial markets in general, and international lending in particular, need to be regulated is likely to outrage the financial community. Yet the evidence for just that is overwhelming."

2) A multilateral approach to these core problems is the only way to proceed. The US is strong enough to dominate the world militarily. Economically it is in decline, less and less competitive, and increasingly in debt. The Bush peoples' intention appears to be to override economic realities with military ones, as if there were no risk of economic retribution. They should be mindful of Britain's humiliating retreat from Suez in 1956, a retreat forced on it by the United States as a condition for propping up the failing British pound.

America's influence in the world has up to now been based largely on good will generated by its willingness to resolve matters multilaterally. This legacy of good will should be acknowledged and consolidated by the Bush Administration, as it faces the difficult post-war challenge of restoring law and order in Iraq. US military might may be unchallenged, but the health of our economy and finance depends on peace and cooperation with our friends.



FOOTNOTES
<1> Ari Fleischer Press Briefing of February 6, 2003:

Q Since you speak for the President, we have no access to him, can you categorically deny that the United States will take over the oil fields when we win this war? Which is apparently obvious and you're on your way and I don't think you doubt your victory. Oil -- is it about oil?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, as I've told you many times, if this had anything to do with oil, the position of the United States would be to lift the sanctions so the oil could flow. This is not about that. This is about saving lives by protecting the American people....

Q There are reports that we've divided up the oil already, divvied it up with the Russians and French and so forth. Isn't that true?....

MR. FLEISCHER: No, there's no truth to that, that we would divide up the oil fields.

(Concerning Mr. Fleischer's second answer, see footnotes 4 and 5 -- PDS.)

For an exhaustive rebuttal of a similar statement by Ari Fleischer on 10/30/02, see Larry Chin, "The Deep Politics of Regime Removal in Iraq", onlinejournal.com.


<2> In an earlier draft of this essay I quoted extensively (as have many other writers) from a news story by Neil Mackay in the Scotland Sunday Herald (10/6/02). This story claimed that Vice-President Cheney himself commissioned the second Task Force Report, and that former US Secretary of State James Baker delivered the Report to Cheney. I now doubt that either claim is true.


<3> One of the Baker Task Force members was Kenneth Lay, the former chief executive of Enron, which went bankrupt after carrying out massive accountancy fraud. The Task Force Report begins with references to "recent energy price spikes" and "electricity outages in California," which we now know were engineered by Enron market manipulations for which two Enron energy traders have since pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges (Forbes, 2/5/03).


<4> An extremely interesting news item last October in Alexander's oilandgas.com revealed that the US was planning not only for the post-war exploitation of Iraq's oil reserves, but for Iraq's relationship to OPEC as well:

"30-10-02 The US State Department has pushed back its planned meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders on exploiting Iraq's oil and gas reserves after a US military offensive removes Saddam Hussein from power to early December. According to a source at the State Department, all the desired participants are not yet available.

"The Bush administration wants to have a working group of 12 to 20 people focused on Iraqi oil and gas to be able to recommend to an interim government ways of restoring the petroleum sector following a military attack in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible US military occupation government -- further fuelling the view that controlling Iraqi oil is at the heart of the Bush campaign to replace Hussein with a more compliant regime. (Emphasis added -- PDS)....

"According to the source, the working group will not only prepare recommendations for the rehabilitation of the Iraqi petroleum sector post-Hussein, but will address questions regarding the country's continued membership in OPEC and whether it should be allowed to produce as much as possible or be limited by an OPEC quota, and it will consider whether to honour contracts made between the Hussein government and foreign oil companies, including the $ 3.5 b[illio]n project to be carried out by Russian interests to redevelop Iraq's oilfields, which, along with numerous other development projects, has been thwarted by United Nations sanctions.


<5> "Oil firms wait as Iraq crisis unfolds" by Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle,9/29/02:

`Iraqi opposition leaders suggest that unless France, Russia and China support the U.S. line in the Security Council, their oil companies may find themselves blacklisted.

`"We will examine all the contracts that Saddam Hussein has made, and we will cancel all those that are not in the interest of the Iraqi people and will reopen bidding on them," said Faisal Qaragholi, operations officer of the Iraqi National Congress, the opposition coalition based in London that plays a central role in the American anti-Hussein strategy.

`Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, has gone even further, proposing the creation of consortium of American companies to develop Iraq's oil fields.'


<6> As the Asia Times reported on 10/21/02,

`The war of positioning for a possible post-Saddam Iraqi environment is getting more ruthless by the minute. American oil conglomerates are openly courting representatives of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the umbrella opposition. The darling of Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco is Ahmed Chalabi, US vice President Dick Cheney's pal and major contender for the title of Iraq's number one opposition figure. Chalabi, the INC leader, has already stressed on the record that he favors the creation of a "US-led consortium to develop Iraqi oil fields. American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil."

`To widespread doubts about how a pro-American post-Saddam government would respect contracts signed with non-American oil giants, the INC has reassured all players - mostly Russian and European - that the new post-Saddam administration will honor all its PSAs.

`The Future of Iraq Group, a State Department task force, officially is not talking about oil - which sounds like a joke. [Cf. footnote 4 -- PDS] And there's also no official confirmation that oil has been a key issue in the current hardcore Security Council negotiations between the US and Britain, on one side, and France, Russia and China on the other. But it is obviously not by historical accident that oil companies from these five permanent Security Council members are all positioning themselves for the post-Saddam environment.

