March 24, 2006
Excerpts From Report on Prewar Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:16 p.m. ET

Excerpts from a report detailing events in Iraq leading up to the coalition forces' 2003 invasion. The U.S. Joint Forces Command's report was based on captured Iraqi documents and interviews with Iraqi officials.

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On Saddam's leadership style:

''A close associate once described Saddam as a deep thinker who would remain awake at night, pondering problems at length before inspiration came in dreams. These dreams became dictates the next morning,and invariably all those around him would praise Saddam's great intuition. Questioning these dictates was only done at great personal risk.''

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On the role of the Iraqi military:

''Iraqi officers rarely expected to give professional advice. Instead, they understood their role was to ensure Saddam's dictates were followed to the letter, often no matter how infeasible or irrelevant to the military problem. ... Simply put, the Iraqi military's main mission was to ensure the internal security of the Baath dictatorship. Its second was to fight wars.''

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On Saddam's prewar diplomatic maneuvering:

During the first ten days of the war, Iraq asked Russia, France and China not to support cease-fire initiatives because they believed such moves would legitimize the Coalition's presence in Iraq. As late as 30 March, Saddam thought his strategy was working and the Coalition offensive was grinding to a halt.

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On Saddam's erroneous assumptions about the threat posed by the U.S.:

Through the distortions of his ideological perceptions, Saddam simply could not take the Americans seriously. After all, had they not run away from Vietnam after suffering what to him was a ''mere'' 58,000 dead? Iraq had suffered 51,000 dead in just one battle on the Fao Peninsula against the Iranians.''

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On assistance from the Russians:

''Significantly, the regime was also receiving intelligence from the Russians that fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a diversion.''

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On Saddam's decision not to burn oil fields or open dams prior to the 2003 invasion:

''His belief in the regime's ultimate survival was also the primary reason his forces failed to torch Iraq's oil fields or open the dams to flood the south, options many analysts predicted would be his first moves in the event of a war.''

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On the Iraqi army's state of mind facing invasion:

''Overtasked, poorly equipped, badly supplied, and undermanned, regular army troops had little optimism in facing the threat of combat with the coalition.''

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On the difficulties Iraqi generals faced preparing for war:

''Incessant spying, suspicion and interference by often militarily incompetent superiors -- political and military -- was a constant psychological stress as well as a serious impediment to making military preparations.''



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March 25, 2006
Senator Sets Hearing on Censure of Bush
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, March 24 — The Senate Judiciary Committee has set a hearing for next Friday on the call by Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure President Bush for his approval of a program to allow electronic eavesdropping without warrants.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the panel, said he had decided to schedule the session after Mr. Feingold, in a television interview, pressed for hearings on the censure proposal.

Some Republicans have seized on the issue to rally their supporters by arguing that the censure plan is evidence that Democrats would try to take some action against Mr. Bush should they gain control of the House or Senate in the November elections.

The issue has also energized some Democrats who contend their party has shied from confronting Mr. Bush. But Mr. Feingold's Democratic colleagues have been cautious about endorsing the plan.

Mr. Specter said his intent was not to use the session as a political forum but to explore issues surrounding the proposed censure. He said he believed the proposal was baseless.

"I am prepared to deal with it," Mr. Specter said. "I am sure not going to sit back and have Feingold spout off."



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March 25, 2006
Focus on F.B.I.'s 9/11 Signals
By NEIL A. LEWIS and DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, March 24 — The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui was supposed to have been the government's best opportunity to hold someone accountable for the deaths on Sept. 11, 2001.

But after federal prosecutors finished laying out their case this week, even those who strongly supported an aggressive prosecution may wonder whether the trial has shed as much light on Mr. Moussaoui's culpability as it has on the missteps and mistakes by law enforcement agencies.

The testimony of two prosecution witnesses, in particular, has brought renewed and unwelcome attention to how the Federal Bureau of Investigation dealt with early warning signs.

Mr. Moussaoui is the sole person to go to trial in an American courtroom for the attacks, making him a proxy for the 19 hijackers who were killed carrying out the attacks and the chief planners who are being held in secret C.I.A. prisons overseas.

