The telecoms strike back
The AT&T-Bellsouth deal may means more services but not necessarily
cheaper prices. By Mark Trumbull and Alexandra Marks
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p01s01-usec.html?s=hns

Justices side with military recruiters
The court has ruled that colleges that take federal money can't exclude
recruiters from campus. By Stacy A. Teicher
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p02s01-usju.html?s=hns

North Carolina's NASCAR roots pay off
The sport's new hall of fame seems destined for Charlotte. By Patrik
Jonsson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p02s02-alsp.html?s=hns

Crackdown on animal-rights activists
A New Jersey guilty verdict puts the focus on the extremist tactics
that Congress is trying to curb. By Brad Knickerbocker
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p03s01-usju.html?s=hns

World Bank's war on corruption
Bank president Paul Wolfowitz says the defeat of graft is his top
priority. How to achieve it is another matter. The Monitor's View
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p08s02-comv.html?s=hns

Fisk Paints a Middle East in crisis

By ABC Australia 03/06/06

Robert Fisk says that in his three decades of reporting from the Middle East for British newspapers, he's never seen it more dangerous, and that he's certain another major crisis, possibly even another September 11, is coming.

Audio and transcript
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12213.htm

===

Twilight's Last Gleaming

By John Cory

Who are these people? These people who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones? These gray men who lurk in shadows and kill the sunshine of democracy? These people who wear morality like a cheap suit pilfered from the collection plate of decency? Who are these people who have turned America into their own personal ATM machine?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12224.htm

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The Value of George Orwell

By Charley Reese

The phrase "war on terror" is a phony metaphor. We are not at war. Ninety-nine and 99/100ths percent of the American people are living the same way they've always lived. We have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting an insurrection that our invasions of those countries caused. They are at war – a war of their own country's making – but the rest of us are not. Waving a flag or putting a bumper sticker on one's car cannot be called a war effort.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12219.htm

===

THE LIGHTHOUSE
"Enlightening Ideas for Public Policy..."
Vol. 8, Issue 10; March 6, 2006

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IN THIS WEEK'S ISSUE:
1. U.S.-India Nuclear Agreement
2. Mexico's "Dirty War": Bloody Hypocrisy Exposed
3. The OECD Drift
4. UN Advises Higher Taxes for Guatemalans

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

Welcome to THE LIGHTHOUSE, the weekly e-mail newsletter of the Independent Institute, the non-politicized public-policy research organization. Edited by Carl P. Close, THE LIGHTHOUSE provides you with updates of the Institute's current research, publications, events and media programs, plus commentary on current affairs.

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U.S.-INDIA NUCLEAR AGREEMENT

The Bush administration's new nuclear pact with India -- which both lifts a moratorium on nuclear fuel and technology sales to India and allows that country to expand its nuclear weapons program, subject to international inspections only of its civilian nuclear activities -- is bad policy predicated on a false theory, according to Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland.

The new pact, intended to strengthen "a democratic India as an Asian counterweight to a rising autocratic China" may be "a risky gamble that blows up in the U.S. government's face," writes Eland, director of the Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty, in his latest op-ed.

"Twenty years down the road, India may be more of a threat to U.S. interests than China. The future is hard to predict and the United States has not always been good at identifying who the next enemy will be."


Eland also argues that strengthening relations with China's neighbors, including an increasingly autocratic Russia, could help create a threatened, hostile China. In addition, Eland argues that Bush administration foreign policy is wedded to a false theory, the so-called democratic peace theory, which overemphasizes the allegedly inherent peacefulness of democracies.

See "Nuclear Assistance to India: Building a Future Menace?" by Ivan Eland (3/6/06)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1685
SPANISH TRANSLATION:
"La asistencia nuclear a India: ¿creando una futura amenaza?"
http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1685

To purchase THE EMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland, see
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=54

To purchase PUTTING "DEFENSE" BACK IN U.S. DEFENSE POLICY, by Ivan Eland, see
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=19

Center on Peace & Liberty (Ivan Eland, director)
http://www.independent.org/research/copal/

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

MEXICO'S "DIRTY WAR": Bloody Hypocrisy Exposed

In 2002 Mexican president Vicente Fox appointed a committee to examine past administrations' human-rights abuses against suspected subversives during the so-called "dirty war" waged by the military under direction of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). According to Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa, director of the Center on Global Prosperity, that committee's draft report -- leaked recently to the press -- exposes the hypocrisy of the PRI, which supported Latin American revolutionaries so long as they did not harshly criticize the party.

"What we did not know until this report came out, was that the revolutionary fervor [of the PRI] actually masked what -- by the PRI's own standards -- can only be called a fascist or extreme right-wing policy of genocide, obliterating entire villages and killing scores of innocent victims," writes Vargas Llosa in his latest op-ed. "So long as it maintained a corrupt aid to revolutionaries inside and outside Mexico and an inflamed anti-imperialist rhetoric, it had carte blanche from all sorts of intellectuals, civil society movements and human-rights groups to practice a systematic negation of everything the PRI, a supposed progressive animal, stood for.

"It is difficult to remember this nowadays, of course, because the left broke with the PRI in the 1990s, when, in one of its many opportunistic turns, that party espoused globalization and began to (somewhat) open up the economy. But the story of the PRI up to that point is the story of ideological and political fraud on a colossal scale in the interest of power."

See "Mexico -- The Fraud of the Century," by Alvaro Vargas Llosa (3/1/06)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1681
SPANISH TRANSLATION:
"México: El fraude del siglo"
http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1681

THE CHE GUEVARA MYTH AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERTY, by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, see
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=61

LIBERTY FOR LATIN AMERICA: How to Undo Five-Hundred Years of State Oppression, by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
http://www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=55

Center on Global Prosperity (Alvaro Vargas Llosa, director)
http://www.independent.org/research/cogp/

Spanish-language Blog:
El Independent: El Blog del Centro Para la Prosperidad Global de The Independent Institute
http://independent.typepad.com

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

THE OECD DRIFT

For about half of its life, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) attempted to defend and promote economic liberty in the West. As Independent Institute Research Fellow Pierre Lemieux explains, however, in the past two decades the OECD has drifted toward government intervention.

Beginning in the 1980s, the OECD began advocating "fair competition" and a "global playing field," rather than free trade. Since the 1990s, it has also pushed both "socially responsible" corporate governance, which puts the alleged claims of so-called community "stake holders" on par with the claims of stockholders, and "sustainable development," which asserts presumptuously that long-run development requires the government to prevent private developers from acting against their own rational self-interest.

Although the OECD still does some good work (Lemieux lauds its country surveys and research on comparative health-care systems), the recent selection of Angel Gurria of Mexico to head the OECD in June, rather than the market-oriented classical liberal candidate Alain Madelin of France, bodes poorly for the organization -- and for the future of economic liberty.

Writes Lemieux: "Alain Madelin believes that the OECD will be more and more carried into the world governance movement, which, he explains, is where the enemies of liberty have refocused their fight. He adds, pessimistically, 'It is the end of the OECD.'"

See "The OECD Drift," by Pierre Lemieux (2/21/06)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1684
SPANISH TRANSLATION:
"El rumbo de la OECD"
http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1684

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

UN ADVISES HIGHER TAXES FOR GUATEMALANS

Economic advisors from the United Nations recently told Guatemalans that raising their taxes to 16 percent of their country's GDP to help fund education, health, and social development would spur economic progress. According to Independent Institute Adjunct Fellow Carlos Sabino, however, following that recommendation would divert too much capital away from private enterprises better able to contribute to Guatemala's economic progress.

"What does not seem logical is for Guatemala to reduce further the small private investment that exists, by frightening investors away in order to fund social programs that, in practice, are not effective in the war against poverty," writes Sabino in a new op-ed.

Sabino also argues that the establishment of "security and a system of efficient justice" is essential to enable people to improve their condition, especially when faced with a corrupt or wasteful government bureaucracy.

Concludes Sabino: "The dilemma posed here is, in reality, much clearer and less difficult to solve. Either Guatemala encumbers its already very poor and long-suffering population with more taxes, thus increasing the public bureaucracy, or it stimulates private investment, the free flow of capital, and an environment of security and order so that everyone has an opportunity to prosper."

See "Guatemala: More Taxes or More Investment?" by Carlos Sabino (3/3/06)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1683
SPANISH TRANSLATION:
"Más impuestos o más inversión... ése es el dilema"
http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/article.asp?id=1683

Spanish-language Blog:
El Independent: El Blog del Centro Para la Prosperidad Global de The Independent Institute
http://independent.typepad.com

For previous issues of THE LIGHTHOUSE, see
http://www.independent.org/publications/the_lighthouse/.
THE LIGHTHOUSE
ISSN 1526-173X
Copyright © 2006 The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way Oakland, CA 94621-1428
(510) 632-1366 phone
(510) 568-6040 fax

Impeaching George W. Bush: From discussion to action --

Michael Ratner and his fellow lawyers have drafted a call to impeach President Bush.
http://www.alternet.org/story/32977/

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Impeachment Proves Risky Political Issue:

If Democratic candidate Tony Trupiano wins a Michigan House seat this fall, he pledges that one of his first acts will be to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush.
http://tinyurl.com/nzu3u

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In case you missed it:

Noam Chomsky Interview :

"If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Tribunals, he'd be hanged. So too, mind you, would every single American President since the end of the second world war, including Jimmy Carter.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6235.htm

Video: Pigs At The Trough:

U.S. Politicians Line Up To Prostitute Themselves For AIPAC
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12212.htm

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Accusations of anti-semitic chic are poisonous intellectual thuggery :

Attempts to brand the left as anti-Jewish because of its support of Palestinian rights only make it harder to tackle genuine racism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1724459,00.html

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John Pilger:Video: "Palestine is Still the Issue" :

Why Has This Documentary, Never Been Broadcast On U.S. Media ?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article3499.htm

===

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The torture dodge: Congress must put an end to abuses at Gitmo:

The president believes he can ignore the law whenever he chooses. He made that clear in a "signing statement" in which he reserved the right to interpret the torture ban in the context of his broader constitutional powers as commander in chief.
http://tinyurl.com/lulhf

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No Habeas at Guantanamo? :

Ian Wallach, habeas counsel for several Guantanamo Bay detainees, says that the US Executive Branch may have engaged in questionable acts and disseminated inaccurate information to encourage Senate passage of provisions in the Detainee Treatment Act preventing federal judges from seeing problematic evidence on why detainees are being held...
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/03/...ecutive-and.php

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'Specific' info on NSA eavesdropping?:

Of all the lawsuits seeking to halt the National Security Agency's program to eavesdrop on certain Americans' electronic communications, a new one filed last week in Oregon may provide the federal courts with the most detailed glimpse yet into the clandestine counterterrorism effort.
http://csmweb2.emcweb.com/2006/0306/p03s03-uspo.html

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Watchdog: What Ever Happened to the Civil Liberties Board?:

For more than a year, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been the most invisible office in the White House. Created by Congress in December 2004 as a result of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the board has never hired a staff or even held a meeting.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12218.htm

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Paul Craig Roberts: A Nation Polarized Between Rich and Poor:

America's Bleak Jobs Future
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12209.htm

===
A Revolution Of Spirit:

It is time to reclaim our power and our forefathers’ vision. It is essential that we become lights in a world blackened by our excesses, by our abrogation of spirit to the base desires of the corporation.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12223.htm

===
Court upholds campus military recruiting:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that colleges that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said that the campus visits are an effective military recruiting tool.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12210.htm

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More blacks deciding not to serve:

Defense Department statistics show that the number of black active-duty enlisted personnel has declined 14 percent since 2000.
http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/top...asp?ArID=114811

===
Cunningham's Corruption Connections:

The same defense contractors who were playing Cunningham with cash and favors were working other members of Congress and top administration officials. Once all the facts are on the table, the Abramoff scandal may pale in comparison.
http://tinyurl.com/mhngq

===
Levee fixes falling short, experts warn:

Two teams of independent experts monitoring the $1.6 billion reconstruction project say large sections of the rebuilt levee system will be substantially weaker than before the hurricane hit.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11689626/

Rumsfeld Pushes Gingrich Long War Strategy
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Rumsfeld_P...r_Strategy.html

Washington (UPI) Mar 07, 2006 - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is circulating a strategy paper by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, asking top deputies to take another look at the QDR with it in mind. "What does he propose that we have overlooked?" wrote Rumsfeld in a Jan. 30 memo marked "for official use only".


Europe And America At Odds On Terrror Threat
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Europe_And...ror_Threat.html

Brussels (UPI) Mar 06, 2006 - Europeans and Americans are supposed to be fighting shoulder to shoulder in the so-called war on terror. But how can they beat their common enemy when they have such radically different interpretations of the scale of the threat posed by Jihadi terrorism and the nature of the response needed to defeat it?

March 7, 2006
An Imam in America
Tending to Muslim Hearts and Islam's Future
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
The young Egyptian professional could pass for any New York bachelor.

Dressed in a crisp polo shirt and swathed in cologne, he races his Nissan Maxima through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan, late for a date with a tall brunette. At red lights, he fusses with his hair.

What sets the bachelor apart from other young men on the make is the chaperon sitting next to him — a tall, bearded man in a white robe and stiff embroidered hat.

"I pray that Allah will bring this couple together," the man, Sheik Reda Shata, says, clutching his seat belt and urging the bachelor to slow down.

Christian singles have coffee hour. Young Jews have JDate. But many Muslims believe that it is forbidden for an unmarried man and woman to meet in private. In predominantly Muslim countries, the job of making introductions and even arranging marriages typically falls to a vast network of family and friends.

In Brooklyn, there is Mr. Shata.

Week after week, Muslims embark on dates with him in tow. Mr. Shata, the imam of a Bay Ridge mosque, juggles some 550 "marriage candidates," from a gold-toothed electrician to a professor at Columbia University. The meetings often unfold on the green velour couch of his office, or over a meal at his favorite Yemeni restaurant on Atlantic Avenue.

The bookish Egyptian came to America in 2002 to lead prayers, not to dabble in matchmaking. He was far more conversant in Islamic jurisprudence than in matters of the heart. But American imams must wear many hats, none of which come tailor-made.

Whether issuing American-inspired fatwas or counseling the homesick, fielding questions from the F.B.I. or mediating neighborhood spats, Mr. Shata walks an endless labyrinth of problems.

If anything seems conquerable, it is the solitude of Muslim singles. Nothing brings the imam more joy than guiding them to marriage. It is his way of fashioning a future for his faith. It is his most heartfelt effort — by turns graceful and comedic, vexing and hopeful — to make Islam work in America.

Word of the imam's talents has traveled far, eliciting lonely calls from Muslims in Chicago and Los Angeles, or from meddlesome parents in Cairo and Damascus.

From an estimated 250 chaperoned dates, Mr. Shata has produced 10 marriages.

"The prophet said whoever brings a man and woman together, it is as if he has worshiped for an entire year," said Mr. Shata, 37, speaking through an Arabic translator.

The task is not easy. In a country of plentiful options, Muslim immigrants can become picky, even rude, the imam complains.

During one date, a woman studied the red-circled eyes of a prospective husband and asked, "Have you brought me an alcoholic?"

On another occasion, an Egyptian man stared at the flat chest of a pleasant young Moroccan woman and announced, "She looks like a log!" the imam recalled.

"This would never happen in Egypt," said Mr. Shata, turning red at the memory. "Never, never. If I knew this boy had no manners I never would have let him into my office."

The Imam's Little Black Book

The concept of proper courtship in Islam, like much about the faith, is open to interpretation.

Islamic law specifies that a man and woman who are unmarried may not be alone in closed quarters. Some Muslims reject any mingling before marriage. Others freely date. Many fall somewhere in between, meeting in groups, getting engaged and spending time alone before the wedding, while their parents look the other way.

For one Syrian in New York, a date at Starbucks is acceptable if it begins and ends on the premises: The public is his chaperon.

Mr. Shata is a traditionalist. There were few strangers in his rural town of birth, Kafr al Battikh, in northeastern Egypt. Men and women often agreed to marry the day they met, and a few made the deal sight unseen. It was rare to meet anyone from a distant province, let alone another country.

New York is not only the capital of the world, imams often joke, but also the crossroads of Islam, a human sampling more diverse than anywhere save Mecca during the annual pilgrimage known as the Hajj. Beyond the city's five boroughs, Muslim immigrants have formed Islamic hubs in California, Illinois, Michigan and Texas.

At the center of these hubs stands a familiar sight in a foreign land, the mosque. What was a place of worship in Pakistan or Algeria becomes, in Houston or Detroit, a social haven. But inside, the sexes remain largely apart.

A growing number of Muslim Web sites advertise marriage candidates, and housewives often double as matchmakers. One mosque in Princeton, N.J., plays host to a closely supervised version of speed dating. And so many singles worship at the Islamic Society of Boston that a committee was formed to match them up.

Fearing a potential surplus of single Muslim women, one Brooklyn imam reportedly urged his wealthier male congregants during a Ramadan sermon last year to take two wives. When a woman complained about the sermon to Mr. Shata, he laughed.

"You know that preacher who said Hugo Chávez should be shot?" he asked. "We have our idiots, too."

More than a matchmaker, Mr. Shata sees himself as a surrogate elder to young Muslims, many of whom live far from their parents. In America, only an imam is thought to have the connections, wisdom and respect to step into the role.

Mr. Shata began the service three months after arriving in Brooklyn in 2002, recruited to lead the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, a mosque on Fifth Avenue.

Dates chaperoned by Mr. Shata — or "meetings between candidates," as the imam prefers to call them — often take place in his distinctly unromantic office, amid rows of Islamic texts. As a couple get acquainted, the imam sits quietly at his desk, writing a sermon or surfing the Arabic Web sites of CNN and the BBC.

If there is an awkward silence, the imam perks up and asks a question ("So tell me, Ilham, how many siblings do you have?") and the conversation is moving again.

Candidates are vetted carefully, and those without personal references need not apply. But instinct is Mr. Shata's best guide. He refused to help a Saudi from California because the man would consider only a teenage wife. Others have shown an all-too-keen interest in a green card.