`People like former CIA supremo James Woolsey are not even disguising Washington's plan to turn Iraq into an American protectorate with an Arab Hamid Karzai al-la Afghanistan eager to open the oil taps for American oil giants. Woolsey had been openly saying that if France and Russia contributed to "regime change", their oil companies would be able to "work together" with the new regime and with American companies. Otherwise, they would be left contemplating passing cargoes in the Gulf.'


<7> Note that the true issue here is not just access to Iraq oil, but control over it. As Michael Parenti reminds us, in 1998, when the UN allowed Iraq to increase its exports into an already over-supplied oil market, this was perceived as a threat to US interests:

`The San Francisco Chronicle (22 February 1998) headlined its story "IRAQ'S OIL POSES THREAT TO THE WEST." In fact, Iraqi crude poses no threat to "the West" only to Western oil investors. If Iraq were able to reenter the international oil market, the Chronicle reported, "it would devalue British North Sea oil, undermine American oil production and---much more important---it would destroy the huge profits which the United States [read, US oil companies] stands to gain from its massive investment in Caucasian oil production, especially in Azerbaijan."'


<8> "The US handled the quadrupling of oil prices in the 1970s by arranging, by means of secret agreements with the Saudis, for the recycling of petrodollars back into the US economy. The first of these deals assured a special and on-going Saudi stake in the health of the US dollar; the second secured continuing Saudi support for the pricing of all OPEC oil in dollars. See David E. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1999), x, 103-1a, 121). These two deals assured that the US economy would not be impoverished by OPEC oil price hikes. The heaviest burdens would be borne instead by the economies of less developed countries" (Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afganistan, Colombia, and Indochina, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 41-42; cf. 53-54).


<9> The 17 percent gain was calculated as of February 2003, when the euro was worth $1.08. Now, as of May 2003, the euro is worth $1.16.


<10> In August 2000 Chavez met with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, the first head of state to visit him since the 1991 Gulf War. Chavez told the press later that "We spoke at length on how to boost the role of OPEC." This was part of an extended Chavez tour to bolster OPEC unity against US-led pressure to lower oil prices, then at nearly $30 a barrel.

Good morning, jeffmoskin ....

And thank you for your observation ....

Which I would say ...

From my own experiences as an infantryman in Viet Nam ....

Which was one great big booby-trap, where I was anyway .....

That you are right on the money with your observation ...

And so ....

What you are calling a disaster is happening ....

As we write these words in here ...

Just as it happened in Viet Nam ...

And so .....

And there is now no way to avert that disaster .....

Because George W. Bush has precluded that possibility ....

With all of his stupid blather and bluster ....

About TOTAL VICTORY ...

And so ....

In my combat infantryman's mind ....

TOTAL VICTORY means exactly that .....

One side has no one left standing ...

When the final bell sounds ...

To end the game ...

And so ...

Given that ....

And the level of beastiality that infantrymen occupy when performing the "duties of the trade", as it were ...

In a quest for TOTAL VICTORY ....

What happens is that everyone ....

And anything ....

In your sights ...

Gets blown away ...

And destroyed ....

As quickly as possible ....

To achieve that end ...

SINCE YOU ARE NOT GOING HOME UNTIL THAT END IS ACHIEVED .....

And so .....

And as America walks blithely down the path to George W. Bush's version of TOTAL VICTORY .....

From my perspective as a disabled combat veteran of the VEET NAM war ....

It just looks like a lot more BULL ***** and lies to me ....

Just like it was back then ....

But what the hey ....

I'm almost ...

If not actually ....

Insignificant ....

Here in George W. Bush's version of America ....

Which seems chock right full of nothing but pure BULL **** to me ....

And so ....

WE HAVE THE LIES ...

And nothing else ....

In George W. Bush's QUEST FOR TOTAL VICTORY OVER EVERYTHING ...

And so ....

"Report: False testimony in Haditha probe"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 45 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush promised on Wednesday that any Marines involved in the alleged murders of Iraqi civilians will be punished.

A senior officer said the case could undermine Iraqis' support for the presence of American troops.

"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said in his first public comments about the deaths of about two dozen civilians at Haditha last November.

"I'm mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on."

"If, in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."

Military investigators have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines in the Iraqi town of Haditha, a senior defense official said last week.

A U.S. military investigation will conclude that some officers gave false testimony to their superiors, The Washington Post reported on its Web site Wednesday night.

The superiors then failed to scrutinize reports adequately, the Post reported.

The probe, which is separate from an investigation into possible criminal actions by the Marines, also will call for changes in how troops are trained for duty in Iraq, the Post reported.

The top commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey, is preparing to order all troops in Iraq to undergo "core values" training including humane treatment of civilians and an understanding of Iraqi culture, the Post and ABC News reported.

The shootings came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.

Residents of Haditha said Marines then went into nearby houses and shot members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl.

At first, the American military 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 Marine.

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

With some in Congress alleging a cover-up, the Bush administration offered assurances the facts will be made public.

Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, urged patience as the Marines conduct what he called a vigorous investigation.

He said a report will come out in "a matter of weeks, not a matter of months" and include public release of photographic evidence.

"We're going to see everything," Snow said.