Mr. Moussaoui in jail on Sept. 11, but prosecutors have argued that he deserves to be executed because he lied to investigators about what he knew of Al Qaeda plans to fly planes into buildings when he was arrested three weeks earlier on immigration violations.

On Monday, defense lawyers are expected to offer a set of extraordinary trial exhibits, statements about Mr. Moussaoui by a handful of senior Qaeda officials gathered somewhere in the secret overseas detention centers that the C.I.A. maintains.

The jury will be read the statements from detainees including Khalid Shaik Mohammed, the mastermind of Sept. 11, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, its paymaster. Officials expect the two to describe Mr. Moussaoui as an unreliable fringe figure in Al Qaeda.

The government presentation, which ended on Thursday, did not go smoothly. First, the prosecution nearly collapsed after the disclosure that a transportation lawyer working with the prosecutors had improperly coached aviation witnesses.

Although that occurred out of the jury's view, other problems surfaced when the prosecutors presented two witnesses supposed to bolster their case that Mr. Moussaoui's lies made him responsible for nearly 3,000 deaths. The two witnesses testified that if he had told the truth on Aug. 16, 2001, the bureau could have moved swiftly to foil the plot.

The first witness, Harry Samit, an F.B.I. agent in Minnesota who questioned Mr. Moussaoui at his arrest, firmly asserted that had he been given the truth "we would have several new leads to investigate," and the plot might have been thwarted. Instead, he said, Mr. Moussaoui's answers sent investigators on "wild goose chases."

Under cross-examination by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a court-appointed lawyer for Mr. Moussaoui, Mr. Samit acknowledged that after the attacks he had written strongly worded reports saying his superiors had improperly blocked his efforts to investigate Mr. Moussaoui. He added that he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was a terrorist involved in an imminent hijacking plot.

That senior bureau officials dragged their feet on investigating Mr. Moussaoui by seeking search warrants from a special intelligence court or a more routine criminal search warrant was not new. But it had never been presented so vividly as a reluctant Mr. Samit was obliged to do under cross-examination.

He offered a devastating comment from a supervisor who said pressing too hard to obtain a warrant for Mr. Moussaoui would hurt his career. Mr. Samit also wrote that his superiors did not act because they were guilty of "criminal negligence" and they were gambling that Mr. Moussaoui had little to offer. The lost wager, Mr. Samit said, was paid in many lives.

Mr. Samit was followed to the witness stand by Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. counterterrorism supervisor who similarly recited a list of actions that the bureau could have taken if Mr. Moussaoui had told them about Qaeda plans to take over planes with knives and fly into buildings.

But when Mr. MacMahon began reading from a document detailing many suspicions about Mr. Moussaoui's intentions, Mr. Rolince interrupted, "Can I ask what document that's coming from?"

Mr. MacMahon obliged, noting that it was an urgent memorandum written by Mr. Samit on Aug. 18, 2001, hoping to attract the attention of headquarters. Mr. Rolince had inadvertently underlined that the agent's suspicions had never risen to his attention.

One problem for the bureau is that the backbone of the prosecution case, that the bureau could have disrupted the plot had Mr. Moussaoui admitted all he knew, represents a substantial revision of conventional wisdom at the law enforcement agency.

For years, agents have expressed the view that Mr. Moussaoui knew little about what his Qaeda superiors wanted of him and had said that it was highly speculative whether more information would have deterred the attacks.

A number of bureau officials have contended that even if the bureau had more clues about the hijackers, they might have been able only to put them under surveillance because they had not committed any crime.

Sally Regenhard of the Bronx, whose son, a probationary firefighter, was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center, said she was upset by the reminders of the failure of law enforcement authorities to heed many leads before the attacks.

"It's dismaying, but there it is," said Ms. Regenhard, who has been one of the dozens of family members of Sept. 11 victims who have visited the Virginia courtroom to observe the trial. "There were discrete warnings known to the government. People don't realize this."

The most pivotal moment may occur next week, however, when Mr. Moussaoui is expected to take the stand. Under the federal death penalty law, the jurors have to consider first whether he is responsible for any of the Sept. 11 deaths before they consider several factors in deciding whether to order his execution. The jury would have to be unanimous in deciding he bore responsibility for the trial to go to the next phase.