Those who pass initial inspection are listed in the imam's version of a little black book — their names, phone numbers, specifications and desires. Some prefer "silky hair," others "a virgin." Nearly all candidates, men and women alike, want a mate with devotion to Islam, decent looks and legal immigration status.

Scanning the book, the imam makes his pitch with the precision of a car salesman.

"There is a girl, an American convert, Dominican, looks a little Egyptian. Skin-wise, not white, not dark. Wheat-colored. She's 19, studies accounting," Mr. Shata told a 24-year-old Palestinian man one afternoon.

"This is my only choice?" replied the man, Yamal Othman, who lives in Queens.

Such questions annoy Mr. Shata. An imam, he says, should be trusted to select the best candidate. Often, though, his recommendations are met with skepticism.

"It's harder than choosing a diamond," said Mr. Shata.

Sometimes, on the imam's three-legged dates, no one seems more excited than Mr. Shata himself. He makes hurried, hearty introductions and then steps back to watch, as if mixing chemicals in a lab experiment. Love is rarely ignited, but the imam remains awed by its promise.

Mr. Shata discovered love 15 years ago, when he walked into the living room of the most stately house in Kafr al Battikh.

The imam was tall, 22, a rising star at the local mosque. For months, Omyma Elshabrawy knew only his voice. She would listen to his thunderous sermons from the women's section, out of view. Then, one evening, he appeared at her home, presented as a prospective groom to her father, a distinguished reciter of the Koran.

The young woman, then 20, walked toward Mr. Shata carrying a tray of lemonade.

"She entered my heart," said the imam.

After serving the drinks, she disappeared. Right then, Mr. Shata asked her father for her hand in marriage. The older man paused. His daughter was the town beauty, an English student with marriage offers from doctors. The imam was penniless.

But before Mr. Elshabrawy could respond, a sugary voice interrupted. "I accept," his daughter said from behind a door.

"I loved him from the moment I saw him," Ms. Elshabrawy said.

They now have four children.

The family posed last year for a Sears-style portrait, taken by a woman in Bay Ridge who photographs Muslim families in her basement. A blue sky and white picket fence adorn the background. The imam sits at center, with the baby, Mohammed, in his lap, his three daughters smiling, his wife wrapped in a lime-green hijab.

Mr. Shata carries the picture in the breast pocket of his robe. It is as close as most people get to his family. At the mosque, they are a mystery. His wife has been there twice.

Their years in America have come with great hardship, a subject the imam rarely discusses. The trouble is the illness of his 7-year-old daughter, Rawda, who is severely epileptic. She has dozens of seizures every day and rarely leaves home. No combination of medicine seems to help.

"Rawda is the wound in my heart," the imam said.

Mr. Shata offers long, stubborn theories about the value of marriage, but to observe him at home is to understand the commitment he seeks to foster in other Muslims.

The family lives in a spare, dimly lighted apartment two blocks from the mosque. Headscarves are piled over Pokémon cards. The gold-painted words "Allah is Great" are framed over a threadbare couch. In the next room, an "I {sheart} New York" bumper sticker is slapped on the wall.

Mr. Shata spends long hours away from his family, lecturing at mosques, settling disputes, whispering the call to prayer in the ears of newborn babies. On his walk home at night, he shops for groceries, never forgetting the Honey Nut Cheerios, a favorite American discovery of his children.

When he walks in the door, his face softens. Loud kisses are planted on tender cheeks. Mohammed squeals, the girls smile, sweet laughter echoes.

But then there is Rawda.

"My beautiful girl," the imam says softly one evening, holding his limp daughter in his lap after a seizure has passed. He places one pill in Rawda's mouth, then another. She looks at him weakly.

"There we go," he whispers. "Inshallah."

Her lids close with sleep. He lays her in bed and shuts off the light.

Hardship, the imam believes — like marriage, like life — is a test from God.

Foreign and Familiar

It is proof of the imam's uncommon popularity among women that he is trusted with roughly 300 female marriage candidates.

The mosque on Fifth Avenue is a decidedly male place. Men occupy every position on the board of directors. They crowd the sidewalk after prayer. Only they may enter the mosque's central room of worship. Only men, they often point out, are required to attend the Friday prayer.

One floor below is the cramped room where the women worship. On Fridays, they sit pressed together, their headscarves itching with heat. They must watch their imam on a closed-circuit television that no one seems to have adjusted in years.

But they listen devotedly. Teenage girls often roll their eyes at foreign imams, who seem to them like extraterrestrials. Their immigrant mothers often find these clerics too strict, an uncomfortable reminder of their conservative homelands.

Mr. Shata is both foreign and familiar. He presides over a patriarchal world, sometimes upholding it, and other times challenging it. In one sermon, he said that a man was in charge of his home and had the right to "choose his wife's friends."

Another day, to the consternation of his male congregants, he invited a female Arab social worker to lecture on domestic violence. The women were allowed to sit next to the men in the main section of the mosque.

The imam frowns at career women who remain single in their 30's, but boasts of their accomplishments to interest marriage candidates. He employs his own brand of feminism, vetting marriage contracts closely to ensure brides receive a fair dowry and fighting for them when they don't.

Far more than is customary, he spends hours listening to women: to their worries and confessions, their intimate secrets and frank questions about everything from menstruation to infidelity. They line up outside his office and call his home at all hours, often referring to him as "my brother" or "father." He can summon the details of their lives with the same encyclopedic discipline he once used to memorize the Koran.

"Are you separated yet?" Mr. Shata asked a woman he encountered at Lutheran Medical Center one day last July. She nodded. "May God make it easier for you," he said.

A Chaperoned Date

By most standards, the Egyptian bachelor was a catch. He had broad shoulders and a playful smile. He was witty. He earned a comfortable salary as an engineer, and came from what he called "a good family."

But the imam saw him differently, as a young man in danger of losing his faith. The right match might save him.

The bachelor, who is 33, came to Brooklyn from Alexandria, Egypt, six years earlier. He craved a better salary, and freedom from controlling parents. He asked that his name not be printed for fear of causing embarrassment to his family.

America was not like Egypt, where his family's connections could secure a good job. In Brooklyn, he found work as a busboy. He traded the plush comfort of his parents' home for an apartment crowded with other Egyptian immigrants. His nights were lonely. Temptation was abundant.

Women covered far less of their bodies. Bare limbs, it seemed, were everywhere. In Islam, men are instructed to lower their gaze to avoid falling into sin.

"In the summertime, it's a disaster for us," said the bachelor. "Especially a guy like me, who's looking all the time."

Curiosity lured him into bars, clubs and the occasional one-night stand.

But with freedom came guilt, he said. After drifting from his faith, he visited Mr. Shata's mosque during Ramadan in 2004.

The imam struck him as oddly disarming. He made jokes, and explained Islam in simple, passionate paragraphs. The bachelor soon began praying daily, attending weekly lectures and reading the Koran. By then, he had his own apartment and a consulting job.

Now he wanted a Muslim wife.

If the bachelor had been in Egypt, his parents would offer a stream of marriage candidates. The distance had not stopped them entirely. His mother sent him a video of his brother's wedding, directing him to footage of a female guest. He was unimpressed.

"I'm a handsome guy," he explained one evening as he sped toward Manhattan. It was his second date with Mr. Shata in attendance. "I have a standard in beauty."

From the passenger seat, the imam flipped open the glove compartment to find an assortment of pricey colognes. He inspected a bottle of Gio and, with a nod from the bachelor, spritzed it over his robe.

The imam and the bachelor were at odds over the material world, but on one thing they agreed: it is a Muslim duty to smell good. The religion's founder, the Prophet Muhammad, was said to wear musk.

The car slowed before a brick high-rise on Second Avenue. Soon the pair rode up in the elevator. The bachelor took a breath and rang the doorbell. An older woman answered. Behind her stood a slender, fetching woman with a shy smile.

The young woman, Engy Abdelkader, had been presented to the imam by another matchmaker. A woman of striking beauty and poise, Ms. Abdelkader is less timid than she first seems. She works as an immigration and human rights lawyer, and speaks in forceful, eloquent bursts. She is proud of her faith, and lectures publicly on Islam and civil liberties.

She was not always so outspoken. The daughter of Egyptian immigrants, Ms. Abdelkader, 30, was raised in suburban Howell, N.J., where she longed to fit in. Though she grew up praying, in high school she chose not to wear a hijab, the head scarf donned by Muslim girls when they reach puberty.

But Sept. 11 awakened her, Ms. Abdelkader said. For her and other Muslims, the terrorist attacks prompted a return to the faith, driven by what she said was a need to reclaim Islam from terrorists and a vilifying media. Headscarves became a statement, equal parts political and religious.

"There's nothing oppressive about it," said Ms. Abdelkader. "As a Muslim woman I am asking people to pay attention to the content of my character rather than my physical appearance."

The pair sat on a couch, awkwardly sipping tea. They began by talking, in English, about their professions. The bachelor was put off by the fact that Ms. Abdelkader had a law degree, yet earned a modest salary.

"Why go to law school and not make money?" he asked later.

Ms. Abdelkader's mother and a female friend who lived in the apartment sat listening nearby until the imam mercifully distracted them. The first hint of trouble came soon after.

It was his dream, the engineer told Ms. Abdelkader, to buy a half-million-dollar house. But he was uncertain that the mortgage he would need is lawful in Islam.

Ms. Abdelkader straightened her back and replied, "I would rather have eternal bliss in the hereafter than live in a house or apartment with a mortgage."

An argument ensued. Voices rose. Ms. Abdelkader's mother took her daughter's side. The friend wavered. The bachelor held his ground. The imam tried to mediate.

Indeed, he was puzzled. Here was a woman who had grown up amid tended lawns and new cars, yet she rejected materialism. And here was a man raised by Muslim hands, yet he was rebelliously moderate.

After the date, the bachelor told the imam, "I want a woman, not a sheik."

Months later, he married another immigrant; she was not especially devoted to Islam but she made him laugh, he said. They met through friends in New York.

Ms. Abdelkader remains single. The imam still believes she was the perfect match.

That evening, the imam stood on the sidewalk outside. Rain fell in stinging drops.

"I never wanted to be a sheik," he said. "I used to think that a religious person is very extreme and never smiles. And I love to smile. I love to laugh. I used to think that religious people were isolated and I love to be among people."

The rain soaked the imam's robe and began to pool in his sandals. A moment later, he ducked inside the building.

"The surprise for me was that the qualities I thought would not make a good sheik — simplicity and humor and being close to people — those are the most important qualities. People love those who smile and laugh. They need someone who lives among them and knows their pain."

"I know them," said Mr. Shata. "Like a brother."



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March 7, 2006
South Dakota Bans Abortion, Setting Up a Battle
By MONICA DAVEY
Gov. Michael Rounds of South Dakota signed into law the nation's most sweeping state abortion ban on Monday, an intentional provocation meant to set up a direct legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.

The law makes it a felony to perform any abortion except in a case of a pregnant woman's life being in jeopardy. Though the law is not scheduled to go into effect until July, officials working at the state's only abortion clinic, in Sioux Falls, where about 800 abortions take place each year, said they spent much of the day consoling women.

"This is a very real issue for a lot of people," said Kate Looby, state director of Planned Parenthood. "That's the part I think the legislators don't quite understand."

Mr. Rounds, a Republican, said in a statement after signing the legislation in Pierre that it was the right thing to do. The law will force a legal showdown before it ever comes into effect, an outcome its supporters, eager to overturn Roe, intended.

"In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society," the governor said. "The sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is wrong because unborn children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our society. I agree with them."

Around the country, abortion rights advocates responded with fury, calling the new law "blatantly unconstitutional," dangerous and counter to what a majority of Americans would support. Planned Parenthood, which operates the abortion clinic in South Dakota, pledged to use any means necessary — whether a federal lawsuit or a statewide referendum — to sideline the statute.

Under state law, if opponents collect 16,728 signatures of registered voters in the next three months the law will be delayed and a vote held on the issue in November.

"We're trying to evaluate the timing and the options now, but we're committed to making sure this does not come into effect," Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a telephone interview. "It's a sad day for the women of South Dakota. We had really hoped that the governor would weigh women's health as more important than politics."

Leaders on each side of the abortion debate said South Dakota's law had stirred new support and fervor for their causes. Abortion rights advocates reported a flood of donations, volunteers and membership requests since the abortion bill began drawing national attention last month.

Opponents said they, too, had had a flood of calls, including numerous donations to a defense fund to fight what is expected to be expensive litigation on behalf of South Dakota.

Already, the state's move seems to have emboldened legislators opposed to abortion elsewhere. For months, similar bills had been proposed in the statehouses of at least a half-dozen states, including Ohio, Georgia and Tennessee, but some efforts have gained steam in the weeks since the South Dakota Legislature overwhelmingly passed its ban.

"Legislators feel that now is the time to wrestle back their authority from the courts," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, based in Washington. "The courts have overstepped their bounds on issues like gay marriage, and the legislators are speaking up."

In Mississippi, an abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother passed the House on Thursday. In Missouri, legislation that would outlaw all abortions except to save the life of the mother was proposed last week.

But opponents of abortion have split over South Dakota's approach, a fact that Mr. Rounds acknowledged in recent weeks as he weighed whether to sign the legislation.

Some, including those who led efforts to pass the ban in South Dakota, said they considered this the ideal time to return the central question of Roe to the Supreme Court. State Representative Roger Hunt, who sponsored the bill in South Dakota, pointed to the appointments of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., both conservatives, and what he described as the "strong possibility" of the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens in the near future and the naming of a conservative as his successor.

"This is our time," Mr. Hunt said on Monday.

Other national anti-abortion groups, though, have quietly disagreed with the timing, pressing instead to cut down on abortions by creating restrictions that may be more palatable to a wider audience, restrictions like parental and spousal notification laws and clinic regulations. If the Supreme Court upholds Roe, they have argued, the damage for those opposed to abortion rights will be grave.

"As much as this isn't the best strategic thing to do, it's there and it's the law of South Dakota now," said Daniel S. McConchie, vice president of Americans United for Life, another group. "We'll defend our position now — which is to oppose abortion."

Cristina Minniti, a spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee, said no one from her organization was available to be interviewed on the South Dakota law. Instead, she issued a one paragraph statement which stated, in part: "Currently there are at least five votes, a majority, on the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade."

Mr. Rounds, who became governor in 2003 after serving in the South Dakota Senate for a decade, declined to speak with reporters after the signing. In an earlier interview, he said that he personally felt uncertain about the timing of a challenge to Roe, but that he was leaning toward signing the bill, in part because he did not wish to divide the people who, like him, oppose abortion.

In the statement he issued on Monday, Mr. Rounds said he fully expected the law to be challenged, and that it might wind up in the nation's highest court. He compared the possibility of a reversal on Roe to that of the changing legal precedents around segregation.

"The reversal of a Supreme Court opinion is possible," the governor said. "For example, in 1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case that a state could require racial segregation in public facilities if the facilities offered to different races were equal. However, 58 years later, the Supreme Court reconsidered that opinion and reversed itself in Brown vs. Board of Education."

Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting for this article.



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March 7, 2006
U.S. Wins Ruling Over Recruiting at Universities
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, March 6 — The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a law that cuts federal financing for universities if they do not give military recruiters the same access to students that other potential employers receive. The court ruled that the law does not violate the free-speech rights of universities that object to the military's exclusion of gay men and lesbians who are open about their sexual orientation.

The opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was unanimous.

It was a setback, although hardly an unexpected one, to a coalition of law schools that brought the constitutional challenge, as well as to the Association of American Law Schools, which represents nearly all accredited law schools and since 1991 has required adherence to a nondiscrimination policy on sexual orientation as a condition of membership.

Many law schools initially chose to comply with the association's policy by barring military recruiters or by taking such steps as refusing to help the recruiters schedule appointments or relegating them to less favorable locations for meeting with students.

Congress responded with a series of increasingly punitive measures, all known as the Solomon Amendment, culminating in the 2004 statute at issue in the case. It requires access for military recruiters "that is at least equal in quality and scope" to access for other employers, on pain of forfeiting grants to the entire university from eight federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Education, and Health and Human Services.

With hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, all but a handful of law schools yielded. Nearly three dozen banded together as the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights and turned to the courts.

Carl C. Monk, executive director of the law school association, said in an interview on Monday that the group would continue to require its member schools to engage in "significant" activities to counter the impact of the Solomon Amendment, such as organizing faculty forums at which the military's policy could be analyzed and challenged.

The plaintiffs had persuaded the federal appeals court in Philadelphia that the Solomon Amendment imposed an "unconstitutional condition" on the universities' receipt of federal money by requiring them to surrender their First Amendment rights and become involuntary carriers of the government's anti-gay message.

But Chief Justice Roberts said on Monday that the plaintiffs' theory of the case, as well as the opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was based on a fundamental misperception about what the Solomon Amendment was imposing.

"As a general matter, the Solomon Amendment regulates conduct, not speech," the chief justice said. "It affects what law schools must do — afford equal access to military recruiters — not what they may or may not say."

Pointing out that law schools remained free to disavow the military's policy, to denounce it or even to help students organize protests, Chief Justice Roberts said that "the Solomon Amendment neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything."

Citing a 1990 Supreme Court decision that upheld an equal-access requirement for student religious clubs in high schools, he continued: "We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so. Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

To the extent that speech is involved when a military recruiter visits a campus, the chief justice said, the speech is "clearly" the government's, not the law school's. He said that placing the incidental assistance that universities must provide to military recruiters on the same plane as compelling students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance "trivializes the freedom protected" by a 1943 Supreme Court decision holding that the Pledge may not be required.

While the conclusion that the Solomon Amendment does not directly infringe on the law schools' free-speech rights was at the heart of the court's analysis, the opinion contained several other important threads.

One was the conclusion that allowing military recruiters on campus was not an "inherently expressive" activity. Therefore, Chief Justice Roberts said, the case was not governed by two Supreme Court precedents dealing with freedom of expression. One of them declared unconstitutional a Florida law that required newspapers to grant a "right of reply." The other allowed organizers of the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston to exclude a gay-pride group despite a nondiscrimination ordinance.

The difference, the chief justice said, was that both the newspaper and the parade organizers were engaged in expression with which the government could not constitutionally interfere, while law schools "are not speaking when they host interviews and recruiting receptions."