Once that investigation is completed, a senior Marine commander in Iraq will decide whether to press charges of murder or other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

At the Pentagon, Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham would not discuss any aspect of the probe, but he stressed the potential harm caused by allegations alone.

"Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of U.S. forces to continue to operate," said Ham, a deputy operations director for the Joint Staff and a former commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq.

"We do rely very heavily — and more importantly, the Iraqi security forces rely heavily — on the support from the Iraqi people," Ham said.

"And anything that tends to diminish that, obviously, is not helpful to what we're trying to do."

The toll of Iraqi civilians climbed on Wednesday when two women, including one being taken to a maternity hospital, died when coalition troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said the vehicle entered a clearly marked prohibited area but failed to obey repeated warnings.

The president was asked about the Haditha allegations during a photo opportunity with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.

Bush said he had discussed Haditha with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"He's a proud Marine."

"And nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps."

"The Marine Corps is full of honorable people who understand the rules of war."

"If in fact these allegations are true," Bush said, "the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture — that proud culture — will be reinforced."

"And that those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished."

Until now the most infamous violation of military law in Iraq was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004.

Bush said last week he considered Abu Ghraib to be the most costly U.S. mistake of the war.
___

Associated Press military writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

end quotes

The MOST COSTLY MISTAKE of the "war", George ......

For OUR America ....

Was you starting it ....

By running your big mouth ....

About "SHOCK AND AWE" ......

When you didn't have the slightest idea of what you were even talking about ...

And so ....

Thanks for posting this, snuff.

It summarizes all the data in a nutshell.

William R. Smith also wrote "Petrodollar Warfare" in addition to the article. Curiously, he was interviewed on Radio New Zealand (no USA network called him. I guess they are all busy with Hannity and Rush):

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/659


And I am an avid reader of Henry C K Liu on atimes.com. I urge all CGCSers to
read his many many articles about international trade and economics. A very smart cookie IMHO.

Good Morning Jeff
The Asia Times is one of my most favorite newspapers and I do try to post many articles from there routinely in the Op Ed section of the News Forum. They publish more accurate information on the scheme of things than most of what I see being published in the US. And they have very throughtful commentary. Also like to follow their coverage of China.

Reading this exchange between Snuffysmith and jeffmoskin above here ....

About "economics" .....

Makes me think back to my earlier days as an American .....

In that very small part of America where I came from ...

And still am, after all these years ...

And the fact that back then ...

"THE ECONOMY" .....

Was something that we never used to hear about ...

Or worry about ...

Or get concerned about .....

And so .....

How the times have changed in that regard ...

To the point of all we hear politicians talking about anymore ...

WHEN THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN NOT BEING AS GUILTY OF SOMETHING AS THE OTHER POLITICIANS ARE ....

Is this thing called the "ECONOMY" .....

Which all of these politicnas are trying to manipulate ....

AS IF THIS WERE THE OLD SOVIET UNION .....

With all of its "FIVE YEAR PLANS" .....

And "TEN YEAR PLANS" .....

For the "STATE ECONOMY" .....

Or as if this were MAOIST CHINA ....

WITH ITS "GREAT LEAP FORWARD" .....

And so .....

What foolishness, is all I can say .....

That being directed at these politicians .....

And not jeffmoskin ....

Or Snuffysmith .....

And so ....

Having seen the "future" of the old Soviet Union ....

And all of its various "plans" ....

And having seen the "future" of Mao's "GREAT LEAP FORWARD" .....

Which had to be one of the STUPIDEST THINGS ON EARTH FOR AN ALLEGED "LEADER" TO PUT FORTH AS AN ECONOMIC PLAN ....

All I can think ...

Is that STUPIDITY in politicians seems to be distributed on a world-wide basis ....

And being a big country ...

YEA, EVEN A SUPER-POWER .....

We have more politicians than a small country does ...

And hence ...

We seem to have a greater concentration of that STUPIDITY here ....

In our politicians ....

Than do other countries on the face of the earth ...

Especially now that GROSS STUPIDITY of the kind being practiced here by our politicians has taken down the old Soviet Union ....

And so ....

It kind of makes me think of a future classroom setting ....

Where a teacher asks little Johnny what happened to the old America .....

And little Johnny truthfully responds .....

That being as or more stupid than the old Soviet Union ....

It went the same way ....

And so ....

If you substitute George W. Bush for Chairman Mao .....

In this following article ....

And the REPUBLICAN PARTY ....

For the "hard-line Communists" in China under Mao ....

And the REPUBLICAN UPPER-CLASS in OUR America ...

For whom George W. Bush and his "HARD-LINERS" ....

Are creating a "WELFARE STATE" ....

For the urban proletariat in Maoist China ....

For whom a welfare state was created .....

By CHAIRMAN MAO ....

And substitute all of these cock-a-manie ECONOMIC PLANS of George W. Bush ...

And his "HARD-LINERS" ....

For the cock-a-manie plans of CHAIRMAN MAO and his "hard-liners" ....

During the "GREAT LEAP FORWARD" of Mao in China ....

And all of the entire world ....

In the case of George W. Bush ....

And his "hard-liners" .....

For just China ....

In the case of CHAIRMAN MAO ....

And his "hard-liners" ....

And the REPRESSION of George W. Bush ....

And his "HARD-LINERS" .....