In addition to the evidence, the jurors may respond viscerally and decide that Mr. Moussaoui is an odious figure undeserving of sympathy. They have heard some of his outbursts in pretrial proceedings in which he proclaimed in their presence his membership in Al Qaeda. He has said that he was indeed training to fly a plane into a building but that he was not involved in the Sept. 11 plot and should not be executed for it.

His testimony will give the jurors another opportunity to take his measure.



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Bush Pushes Security as Top Republican Issue

By REUTERS
Published: March 24, 2006
Skip to next paragraph Filed at 8:59 p.m. ET

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, trying to heal divisions within his party, urged Republicans on Friday to unite behind a strong national security policy and warned that al Qaeda militants think the United States is ``flaccid'' and soft.

With Republicans nervous in an election year that Bush's sinking popularity will hurt their chances of keeping a majority in Congress, the president hit the road to raise money for two incumbents targeted by Democrats, Rep. Mike Sodrel of Indiana and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Bush, who was expected to rake in $500,000 for Sodrel, invoked the September 11 attacks at the fund-raiser as he emphasized security as a top election issue for Republicans.

``It's important to have people in the United States Congress who understand this is a nation at war. I wish I could tell you otherwise. I wish I could say that an enemy which attacked us on September 11, 2001, has quit,'' Bush said.

He warned the United States still faced a threat from an ''enemy which thinks we're soft.''

``They have expressed their tactics for the world to see. They believe that those of us living in democracies are weak, flaccid,'' Bush said.

Pessimism about Iraq, the much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina and high energy costs have helped drag Bush's approval to 36 percent, a record low for his presidency.

Bush's woes have led many Republicans, after years marching mostly in lock-step with him, to rebel on issues like federal spending, immigration and a now-withdrawn bid by a Dubai company to manage six U.S. ports.

Mindful that sectarian strife in Iraq and worsening bloodshed there have played a big role in his political problems, Bush this week held five consecutive days of public events on the subject, including a news conference.

'NO QUESTIONS ASKED'

``I know it's troubled times,'' Bush said in Indianapolis. ''And it's turbulence on your TV screens that affects the conscience of Americans. I know that, and so does the enemy.''

Santorum, the Senate's No. 3 Republican who worked hard to help Bush promote a Social Security plan that Congress ultimately rejected, was among the more vocal Republicans who broke with him over the ports deal.

That has not stopped his likely Democratic opponent, Bob Casey, from making Santorum's links to Bush a key theme.

Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, also hammered Santorum for what he called a ''rubber-stamping'' of Bush's agenda. ``Santorum votes the way Bush wants 98 percent of the time -- no questions asked,'' Singer said.

Casey holds a double-digit lead over Santorum in a race that Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman considers the party's most important priority this year.

The Santorum fund-raiser, at a colonial-style mansion in the Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley Heights, drew about 400 people. It was expected to bring in $700,000, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Democrats and local media had made much of the fact that the fund-raiser for Santorum was to be held out of the glare of television cameras and reporters. Some saw it as another sign he was distancing himself from Bush.

Santorum did greet Bush at the airport on his arrival and posed for pictures with him there.

Santorum told Fox News he thought Democrats were intent on unseating him as ``payback'' for the 2004 defeat of former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

``This would be a plum for them, if they are able to pick me off,'' Santorum said.
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/24/moussaou...tion=cnn_latest

Moussaoui's fate a matter of 'What if?'
U.S. insists truth could have thwarted 9/11 plot
By Phil Hirschkorn
CNN



Friday, March 24, 2006; Posted: 5:56 p.m. EST (22:56 GMT)

Prosecutor Rob Spencer questions former FBI agent Aaron Zebley while attorney Edward MacMahon listens.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Whether Zacarias Moussaoui lives or dies boils down to one question: "What if?"

Prosecutors laid out their case this week: Had Moussaoui told the truth when he was questioned 25 days before the attacks of September 11, 2001, FBI agents might have tracked down the terrorists before they were able to execute their plan.