Another conclusion was that the Solomon Amendment did not interfere with another interest protected by the First Amendment, the law schools' freedom of association. The appeals court had found a violation of this freedom by analogy to a Supreme Court decision in 2000 that gave the Boy Scouts the right to exclude a gay scoutmaster despite a New Jersey nondiscrimination law.

The analogy was incorrect, Chief Justice Roberts said. Unlike Boy Scout leaders who become part of the organization, "recruiters are, by definition, outsiders who come onto campus for the limited purpose of trying to hire students — not to become members of the school's expressive association," he said, adding, "This distinction is critical."

The court also rejected an alternative theory of the case put forward by groups of professors from Harvard and Columbia Law Schools. Under their theory, the Solomon Amendment's mandate for equal access could be met by a school that simply excluded all employers who did not attest to a nondiscrimination policy. "That is rather clearly not what Congress had in mind," Chief Justice Roberts said, adding that this interpretation of the Solomon Amendment "would render it a largely meaningless exercise."

The constitutional power of Congress to "raise and support armies" was another significant thread in the opinion. Chief Justice Roberts said that in exercising that power, Congress could have directly required universities to admit military recruiters, instead of taking the more indirect approach of making access a condition of federal financing. "It is clear that a funding condition cannot be unconstitutional if it could be constitutionally imposed directly," he said.

The military interviews about 2,500 law students each year and hires about 400 for its Judge Advocate General's Corps, said Ellen Krenke, a spokeswoman for the Defense Department. The court's decision will not change the actual practice on most campuses because all but a few are in compliance with the amendment, she said.

The decision, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, No. 04-1152, was announced on a day when, coincidentally, some four dozen uniformed Army lawyers were in the courtroom to be sworn in as members of the Supreme Court bar.

Paula C. Johnson, a named plaintiff in the lawsuit who is a law professor at Syracuse University and a visiting professor this semester at the City University of New York's law school, said that it was too early to talk about what campuses might do, but that she expected "things will begin to happen" as opponents of the military's policy had time to better organize.

"This could be a very important galvanizing measure," she said.

Mr. Monk, of the law school association, said in the interview that law schools retained the obligation to "create a welcoming environment for all their students." He added, "Ultimately, our hope is that gay and lesbian students who want to serve their country by becoming military attorneys will be able to do so."

Karen W. Arenson contributed reporting from New York for this article.



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March 7, 2006
Demolition of Homes Begins in Sections of New Orleans
By ADAM NOSSITER
NEW ORLEANS, March 6 — Shortly after noon Monday, in the ruined moonscape of the Lower Ninth Ward, a track excavator's giant teeth bit into the top of a broken, displaced house, and the process of clearing this city's most devastated area finally began.

It was a moment of fearful anticipation for New Orleans, the first demolitions of flooded homes in the six months since Hurricane Katrina. Three were razed on Monday after a process that was long delayed by legal challenges, physical obstacles and the difficulty in getting money to search for bodies that almost certainly still molder in some of the houses.

Army Corps of Engineers officials estimate some 12.5 million cubic yards of debris from demolished houses will have been removed in Orleans Parish alone when the process ends, roughly a year from now, representing perhaps as many as 25,000 houses. About 120 houses, nearly all in the Lower Ninth Ward, are set for immediate demolition.

Monday's work was a tiny step — barely 200 cubic feet of house. Yet when the crunching and biting began — mouthfuls of rafters deliberately chewed up, walls methodically crushed down — it was like a wrenching echo of the now-distant storm. The owner of the house, Herbert Warren Jr., a retired longshoreman, tried to remain stoic as the home he had lived in for 44 years was carted away.

"What can you say?" Mr. Warren said. "So many others got the same thing happen to them. It ain't just me."

His house — simple, white, wood-framed and one-story, where eight children grew — had floated off its foundation past a solid brick church and across a grassy expanse before coming to rest in an undulating heap in the middle of Winthrop Street. "She got up and walked," he said. "I really don't know how it got there, but it got there."

Mr. Warren had not bothered to retrieve anything from 2330 Roffignac Street, now at roughly the same address over on nearby Winthrop.

"It was so messed up," he said. "I just ducked my head in and ducked back out." All about him were the neighborhood's ruins: a muddy high-heeled shoe, a child's Barbie doll resting uneasily on a wooden beam, a lawn chair in a tree.

"It was so muddy, I didn't want anything in there," Mr. Warren said.

He drove off calmly in his green pickup truck even as the work continued, the machine's steel teeth stripping away his living room and exposing a family portrait on the wall.

No one was there to protest this first demolition among the thousands anticipated, in what has become the emblematic core of the city's destruction. The force of Hurricane Katrina is as vivid on these mud-drenched blocks of pancake houses as it was six months ago, seeming to dwarf the efforts of government contractors.

Before the work began, cadaver dogs sniffed around the edges of the house, the result of a renewed, federally financed search for bodies that coincided with the demolitions. Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state emergency medical director, would not speculate on how many bodies were likely to be found, but said some of the 400 to 500 people still missing were probably dead.

During random checks on Sunday, dogs found the body of a middle-aged man in an attic in Lakeview. Demolition teams have started in on that neighborhood as well, and the first house was taken down in Lakeview even as workers were setting up the equipment in the Ninth Ward. A third house came down Monday in the Gentilly neighborhood.

No remains were found around Mr. Warren's house Monday, but a body was found in the Ninth Ward two weeks ago, Dr. Cataldie said. The dogs are trained to stick their ears in the air and wag their tails when they smell a body.

Because of the sensitivity of the operation — a lawsuit was filed against the City of New Orleans over its failure to notify residents of the demolitions, and there were protests when contractors first began clearing streets in January — it took all morning to set up. And there were further delays when, for hours, no one from City Hall was there to give the final say-so, to the bafflement of corps officials.

A half-dozen black-uniformed Federal Protective Service officers were on hand to keep order, though the only hint of dissent was from three sleepy-looking youths from a community organization called Common Ground, who said they were there merely to observe.

The few neighborhood people who drifted through Monday morning had no objections.

"I have nothing against it, because of the condition of it," said Harold Broussard Sr., now living in a government trailer on the West Bank. "What else can you do?" Mr. Broussard said he would be willing to return to the Ninth Ward someday.

The federal officers on the site had joined a contingent from a private security service, Blackwater. The site had to be checked for asbestos, and the big equipment — the track excavator and a giant dump truck — then maneuvered through the narrow remains of streets.

The demolition in Lakeview was over in 45 minutes. Not so the one in the Lower Ninth Ward. The workers here took as much care as they could to peel away walls slowly, in order to look inside the house. It had been too dangerous to enter.

In late August, Mr. Warren carefully boarded it up against the storm, shutting the place up tight. The boards were still in place, on a house whose final resting place was 100 yards or more from where he had had it built.

The wind was a preoccupation on the morning he left for Houston ahead of the storm, but he was not thinking about the nearby levee on the Industrial Canal giving way.

"I sure didn't," Mr. Warren said. "And it did. And I was glad I was in Texas."



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March 7, 2006
Editorial
Mr. Bush's Asian Road Trip
There is a lot of good a president can do on a visit to another country: negotiate treaties that enhance American security, shore up a shaky alliance, generate good will in important parts of the world. Unfortunately, President Bush didn't do any of those good things on his just-completed visit to Pakistan and India and may have done some real harm.

The spectacularly misconceived trip may have inflicted serious damage to American goals in two vital areas, namely, mobilizing international diplomacy against the spread of nuclear weapons and encouraging Pakistan to take more effective action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters operating from its territory.

The nuclear deal that Mr. Bush concluded with India threatens to blast a bomb-size loophole through the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It would have been bad enough on its own, and disastrously ill timed, because it undercuts some of the most powerful arguments Washington can make to try to galvanize international opposition to Iran's nuclear adventurism.

But the most immediate damage was done on Mr. Bush's next stop, Pakistan. Washington is trying to persuade Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani military dictator, to defy nationalist and Islamic objections and move more aggressively against Pakistani-based terrorists. This is no small issue because both Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, are now believed to operate from Pakistani soil.

But sticking Mr. Musharraf with the unwelcome task of explaining to Pakistanis why his friend and ally, Mr. Bush, had granted favorable nuclear terms to Pakistan's archrival, India, while withholding them from Pakistan left him less likely to do Washington any special, and politically unpopular, favors on the terrorism front.

It's just baffling why Mr. Bush traveled halfway around the world to stand right next to one of his most important allies against terrorists — and embarrass him. India and Pakistan are military rivals that have fought each other repeatedly. They have both developed nuclear weapons outside the nonproliferation treaty, which both refuse to sign. When India exploded its first acknowledged nuclear weapons eight years ago, Pakistan felt obliged to follow suit within weeks.

So when Mr. Bush agreed to carve out an exception to global nonproliferation rules for India, it should have been obvious that Pakistani opinion would demand the same privileged treatment, and that Mr. Musharraf would be embarrassed by Mr. Bush's explicit refusal to provide it.

Mr. Bush was right to say no to Pakistan. It would be an unthinkably bad idea to grant a loophole to a country whose top nuclear scientist helped transfer nuclear technology to leading rogue states. Granting India a loophole that damages a vital treaty and lets New Delhi accelerate production of nuclear bombs makes no sense either.

Mr. Bush should have just stayed home.



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March 7, 2006
Russia and West Split on Iran Nuclear Issue
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
VIENNA, March 6 — A serious rift emerged Monday when Russia split with the United States and Europe over Iran's nuclear program after the Russians floated a last-minute proposal to allow Iran to make small quantities of nuclear fuel, according to European officials.

The reports of the proposal prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to call Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and according to an administration official who was briefed on the conversation, "she said the United States cannot support this."

Ms. Rice's call came after Dr. ElBaradei suggested to reporters that the standoff with Iran could be resolved in a week or so, apparently an allusion to the Russian proposal. Washington's strategy is to get past the meeting of the I.A.E.A. that opened Monday and, under a resolution passed by the agency's board in February, have the issue turned over to the United Nations Security Council immediately. But officials clearly fear that the Russian proposal is intended to slow that process.

American officials said they had been assured by the Russians that there was no formal proposal on the table. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, had dinner in Washington on Monday evening with Ms. Rice and the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, and he is scheduled to meet President Bush in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

Under the Russian proposal, Iran would temporarily suspend all uranium enrichment activities at its facility at Natanz but then be allowed to do what Russia describes as "limited research activities" in Iran's uranium enrichment program, said the European officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules.

Iran would have to agree to a moratorium on production of enriched uranium on an industrial scale for between seven to nine years, ratify additional measures that let the nuclear agency conduct intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities and create a joint venture with Russia on the production of enriched uranium on Russian soil, the officials said. The proposal, which has not been made public, spurred Dr. ElBaradei to give an upbeat assessment about a possible swift resolution of the impasse over Iran's program, an official familiar with his thinking said.

In a tonal shift, Dr. ElBaradei said Iran had made concessions on some issues. Calling Iran's activities at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz "the sticking point," he added, "That issue is still being discussed this week, and I still hope that in the next week or so that agreement could still be reached."

In an interview on Monday evening, R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said the administration would reject any proposal that did not require the Iranians to stop domestic nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities. "The United States will not support any halfway measures," he said. "That means full suspension of all nuclear activities, and a return to negotiations on that basis."

Ms. Rice told Dr. ElBaradei that Washington wanted to see Iran's case before the Security Council as soon as this week's agency board meeting was over; that the United States would seek a presidential statement, which does not carry the weight of a resolution, noting Iran's past failures to comply with its international commitments; and that Iran's case would then be sent back to the nuclear agency for further review, according to an official with knowledge of the conversation.

The Russian proposal is a reversal of its previous stance and seemed motivated by its determination to protect Iran from judgment by the Security Council.

Russia — and even China — had joined the United States and the Europeans in demanding that Iran resume a freeze of uranium enrichment activities at Natanz, reflecting mounting global suspicion that Iran's nuclear program is intended to produce weapons.

The Russian proposal surfaced late last week, when Sergei Kisliak, Russia's chief nuclear negotiator, presented it to officials of Britain, France and Germany.

He said Iran would have to resume full suspension of all enrichment-related activities, including what it calls its small-scale "research and development" while the agreement on the package was negotiated. Once there was an agreement, however, Iran would be allowed to conduct limited uranium enrichment research activities under a pilot program as agreed with the I.A.E.A.

As soon as Iran and the agency agreed on the small-scale enrichment, Iran's Parliament would ratify the "Additional Protocol" to Iran's nuclear agreement. That protocol gives the nuclear agency's inspectors the right to ask for exceptional access to Iran's nuclear facilities. When one of the Europeans asked Mr. Kisliak for his definition of a pilot program, he said there was no real definition, one official said.

A moratorium on industrial-scale enrichment and reprocessing activities would last two to three years while the nuclear agency carried out an investigation of Iran's past nuclear activities and five to six years more until trust with Iran could be rebuilt.

Mr. Kisliak conceded that a major risk of such a package was that Iran would inch closer to mastering the technology for a small cascade of centrifuges that turn uranium gas into enriched uranium that can be used to produce electricity or to make bombs. He added that it would shorten the period needed for Iran to "manufacture a weapon" by a number of months, one official familiar with the briefing said.

Iran has always contended its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, although Russia, like the United States and the Europeans, is convinced it intends to make nuclear weapons.

Mr. Kisliak speculated that Iran was unlikely to accept the proposal, in part because of the long-term constraints on its industrial-scale enrichment program. The proposal threatened to derail a carefully formulated, but fragile strategy to send Iran's case to the Security Council. Last month's resolution by the nuclear agency board demanded that no action be taken in the Council until after the current board meeting, a way to give Iran one last chance to comply with agency demands.

Even though there is no specific timetable to seek economic sanctions on Iran, both Russia and China are opposed to sanctions. There is no need for another resolution to be passed by the agency board this time for the Security Council to act. Certainly, Dr. ElBaradei is looking for a negotiated solution to the Iran impasse even if it means giving Iran a significant concession on making nuclear fuel.

In a conversation with the German and French foreign ministers, a senior British Foreign Office envoy and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, in Vienna last Friday, Dr. ElBaradei expressed the view that Iran needed to continue some uranium enrichment work as a face-saving measure, a European official said. The Europeans, who met earlier with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, replied that it was not a question of saving face but of maintaining both the credibility of the nuclear agency and a firm position toward Iran.

The crucial issue for Iran is mastering the fuel cycle by enriching uranium. Indeed, in Tehran on Sunday, Mr. Larijani reiterated Iran's position that it would not freeze small-scale production of nuclear fuel even if its case came before the Security Council.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington for this article.



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March 7, 2006
Is Antitrust No Longer the Issue?
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON, March 6 — As head of the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton administration, Reed E. Hundt killed talks about a possible merger in 1997 when he said that a proposed deal between AT&T and SBC would be "unthinkable" under antitrust laws.

Last year those two companies combined with little resistance. And on Monday Mr. Hundt said that AT&T's proposal to buy BellSouth for $67 billion was "eminently thinkable," and that if he were still at the commission, "I would bless the deal."

His statement was a sign of how far the regulatory climate, as well as the marketplace, has traveled in less than a decade, as the cable and phone industries have gotten into each other's businesses and new forms of phone service have grown.

While government officials and industry lobbyists say the AT&T-BellSouth deal faces few regulatory obstacles, those same changes in the marketplace may bring different political headwinds.

The deal threatens to undermine parts of the telephone industry's broader regulatory and legislative agenda by making it more difficult for the industry to claim it badly needs relief from regulators and Congress.

The Bell telephone companies have lobbied hard for the last year to get Congress to adopt a measure that would make it easier for them to offer video services. The phone companies want federal legislation that would pre-empt local authority over such services. (The cable industry has fought equally hard against the measure.) That fight is central to the telephone companies' new strategy of offering video service to compete head-on with cable and satellite companies that offer paid television services.

As Internet service providers, the large phone companies are meanwhile involved in a political fight over whether they must offer equal access to all Web providers, an approach called "Net neutrality." Content providers like Google and Yahoo, and companies providing Internet-based phone service like Vonage, seek legislation to prevent phone companies from favoring their own Web sites and those offered by their partners, over rivals and Internet phone companies.

While the phone companies fight that move, they are also battling legislative efforts to make it easier for municipalities to offer free wireless Internet services.

But the continued consolidation of the telephone industry that the latest deal contemplates gives the phone companies' opponents significant political leverage in all three debates — and for the time being, could make it harder for AT&T and Verizon, the two largest phone companies, to prevail on all fronts.

"The reverberations at first will be subterranean, but they will be of earthquake proportions," Mr. Hundt said.

The cable industry, awaiting regulatory approval of its own major consolidation in which Time Warner and Comcast expect to divide up Adelphia, was quick Monday to point out the perils of a consolidating telephone industry. But Verizon, signaling that it will not raise major objections to the BellSouth deal, issued a statement that called it "logical and predictable." And Kevin J. Martin, the chairman of the F.C.C., issued a noncommittal statement.

"The F.C.C.'s primary responsibility is to determine whether the proposed transaction is in the best interest of consumers," Mr. Martin said. "We will carefully weigh the information presented, examining any allegations of specific harm in individual markets and the potential benefits for the deployment of new services."

The agency will be considering what conditions to impose on the deal in a process that could take as long as a year.

The AT&T-BellSouth deal provides a vehicle for regulators and lawmakers to consider what to do in the "Net neutrality" debate and whether the telephone companies can charge more money for certain content providers. The issue came to national attention in November when Edward E. Whitacre Jr., the blunt-speaking leader of AT&T, complained in an interview in Business Week Online about the current state of affairs.

"We and the cable companies have made an investment, and for Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts," Mr. Whitacre said.

In the same interview, Mr. Whitacre was asked whether it was possible that his company would ever acquire BellSouth.

"It sure would be nice, but it doesn't have much chance of happening because of market power, size, etc.," he replied. "I think it would be real hard to do. I don't think the regulators would let that happen, in my judgment."

While AT&T seems to have overcome that concern, lobbyists and others in the industry said Monday that there would be pressure on regulators to impose conditions assuring that consumers continue to have unfettered access to the Internet, and precluding discrimination by AT&T against companies like Google and Yahoo.