For the REPRESSION of CHAIRMAN MAO .....

And his "HARD-LINERS" .....

Well ...

Don't take my word for it ....

Follow the logic yourself ...

And see where that takes you ...

Since I already know ...

Where it takes me ....

And so .....

We have ....

THE GREAT LEAP FOWARD OF GEORGE W. BUSH .....

As perfected by his PREDECESSOR IN ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY PERSONIFIED ........

Chairman Mao ....

And so ....

Great Leap Forward

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social plan to use China's vast population to rapidly transform mainland China from a primarily agrarian economy dominated by peasant farmers into a modern, industrialized communist society.

Mao Zedong based this program on the Theory of Productive Forces.

The Leap was initiated and led by Mao, and carried out by the Chinese Communist Party from 1958 to early 1962.

Mao believed that progress and its resulting abundance of goods, if implemented fearlessly, could come in great leaps and bounds.

The plan did not achieve the intended results, led to widespread economic dislocation, and is widely regarded both in and out of China as a policy disaster.

Historical background

In October 1949 after the retreat of the Kuomintang to Taiwan, the Communist Party of China proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China and assumed power in the country.

One of its first and most important policies was land reform, whereby the land holdings of landlords and more wealthy peasants was forcibly redistributed to poorer peasants.

Within the Party, there was major debate as to how and at what pace there should be further land reform.

A moderate faction including Politburo member Liu Shaoqi argued that change should be gradual and that any collectivisation of the peasantry should await industrialisation, which could provide the agricultural machinery necessary for mechanised farming.

A more radical faction led by Mao Zedong argued that the best way to finance industrialisation was for the Government to take control of agriculture, thereby establishing a monopoly over grain distribution and supply.

This would allow the State to buy at a low price and sell much higher, thus raising the capital necessary for the industrialisation of the country.

It was realised that this policy would be unpopular with the peasants and therefore it was proposed that the peasants should be brought under Party control by the establishment of agricultural collectives which would also facilitate the sharing of tools and draft animals.

This policy was gradually pushed through between 1949 and 1958, first by establishing "mutual aid teams" of 5-15 households, then in 1953 "elementary agricultural cooperatives" of 20-40 households, then from 1956 in "higher co-operatives" of 100-300 families.

These reforms (sometimes now referred to as The Little Leap Forward) were generally unpopular with the peasants and usually implemented by summoning them to meetings and making them stay there for days and sometimes weeks until they "voluntarily" agreed to join the collective.

Besides these economic changes the party implemented major social changes in the countryside including the banishing of all religious and mystic institutions and ceremonies and replacing them with political meetings and propaganda sessions.

Attempts were made to enhance rural education and the status of women (allowing females to initiate divorce if they desire) and end foot-binding, child marriage and opium addiction.

Internal passports were introduced in 1956 forbidding travel without appropriate authorisation.

Highest priority was given to the urban proletariat for whom a welfare state was created.

The first phase of collectivisation was not a success and there was widespread famine in 1956, though the Party's propaganda machine announced progressively higher harvests.

Moderates within the Party, including Zhou Enlai, argued for a reversal of collectivisation.

The position of the moderates was strengthened by Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 Secret speech at the Twentieth Congress which uncovered Stalin's crimes and highlighted the failure of his agricultural policies including collectivisation in the Soviet Union.

In 1957 Mao responded to the tensions in the Party, by promoting free speech and criticism under the Hundred Flowers Campaign.

In retrospect this proved to be a ploy to allow critics of the regime, primarily intellectuals but also low ranking members of the party critical of the agricultural policies to identify themselves.

Once they had done so, at least half a million were purged under the Anti-Rightist campaign organised by Deng Xiaoping, which effectively silenced any opposition from within the Party or from agricultural experts to the changes which would be implemented under the Great Leap Forward.

By the completion of the first 5 Year Economic Plan in 1957, Mao had come to doubt that the path to socialism that had been taken by the Soviet Union was appropriate for China.

He was critical of Khrushchev's reversal of Stalinist policies and alarmed by the uprisings that had taken place in East Germany, Poland and Hungary, and the perception that the USSR was seeking "Peaceful coexistence" with the Western powers.

Mao had become convinced that China should follow its own radical path towards a Communist utopia.

Great Leap Forward

rward was the name given to the Second Five Year Plan which was scheduled to run from 1958-1963, though the name is now generally limited to the first three years of this period.

Mao unveiled the Great Leap Forward at a meeting in January 1958 in Nanning.

The central idea behind the Great Leap was that rapid development of both China's agricultural and industrial sectors should take place in parallel.

The hope was to industrialize by making use of the massive supply of cheap labour and avoid having to import heavy machinery.

To achieve this Mao advocated that a further round of collectivisation modelled on the USSR's "Third Period" was necessary in the Chinese countryside where the existing collectives would be merged into huge People's communes.

An experimental commune was established at Chayashan in Henan in April 1958.

Here for the first time private plots were entirely abolished and communal kitchens were introduced.

At the Politburo meetings in August 1958, it was decided that these people's communes would become the new form of economic and political organisation throughout rural China.

Astonishingly for such a dramatic social change, by the end of the year approximately 25,000 communes had been set-up, each with an average of 5,000 households.

The communes were relatively self sufficient co-operatives where wages and money were replaced by work points.

Besides agriculture they incorporated some light industry and construction projects.