Moussaoui has admitted being an al Qaeda agent but denied that he was to have taken part in the September 11 plot. He was arrested on immigration charges in August 2001. The government is seeking the death penalty against him.

For three hours this week, jurors saw a dazzling interactive display showing how the FBI quickly figured out the connections between the terrorist pilots of the four hijacked passenger jets, and at least seven of their "muscle" hijackers who attacked the flight crews.

It was a tour de force of investigative skill -- tracing records of telephone calls between the U.S.-based operatives and their overseas paymasters, tracking those numbers to addresses where the hijackers lived, obtaining bank and shopping records of the men, and discovering what flight schools they attended to train for their mission.

But however rapid the detective work was, it all unfolded after the fact -- with the help of all 11,000 FBI agents. Could the same web of al Qaeda terrorism in America have been unraveled in the days between Moussaoui's arrest and the attacks?

The premise of the testimony and presentation by Aaron Zebley, the last government witness, was that if Moussaoui had admitted to being a would-be hijacker, FBI agents might have tracked down the terrorists who were then days away from buying their plane tickets.

U.S.: Lies protected 9/11 plot
Instead, Moussaoui told a series of lies, which prosecutors contend protected the plot. His lies, they claim, make Moussaoui liable for at least one of the 2,793 deaths that occurred when jets slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

The defense counterweight to this theory has been to show the FBI's bureaucratic blocking of the Moussaoui leads, such as they were, and the government's slowness to act on information in its possession about two leading hijackers who lived openly in the United States for 18 months before the attacks.

"The FBI has to have a confession before anybody listens?" asked Moussaoui defense attorney Edward MacMahon while cross-examining Zebley.

"Everyone would have been listening," a slightly rattled Zebley said, had Moussaoui admitted why he was rushing to complete a Boeing 747 jet simulator training, why he was buying knives with short blades and who was sending him money.

If only Moussaoui allowed the arresting agents to look at his belongings, they would have found Western Union receipts for $14,000 in wire transfers from Germany and the name and phone number of the sender handwritten in Moussaoui's notebook.

That information, Zebley said, would have been "something you could run with."

Moussaoui's money transfers would have led the FBI to a key coordinator of the plot -- Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who tried and failed four times to acquire a visa to come to the United States. He sent Moussaoui the cash and facilitated the activities of three hijacker-pilots who once shared an apartment with him in Hamburg.

Using telephone records, Zebley showed how Binalshibh called an an Qaeda operative in United Arab Emirates to get the money for Moussaoui, and how that UAE number opened the door to the hijackers, who had also called that number repeatedly in the summer of 2001. The phone calls revealed home addresses, flight schools and communications among the conspirators.

"Was that information available to the FBI in August 2001?" prosecutor Robert Spencer asked Zebley.

"It could have been," Zebley said. Building one layer of information onto another led to 11 of 19 hijackers.

Agent: No 20th hijacker
Under cross examination, Zebley conceded Moussaoui never called that UAE telephone number or any of the 19 hijackers.

"I don't think there's any such thing as a 20th hijacker," he said.

Carrie Lemack, whose mother, Judy LaRoque, was aboard the American Airlines jet that crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, has been watching via closed circuit broadcast available to families in Boston, Massachusetts, where two of the four hijacked planes originated.

"The 'what coulds' go a lot further than Moussaoui," Lemack says. "What could the government have done if they talked to Moussaoui more? If they had someone try to talk to him in Arabic?" she says.

Lemack, who attended many hearings of the 9/11 Commission, says many inside government did not act on the dire warnings about al Qaeda by former White House counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke and former CIA Director George Tenet.

"If Lee Harvey Oswald told someone he was going to shoot JFK, they could have saved him, too. I thought it was the government's job to investigate, not make terrorists do it for them If we're just waiting for the terrorists to tell us where they're going to strike next, we're never going to stop them," Lemack said. (9/11 families feel let down)

Zebley's summary came a day after a senior Transportation Security Administration official said stricter security could have been put in place at airports before September 11, had officials known of a conspiracy to hijack airliners using small knives.