Any new rules, however, might not prevent phone companies from offering a more expensive tier of service providing faster Internet access for the transfer of video and other large files.

In the case of the video-franchise legislation, the telephone companies in recent weeks had begun to see progress on favorable legislation in the House that could be derailed by the deal.

Wasting no time, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the cable industry lobbying and trade organization, sent a letter to top lawmakers on Monday arguing against legislation that would remove local control over the introduction of video services by the Bell companies.

The cable industry, having put together its franchises city by city, contends that the phone companies should face the same hurdles for video delivery.

"It is important to take stock of where we are in 2006," said the letter from Kyle McSlarrow, president and chief executive of the association. "In the last decade, the Bell monopolies have all but wiped out their telephone competitors; they have swallowed their long-distance competitors; and with the announcement of the AT&T-BellSouth merger, they are on the verge of recreating Ma Bell. And only one competitor really stands in their way: the cable industry."



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March 7, 2006
House Conservatives Prepare Austere Alternative Budget
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, March 6 — With Congress heading into a politically perilous budget season, influential House conservatives plan this week to propose an austere alternative spending plan that would pare more than $650 billion over five years, balance the budget and drastically shrink three cabinet agencies.

The legislation, part of a push by some Republicans to re-establish themselves as champions of fiscal restraint, was taking shape as President Bush struck a similar theme on Monday by asking Congress to grant him line-item veto power to eliminate federal spending that he might judge wasteful.

"We can't be all things to all people when it comes to spending the taxpayers' money," Mr. Bush said at a ceremony installing a new chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

But House conservative leaders would go far beyond the president's own budget proposal, illustrating the difficulty the White House and the Republican leadership have had in persuading the caucus to speak with one voice on the matter.

Senior aides say the conservatives' plan would wring about $350 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs and save $300 billion partly through a major reorganization of the Education, Commerce and Energy Departments.

"We are putting our money where our mouth is," said one of the officials, who would discuss the proposal only without being identified because it was still being prepared for release Wednesday by leaders of the Republican Study Committee.

The officials said it was particularly important for conservatives to lay down a marker because the Senate is facing an imminent vote on whether to increase the statutory debt limit, which will remind the public of the increasing deficits under the Bush administration.

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow warned Congress on Monday that the federal government risked default without an increase in the debt limit and that the Republican-controlled Congress would soon be forced to address that issue.

Conservatives contend that voters are disillusioned with Republicans over spending and that without a bold statement, the party faces potential losses in November. But some moderate Republicans are anxious about additional spending reductions, particularly after Congress enacted nearly $40 billion in cuts last year after a difficult fight.

The new budget proposal is certain to be assailed by Democrats who accuse Republicans of forging ahead with tax cuts that benefit the affluent and add to the deficit while reducing support for those most in need.

"This president will have piled up more debt than all of the presidents preceding him," Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee, said Monday as he joined other Democrats in accusing Republicans of shortchanging domestic security.

The budget debate could be the first big challenge for Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader, who won his position last month with help from House conservatives who will now be looking to him to help hold down spending.

Under the proposal, expected to be introduced by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, and Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, military spending would continue to rise, administration tax cuts would be protected and Social Security would be spared. But many other programs and foreign aid would be greatly scaled back.

The authors of the proposal describe it as a sequel to the Contract With America, which helped catapult Republicans to power in 1994. An outline of the plan says the proposals require "tough choices, but members have expressed a serious desire to do the hard things to save America."

Mr. Bush's push for the line-item veto could benefit from the current scrutiny over the growing practice by lawmakers of inserting spending for pet projects into legislation — a practice that has figured into continuing corruption scandals.

Congress gave President Bill Clinton line-item veto authority in 1996, but the Supreme Court overturned the law, saying it violated the Constitution by giving the president the power to amend legislation. Under the new proposal, the president would be able to identify objectionable projects and then send them back to Capitol Hill for an up-or-down vote without requiring a veto of the entire bill.

Though members of Congress are typically reluctant to cede too much power over spending to the executive branch, several lawmakers gave initial expressions of support, including House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

"It's no secret that President Bush and I don't agree on much," Mr. Kerry said, "but I fully support giving him the line-item veto."

But Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, had an opposite view, calling the line-item veto "old hat."

"I don't think this Congress is ready for line-item veto," Mr. Reid said, adding, "I just think it's an effort by President Bush to divert attention from real issues this country has."



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March 7, 2006
Arkansas Set to Undertake a Novel Effort in Health Care
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, March 6 — The Bush administration is poised to approve an innovative health insurance program, proposed by Arkansas, for 80,000 low-income uninsured people in the state, officials said Monday.

Arkansas will carry out the program, to be announced on Tuesday, under a waiver allowing the state to receive federal Medicaid money for coverage that does not meet the usual Medicaid standards for eligibility and benefits.

The employer-based program is novel in two ways. The benefit package is extremely limited, much more austere than Medicaid's. In addition, if an employer wants to participate, it must guarantee that all its employees, regardless of income or other factors, will be covered.

"Everyone in the employment pool has to have coverage," Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas, said in an interview. "Employers cannot cherry-pick the employees who get coverage."

Under the plan, to be approved by Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, the state expects to enroll at least 50,000 workers with incomes less than twice the federal poverty level and 30,000 workers with higher incomes. The poverty level this year is $9,800 for an individual, $13,200 for a couple.

Mr. Huckabee, a second-term Republican, said the new program would help small businesses that currently offer no health insurance. That help will enable them to compete better for workers with larger companies that do provide benefits.

"Forty-six percent of all workers in our state are in companies that have fewer than 100 employees," the governor said. "Only 26 percent of companies with fewer than 50 workers offer any health benefit."

Federal officials said the Arkansas program could be a model for other states that want to expand coverage without substantially increasing costs.

People who sign up for the program will receive a basic benefit package covering six doctor visits a year, seven days of inpatient hospital care a year, two outpatient hospital procedures or emergency room visits a year and two prescription drugs a month.

Beneficiaries will have to pay an annual deductible of $100 and 15 percent of the cost of each service, with a maximum out-of-pocket cost of $1,000 a year, state officials said.

In its application to the government, Arkansas said the new program would "cover most basic health needs" of the intended beneficiaries.

"It won't be an elaborate or upscale model," Mr. Huckabee said in the interview. "It will be very basic coverage."

Mr. Huckabee said participating employers would have to contribute $15 a month for each employee with income less than twice the poverty level and $100 a month for higher-income workers. Julie R. Munsell, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services, said employers could require workers to pay some or all of these fees.

But Dr. Joseph W. Thompson, who helped devise the program as director of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, an independent health policy institute, said: "In reality, employers will have to pay most or all of the premiums for their employees. If a single employee says, 'I don't want to participate,' the employer becomes ineligible for the program. The employer could not get the benefit for any of its employees."

David Johnson, a Democratic member of the Arkansas House who worked on legislation for the new program, predicted that it would be attractive to small businesses.

"Employers will get more bang for the buck from this program than from private health insurance," Mr. Johnson said. "They can insure employees for a predictable, modest amount, which is less than they would have to pay to private insurers."

Mr. Johnson said the state would help pay for the new benefits with proceeds of the multistate settlement negotiated with tobacco companies in 1998.

Other states have subsidized or supplemented health insurance provided by employers. But Dr. Thompson said this was not an option in Arkansas because most small employers provided no coverage.

"Small businesses have money in their pockets, and they want to offer some health insurance," he said, "but they cannot afford the products on the market."



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http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=8666

March 7, 2006
Nuclear Assistance to India: Building a Future Menace?

by Ivan Eland
The Bush administration has signed a new nuclear pact with India that effectively lifts a moratorium on India’s purchase of Western nuclear fuel, technology, and parts. The agreement also allows India to expand its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international inspections of only its civilian nuclear activities. Some conservatives and the liberal arms control community have justifiably opposed the agreement. The conservative opponents perceptively argue that Iran, North Korea, and other “rogue” nations, under international pressure to end their nuclear programs, will object to the double standard of allowing India, which has defied the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to build as many nuclear weapons as it wants with foreign assistance. Similarly, the arms control community cogently argues that the U.S.-India deal effectively scraps the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which the world has used to hold Iran and North Korea in line. Although these arguments are good ones, the Bush administration cares less about all this than it does the misguided goal of building up a democratic India as an Asian counterweight to a rising autocratic China.

Underlying the Bush administration’s strategic embrace of India is the “democratic peace theory”—the premise that democracies don’t go to war with each other. This theory is widely held in the popular imagination and among the U.S. foreign policy elite, including that of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, but is of questionable validity. A corollary to the theory is that nuclear-armed democracies are acceptable, but autocratic atomic powers are a threat. When discussing the U.S.-Indian nuclear pact, Nicholas Burns, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, made this corollary explicit: “The comparison between India and Iran is just ludicrous. India is a highly democratic, peaceful, stable state that has not proliferated nuclear weapons. Iran is an autocratic state mistrusted by nearly all countries and that has violated its international commitments.”

Iran aside, India is democratic, but not “highly democratic,” and is neither peaceful nor stable, and doesn’t always fulfill its international commitments. India is a “new democracy” and has been since its creation in 1947. Elections are held, but it is hardly a liberal democracy in the Western sense. Empirical data show that countries in the process of democratizing are especially prone to go to war. India’s numerous wars with Pakistan, including a recent near-war, confirm this pattern. Most of the India-Pakistan wars have been fought over the Islamic area of Kashmir in Hindu-dominated India, an area that would likely vote to be independent or part of Muslim Pakistan if it had the referendum that India has long promised but not delivered. Also, in the past India has been a seething cauldron of ethnic and religious violence.

If the American Revolution, the U.S. Civil War, the Boer War, and World War I, among others, don’t discredit the democratic peace theory outright, the frosty relations between India and the United States during the Cold War should give the Bush administration pause. India was loosely aligned with the Soviet Union during that period and often hostile to U.S. policy.

In short, selling India nuclear fuel and technology and other weapons (in the works) in order to develop a regional counterweight to an authoritarian China may be a risky gamble that blows up in the U.S. government’s face. Twenty years down the road, India may be more of a threat to U.S. interests than China. The future is hard to predict and the United States has not always been good at identifying who the next enemy will be. The U.S. Navy was originally created to counter the French in the Quasi-War at the end of the 18th century, but was actually first used against the Barbary pirates at the beginning of the 19th century. As recently as the late 19th century, Britain was the United States’ most likely adversary, but the United States eventually made a lasting peace with Britain and actually fought on its behalf against Germany in World War I. The United States built much of its Middle Eastern policy on propping up the Shah’s government in Iran, only to see a revolution in the late 1970s turn that country into a radical Islamic foe. The United States used Manual Noriega of Panama as an intelligence asset, but he eventually became an embarrassing antagonist that required a U.S. invasion to oust. Even after Iraq—with substantial secret U.S. assistance—won its bloody war in the 1980s against Iran, the United States continued to support Saddam Hussein right up until he became a U.S. rival after invading Kuwait.

In the future, many scenarios are possible. China could remain autocratic or could move down the road to democracy after freeing up its economy—that is, adopting the same path as Chile, Taiwan, and Singapore. But as a democracy China would not necessarily be friendly to the United States. On the other hand, if China remains an autocracy, it may not be hostile to the United States. Authoritarian states are not necessarily aggressive externally—for example, the Burmese junta. In fact, the nation with by far the most military interventions since World War II has been a liberal democracy—the United States. Moreover, in the past, the United States has befriended many despotic regimes to further its own interests.

Actively containing the Chinese by building up India, improving relations with increasingly autocratic Russia, and strengthening U.S. Cold War-era alliances ringing China may create a self-fulfilling prophecy—a threatened, hostile China.

The United States would be better off keeping its powder dry and remaining neutral in the Indian-Chinese competition. Both are rising nations with rapidly growing economies, but it is now unclear whether either or both of them will be a future threat to U.S. interests. If one does rise faster than the other and become a menace, the United States can always then help the other. But given the poor U.S. track record of identifying future enemies, it might be a big mistake to pour a lot of resources into a strategic relationship with India at the present time.

U.S. Envoy to Iraq Warns of Wider War

BAGHDAD-The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said that the 2003 toppling of
Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile
ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in
all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon. By
Borzou Daragahi.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLme0Er

Iranians Defend Nuclear Rights

TEHRAN-Many citizens say their nation, like others, is entitled to
pursue nuclear energy - or even arms. By John Daniszewski.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmf0Es

Abortion Ban Puts a Spin on Strategies

South Dakota's ban on nearly all abortions, signed into law
Monday, has opened deep rifts within both the antiabortion and the
abortion-rights movements, as the two camps struggle to frame the
issue to their political advantage. By Stephanie Simon.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmg0Et

'Crash' Takes the Award for Best Oscar Campaign

It was actors - specifically, those in Los Angeles - who were
targeted to deliver votes. And deliver they did. By James Bates.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmh0Eu

RICO Cropping Up in Immigration Disputes

CALDWELL, Idaho-Cases against firms that allegedly exploit illegal
labor are being built on the racketeering law. By Nicole Gaouette.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmi0Ev

Jury Is Told Papers Link Plotter to 9/11

ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Hoping to put to death the only man charged in the
Sept. 11 conspiracy, federal prosecutors opened the sentencing
trial for Zacarias Moussaoui by revealing that documents linking
him to the four men who piloted the hijacked jets were in his
possession when he was arrested three weeks before the attacks. By
Richard A. Serrano.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmn0E1

SUV Attack Prompts Debate Over 'Terrorism' and Islam

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.- University of North Carolina student Stephen
Mann has a simple definition for the attack that occurred on his
campus last week: terrorism. He and other UNC students were
disturbed to learn this weekend that former UNC student Mohammed
Reza Taheri-azar allegedly plowed a sport utility vehicle into
nine pedestrians on the busy campus square to "avenge the deaths
of Muslims" around the world, according to campus officials. By
Richard Fausset.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmo0E2

Ryan Prosecution Draws to a Close

CHICAGO - Former Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan "might as well have
put a 'For Sale' sign on his office," assistant U.S. Atty. Joel
Levin tells the jury. By P.J. Huffstutter.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmp0E3

GM to Sell Suzuki Stock for $2 Billion

Ailing General Motors Corp. said that it would raise about $2
billion by selling most of its stake in Japanese automaker Suzuki
Motor Corp. to help its tattered balance sheet. By John O'Dell.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmu0E8

AT&T Chief Stays Focused on Strategy Down the Line

AT&T Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. is known as pugnacious and a
visionary, but also as direct and self-effacing. By James S.
Granelli.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmv0EA

NBC Aims for Female Fans With IVillage

The $600-million deal allows the firm to tap into a $12.5-billion
Web advertising market. By Meg James.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmw0EB

Governor, Chamber at Odds Over Emissions

SACRAMENTO-The California Chamber of Commerce, perhaps Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's closest political ally, may split with the
governor over his commitment to drastically cut greenhouse-gas
emissions. By Marc Lifsher.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLmx0EC



Editorial: Competition Calling

The offer by AT&T to buy BellSouth in a stock swap worth about $67
billion may not have that great an effect as long as the phone
company plays fair with Internet companies.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLm50E4


A Nuclear Deal, Warts and All

The White House will soon start lobbying Congress to approve its
recent nuclear deal with India. Even before President Bush
returned home, his foreign policy team was touting the economic
payoffs from access to the Indian market, India's democratic
credentials and the common interest India and the United States
have in checking China's influence. By Rajan Menon.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezG...Io30G2B0HLm70E6

http://csmonitor.com/2006/0307/dailyUpdate.html?s=mesdu
World > Terrorism & Security
posted March 7, 2006 at 11:00 a.m.

IAEA: Deal on Iran's nuclear program close

ElBaradei says a deal is possible, but US is skeptical of new negotiations.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says a deal with Iran on its nuclear program is possible, and may be concluded within several days.
The Washington Post reports the new proposal would see Russia giving Iran enough slightly enriched uranium to run its nuclear generators for civilian purposes, but not enough to build a nuclear weapon. But the Russian proposal would also allow Iran to conduct small-scale uranium enrichment under strict perimeters set by the UN and the IAEA.

In return, the diplomats said, Iran would be asked to recommit to in-depth IAEA probes of its program on short notice. Iran canceled such investigations last month after the IAEA's 35-nation board put the UN Security Council on alert by passing on Iran's nuclear dossier.
EUobserver, an independent European Union news site, reports that the Russian proposal had "divided" supporters of UN sanctions against Iran for its program. Germany was cautiously in favor of Russia's idea, while Britain and France were against, and continued to support the US position.



03/06/06

Iraq's different Paces

03/03/06

Hamas in Russia for talks with senior officials

03/02/06

Report: A democratic China could be 'great risk' to Asia





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Germany is the one that "could most live with a pilot enrichment plant in Iran," a European diplomat told Reuters, adding however that Berlin would never allow Tehran to break EU unity in the standoff.
A US state department spokesman rebuffed the idea of small-scale enrichment on Iranian soil, saying "You can't be just a little pregnant."

The New York Times reports that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called ElBaradei on Monday to tell him the US could not support the proposal, which still has not been made public. US officials also said that Russian diplomats told them that no formal proposal was on the table. The US wants to get past the IAEA meeting and on to the UN Security Council, but officials worry that the Russian proposal is meant to slow down that process.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations, told some British MPs that the US will use strategic airstrikes or a special forces raid against some Iranian targets if the country doesn't stop its program.

In Washington, the MPs spoke to the sometimes-controversial US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. And they quoted him saying: "We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down."
In response, one of Iran's senior commanders said his country would become a killing field for any enemy aggressor.