Mao saw grain and steel production as the 2 key pillars of economic development.

He forecast that within 15 years of the start of the Great Leap, China's steel production would surpass that of the United Kingdom.

In the August 1958 Politburo meetings, it was decided that steel production would be set to double within the year, most of the increase coming through backyard steel furnaces.

Mao was shown an example of a backyard furnace in Hefei, Anhui in September 1958 by provincial first secretary Zeng Xisheng.

The unit was claimed to be manufacturing high quality steel (though in fact the finished steel had probably been manufactured elsewhere).

Mao encouraged the establishment of small backyard steel furnaces in every commune and in each urban neighbourhood.

Huge efforts on the part of peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal.

To fuel the furnaces the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants houses.

Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the "scrap" for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met.

Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools and even hospitals.

As could have been predicted by anyone with any experience of steel production or basic knowledge of metallurgy, the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth.

However, Mao's deep distrust of intellectuals and faith in the power of the mass mobilisation of peasants led him to order this massive countrywide effort without consulting expert opinion.

Moreover the experience of the intellectual classes following the Hundred Flowers Campaign led those aware of the folly of such a plan to not dare voice criticism.

According to his private doctor Li Zhisui, Mao and his entourage visited traditional steel works in Manchuria in January 1959 where he found out that high quality steel could only be produced in large scale factories using reliable fuel such as coal.

However he decided not to order a halt to the backyard steel furnaces so as not to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses.

The program was only quietly abandoned much later in that year.

Substantial effort was expended during the Great Leap Forward on large-scale but often poorly planned capital construction projects, such as irrigation works often built without input from trained engineers.

On the communes a number of radical and controversial agricultural innovations were promoted at the behest of Mao.

Many of these were based on the ideas of now discredited Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko and his followers.

The policies included close cropping, whereby seeds were sown far more densely than normal on the incorrect assumption that seeds of the same class would not compete with each other.

Deep plowing (up to 2m deep) was encouraged on the mistaken belief that this would yield plants with extra large root systems.

Even more disastrously it was argued that a proportion of fields should be left fallow.

The initial impact of the Great Leap Forward was discussed at a Party congress in Lushan in July/August 1959.

Although many of the more moderate leaders had reservations about the new policy, the only senior leader to speak out openly was Marshall Peng Dehuai.

Mao used the conference to dismiss Peng from his post as Defence Minisiter and denounce both Peng (who came from a poor peasant family) and his supporters as bourgeoisie and launch a nationwide campaign against "right opportunism".

Climate conditions and famine

Despite these harmful agricultural innovations, the weather in 1958 was very favourable and the harvest promised to be good.

Unfortunately, the amount of labour diverted to steel production and construction projects meant that much of the harvest was left to rot uncollected in the fields in some areas.

Although actual harvests were reduced, local officials, under tremendous pressure from the central authorities to report record harvests in response to the new innovations, competed with each other to announce increasingly exaggerated results.

These exaggerated results were used as a basis for determining the amount of grain to be taken by the State to supply the towns and cities and export markets.

This left barely enough for the peasants to eat, and in some areas, starvation set in.

During 1958-1960 China continued to be a substantial net exporter of grain, despite the widespread famine experienced in the countryside, as Mao sought to maintain face and convince the outside world of the success of his plans.

The Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbooks for 1958 to 1962 speak of abnormal weather: droughts followed by floods.

This includes 30 inches of rain at Hong Kong in five days in June 1959, part of a pattern that hit all of South China.

However it should be noted that all weather data for Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbooks came from Chinese government sources; the government had sought to portray the vast famine as due to 'natural disasters' rather than their policies, and could thus be seen as incented to falsify weather data to outsiders.

In 1959 and 1960 the weather was less favorable, and the situation got considerably worse, with many of China's provinces experiencing severe famine.

Droughts, floods, and general bad weather caught China completely by surprise.

In July of 1959, the Yellow River flooded in East China.

According to the Disaster Center [1], it directly killed, either through starvation from crop failure or drowning, an estimated 2 million people, and ranks as the seventh deadliest natural disaster in the 20th century.

In 1960, at least some degree of drought and other bad weather affected 55 percent of cultivated land, while an estimated 60 percent of agricultural land received no rain at all [2].

With dramatically reduced yields, even urban areas suffered much reduced rations; however, mass starvation was largely confined to the countryside, where as a result of massively inflated production statistics, very little grain was left for the peasants to eat.

Food shortages were bad throughout the country; however, the provinces which had adopted Mao's reforms with the most vigor, such as Anhui, Gansu and Henan, tended to suffer disproportionately.

Sichuan, one of China's most populous provinces, known in China as "Heaven's Granary" because of its fertility, is thought to have suffered the greatest absolute numbers of deaths from starvation due to the vigor with which provincial leader Li Jinquan undertook Mao's disastrous reforms.

At this time, despite the millions of its citizens starving to death, China continued to export vast amounts of agricultural products, particularly to the Soviet Union in exchange for military and industrial expertise and infrastructure.

The agricultural policies of the Great Leap Forward and the associated famine would then continue until January 1961, where, at the Ninth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee, the restoration of agricultural production through a reversal of the Great Leap policies was started.

Grain exports were stopped, and imports from Canada and Australia helped to reduce the impact of the food shortages, at least in the coastal cities.