Moussaoui eager to testify
Robert Cammaroto said he could have issued a security directive banning short knives, and mandating the airlines, which oversaw gate check-ins in those days, to do physical searches of passengers whose luggage was selected for additional screening.

"We could have done it in a couple of hours," he said. The FAA knew that Muslim fundamentalists plotted to use airplanes as weapons, he said, but the threat was perceived to be overseas.

The fear that Moussaoui was a potential hijacker was first expressed by Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested him outside Minneapolis.

The day after Moussaoui stopped talking, Samit began sending e-mail to FBI superiors about Moussaoui. He would send 70 in all, many in frustration as FBI headquarters deemed insufficient his requests for warrants to search Moussaoui's belongings.

The missed opportunities, independent of Moussaoui, to locate the hijackers is the theme of Moussaoui's defense.

One of the possible defense witnesses when the trial resumes Monday may be the defendant. Moussaoui, who rarely speaks to his attorneys, has said he intends to testify.

"I will testify whether you want it or not," he declared Thursday as he left court.

Sen. John Kerry Visits iRobot Yahoo! NEWS
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., will meet the robots that are protecting U.S. troops when he visits iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) on Monday, March 27. While at iRobot, Kerry will also address the employees about what it means to have industry leader iRobot base its headquarters in Burlington, Mass., and discuss the impact of the emerging robot market on the local economy. Some of the robots Kerry will see include the iRobot PackBot® Tactical Mobile Robots that have been credited with saving scores of soldiers lives, the latest iRobot Scooba™ Floor Washing Robot and REDOWL, a sniper detection payload prototype developed in conjunction with The Photonics Center at Boston University. iRobot is a provider of behavior based robots. Currently, more than 300 iRobot PackBot robots are helping protect U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than 1.5 million iRobot Roomba® Vacuuming Robots have been sold since its introduction in 2002.

Kerry Demands FEMA Award Gulf Coast Contracts to Small Businesses Yahoo! NEWS
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) is calling on the Bush Administration to fulfill its commitment to award $1.5 billion in federal contracts to small businesses for cleaning up and rebuilding the Gulf Coast areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded several no-bid contracts to firms with close ties to the White House, Kerry raised concerns that small businesses were left out and the Administration promised to re-compete the contracts. However, at a November 8, 2005, Committee hearing on Katrina, Gregory Rothwell, chief procurement officer for the Department of Homeland Security, said the large no-bid contracts would not be re-competed immediately but that FEMA would award 15 contracts worth $1.5 billion to small, local and small disadvantaged businesses by February 2006. As of today, those contracts still have not been awarded. "Hundreds of local and small businesses have applied for these contracts, but after five months of empty promises the Bush Administration's continued incompetence, mismanagement and delay is hanging Gulf Coast businesses out to dry," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Ranking Democrat on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. "The Administration is letting red tape and excuses hold up real recovery for the Gulf Coast." Also, the Administration has failed to reopen the competition for the no-bid contracts awarded to the four big contractors with White House connections, which it promised to do six months ago. In a letter to FEMA's Acting Director David Paulison, Kerry suggested FEMA take the following actions immediately to ensure small business participation in rebuilding the Gulf Coast and helping to rejuvenate the economy: Award the 15 prime contracts of approximately $100 million each to small businesses; Re-compete the $1.5 billion in no-bid contracts awarded to the "big four" contractors and require a substantial small business subcontracting plan; and Hold prime contractors accountable for failing to meet their subcontracting goals by implementing and strongly enforcing a policy which includes the use of liquidated damages. In addition, Kerry wrote, "As billions of dollars flow into the region for debris removal and reconstruction, small and local businesses must receive a greater share of contract awards and dollars. We cannot allow administrative delays to continue to be a barrier to small business development in the region. Excuses don't help small businesses make payroll."
To read the letter Kerry sent to FEMA, please visit: http://sbc.senate.gov/democrat/lettersout/...ettertoFEMA.pdf.
http://www.usnewswire.com/

March 25, 2006
As Parents Age, Baby Boomers and Business Struggle to Cope
By JANE GROSS
Nancy Goodman's employer, a telecommunications company in Boston, offers benefits to help employees care for elderly parents. But she found them nearly useless during four years of caring for her mother, who has Parkinson's disease, and her father, who died of kidney failure last year.