Time magazine reports, however, that observers should not be misled by all the rhetoric - there's not likely to be any kind of serious confrontation yet.
There's unlikely to be any kind of showdown any time soon for one overarching reason — there is simply little appetite among the key players in the dispute to escalate matters. The IAEA had already in principle decided, at its previous board meeting in January, to refer Iran to the Security Council, yet Monday's meeting — expected to last up to three days — is still expected to offer Tehran another 30 days in which to cut a deal. Veto-wielding Security Council members Russia and China remain resolutely opposed to sanctions, which conflict with their own national economic interests, and it's not immediately clear exactly what outcome the US — which currently holds the rotating Security Council chair — would seek from a Council discussion on the Iran issue.
The Associated Press reports that while the US talks tough, the reality is that it will still need the help of Russia in order to convince the UN Security Council to pursue sanctions against Iran. Russia is Iran's most important business partner, and political ally.
On both Iran and Hamas, the United States needs Russian acquiescence, if not outright support. That may make it more difficult for the administration to press Lavrov very hard over what Rice recently called a disturbing erosion of democratic guarantees in post-Soviet Russia. US officials insist they will not give Russia a pass.
"There are areas where ... we differ, and we think we can have a frank and candid exchange of views with them on those subjects," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday. "We're certainly going to continue to make clear our concerns about those areas where we do have problems."

The Los Angeles Times reports that in Iran itself, the issue is seen as one of "nationalism mixed with a feeling that Iran too often has been treated as an exception to the rules of international relations." Even those opposed to the hard-line fundamentalist regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad support Iran's drive to produce nuclear power.
Linda Heard, writing in the Arab News, says that the feeling in much of the Middle East is that the US is using a double standard toward Iran's nuclear policy.

While the US and its European allies are demanding Iran’s compliance, the American president has himself flouted the terms of the NPT by offering nuclear technology to nuclear-armed India, which is not a signatory.
On the other hand, Iran has abided by the treaty’s chapter and verse and there is as yet no smoking gun to indicate it is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. George Bush makes no apology for this glaring double standard other than to point out that India is a democracy, which presumably means it should be trusted ... However, America’s hallowed democracy standard does not apply to Hamas, which was fairly elected to govern the Palestinian people. If the US has its way, Hamas is to be starved out of office.

Also on Monday, two other countries called for more time for a negotiations. Agence-France Presse reports that China called on Iran to cooperate with the IAEA immediately, but also called for restraint on all sides. The Hindustan Times reports that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Parliament that India "did not favour a confrontation" or "coercive" methods to settle the problem.

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 31
March 7, 2006

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

Support Secrecy News:
http://www.fas.org/static/contrib_sec.jsp


** CIA SUED OVER PREPUBLICATION REVIEW
** CONGRESS ON AMENDING THE PATRIOT ACT, CAPTURED IRAQI DOCS
** ORIGINS OF "THE RIGHT TO KNOW"


CIA SUED OVER PREPUBLICATION REVIEW

A former Central Intelligence Agency employee, Thomas Waters Jr.,
filed a lawsuit against the Agency last week, arguing that publication
of his book had been improperly blocked in the prepublication review
process.

"The Central Intelligence Agency has unlawfully imposed a prior
restraint upon Thomas Waters by obstructing and infringing on his
right to publish his unclassified memoirs and threatening him with
civil and criminal penalties," according to the March 3 complaint
filed in DC District Court.

The case seems to reflect the tightening of controls on public
disclosure of information at the CIA.

Almost all of Waters' manuscript had been cleared for publication by
the CIA in September 2004, according to the complaint. But last
month, the Agency notified him that substantial portions of the book,
including some material that had previously been approved, could not
be published after all.

"The CIA continues to deliberately create a hostile environment for its
former employees who are seeking to do nothing other than publish
nonsensitive, unclassified information," said Mark S. Zaid, Waters'
attorney. "Its actions are completely unconstitutional and designed
to disable the First Amendment."

A news release about the case may be found here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2006/03/waters.html

The March 3 complaint in Waters v. CIA is posted here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/waters030306.pdf

See also "CIA Sued Over Right to Publish" by Shaun Waterman, United
Press International, March 6:

http://tinyurl.com/z86kk


CONGRESS ON AMENDING THE PATRIOT ACT, CAPTURED IRAQI DOCS

With final congressional reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act now
imminent, new legislation was introduced in the Senate yesterday to
amend the reauthorized Act.

"What this legislation does is reinstate provisions of the original
Senate-passed [Patriot Act reauthorization] bill," said Senator Arlen
Specter (R-PA). Those provisions were rejected by the House
Republican leadership.

The new bipartisan legislation, jointly sponsored by Senators Specter
and Leahy among others, would "require a more reasonable period for
delayed-notice search warrants, provide enhanced judicial review of
FISA orders and national security letters, require an enhanced factual
basis for a FISA order, and create national security letter sunset
provisions."

The legislation does not confront the awkward fact that the Bush
Administration appears to believe it does not have to comply with the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

See the introduction of the new bill here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s2369.html

Another bill, introduced by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, chair of the House
Intelligence Committee, would require the Director of National
Intelligence to release documents captured in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"The Director of National Intelligence shall make publicly available on
an Internet website all captured documents."

"The term 'captured document' means a document captured or collected in
Afghanistan or Iraq, including a document collected from the
Government of Iraq or from a private person and including a document
in electronic form, during Operation Desert Storm, Operation Enduring
Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom." See:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/hr4869.html


ORIGINS OF "THE RIGHT TO KNOW"

"There is nothing in the Constitution about 'the public's right to
know'," wrote former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence Mark
M. Lowenthal in his book "Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy" (CQ
Press, 2000, page 143).

"The Constitution safeguards freedom of speech and of the press, but
these are not the same as a right to information," Mr. Lowenthal
argued.

This is not quite correct. The Constitution may be readily understood
to grant a public right to know certain types of information.

Specifically, the Constitution imposes an obligation on the government
to publish two categories of information: a Journal of Congress
(Article I, section 5) and a statement and account of all receipts and
expenditures (Article I, section 9).

And the government's obligation to publish this information is
semantically identical (or nearly so) to a public right to know it.

The public only gained a broader legal right to access government
information with the Freedom of Information Act, which was first
enacted in 1966. Prior to that time, one could ask for information,
but the government had no duty to respond. Since then, thanks to the
FOIA, the public has had a legally enforceable right to compel
disclosure of non-exempted information.

As for the phrase "the right to know," it was apparently coined in the
1940s by Kent Cooper, who was the executive director of the Associated
Press. The New York Times credited him with originating the phrase in
an editorial on January 23, 1945. (As noted by James S. Pope in the
Foreword to "The People's Right to Know" by Harold L. Cross, Columbia
University Press, 1953, p. xi.)


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

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114...ys_free_feature

Chertoff Says U.S. Ports Takeover
Would Tighten Grip on Security

By ROBERT BLOCK
March 7, 2006; Page A3

WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday said the proposed takeover of terminal operations at five U.S. ports by a Dubai company would give U.S. law enforcement a better handle on security at U.S. terminal operations.

But the unprecedented access that the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies would have to monitor the United Arab Emirates shipping company's personnel and business records would "evaporate" if Congress stopped the deal from proceeding, he warned.


Mr. Chertoff has said on many occasions that he didn't consider Dubai Ports World's proposed $6.8 billion buyout of London's Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. a security threat to the U.S. However, his statements to a group of Wall Street Journal reporters marked the first time that he has said that Homeland Security had something to lose if the deal fell through.

"We are in a position now where we can and, assuming this deal goes through, we intend to have a deep look into their practices, certainly in the U.S. ports," Mr. Chertoff said.

Mr. Chertoff also denied rumors he had any intention of resigning following criticism of how his department handled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On the contrary, he said that as the hurricane season approaches, he intends to remake the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He said he will recommend not just a new FEMA director, but an entire management team to head the agency, which has been without a director since Michael Brown resigned 10 days after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

On the ports issue, Mr. Chertoff said his department was beginning to review and inspect P&O's current operations in the U.S. Members of Congress and governors from both parties were outraged at the prospect of an Arab government operating U.S. port terminals, and are angry that the White House didn't consult them before approving the deal.

Mr. Chertoff said DP World has committed to continue its participation in U.S.-sponsored port-security initiatives at all its overseas operations and to "assist and support federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies" as part of conditions for approving the acquisition.

MORE ON PORTS


• Worth Repeating: Ports Uproar

• Ports News Tracker: Latest developments

• Framing the Issue: Safe Harbors?

According to the letter to the Homeland Security Department containing DP World's agreement, the company agreed to provide U.S. law enforcement, if asked, with information about its U.S. operations, facilities and personnel. It also agreed to provide federal agencies with any records in the U.S. involving its foreign operations. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies have been trying to get inside information about global shipping operations, long seen as a potential conduit for smuggling terrorists and weapons around the globe.

Mr. Chertoff described the arrangement as a template for other foreign-owned port-terminal operators. "This actually gives us a better opportunity to raise the baseline of security, first with this set of terminal operators, but eventually, hopefully, unless Congress says you can't have foreign companies own or run terminal operations, we'll be able to raise the level for all them too," he said.

DP World has agreed to an additional 45-day review of the deal, but lawmakers are considering legislation that would bar it. If that happened, Mr. Chertoff said, the U.S. would lose the ability it would gain through the deal to more closely scrutinize terminal operations. "Obviously if the deal doesn't go through, these assurances evaporate."

Mr. Chertoff, who took over from the department's first secretary, Tom Ridge, just over a year ago, also said that some lawmakers still aren't completely committed to the Department of Homeland Security, and would like to see it broken up. He said the hope was destructive and hampered his agency's effectiveness.

After the federal government's initial response to Hurricane Katrina, there are calls on Capitol Hill to break FEMA out of Homeland Security, a move Mr. Chertoff said would be a mistake. Mr. Chertoff said he hoped to have an emergency team in place along with supply contracts from companies that can track shipments of relief commodities like water, food and ice, before the hurricane season starts June 1.

Write to Robert Block at bobby.block@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114...ys_free_feature

March 7, 2006


WSJ ONLINE/HARRIS INTERACTIVE HEALTH-CARE POLL
Americans Lack Confidence
In Health Reform, Poll Finds

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
March 7, 2006

A majority of U.S. adults lack confidence in the Bush administration's ability to reform the nation's health-care system, a new Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive health-care poll shows.

About three-quarters of those polled in the online survey of 2,426 U.S. adults say they aren't confident President Bush will be able to effectively make changes such as slowing the increase in health-care costs for the U.S. as a whole or reducing out-of-pocket health-care costs.

But Americans are divided along party lines about the president's ability to improve health-care, the poll shows. For example, about 5% of Democrats polled say they are confident in his ability to reduce out-of-pocket costs, compared with 40% of Republicans.

Overall, about 30% of those surveyed say they trust the Bush administration's ability to come up with good policies for improving and reforming the U.S. health-care system. But Americans aren't much more confident in Republicans (31%), Democrats (45%) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (41%) to reform the health-care system.

About 80% of Democrats surveyed say they trust their own party to come up with good health-care policies, compared with 67% of Republicans who have confidence in Republican-led initiatives.

See full results of the poll:

--Beckey Bright

"How much do you trust each of the following to come up with good policies for improving and reforming the U.S. health-care system?"
Base: All Adults

A Great Deal/To Some Extent (Net) A Great Deal To Some Extent Not Much/ Not At All (Net) Not Much Not At All Not Sure
President Bush 30% 11% 18% 65% 18% 46% 6%
The Republicans 31 10 21 61 27 34 8
The Democrats 45 16 29 47 25 22 9
Senator Hillary Clinton 41 17 24 51 18 34 8

* * *
"How much do you trust each of the following to come up with good policies for improving and reforming the U.S. health-care system?"
Summary of A Great Deal/To Some Extent
Base: All Adults

Total Party Affiliation
Republican Democrat Independent
The Democrats 45% 16% 80% 48%
Senator Hillary Clinton 41 12 74 45
The Republicans 31 67 10 23
President Bush 30 63 6 26

* * *
"In his State of the Union speech this past January, the President referred briefly to his plans for health care. Since then the White House has provided more details on his proposals. How familiar are you with Bush's new health-care proposals?"
Base: All Adults

Total Party Affiliation
Republican Democrat Independent
Very Familiar/Somewhat Familiar (Net) 40% 41% 47% 44%
Very familiar 7 6 9 8
Somewhat familiar 34 35 38 36
Not Very/Not At All Familiar (Net) 54 55 49 53
Not very familiar 32 38 28 34
Not at all familiar 22 18 21 18
Not Sure 5 4 4 3

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

* * *
"Even if you are not sure what his proposals are, how confident are you that President Bush can do the following?"
Base: All Adults

Very Confident/ Somewhat Confident (Net) Very Confident Somewhat Confident Not Very Confident/ Not At All Confident (Net) Not Very Confident Not At All Confident Not Sure
Reduce the percentage of Americans without health insurance 25% 5% 19% 70% 29% 42% 5%
Slow the increase in health-care costs for the U.S. as a whole 20 4 16 75 32 44 5
Improve the quality of health care 26 5 21 69 28 41 5
Reduce Americans' out-of-pocket costs for health care 20 4 16 75 32 43 5
Reduce Americans' out-of-pocket costs for health insurance 19 4 16 76 32 44 5

Note: Percentages may not add up exactly to 100% due to rounding.

* * *
"…How confident are you that President Bush can do the following?" Summary of Very/Somewhat Confident
Base: All Adults

Total Party Affiliation
Republican Democrat Independent
Improve the quality of health care 26% 49% 10% 23%
Reduce the percentage of Americans without health insurance 25 49 7 19
Reduce Americans' out-of-pocket costs for health care 20 40 5 19
Slow the increase in health-care costs for the U.S. as a whole 20 39 5 17
Reduce Americans' out-of-pocket costs for health insurance 19 38 7 16

* * *
"…How confident are you that President Bush can do the following?" Summary of Not Very/Not At All Confident
Base: All Adults

Total Party Affiliation
Republican Democrat Independent
Improve the quality of health care 69% 48% 87% 73%
Reduce the percentage of Americans without health insurance 70 48 89 77
Reduce Americans' out-of-pocket costs for health care 75 56 92 77
Slow the increase in health-care costs for the U.S. as a whole 75 57 91 79
Reduce Americans' out-of-pocket costs for health insurance 76 58 90 80

Methodology:
Harris Interactive conducted this online survey in the U.S., Feb. 23-27, 2006, among a nationwide cross section of 2,426 adults. Figures for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, income and region were weighted where necessary to align with population proportions. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online. In theory, with probability samples of this size, one can say with 95% certainty that the overall results have a sampling error of =/- 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire U.S. adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Sampling error for the sub-samples of Republicans (729), Democrats (663) and Independents (614) is higher and varies. This online sample is not a probability sample.


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

About Harris Interactive
Harris Interactive is a world-wide market research and consulting firm, best known for The Harris Poll and its use of the Internet to conduct scientifically accurate market research. For more information, see www.harrisinteractive.com1. To become a participant in The Harris Poll Online and join future online surveys, see www.harrispollonline.com2.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114167129636990607.html


Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://www.harrisinteractive.com
(2) http://www.harrispollonline.com




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Cheney Says U.S. Won't Let Iran Get Nukes


Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and warned "the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime."

Cheney said the Iranian government "continues to defy the world with its nuclear ambitions" and that the issue may soon go before the U.N. Security Council.

"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences," Cheney said in a speech to the to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel lobbying group.

Cheney spoke as diplomats at an International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, were considering whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. The United States believes Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons; Iran says its nuclear program is for generating electricity.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Washington Tuesday to discuss Iran with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Cheney said the United States joins "other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

He denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for calling for Israel's destruction and denying that the Nazi Holocaust of Jews took place.

He said he supports the "the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran" and said "Iranians have endured a generation of repression at the hands of a fanatical regime. That regime is one of the world's primary state sponsor of terror."




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http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/200...0307-12619.html

Mar. 07, 2006 War on Terror Transformation News Products Press Resources Images Websites Contact Us

U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Transcript


On the Web:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/200...0307-12619.html
Media contact: +1 (703) 697-5131 Public contact:
http://www.dod.mil/faq/comment.html
or +1 (703) 428-0711

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

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace March 7, 2006

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

DoD News Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Pace

SEC. RUMSFELD: Come on in, folks. Good morning.



Last week I had the privilege of visiting the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. The purpose was to pay tribute to the first U.S. president of the Cold War era and to consider what lessons might be drawn from that important period in our history.

The era we find ourselves in today is -- has a great many differences from the Cold War, to be sure, but these two eras also have some instructive similarities. Both were and are fundamentally ideological conflicts. In both, success required bolstering the capabilities of partner nations. And above all, both required perseverance by the American people and by their leadership.

So, too, today the key to success will be perseverance. In Iraq, the terrorists are obviously trying to ignite a civil war to divide that country and to demoralize the coalition that's helping them along the path towards self-government. The desire to foment civil strife was behind last month's bombing of the golden dome shrine. It has been and remains a time of testing for the Iraqi people, but the Iraqis are meeting that test thus far successfully, I would say, and defying the seeming rush to -- by some here and abroad -- to proclaim exactly what the terrorists seek, namely a civil war.

It's instructive to take note of several things that have happened in Iraq since the bombing of the shrine that must be disappointing to those who seek a civil war.

First, the Iraqi security forces have taken the lead in controlling the situation. Coalition forces assisted in a supporting role, according to General Casey.

And second, the Iraqi government leaders took a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation. They imposed a curfew, and the leaders of most of the major parties have stepped forward to publicly urge restraint on all parties.

From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation, according to General Casey. The number of attacks on mosques, as he pointed out, had been exaggerated. The number of Iraqi deaths had been exaggerated. The behavior of the Iraqi security forces had been mischaracterized in some instances. And I guess that is to say nothing of the apparently inaccurate and harmful reports of U.S. military conduct in connection with a bus filled with passengers in Iraq.

Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side. It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq.

And then I notice today that there's been a public opinion poll reporting that the readers of these exaggerations believe Iraq is in a civil war -- a majority do, which I suppose is little wonder that the reports we've seen have had that effect on the American people.

General Casey has reported that overall levels of violence have not increased substantially as a result of the Golden Dome bombing. To be sure, violence continues to slow Iraq's progress. That's a fact, and we know that. In the coming months Iraqis will face difficult obstacles in controlling illegal militias, and we know that. They're working to try to strengthen their ministries, and we're trying to help them. And their efforts to fashion a unity government that will represent all elements of their society is clearly being delayed by the situation in Iraq. Nonetheless, the leadership being shown by the Iraqi security forces, by the Iraqi government officials in the wake of these attacks against the shrine has to be seen as encouraging, despite the apparent unwillingness of some to accept it.