Consequences

The Great Leap Forward is now widely seen, both within China and outside, as a major economic disaster.

As inflated statistics reached planning authorities, orders were given to divert human resources into industry rather than agriculture.

According to various sources, the death toll due to famine was most likely about 20 to 30 million.

The three years between 1959 and 1962 were known as the "Three Bitter Years" and the Three Years of Natural Disasters.

According to Jasper Becker - a journalist with long experience in China - in his book Hungry Ghosts: China's Secret Famine, most of the critics of the Great Leap outside China "watched China from Hong Kong."

Thus, the conflict in the 1950s and 1960s over the Great Leap shaped up roughly along the lines of those who had experience living in Mao-governed China and those who did not.

Starting in the early 1980s, critics of the Great Leap added quantitative muscle to their arsenal.

U.S. Government employee Judith Banister published what became an influential article in the China Quarterly, and since then estimates as high as 30 million deaths in the Great Leap became common in the U.S. press.

Critics point to birth rate assumptions used in the most widely cited projections of famine deaths.

However, estimations vary, largely because of variations in data.

Today there is a growing exchange of ideas between China and the West.

Discussion of population projection and statistical issues of the Great Leap is becoming more frequent.

During the Great Leap, the Chinese economy initially grew.

Iron production increased 45% in 1958 and a combined 30% over the next two years, but plummeted in 1961, and would not reach the level it was at in 1958 until 1964.

Despite the risks to their careers, some Communist Party members openly laid blame for the disaster at the feet of the Party leadership and took it as proof that China must rely more on education, acquiring technical expertise and applying bourgeois methods in developing the economy.

Liu Shaoqi said: "The disaster was 30% fault of nature, 70% human error."[citation needed]

It was principally to crush this opposition that Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in early 1966.

Mao stepped down as State Chairman (President) of the PRC in 1959, predicting he would take most of the blame for the failure of the Great Leap Forward, though he did retain his position as Chairman of the CCP.

Liu Shaoqi (the new PRC Chairman) and Deng Xiaoping (CCP General Secretary) were left in charge to execute measures to achieve economic recovery.

Moreover, Mao's Great Leap Forward policy came under open criticism at a party conference at Lushan, Jiangxi Province.

The attack was led by Minister of National Defense Peng Dehuai, who had become troubled by the potentially adverse effect Mao's policies would have on the modernization of the armed forces.

Peng argued that "putting politics in command" was no substitute for economic laws and realistic economic policy; unnamed party leaders were also admonished for trying to "jump into communism in one step."

After the Lushan showdown, Peng Dehuai, who allegedly had been encouraged by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to oppose Mao, was deposed.

Peng was replaced by Lin Biao, a radical and opportunist Maoist.

The new defense minister initiated a systematic purge of Peng's supporters from the military.

Additionally, this failure in Mao's regime meant that Mao became a "dead ancestor," as he labeled himself: a person who was respected but never consulted, occupying the political background of the Party.

Furthermore, he also stopped appearing in public.

All of this he later regretted, as he relaunched his Cult of Personality with the Great Yangtze Swim.

In agrarian policy, the failures of food supply during the Great Leap were met by a gradual de-collectivization in the 1960s that foreshadowed further de-collectivization under Deng Xiaoping.

Political scientist Meredith Woo-Cumings argues:

"Unquestionably the regime failed to respond in time to save the lives of millions of peasants, but when it did respond, it ultimately transformed the livelihoods of several hundred million peasants (modestly in the early 1960s, but permanently after Deng Xiaoping's reforms subsequent to 1978.)" [3]

After the death of Mao and the start of Chinese economic reform under Deng Xiaoping, the tendency within the Chinese government was to see the Great Leap Forward as a major economic disaster and to attribute it to the cult of personality under Mao Zedong, and to regard it as one of the serious errors he made after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

References

The Most Deadly 100 Natural Disasters of the 20TH Century - an activist non-academic website

Asia Times - MAO AND LINCOLN - Part 2: The Great Leap Forward not all bad

Meredith Woo-Cummings, The Political Ecology of Famine: The North Korean Catastrophe and Its Lessons, ADB Institute Research Paper 31, January 2002.

Further reading

Li Zhisui. The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 1996.

Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine, 1998.

Philip Short. Mao: A Life, 1999.

This article incorporates public domain text from the Library of Congress Country
Studies. - China

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward"

War Powers Resolution

Public Law 93-148
93rd Congress, H. J. Res. 542
November 7, 1973

Joint Resolution Concerning the War Powers of Congress and the President.

Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SHORT TITLE

SECTION 1. This joint resolution may be cited as the "War Powers Resolution".

PURPOSE AND POLICY

SEC. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.

(b) Under article I, section 8, of the Constitution, it is specifically provided that the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

© The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

CONSULTATION

SEC. 3. The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and after every such introduction shall consult regularly with the Congress until United States Armed Forces are no longer engaged in hostilities or have been removed from such situations.

REPORTING

SEC. 4. (a) In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced --

(1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances;

(2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces; or

(3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation; the president shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate a report, in writing, setting forth--

(A) the circumstances necessitating the introduction of United States Armed Forces;

(B) the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place; and

© the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.

(b) The President shall provide such other information as the Congress may request in the fulfillment of its constitutional responsibilities with respect to committing the Nation to war and to the use of United States Armed Forces abroad.