Nearly 56 years ago, in 1950, the Truman administration issued what would become a framework for America's Cold War strategy for four decades. In a formerly classified document called NSC 68, the Truman administration said, quote, "Our fundamental purpose is more likely to be defeated from lack of will to maintain it than from any mistakes we may make or assault we may undergo because of asserting that will," unquote. Today our nation is again in a long struggle. And again, the toughest challenge will be to maintain our national will to persevere and to prevail.

General Pace.

GEN. PACE: Thank you, Sir.

Today was a landmark day for the Iraqi air force. They stood up a(n) operational C-130 squadron, co-located at the Baghdad International Airport; three C-130 transport aircraft, about 270 personnel. This culminates over a year of training and mentoring, and the stand up of the squadron is good for the country and good for their armed forces.

Your questions, please.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Charlie.

Q Mr. Secretary, I'd like to clear up exactly what you're saying here. Are you saying that this poll and that what you call the rush toward declaring civil war in Iraq, is that the result of intentional misreporting of the situation there?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I can't go into people's minds. All I'm doing is reporting on what we've seen. General Casey pointed out to this group here that he believes -- his data shows that the numbers of mosque attacks and the nature of the attacks and the severity of the attacks have been considerably exaggerated and that the number of civilian Iraqis that have been killed or wounded has been exaggerated.

And -- now, why someone or whoever did this, I have no way to judge. I'm not going to judge them. It's just a fact that he is saying that, and I believe he's correct.

Q But you said, Sir, that -- I believe that the reporting was virtually one-sided. Does that mean --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Yeah, the interesting thing about it is they all seem to be of a kind. All the things that have later been corrected or need to be corrected or that he believes were exaggerated all seem to be on one side of the equation. We don't see the similar thing on the other side, which you normally would get in some kind of a random spread, one would think.

Q Well, do you believe that the media's been duped by the situation or doesn't understand it or what?

SEC. RUMSFELD: All I'm doing is reporting. I'm just reporting the facts. (Laughter.) The facts are as I've stated them.

Q Mr. Secretary?

SEC. RUMSFELD: You'll have to draw your own conclusions about it.

But -- yes?

Q Mr. Secretary, about three months ago, when you were in Iraq, you announced that there would be some reduction in troop levels -- U.S. troop levels in Iraq this year. Have those been fully implemented? And has the sectarian strife of recent weeks dimmed the prospects for additional cuts this year?

SEC. RUMSFELD: We were at 160(,000). I said we were going to go down to 138(,000), which had been the baseline -- 37(,00) 38(,000) -- and that then there would be two brigades that would be not sent in, as I recall, is what I said some months ago.

The numbers have gone down today below the 138(,000) to, I think, 132(,000) --

GEN. PACE: That's correct, sir -- 132(,000) today.

SEC. RUMSFELD: A hundred and thirty-two thousand today. So some portion of it has happened.

Of course, there is always a lot of moving parts. We're also adding some people simultaneously to do various things. We're embedding some people with police. We are going to -- various other things change. So it's in process, I think, would be the way to phrase it.

Q But what about the prospects for additional cuts in light of recent events?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know. It's the kind of thing where we'll let this settle down, and we see where we are. And it may or it may not.

Q But we've been told one of those brigades will be going in as trainers, not as combat troops. But --

SEC. RUMSFELD: (Off mike) -- said, we're adding some people to train and equip and to embed with the police.

Q Right.

SEC. RUMSFELD: And the same time, we're taking other people out. So there's -- it's constantly moving. We're now below the 138(,000).

Q And those two brigades would not be going in. What I'm saying is, we've been told that one of those two brigades will be going in, or the bulk of that brigade.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, you can get that from the office staff.

GEN. PACE: May I -- I may be able to help you with that. And that is that the brigade itself will not be going in as a brigade. Some of the leadership, the captains and majors and lieutenant colonels, who are the types of individuals you need for the transition teams to assist the Iraqis, can in fact go in and serve.

Q Are you holding up to two-thirds of that brigade? Is that --

GEN. PACE: We can get you the numbers on that.

Q Mr. Secretary --

GEN. PACE: But it's not going to be the major --

SEC. RUMSFELD: It's not going in, in the format it was, for the purpose it was.

Q But it's still going in?

SEC. RUMSFELD: No, it's not. Some portion --

GEN. PACE: We'll get you those numbers.

Q Mr. Secretary, could I go back a little bit to what Charlie was asking about? And I wanted to get -- to make sure we're on the same page here. When you say it was one-sided, is this -- are you --

Q I didn't use that --

SEC. RUMSFELD: I think it -- on the one -- most --

Q Well, on one side --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Most of the things that General Casey mentioned were of a kind --

Q Right.

SEC. RUMSFELD: -- on one side of the issue, not randomly spread.

Q And when you say one side, is that the Western press? Is that Al-Jazeera and comparable press? Do you feel it's a campaign of disinformation here that's taking place? Are you planning to counter that campaign even more than you are now?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, we're obviously not successful at all if we're trying to counter it. We -- because -- (chuckles) -- that would be like trying to stop the tide. It's not possible.

The -- we do know, of course, that al Qaeda has media committees. We do know that they teach people exactly how to try to manipulate the media. They do this regularly. We see the intelligence that reports on their meetings and -- now, I can't take a string and tie it to a news report and then trace it back to an al Qaeda media committee meeting.

I'm not able to do that at all. We do know that their goal is to try to break the will -- that they consider the center of gravity of this not to be in Iraq -- because they know they can't win a battle out there -- they consider it to be in Washington, D.C., and in London, in the capitals of the Western world.

Q Are you talking about the Western press or are you talking about the Western press AND the Arabic language press or --

SEC. RUMSFELD: The bus incident was on the Al-Jazeera, as I recall. It was reported on Al-Jazeera. And the others -- you see the same things I see. You can be the judge.

Yes.

Q Mr. Secretary, you seem to be saying that reports of the potential for a civil war in Iraq as a result of the attack on the Golden Dome -- we're exaggerating it.

SEC. RUMSFELD: No, I was just quoting General Casey, and that is not quite the way it was.

Q Okay. Do you believe --

SEC. RUMSFELD: You were here probably and heard his briefing.

Q Right. Do you believe that the reports of the potential for civil war were overstated?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I -- it's not for me to judge that.

The -- I do not believe they're in a civil war today. There's always been a potential for civil war. That country was held together through an oppressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves. It was held together not by a constitution, not by a piece of paper, not by respect for your fellow citizens of different religious faiths, but it was held together through force and viciousness, and that's gone. And the natural, historical differences that have existed in that community still exist, and they're being reflected and manifested in one way or another.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Fortunately, a lot of it's being manifested in the political debate, which is a good thing. Here they are, they're arguing and debating and pulling and tugging about who should be this and who should do that job, and that's basically a very healthy thing.

Q But if I may, Ambassador Khalilzad told the Los Angeles Times that he believes -- I'm quoting here -- "The potential is there now for sectarian violence to become a full-blown civil war, and that Iraq is really vulnerable at this time."

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, he's there. He's an expert, and he said what he said. I happen to not have read it, but I certainly am not going to try to disagree with it.

There's always been a potential for that. We've -- I mean, that's something that people have talked about from the beginning.

Q Well, Ambassador Khalilzad also said that the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, in his words, "Opened the Pandora's box of ethnic and sectarian violence." What do you make of that?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I haven't seen the full text of it, but clearly if you take away a repressive regime that puts -- slaps people in jail, kills them, fills graves with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, uses chemicals on their own people, and you stop doing that, and you say to them, "Folks, a constitution, a piece of paper is going to be what's going to hold this place together" -- that is an enormous step.

And the fact that the Iraqi security forces, particularly the MOD forces, have held together and provided security during this period, the fact that the leaders of all sects have stood up and said, "Hey! Wait a minute! Caution! Behave! Don't engage in sectarian violence, don't engage in retaliation," that's been a, I think, a fairly significant thing that's worth mentioning, which is why I thought I'd mention it.

Q Mr. Secretary, what would a civil war look like? And General Pace, what are the signs you're monitoring there that, in your eyes, haven't come to pass, but if they come to pass, would indicate a civil war? What are -- what are some of the signs that we haven't seen yet?

GEN. PACE: Well, what you have seen is the Iraqi armed forces and the Iraqi police are loyal to the central government. They have been on the streets protecting the Iraqi people. The police have gone to the mosques and protected the mosques. You're seeing all the things you would want to see to preclude the kind of things that would lead to civil war.

It -- the Iraqi people -- Sunni, Shi'a, Kurds -- have walked up to the possibility. I believe they've looked into the abyss and have said, "This is not where we want to go. We want to have calm, we want to have a peaceful future." And the Iraqi armed forces and the Iraqi police are performing extremely well in providing the security for their government to make the right kinds of decisions that they are.

Q (Off mike) -- look like? Would it be Iraqi police not -- just standing off on the sidelines letting militias pass through their lines? What would chaos and civil war actually look like to the public?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Why don't you ask the other question: what would it look like if there's not chaos and civil war? And that's kind of -- kind of what people have been describing. If you have on the one hand the Iraqi security forces succeeding, that's good. The back side of that would be they wouldn't be. They would disappear, or they would fall apart, or they would engage in sectarian violence themselves, or they'd refuse to obey, or something like that.

The leadership -- you want to know the other -- you want to know the worst, obviously. What would it look like, what would be terrible for the people -- the political leaders and the government figures to do exactly the opposite of what they're doing, and that is to stand up and say, "By golly, we're not going to take this. They bombed one of our mosques; let's go bomb their mosque." And they said just the opposite. I know it's -- it's amazing to think that. But that's what's happened.

Q So the level of -- so the level of violence and attacks should not be seen as a barometer of civil war, the intensity or the duration or quantity of attacks. That's -- that's one thing -- you don’t think that's a valid barometer, whether it's --

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know that I'd commented on that. But I did happen to just look at that list, the -- that barometer of attacks. What --

GEN. PACE: If you take it from a year ago to now, month-to- month, January to January, February to February, the attacks now are down compared to last year. However, if you look at the last month or two, the attacks have been up a little bit, but of a -- not of a magnitude that indicates a significant change. To answer your question, the attacks are terrorist attacks on the infrastructure and the leadership of the country.

They had a division -- Iraqi division commander who was assassinated yesterday. Our hearts go out to his family. Here's a man who believed in the future of his country and stands up and takes command of a division, and those who do not want the Iraqi people to be free gun him down. That's the kind of violence you're seeing. It's not -- it's not the other kind.

Q Mr. Secretary, I want to ask about the U.S.-India agreement last week. What impact could have this agreement on Iran and on its relation with China? And my second question, if you don't mind --

SEC. RUMSFELD: I -- I do. I'm going to leave that for the Department of State. That was handled through the Department of State and the White House, and they're the appropriate people to respond to that.


Q Okay. My -- okay, my second question, what about the visit of the Egyptian MOD -- minister of Defense -- today to the Pentagon?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I think it is today. He is --


SEC. RUMSFELD: -- here. Yes, indeed. Yes. And I'm looking forward to it. He's a gentleman that I've met over a long period of time -- many years, and he comes here periodically, just as I go there periodically. And I --

Q Any discussion regarding the military cooperation between the U.S. and --

SEC. RUMSFELD: I'm sure we will. We always discuss military-to- military relations with Egypt and with our other friends and allies.

Q I have two questions about the long war, and both of them sort of come up in your opening statement. You in late January circulated a memo that Newt Gingrich wrote sort of listing what he thinks need to be the changes that the country needs to make in order to fight and win the long war. You asked for responses --

SEC. RUMSFELD: When was this?

Q January 30th.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh.

Q You asked for responses back from it, and they should have been due in last week. And I was wondering if there are any specific things that came out of that that you are thinking of including in the QDR planning documents, which was the purpose of the -


SEC. RUMSFELD: Yeah, I haven't seen the responses.
Q Well, you'd better get on it. They were due March 3rd. The -- (laughter).

Q Sir, the second question then, if you'll take it, is, listening to one of the pillars of your plans in fighting the long war is helping government to stand up their own forces against terrorist forces and to keep areas from becoming ungoverned that terrorists could then use.

During the Cold War, the United States pursued a similar policy, and it ended up having some benefits and also some disadvantages, including in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was one of the recipients of some of the U.S. aid and standing up Afghan forces against the Soviet Union.

I don't see an alternative to the plan that you guys are pursuing. But I'm wondering what you're doing to mitigate the long-term possibilities of something like that happening, and then in the short term trying to help governments fight terrorism, while in the long term not creating our future enemies or not training them.

SEC. RUMSFELD: It's always a risk. You've got to --

Q Are you doing anything to mitigate it? How are you thinking about it?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know how many countries in the world, but -- 180, 90, something like that, and you reach out and see a situation. In no instance is it perfect, and you end up making a judgment that you want to be helpful to a country for good reason. And then, you can look five years later, and the circumstance could change in that country, particularly if it's a democratic country or if there's a coup, and different people take charge. We've seen that where some MANPADS have ended up in the hands of the wrong people, and we've had to find programs to go out and try to purchase them back and find ways to avoid having them used against us.
So I guess you have to, you know, deal with the world and make best judgments, successive administrations do that, and generally, I would say, given the past record, the country -- our country's been pretty successful at it in the last 50 to 60 years with periodic potholes in the road, as you suggest.

Q I'm not actually sure whether this issue has come to attention of either of you gentlemen yet. But are either of you broadly aware of these hate groups that have been showing up at military funerals across the Midwest, and if you have any reaction to it yet or any view about the impact these people are having on military families trying to bury their dead.

GEN. PACE: Yeah, I've heard about this. And here you have a family that has lost a loved one. That loved one has served his or country to the best of their ability, and we're trying to render proper honors and respect to them. And while the family is in probably the height of its mourning period, any entity, any group, any individual who would try to use that solemn event for some other purpose I think is really wrong.

Q Mr. Secretary, you've said that this political force training to form a new government is a good thing, even though it's delaying --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Politicking.

Q -- yeah -- even though it's delaying things a bit forming the Iraqi government.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I don't think the politicking is being delayed by this. I think that the attack on the Golden Dome shrine is delaying it -- has delayed it and the difficulties that that posed.

Q And you've also said that it's clear the terrorists are trying to provoke civil war.

Do you think the longer the Iraqis take to actually form this government leaves them more vulnerable to pushing them over some cliff towards that civil war?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know, but I don't think so. I mean, I can't give evidence as to why I say I don't think so. I think that these things go in bursts, and the burst has passed. And it's been handled pretty well, and there'll be another burst at some point down the road simply because that's the nature of that part of the world and the situation. It's a tough, tough situation.

On the other hand, I -- my guess is that General Pace is correct; that if you have those political leaders who have put their lives at risk to run for office and to be put in a position of vulnerability -- we saw the general was -- the Iraqi general was killed, targeted for assassination.

Others have been targeted for assassination. And they've shown the courage to do that and they've shown the capability to do it, and God bless them for it.

It's their country. They're going to have to run that country. And they are fully -- they have to be fully aware that if this does not work, they and all of the people who have supported them lose everything, if this turned into a civil war. And they can't want that. They want just the opposite, and they've demonstrated the courage to show that they want just the opposite.

And my impression is that they will sort through this and fashion a government of some sort. And I hope that it's a government that is not simply reflective of all elements in the country, but even more is -- in addition to that is agreed to govern from the center, and to see that all the ministries are fair to all elements in that country, and to see that they end up with a platform or a program that is going to move that country forward rather than simply dividing up the political spoils, as happens from time to time in our country and other countries as well.

Q Mr. Secretary, the vice president just addressed the issue of Iran and said, quote, "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." He said if Iran remains on its current course, it will face "meaningful consequences."

So my question to you is, first, do we have the ability to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? And what are those "meaningful consequences"? Could they be military?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I have not read the full text of that. The president and the vice president and the secretary of State have all spoken on this issue. It's -- I am not going to get into details of anything relating to that.

I will say this about Iran. They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq. And we know it, and it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment.

Q Why is that?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I've said all I have to say.
SEC. RUMSFELD: They're putting Iranian Quds Force-type people into the country.

Q What kind of force? I'm sorry.

SEC. RUMSFELD: The Quds Force. The Revolutionary Guard types.

Q Well, are we talking about for actual violence or for political purposes?

SEC. RUMSFELD: To the extent we find that -- I don't think we could consider them religious pilgrims.

Q Are you seeing weapons, Iranian-backed weapons, coming into Iraq, sir? Are U.S. forces engaging these Iranian elements?

Do you consider them to be enemy forces, red forces, essentially? What do you see happening here?

GEN. PACE: There have been some IEDs and some weapons that we believe are traceable back to Iran.

Q Well, there was one shipment that was -- (off mike) -- last year that you have talked about. Are you seeing more recent shipments of Iranian -- of weapons you believe manufactured in Iran and shipped across the border?

GEN. PACE: The most recent reports have to do with individuals crossing the border into Iraq.

Q Do you believe it's backed by the government, or are they individual elements not backed by the central government?

GEN. PACE: I do not know.
Q Roughly how many, general? Any idea?

GEN. PACE: I do have an idea. I cannot tell you that number.

Q Have you seen a steady increase?

GEN. PACE: It's hard to answer that question because we get periodic reports and I don't know what that snapshot in time is, whether it's the only thing that has happened or the one that we happen to catch. So I should not answer that because I don't know the spectrum.

Q Are there more coming? Are there --

SEC. RUMSFELD: In a country the size of California with a population of 28 million people and porous borders with Iranian pilgrims going back and forth al the time, it's not an easy thing to make those kinds of good judgments.

Q Is this a threat to Iraq's security?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I think that the Iraqi Shi'a are Iraqis, myself. I think that they're not going to be enamored of having help from across their border. So it is clearly a problem. Is it a threat to their security? I mean, I don't know. Is it possible some more Iraqi civilians will be killed? Sure.

Q Do you think this is backed by the central government in Iran? What's your --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, of course. The Revolutionary Guard doesn't go milling around willy-nilly, one would think.

Q Is there any way you can shore up the borders more, particularly --

SEC. RUMSFELD: We don't have evidence of that, but it just clearly -- pardon me?

Q Any way you can shore up the borders more, with more troops or surveillance or --

GEN. PACE: We're working with the Iraqi government to enhance the capacity, the total numbers dedicated to border control, and also their capacity.

Q Has the Iranian border become more of a problem than the Syrian border?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't want to compare them. They're both problems.

Q I'd like to ask about the realignment in Japan.

SEC. RUMSFELD: About the what?

Q Base realignment in Japan.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm.

Q In this month, a final report will be released in this month with the Japan government, but in Japan there is still local protest feeling even now, and it seems to me very difficult to get an agreement with the local community. And in this situation how do you look at this situation?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, you know, if you've got millions of people in a country, there are always going to be different views. That's the way it is, and you expect that. That's what democracy's about. And therefore, the government will make a decision. And the government has made a decision -- of Japan. And there will be people who will agree with it and people who don't agree with it. And that's -- life goes on.

Q So you mean if Japan government -- Japanese government couldn't get an agreement with the local people, you can get a final report in this month?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I'm not going to get into that. First of all, it's not our final report, it's a final report, and it's something that we've negotiated out with the government of Japan. The government of Japan is very supportive and comfortable, and then they work with their local communities to sort things out, the details, and then they'll come back to us and life will go on. Not to worry. It will be fine. It will all work out.

Q Mr. Secretary, the German government seems to be in trouble because of a contribution, just before the war started, of two intelligence agents. Were you at that time aware that they were there -- (i.e., the members, at the time, of ?) "old Europe" -- and --

SEC. RUMSFELD: First of all, I wasn't. I'm not aware. I wasn't aware then. I'm not knowledgeable today. And the government that was involved during that period is not the government that's currently in, which makes me wonder why you say the current government's in trouble.

Q Because part of the old government are part of the new government.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Uh-huh. Well --
Q But anyway, was the contribution --


SEC. RUMSFELD: I'll bet they survive it.

Q Probably. But was the contribution substantial or not --

SEC. RUMSFELD: I said I don't know.

Q You don't know.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I wasn't aware then, and I'm not now. It's something that I guess the German government's looking into. I just don't know.

Q Are you reconsidering your opinion about the Germans? Been looking back? (Laughter.)

Q Mr. Secretary, there's a newly formed commission on the Reserve and Guard -- formed and kind of announced them -- their creation, and signaled --

SEC. RUMSFELD: We'll make this the last question, so make it a good one.

Q -- sure -- (scattered laughter) -- signaled a hope that NORTHCOM could have an expanded role in the light of a natural disaster and other incidents. I was wondering if you generally support an --

SEC. RUMSFELD: You say a commission was formed that expressed that the first day they were formed?

Q They expressed -- they signaled a hope for that down the road.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Is that right? Yeah, I haven't seen that signal. It's hard for me to believe --

Q It is not --

SEC. RUMSFELD: It's hard for me --

Q They haven't made their formal recommendation --

SEC. RUMSFELD: It's hard for me that a commission that's just been formed --

SEC. RUMSFELD: -- could be opining on their conclusions before they've met.

Q Would you generally support an expanded role for NORTHCOM in that regard?

SEC. RUMSFELD: First of all, I wouldn't characterize it that way -- NORTHCOM. I mean, the -- it's -- the issue isn't NORTHCOM versus the National Guard, active versus Reserve or something like that. The issue that was posed in the lessons learned report that went to the president and to all of us was a(n) issue that was sent to me and Secretary Chertoff. And we were asked to come back to them with any recommendation we might have as to that question, that very question. And we have not gone back, nor have we had a meeting. And unlike others, I would prefer to have a meeting before characterizing an answer.

Q What's the mission of these Quds forces, Mr. Secretary? Is it intelligence? Training? Fomenting violence?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Don't know. Don't know. It's certainly not to be in support of a -- of placing on their border a country that's democratic and notably unlike the regime in Iran.

Thank you, folks.

Q Thank you.



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March 7, 2006
White House Issues Warning on Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Bush administration officials reiterated their firm opposition to Iranian nuclear ambitions today, with Vice President Dick Cheney lashing out at Iran as the Russian foreign minister started talks in Washington that included his country's proposal to enrich uranium for Iran's energy needs.

During a speech in Washington at the annual gathering of the nation's top pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Mr. Cheney volunteered his assessment of Iran as continuing to defy the world with its nuclear ambitions and said that the United States was keeping "all options on the table."

"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences," Mr. Cheney said.

At the White House, President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the Iran leadership "continues to move in the wrong direction. We have made it very clear, as well as the international community, that Iran needs to suspend all its enrichment-related activities."

Mr. Cheney's remarks coincided with a visit to Washington today by Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov after reports Monday that Russia had split with the United States and Europe by floating a last-minute proposal to allow Iran to make small quantities of nuclear fuel. Reports from European officials of that proposal prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to call Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and according to an administration official who was briefed on the conversation, "She said the United States cannot support this."

Today, Ms. Rice and Mr. Lavrov appeared to be trying to back away from the impression that there was a rift in their positions. In a briefing with reporters, Ms. Rice said that Mr. Lavrov did not inform the United States of any new idea.

"We have been supportive of the Russian proposal, which would be a joint venture with enrichment and reprocessing on Russian soil and in which there would be an effort or we believe minimal proliferation risk," Ms. Rice said, "because the enrichment and reprocessing would be on Russian soil, with fuel provision to Iran and then a fuel takeback provision."

Mr. Lavrov said today during the briefing with Ms. Rice that there is no compromise, new Russian proposal.

"All our contacts with Iran, with the European troika, with the United States, with China and with others, including the director general of I.A.E.A., were about finding a way to implement the February decision by the board of governors of I.A.E.A.," he said.

Perhaps trying to deflate any suggestion of a breach between Washington and Moscow, Mr. Lavrov added, "It is only in that context that our well-known suggestion to have a joint venture to enrich uranium on Russian territory to provide for the fuel needs of Iran was made, and we repeatedly stated that it's only in this context that this joint venture initiative is available."

At the White House, Mr. McClellan said that despite Mr. Cheney's veiled threat that the United States was keeping "all options on the table," the Bush adminstration was still pursuing a diplomatic solution on Iran. "Our concerns are broader than just the nuclear issue," he said. "We are concerned about the regime's behavior when it comes to its sponsorship of terrorism. We're concerned about its behavior when it comes to the repression of its people."

The atomic energy agency's board of governors is meeting in Vienna this week to discuss Dr. ElBaradei's latest report on Iran.

Mr. Lavrov's schedule includes a meeting with President Bush. He had dinner with Ms. Rice on Monday evening and with the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.

Ms. Rice's call to Dr. ElBaradei on Monday came after he suggested to reporters that the standoff with Iran could be resolved in a week or so, apparently an allusion to the Russian proposal. Washington's strategy is to get past the meeting of the I.A.E.A. that opened Monday and, under a resolution passed by the agency's board in February, have the issue turned over to the United Nations Security Council immediately.

But officials clearly feared that the Russian proposal is intended to slow that process.

American officials have previously said they had been assured by the Russians that there was no formal new proposal on the table.

But the European officials who discussed the issue on Monday said that Russia was proposing that Iran temporarily suspend all uranium enrichment activities at its facility at Natanz but then be allowed to do what Russia describes as "limited research activities" in Iran's uranium enrichment program. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules.

The European officials said Monday that Iran would have to agree to a moratorium on production of enriched uranium on an industrial scale for between seven to nine years, ratify additional measures that let the nuclear agency conduct intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities and create a joint venture with Russia on the production of enriched uranium on Russian soil.

In an interview on Monday evening, R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said the administration would reject any proposal that did not require the Iranians to stop domestic nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities. "The United States will not support any halfway measures," he said. "That means full suspension of all nuclear activities, and a return to negotiations on that basis."

Ms. Rice told Dr. ElBaradei on Monday that Washington wanted to see Iran's case before the Security Council as soon as this week's agency board meeting was over; that the United States would seek a presidential statement, which does not carry the weight of a resolution, noting Iran's past failures to comply with its international commitments; and that Iran's case would then be sent back to the nuclear agency for further review, according to an official with knowledge of the conversation.

The new Russian proposal would be a reversal of its previous stance and seemed motivated by its determination to protect Iran from judgment by the Security Council.

Russia — and even China — had joined the United States and the Europeans in demanding that Iran resume a freeze of uranium enrichment activities at Natanz, reflecting mounting global suspicion that Iran's nuclear program is intended to produce weapons.

Iran has always contended its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, although Russia, like the United States and the Europeans, is convinced it intends to make nuclear weapons.

Elaine Sciolino contributed reporting from Vienna for this article and David Stout from Washington.



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Rumsfeld Accuses Iran on Iraq Forces
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

Raising a new complaint about Iran, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused Tehran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to stir trouble inside Iraq.

At the same time, he rejected the idea that Iraq has slipped into civil war, asserting that media reports have overstated recent violence there.

Rumsfeld offered few details concerning his allegation of interference by Iran, which fought a nearly decade-long war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s and shares a largely unguarded border.

"They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," he told a Pentagon news conference. "And it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment."

He did not elaborate except to say the infiltrators were members of the Al Quds Division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the network of soldiers and vigilantes whose mandate is to defeat threats to the 1979 Islamic revolution. The Al Quds Division is responsible for operations outside Iranian territory.

Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials have previously complained of Iranian complicity in the movement of explosives and bomb-making material across the border into Iraq, but Rumsfeld had not mentioned Iranian forces before.

He initially said the infiltrators were doing "things that are harmful to the future of Iraq," but later when asked specifically whether they were gathering intelligence or fomenting violence, Rumsfeld said he did not know what their mission was.

Appearing with Rumsfeld, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that although there have been indications of Iranian-manufactured weapons coming into Iraq, "the most recent reports have to do with individuals crossing the border." He said he had an estimate of the number but declined to reveal it.

Pace said he did not know whether the Iranians were sent by their government. Asked the same question, Rumsfeld replied, "Of course. Quds force, the Revolutionary Guard, doesn't go milling around willy-nilly, one would think."

In the unclassified portion of its report to Congress last month on Iraq, the Pentagon made no mention of interference from Iran. It noted, however, that progress in building an Iraqi border police force has lagged behind expectations and said it suffers from corruption, "ghost" employees, and absenteeism among employees.

Rumsfeld also was asked about violence in Iraq since an attack last month on a revered Shiite mosque touched off a wave of reprisals between religious sects.

"I do not believe they are in a civil war today," Rumsfeld said. However, he added, "There has always been a potential for civil war."

The secretary spoke nearly two weeks after the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, which was followed by the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis. Hoping to keep Iraqi efforts to form a unity government moving forward, U.S. officials have acknowledged concern about the violence but have repeatedly denied that they fear a full-scale civil war was erupting.

Rumsfeld acknowledged that the attack on the mosque had delayed efforts to form a government in which Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds would share power.

"Their efforts to fashion a unity government that will represent all elements of their society is clearly being delayed by the situation in Iraq," Rumsfeld said. But he also asserted that Iraqi leaders had thus far passed the test of holding the country together and containing insurgents' efforts to ignite a civil war.

"They have to be fully aware that if this does not work, they and all of the people who have supported them lose everything, if this turns into a civil war. They can't want that," he said. "My impression is they will sort through this and fashion a government" that rules from the center.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil



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Mag: Iran bombing odds are 2:1 by 2007
RAW STORY
Published: March 7, 2006

The odds of an American or Israeli airstrike on Iran by March 31, 2007 are 2:1, according to April editions of the Atlantic Magazine. The magazine relies on online betting at tradesports.com, and provides a few details of the circumstances in which each strike might take place.

The Atlantic is known for its predictions of future events, and has held widely respected debates on military strikes on North Korea and Iran. Neither scenarios resulted in a favorable position for the United States. Excerpts follow.

#
4:1: Overt Air Strike by the United States or Israel by June 30, 2006.

By this date, the United Nations Security Council may have only recently enacted sanctions, such as travel bans or freezing the assets of Iranians associated with the nuclear program. More important, neither the United States nor Israel is likely to risk a strike in the midst of an election year. Israel will have only recently voted in a new parliament, and the United States will be mere months away from mid- term elections. Advertisement

3:1: Overt Air Strike by the United States or Israel by December 31, 2006.

The November elections will be over in the United States, and a new government will be firmly in place in Israel. But the two powers may continue to defer to the international community, and wait to assess whether sanctions and diplomacy curb Iran’s ambitions.

2:1: Overt Air Strike by the United States or Israel by March 31, 2007.

If Iran continues to make progress toward nuclear weapons capability, despite heavy international pressure, a surgical military strike against one of its key facilities—such as the uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz or the uranium-conversion facility in Isfahan—would become more politically feasible. Analysts at the Eurasia Group, an international consulting firm, predict that surgical strikes are likely “by the [United States] or Israel during the first quarter of 2007.”

Current betting figures can be obtained at http://www.intrade.com.

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Democratic chairman of Intel committee says canceling NSA hearings mistake
RAW STORY
Published: March 7, 2006

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence rejected a proposal by Vice Chairman Sen. John D. Rockefeller to conduct a Congressional review of the NSA warrantless spying program Tuesday afternoon.

In a statement released by Rockefeller's office to RAW STORY, a single line stands out: “As one of the few members of Congress who have been briefed on this program, I can honestly say the worst mistake we could make at this juncture is to legislate or attempt to amend FISA without having all the facts.”

The remainder of his statement follows.

“Today was an important day. There was a lot at stake for our country and all Americans, but my Republican colleagues would prefer to operate in the dark.

“Without knowing all the facts, I fear that any proposed legislation could have the unintended effect of jeopardizing the potential effectiveness of the program, while at the same time granting the President unfettered authority.

“Make no mistake about it, this program has the potential to be a valuable tool in the war on terror. But, it has to be done within the law, it has to have proper congressional oversight and it has to withstand judicial scrutiny.

“Last week, I spent six and half hours at the NSA going over the answers to 450 legal and operational questions I submitted. It was important for me to gain a more complete knowledge of the program and it was important for me to share with my colleagues the relevant questions we should be answering.

“As one of the few members of Congress who have been briefed on this program, I can honestly say the worst mistake we could make at this juncture is to legislate or attempt to amend FISA without having all the facts

Senate panel rejects bid for NSA inquiry
By David Morgan

Senate Republicans on Tuesday agreed to expand oversight of President George W. Bush's domestic spying program but rejected Democratic pressure for a broad inquiry into eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.

Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record) of Kansas, Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the committee voted to create a new seven-member subcommittee that would scrutinize the eavesdropping under a plan approved by the White House.

The Bush administration was criticized by rights groups, Democrats and some Republicans for the surveillance program. It started after the September 11 attacks and allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant on Americans' international phone and e-mail communications while in pursuit of al Qaeda.

In addition, the White House has begun discussions with several Republican lawmakers on legislative language that could further regulate the program.

"I believe the president is prepared to sign a bill once the Congress does work its will," Roberts told reporters after a closed-door committee meeting.

"When it comes to national security, I prefer accommodation over confrontation whenever possible. We should fight the enemy. We should not fight each other."

Four Senate Republicans, all critics of the program, proposed a plan that would authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant for 45 days but require the White House to justify every decision to continue beyond that timeframe.

The legislative proposal, titled the Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006, also would force the eavesdropping program to cease after five years unless renewed by Congress.

Sen. Mike DeWine (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio, one of the four Republicans pressing for legislation, said the proposal was backed by Roberts and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and accepted "in broad concept" by the White House.

DEMOCRATIC COMPLAINTS

But the Republican-controlled intelligence panel voted down a Democratic proposal for a complete investigation into the

surveillance by the National Security Agency by the full 15-member intelligence committee. Democrats complained that they had been shut out of discussions with the White House that led to the agreement.

"The committee, to put it bluntly, is basically under the control of the White House through its chairman," said a visibly frustrated Sen. John Rockefeller (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee.

Republicans rejected suggestions that the intelligence panel was retreating from its oversight duties on the NSA program. "The scope of the subcommittee's purview will be broad, wide, deep," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska.

The committee's decision came five days after the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence agreed on a new plan to pursue oversight of the NSA program through a subcommittee that has not yet been identified.

The White House has not agreed to the new House oversight plan. Up to now, White House officials have allowed full details of the NSA program to be shared only with eight members of Congress, including the Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats of the intelligence panels in both House and Senate.

The House agreement appeared to undermine efforts by Democrats and some Republicans to seek an inquiry by the full House intelligence committee.

The White House contends that Bush has the constitutional authority to order the eavesdropping as commander-in-chief, as well as congressional approval in the form of an authorization for use of military force against al Qaeda that lawmakers enacted on September 14, 2001.

Democrats and some Republicans contend the authorization was not meant to cover warrantless domestic spying and say the NSA program may violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain warrants for all electronic eavesdropping inside the United States.



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Rumsfeld sees potential for Iraq civil war
Tue Mar 7, 2006 01:51 PM ET


By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday there has always been a risk Iraq could plunge into civil war but he accused the news media of exaggerating the gravity of the current situation.

Rumsfeld, during a Pentagon briefing, also accused Iran of sending Revolutionary Guards forces into Iraq, his latest accusation of Iranian meddling in the war, adding, "I don't think we could consider them religious pilgrims."

"I do not believe they're in a civil war today," Rumsfeld said of Iraq, but added "terrorists" want to foment one. "There's always been a potential for a civil war. That country was held together through a repressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves."

Hundreds of people were killed in sectarian violence that flared after the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite shrines, and some experts said Iraq appeared to be on a verge of civil war.

The top U.S. envoy to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday saying the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that ousted President Saddam Hussein opened a "Pandora's box" of ethnic and sectarian tensions. Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for an all-out Iraqi civil war.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 80 percent of Americans believe that recent sectarian violence makes civil war in Iraq "likely" and more than a third thought it was "very likely."

Asked whether a civil war was possible, Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told reporters on Friday it was unlikely but, "Anything can happen."

Rumsfeld said the recent violence had delayed efforts to form a "unity government" distributing power among Iraq's Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

'EXAGGERATIONS'

Rumsfeld, citing information from Casey, said the news media has exaggerated the number of attacks on mosques and the number of Iraqi deaths, and has mischaracterized the actions of government security forces.

"From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation," Rumsfeld said.