© Whenever United States Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities or into any situation described in subsection (a) of this section, the President shall, so long as such armed forces continue to be engaged in such hostilities or situation, report to the Congress periodically on the status of such hostilities or situation as well as on the scope and duration of such hostilities or situation, but in no event shall he report to the Congress less often than once every six months.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

SEC. 5. (a) Each report submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1) shall be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate on the same calendar day.

Each report so transmitted shall be referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate for appropriate action.

If, when the report is transmitted, the Congress has adjourned sine die or has adjourned for any period in excess of three calendar days, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate, if they deem it advisable (or if petitioned by at least 30 percent of the membership of their respective Houses) shall jointly request the President to convene Congress in order that it may consider the report and take appropriate action pursuant to this section.

(b) Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1), whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States.

Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.

© Notwithstanding subsection (b), at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution.

CONGRESSIONAL PRIORITY PROCEDURES FOR JOINT RESOLUTION OR BILL

SEC. 6. (a) Any joint resolution or bill introduced pursuant to section 5(b) at least thirty calendar days before the expiration of the sixty-day period specified in such section shall be referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives or the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, as the case may be, and such committee shall report one such joint resolution or bill, together with its recommendations, not later than twenty-four calendar days before the expiration of the sixty-day period specified in such section, unless such House shall otherwise determine by the yeas and nays.

(b) Any joint resolution or bill so reported shall become the pending business of the House in question (in the case of the Senate the time for debate shall be equally divided between the proponents and the opponents), and shall be voted on within three calendar days thereafter, unless such House shall otherwise determine by yeas and nays.

© Such a joint resolution or bill passed by one House shall be referred to the committee of the other House named in subsection (a) and shall be reported out not later than fourteen calendar days before the expiration of the sixty-day period specified in section 5(b).

The joint resolution or bill so reported shall become the pending business of the House in question and shall be voted on within three calendar days after it has been reported, unless such House shall otherwise determine by yeas and nays.

(d) In the case of any disagreement between the two Houses of Congress with respect to a joint resolution or bill passed by both Houses, conferees shall be promptly appointed and the committee of conference shall make and file a report with respect to such resolution or bill not later than four calendar days before the expiration of the sixty-day period specified in section 5(b).

In the event the conferees are unable to agree within 48 hours, they shall report back to their respective Houses in disagreement.

Notwithstanding any rule in either House concerning the printing of conference reports in the Record or concerning any delay in the consideration of such reports, such report shall be acted on by both Houses not later than the expiration of such sixty-day period.

CONGRESSIONAL PRIORITY PROCEDURES FOR CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

SEC. 7. (a) Any concurrent resolution introduced pursuant to section 5(b) at least thirty calendar days before the expiration of the sixty-day period specified in such section shall be referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives or the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, as the case may be, and one such concurrent resolution shall be reported out by such committee together with its recommendations within fifteen calendar days, unless such House shall otherwise determine by the yeas and nays.

(b) Any concurrent resolution so reported shall become the pending business of the House in question (in the case of the Senate the time for debate shall be equally divided between the proponents and the opponents), and shall be voted on within three calendar days thereafter, unless such House shall otherwise determine by yeas and nays.

© Such a concurrent resolution passed by one House shall be referred to the committee of the other House named in subsection (a) and shall be reported out by such committee together with its recommendations within fifteen calendar days and shall thereupon become the pending business of such House and shall be voted on within three calendar days after it has been reported, unless such House shall otherwise determine by yeas and nays.

(d) In the case of any disagreement between the two Houses of Congress with respect to a concurrent resolution passed by both Houses, conferees shall be promptly appointed and the committee of conference shall make and file a report with respect to such concurrent resolution within six calendar days after the legislation is referred to the committee of conference. Notwithstanding any rule in either House concerning the printing of conference reports in the Record or concerning any delay in the consideration of such reports, such report shall be acted on by both Houses not later than six calendar days after the conference report is filed. In the event the conferees are unable to agree within 48 hours, they shall report back to their respective Houses in disagreement.

INTERPRETATION OF JOINT RESOLUTION

SEC. 8. (a) Authority to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances shall not be inferred --

(1) from any provision of law (whether or not in effect before the date of the enactment of this joint resolution), including any provision contained in any appropriation Act, unless such provision specifically authorizes the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into such situations and stating that it is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of this joint resolution; or

(2) from any treaty heretofore or hereafter ratified unless such treaty is implemented by legislation specifically authorizing the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into such situations and stating that it is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of this joint resolution.

(b) Nothing in this joint resolution shall be construed to require any further specific statutory authorization to permit members of United States Armed Forces to participate jointly with members of the armed forces of one or more foreign countries in the headquarters operations of high-level military commands which were established prior to the date of enactment of this joint resolution and pursuant to the United Nations Charter or any treaty ratified by the United States prior to such date.

© For purposes of this joint resolution, the term "introduction of United States Armed Forces" includes the assignment of member of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.

(d) Nothing in this joint resolution --

(1) is intended to alter the constitutional authority of the Congress or of the President, or the provision of existing treaties; or

(2) shall be construed as granting any authority to the President with respect to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances which authority he would not have had in the absence of this joint resolution.

SEPARABILITY CLAUSE

SEC. 9. If any provision of this joint resolution or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the joint resolution and the application of such provision to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected thereby.