"The steady stream of errors all seem to be of the nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq," he added. Asked whether these "exaggerations" were intentional, he added, "Oh, I can't go into people's minds."

Rumsfeld and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were not specific on the number of Revolutionary Guards they said were sent by Iran.

"They are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful to the future of Iraq. And we know it. And it is something that they, I think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld said "of course" Iran's central government was responsible. "The Revolutionary Guard doesn't go milling around willy-nilly, one would think."

Pace reiterated previous accusations about Iran funneling roadside bombs and other weapons across the border.

Experts have said tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The United States has 132,000 troops in Iraq. There have been more than 2,300 U.S. military deaths in the war, with about 17,000 troops wounded in action.

Shi'ite Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the population, are ascending to political power after being oppressed under Saddam. Minority Sunni Muslims find themselves losing power after dominating the nation for decades, and Sunnis are driving the insurgency. Minority Kurds are also accruing power.



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

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March 8, 2006
G.O.P. Senators and Bush Reach Wiretap Accord
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, March 7 — Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.

The agreement, hashed out in weeks of negotiations between Vice President Dick Cheney and Republicans critical of the program, dashes Democratic hopes of starting a full committee investigation because the proposal won the support of Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The two, both Republicans, had threatened to support a fuller inquiry if the White House did not disclose more about the program to Congress.

"We are reasserting Congressional responsibility and oversight," Ms. Snowe said.

The proposed legislation would create a seven-member "terrorist surveillance subcommittee" and require the administration to give it full access to the details of the program's operations.

Ms. Snowe said the panel would start work on Wednesday, and called it "the beginning, not the end of the process."

"We have to get the facts in order to weigh in," she said. "We will do more if we learn there is more to do."

The agreement would reinforce the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 to issue special warrants for spying but was sidestepped by the administration. The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the court whenever possible.

If the administration elects not to do so after 45 days, the attorney general must certify that the surveillance is necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittee why the administration has not sought a warrant. The attorney general would be required to give an update to the subcommittee every 45 days.

Democrats called the deal an abdication of the special bipartisan committee's role as a watchdog, saying the Republicans had in effect blessed the program before learning how it worked or what it entailed.

"The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House," said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the panel.

The House Intelligence Committee said last week that it would seek limited briefings for some panel members so that they could weigh changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but the Republican leaders of the House committee stopped far short of proposing the kind of continuing oversight and rules changes that the Senate committee has settled on. A spokeswoman for the White House, Dana Perino, called the Republican senators' proposal "a generally sound approach."

"We're eager to work with Congress on legislation that would further codify the president's authority," Ms. Perino said. "We remain committed to our principle, that we will not do anything that undermines the program's capabilities or the president's authority."

Republicans on the committee, however, emphasized the administration's resistance to the accord. Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee and helped broker the deal, called it "the agreement we insisted upon."

Ms. Snowe said the proposal had met "considerable reluctance" from the White House in negotiations.

The committee had scheduled a vote on a full investigation for Tuesday afternoon if there was no accord with the White House to disclose more about the program. As of midday, no resolution had been reached.

Mr. Hagel said the group worked out the last-minute deal in long telephone calls with Mr. Cheney; the White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers; and Stephen J. Hadley, the assistant to the president for national security.

The proposed bill would allow the president to authorize wiretapping without seeking a warrant for up to 45 days if the communication under surveillance involved someone suspected of being a member of or a collaborator with a specified list of terrorist groups and if at least one party to the conversation was outside the United States.

The administration has provided some information in confidential briefings to a "Gang of Eight" lawmakers made up of the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate, as well as their respective Intelligence Committees. Republican sponsors of the proposal said the new subcommittees would greatly improve lawmakers' ability to obtain digest information because the staffs for the first time would have access to it.

Senator Mike DeWine, the Ohio Republican who helped draft the proposal, said it would bring the program "into the normal oversight of the Senate intelligence committee."

But Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, compared the proposed bill to a doctor's diagnosis of an unexamined patient.

"Congress doesn't have that great a history in reforming programs it knows a lot about," Mr. Wyden said. "Here Congress is trying to legislate in the dark."

Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, the majority leader, issued a statement supporting the proposal.

It is not clear whether all the Republican critics will back the deal. Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said Congress should seek a court ruling on the legitimacy of the program in addition to new oversight.

In a separate Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Specter said, "We're having quite a time in getting responses to questions as to what has happened with the electronic surveillance program."

He said he put the administration "on notice" he might seek to block its financing if Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales did not give more information.

Mr. Specter said in statement later that he hoped for a solution that would avoid resorting to such an extreme action.



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House Agrees To Vote On Ports

By Jonathan Weisman

Efforts by the White House to hold off legislation challenging a Dubai-owned company's acquisition of operations at six major U.S. ports collapsed yesterday when House Republican leaders agreed to allow a vote next week that could kill the deal.

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

Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity

By Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington

News about GOP political corruption, inept hurricane response and chaos in Iraq has lifted Democrats' hopes of winning control of Congress this fall. But seizing the opportunity has not been easy, as they found when they tried to unveil an agenda of their own.

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

Amid AIPAC's Big Show, Straight Talk With a Noticeable Silence

By Dana Milbank

Words are seldom minced at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

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

U.S. Firm Loses Appeal of P& O Sale

By Jane Wardell

LONDON, March 6 -- A British appeals court on Monday declined to hear a Miami firm's objection to the takeover of British shipping company P&O Group by Dubai's state-owned Dubai Ports World, giving the go-ahead to a deal that has caused an uproar in the United States over port security.

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

Majority in U.S. Fears Iraq Civil War

By Richard Morin

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq will lead to civil war, and half say the United States should begin withdrawing its forces from that violence-torn country, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

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

- Outside View: US Army Terror Insight
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Outside_Vi...or_Insight.html

Washington (UPI) Mar 07, 2006 - If the Army's record against Navy in football has not been too encouraging in recent years, West Point has nonetheless scored a big upset in a contest that counts for rather more. West Point's Combating Terrorism Center has just published one of the most thoughtful and potentially most useful papers anyone has written on the so-called War on Terror.

Homeowners Expect Prices to Keep Rising

Americans remain largely optimistic that home values will keep
rising in the next few years, but some are concerned that they
won't be able to keep up with their mortgage payments, according
to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. By Tom Petruno and Kathy M.
Kristof.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLww0Ej

Snoopy's Legal Guardian

SANTA ROSA-Jeannie Schulz wasn't trained to manage her husband's
"Peanuts" empire, but it has thrived. The trapeze helps keep her
balanced. By Jocelyn Y. Stewart.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLwx0Ek

Very Little 'Versus' Yet in Roberts' High Court

WASHINGTON-Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in less than six
months as leader of the Supreme Court, has turned the famously
quarrelsome justices, at least for now, into a surprisingly
agreeable group that is becoming known for unanimous rulings. By
David G. Savage.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLwy0El

Dana Reeve: Supporting Role Thrust Her to Fame

Dana Reeve, a nonsmoker diagnosed with lung cancer within months
of the death of her husband, Christopher Reeve, in 2004, died
Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Reeve was 44. By Valerie J. Nelson.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLwz0Em

Gordon Parks: Photographer Documented Poverty's Toll

Gordon Parks, who became the first African American staff
photographer at Life magazine in the late 1940s and broke more
ground in Hollywood two decades later as the first black person to
direct a major studio film, "The Learning Tree," followed by the
landmark black private eye movie "Shaft," has died. He was 93. By
Dennis McLellan.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLw10EZ

FDA Takes Another Look at MS Drug

WASHINGTON-Multiple sclerosis patients pleaded with the Food and
Drug Administration to again allow sales of a drug they described
as a miracle for the disabling disease, while the family of a
woman who died taking it warned of devastating side effects. By
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLw50Ed

Focus of Ryan Defense Is What Witnesses Didn't Say

CHICAGO-George H. Ryan's lead defense attorney shot back at
prosecutors, saying the former Illinois governor had suffered
"seven years of hell" as federal investigators built a corruption
case against him. By P.J. Huffstutter.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLw60Ee

In New York, the Irish Pack It In

NEW YORK-A post-9/11 crackdown on illegal immigration and a
vibrant economy back home in Ireland are changing the face of a
longtime city enclave. By Ellen Barry.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLw70Ef

GM Will Shift Some Pension Benefits

General Motors Corp. said that it would freeze or eliminate
traditional pension benefits for salaried workers in the U.S. and
move newer hires into a plan that relied more on 401(k)
investments as the automaker continued to cut costs. By John
O'Dell.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxE0Eu

Publisher Banks on Greenspan

NEW YORK-Penguin Press is expected to pay former Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan more than $8.5 million. By Josh Getlin.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxF0Ev

CBS Will Offer March Madness Free Online

CBS Corp. wants to inject a little madness into online media. The
TV network plans to make all early-round games from the NCAA
basketball tournament available free on the Internet. By Chris
Gaither.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxG0Ew

Fastow Tells of Deception at Enron

HOUSTON-Financial whiz Andrew S. Fastow took the stand in the
Enron Corp. trial and for the first time publicly detailed how he
helped inflate the company's profit and hide losses, with the
blessing of his then-boss Jeffrey K. Skilling. By Thomas S.
Mulligan.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxH0Ex

As the Big Board Goes Public, Many on Wall Street Predict Strong Demand

NEW YORK-Wall Street has watched thousands of companies go public
over the years. Today, its oldest institution - the New York Stock
Exchange - gets its turn, with shares being offered to investors
for the first time. By Walter Hamilton.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxI0Ey

Looking to the Water to Ease Congestion on Land

Transportation officials seek to boost shipping on coastal and
inland routes to provide an alternative to trucking. By Dan
Weikel.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxJ0Ez

Editorial: Now He Tells Us

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad gets points for candidly
characterizing Iraq as "Pandora's box," but the fact remains that
there are no easy answers to problems he sees.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxX0EF

A Break-In to End All Break-Ins

The revelation of the FBI's domestic surveillance program 35 years
ago resonates today. By Allan M. Jalon.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxY0EG

Treaties Shouldn't Trump U.S. Law

The Supreme Court must deny extra rights for criminals who are
foreigners. By Julian Ku.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxZ0EH

Erin Aubrey Kaplan: The Real Ludlow Scandal

Anybody feel an earthquake last week? Don't worry, it wasn't the
Big One. That giant crash heard by political observers across the
city was not a natural disaster but man-made. It was the sound of
one of this region's most promising African American leaders
falling to Earth.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxa0EO

Max Boot: Islam's Tolerant Face

Muslim states such as Qatar and Malaysia give hope to a
terrorist-fearing West.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezK...Io30G2B0HLxb0EP

The Dilemma Of The Last Sovereign

By Zbigniew Brezezinski

America needs to face squarely a centrally important new global reality: that the world’s population is experiencing a political awakening unprecedented in scope and intensity, with the result that the politics of populism are transforming the politics of power.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12243.htm

===
ElBaradei's swan song?

By Gordon Prather

Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has spent more than a year investigating neo-crazy charges that Iran has conducted nuclear activities in furtherance of some military purpose at various Iranian military sites, including Lavizan, Parchin and Kolahduz.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12242.htm

John Bolton Does AIPAC :

It should be obvious, considering the photo to the left, who John Bolton, the Straussian neocon “representative” to the United Nations, works for—the American-Israel Political Action Committee
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=267

===
Amid AIPAC's Big Show, Straight Talk With a Noticeable Silence:

Daniel Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations,: "While it may be true -- and probably is -- that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim."
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12234.htm

Gonzales defends conditions at Guantanamo:

The U.S. government's leading lawyer defended the Guantanamo Bay prison camp on Tuesday, saying detainees there were granted state-of-the-art health care, good food and "unprecedented legal protection."
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?ty...src=rss/topNews

===
Cindy Sheehan Arrested After U.N. March :

The march to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations by about a dozen U.S. and Iraqi anti-war activists followed a news conference at U.N. headquarters, where Iraqi women described daily killings and ambulance bombings as part of the escalating violence that keeps women in their homes.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12226.htm

===
8,000 desert during Iraq war:

Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers, 3,454 Navy sailors and 82 Air Force personnel have deserted.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12230.htm

===
Decades later, Marines hunt Vietnam-era deserters :

Thirty years after the war ended, hundreds of Vietnam-era deserters are still on the loose. Conti's attorneys, Louis Font and Tod Ensign, say the Pentagon, and the Marine Corps in particular, are cracking down on long-term cases in an effort to warn current-day troops in Iraq against deserting.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...rter-side_x.htm

===
Eager to serve in American Samoa:

In a time of war, this U.S. territory is a military recruiter's dream. Last year, American Samoa and other South Pacific islands supplied more than 400 recruits for the U.S. Army.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11537737/from/...#storyContinued

===
Venezuela's Chavez demanding independence for Puerto Rico:

Chavez today condemned the death of Filiberto Ojeda, who was shot last September while F-B-I agents tried to arrest him for a 1983 robbery in West Hartford.
http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=4587644

===
Bush, Chavez, and Hitler:

The anger and indignation felt by U.S. officials when someone compares Bush’s policies to those of Hitler does not stop U.S. officials from comparing foreign leaders to Hitler.
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0603b.asp

March 8, 2006
G.O.P. Senators Say Accord Is Set on Wiretapping
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, March 7 — Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.

The agreement, hashed out in weeks of negotiations between Vice President Dick Cheney and Republicans critical of the program, dashes Democratic hopes of starting a full committee investigation because the proposal won the support of Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The two, both Republicans, had threatened to support a fuller inquiry if the White House did not disclose more about the program to Congress.

"We are reasserting Congressional responsibility and oversight," Ms. Snowe said.

The proposed legislation would create a seven-member "terrorist surveillance subcommittee" and require the administration to give it full access to the details of the program's operations.

Ms. Snowe said the panel would start work on Wednesday, and called it "the beginning, not the end of the process."

"We have to get the facts in order to weigh in," she said. "We will do more if we learn there is more to do."

The agreement would reinforce the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 to issue special warrants for spying but was sidestepped by the administration. The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the court whenever possible.

If the administration elects not to do so after 45 days, the attorney general must certify that the surveillance is necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittee why the administration has not sought a warrant. The attorney general would be required to give an update to the subcommittee every 45 days.

Democrats called the deal an abdication of the special bipartisan committee's role as a watchdog, saying the Republicans had in effect blessed the program before learning how it worked or what it entailed.

"The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House," said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the panel.

The House Intelligence Committee said last week that it would seek limited briefings for some panel members so that they could weigh changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but the Republican leaders of the House committee stopped far short of proposing the kind of continuing oversight and rules changes that the Senate committee has settled on. A spokeswoman for the White House, Dana Perino, called the Republican senators' proposal "a generally sound approach."

"We're eager to work with Congress on legislation that would further codify the president's authority," Ms. Perino said. "We remain committed to our principle, that we will not do anything that undermines the program's capabilities or the president's authority."

Republicans on the committee, however, emphasized the administration's resistance to the accord. Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Intelligence Committee and helped broker the deal, called it "the agreement we insisted upon."

Ms. Snowe said the proposal had met "considerable reluctance" from the White House in negotiations.

The committee had scheduled a vote on a full investigation for Tuesday afternoon if there was no accord with the White House to disclose more about the program. As of midday, no resolution had been reached.

Mr. Hagel said the group worked out the last-minute deal in long telephone calls with Mr. Cheney; the White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers; and Stephen J. Hadley, the assistant to the president for national security.

The proposed bill would allow the president to authorize wiretapping without seeking a warrant for up to 45 days if the communication under surveillance involved someone suspected of being a member of or a collaborator with a specified list of terrorist groups and if at least one party to the conversation was outside the United States.

The administration has provided some information in confidential briefings to a "Gang of Eight" lawmakers made up of the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate, as well as their respective Intelligence Committees. Republican sponsors of the proposal said the new subcommittees would greatly improve lawmakers' ability to obtain digest information because the staffs for the first time would have access to it.

Senator Mike DeWine, the Ohio Republican who helped draft the proposal, said it would bring the program "into the normal oversight of the Senate intelligence committee."

But Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, compared the proposed bill to a doctor's diagnosis of an unexamined patient.

"Congress doesn't have that great a history in reforming programs it knows a lot about," Mr. Wyden said. "Here Congress is trying to legislate in the dark."

Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, the majority leader, issued a statement supporting the proposal.

It is not clear whether all the Republican critics will back the deal. Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said Congress should seek a court ruling on the legitimacy of the program in addition to new oversight.

In a separate Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Specter said, "We're having quite a time in getting responses to questions as to what has happened with the electronic surveillance program."

He said he put the administration "on notice" he might seek to block its financing if Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales did not give more information.

Mr. Specter said in statement later that he hoped for a solution that would avoid resorting to such an extreme action.



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

March 8, 2006
U.S. Told to Allay Detainees' Spy Fears
By NINA BERNSTEIN
A federal magistrate in Brooklyn ordered government lawyers at a hearing yesterday to guarantee in writing that the United States was not secretly monitoring communications between the plaintiffs and their lawyers in a class-action lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top officials.

The plaintiffs in the case are Muslim immigrants who were swept up in the New York area after Sept. 11, 2001, detained for months and deported after being cleared of any links to terrorism. Several briefly returned to New York from Egypt and Pakistan this year to give depositions at an undisclosed hotel.

Their lawyers have asked if the rooms where they and their clients conferred were bugged or videotaped and if their e-mail messages and telephone calls were intercepted. If so, they ask, on whose authority? But the government has refused to answer, saying the questions were outside the realm of the lawsuit.

Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the detainees, wrote the magistrate that the questions were prompted by disclosures that the National Security Agency has intercepted electronic communications inside and outside the United States, without a warrant, under an executive order being challenged in a separate lawsuit.

The magistrate, Steven M. Gold, said that the questions were probably outside the scope of the lawsuit. But, he said, the plaintiffs' lawyers were "at minimum" entitled to assurance that the government litigation team and any potential witnesses — who include Mr. Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, did not know of any spying. Magistrate Gold said he also wanted "a commitment" that no information collected through such eavesdropping would be used in the case.

"They can't be expected to prepare their case if they think someone is listening to them," he told Stephen E. Handler, a Justice Department lawyer. "I don't want them looking over their shoulders and worrying that you're getting phone calls from some N.S.A." agent.



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