EFFECTIVE DATE

SEC. 10. This joint resolution shall take effect on the date of its enactment.

CARL ALBERT
Speaker of the House of Representatives.

JAMES O. EASTLAND
President of the Senate pro tempore.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, U.S.,

November 7, 1973.

The House of Representatives having proceeded to reconsider the resolution (H. J. Res 542) entitled "Joint resolution concerning the war powers of Congress and the President", returned by the President of the United States with his objections, to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, it was

Resolved, That the said resolution pass, two-thirds of the House of Representatives agreeing to pass the same.

Attest:
W. PAT JENNINGS
Clerk.

I certify that this Joint Resolution originated in the House of Representatives.

W. PAT JENNINGS
Clerk.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

November 7, 1973

The Senate having proceeded to reconsider the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 542) entitled "Joint resolution concerning the war powers of Congress and the President", returned by the President of the United States with his objections to the House of Representatives, in which it originate, it was

Resolved, That the said joint resolution pass, two-thirds of the Senators present having voted in the affirmative.

Attest:
FRANCIS R. VALEO
Secretary.

Which puts Chairman Mao in the race along with Hitler and Stalin for...

Who killed the most people in the 20th century?

Alex, may I have the envelope please.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, jeffmoskin .....

You're being a bit unfair here ...

Calling for the envelope at this time .....

And limiting the competition ....

To just the 20th century .....

While the incompetent George W. Bush is just getting started ...

On eclipsing the records of all of those other contenders .....

So that he will be remembered for the rest of time ...

As the MONSTER who killed the most people in the world ...

And especially women and children .....

Who seem to be favorite targets for George ...

Likely because they are easier to find and kill ...

Along with old people ...

Who can't move that fast .....

To get out of George's "FIELDS OF FIRE" .....

And so ....

Where, jeffmoskin, is your AMERICAN PRIDE?

Why should the honor of who killed the most people in the world go to some foreigner ......

When we have a real contender just getting his feet under him in his own effort ...

Right here in the good old U & S of A ......

That being our own George W. Bush ....

A man who could make Hulagu Khan .....

Or Idi Amin ....

Or "Papa Doc" Duvalier .....

Seem like civilized gentlemen ....

In comparison .....

And so ....

And perhaps we are finally starting to get some TRUTH out of Washington, D.C. ......

In this following "e-letter" .....

To me ...

From United States Senator John F. Kerry .....

Who would have been a lucid, rational alternative to George W. Bush ....

As president of OUR America ....

If only lucid and rational had been more in vogue ....

Here in OUR America ...

When it really could have made a difference ....

And so ....

Dear Livyjr,

It's as simple as this.

Most members of Congress, myself included, share some responsibility for getting us into Iraq.

We've got to take responsibility for getting us out.

Since April, hundreds of thousands of you have joined me in calling for a change in policy, a change in course -- for Iraq, and for Americans here at home.

Now let's turn the volume up higher.

Washington needs to hear your voice.

The violence continues to spiral in Iraq.

But, instead of a deadline to bring our troops home and put the future of Iraq in the hands of Iraqi leaders, we get half-hearted comments about past mistakes, and cynical political calculation.

Last month, I introduced Senate Joint Resolution 36 which calls for the withdrawal of our combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year.

In the next few weeks, I am urging the Senate to take a strong stand on Iraq and pass this Resolution.

It's time to put the future of Iraq where it belongs - in the hands of the Iraqi people and their leaders.

Our valiant soldiers have done their job.

Tell your Senators: support Senate Joint Resolution 36 to bring our combat troops home in 2006

President Bush wants to stumble along, perpetuating his mistakes for the remainder of his time in office.

He's even suggested that decisions about withdrawing all of our troops from Iraq will be for the next president to make.

And, instead of statesmanship, the president's top advisor, Karl Rove, is worrying that the war has put voters in a "sour mood" for the 2006 elections.

He should be worried about the safety of our troops, not the job security of Republican congressmen.

It took President Bush three years to admit he was wrong to say 'bring it on.'

We can't afford years to go by until he admits the standstill in Iraq today is wrong.

Tell your Senators: support Senate Joint Resolution 36 to bring our combat troops home in 2006

After months of squabbling and delay, we now hear that the new Iraqi government will complete its cabinet in a matter of days.

So, it's time to act -- time to keep the pressure on.

Iraqi leaders have only responded to deadlines -- a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, a deadline to hold three elections, and their own constitutional deadline to establish a unity government.

Now we must set another deadline to get our combat troops out and get Iraq up on its own two feet.

We must agree with the new Iraqi government on a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by the end of this year.

Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country, and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country.

Tell your Senators: support Senate Joint Resolution 36 to bring our combat troops home in 2006

Our soldiers have done their job, and America is grateful to them for their honor and sacrifice.

Now it's time for the Iraqis to do their job of securing and governing their country and it is time to get our combat troops home in 2006.

Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain.

We need blunt talk and clear plans -- and only pressure from you can force Washington to change course.

I am committed to forcing Congress to speak out on Iraq.

Yesterday in Los Angeles I made it clear that I'm not going to stop fighting until we have a change in policy.

I urge you to keep supporting our efforts to force action when lives are on the line and leadership is desperately needed.

Sincerely,

John Kerry