"They say they want to do the right thing," Ms. Goodman, 58, said of her employer, which she would not identify for fear of losing her job. "But when it comes down to it, they're not seeing the true picture."

Ms. Goodman's lament is common, as corporate America scrambles to help the soaring number of baby boomers, mostly working women, whose obligation to frail, elderly parents results in absenteeism, workday distractions or stress-related health problems.

Companies are responding, but experts say they often use child care benefits as a model when they do not suit the different and unpredictable needs of the elderly. In addition, at a time of cutbacks in expensive health insurance and pensions, the most commonly offered benefits are those that cost a company little or nothing, like referral services and unpaid leaves.

Ms. Goodman, for instance, tried her company's referral service to supplement inadequate staffing when her parents lived at an assisted living center in Connecticut. It was "like going to the yellow pages," she said, since it did not relieve her of the time-consuming tasks of arranging for and supervising the services from afar. Ms. Goodman was also entitled to a year's leave of absence, a benefit a new mother might appreciate. But if she took a leave now, what happened if her mother lingered?

Employees with ailing parents, more than 20 million nationwide, cite other benefits that would allow them to focus more on their jobs, like geriatric case managers to guide them through the mysteries of Medicaid and Medicare, or backup care for emergencies like a last-minute business trip. Companies that offer this kind of hands-on assistance generally pay for at least part of the service.

But they are rare. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, which represents more than 200,000 human resource and other corporate officials, 39 percent of its members said in 2003 that elder care benefits were "too costly to be feasible." Only 1 percent of their companies subsidized any elder care benefits last year. And only 3 percent offered the emergency backup care — subsidized or otherwise — that experts say saves money by keeping workers at work.

"The perception among companies is that they can't afford elder care benefits," said Frank Scanlan, a spokesman for the society.

It is the largest companies that are the most generous, but even those often subscribe to the mistaken notion that the Mommy Track and the Daughter Track are the same, said Chris Gatti, president of the Work Options Group in Superior, Colo. Work Options, whose clients employ 400,000 people nationwide, provides in-home care for children and the elderly.

"These benefits fall under the same umbrella but are fundamentally different," Mr. Gatti said. "Child care programs are relatively straight-forward and easy to administer compared to elder care, which is a maze with lots of sharp corners and dark secluded places."

An individual supervisor can ease an employee's burden but still leave them vulnerable to management changes. Just 6 percent of employers have written policies about elder care, according to surveys by the Society for Human Resource Management, while 76 percent say they help employees on a case-by-case basis.

For Ms. Goodman, the one godsend since her father died and her mother moved into her Boston apartment has been permission to work at home. But that is likely to change with a new boss. "I'm walking on eggs right now," Ms. Goodman said.

The distinctions between child care and elder care have become apparent as the first of the 77 million baby boomers turn 60 and their parents live past 85, joining the fastest-growing segment of the population.

The most obvious is that children's schedules are predictable — a school holiday next Monday — while elderly parents' needs — a trip to the emergency room — are crisis-driven. Also, children are raised at home; an elderly parent often lives far away.

Guiding the decisions of an elderly parent also requires mastery of arcane legal, financial and medical matters.

"It's a new and very confusing skill set," said Maureen Corcoran, a vice president at Prudential Financial. "You don't just give people a list; you lead them there. Otherwise they spend hours upon hours figuring it out themselves."

For both employees and employers, the costs of elder care are enormous, according to studies by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, which is in the midst of updated analysis to reflect rapidly changing demographics.

The price tag for employers in 1997 ranged from $11.5 billion to $29 billion a year. Most expensive were the replacement of lost workers (at least $4.9 billion a year), workday interruptions ($3.7 billion) and absenteeism ($885 million). The employees lose salary, Social Security and pension benefits as a result of refusing promotions, switching to part-time work or retiring early.

Certain benefits mitigate these costs, and certain companies have learned there is a clear return on investment. At Prudential, for instance, subsidized emergency backup care prevents absenteeism and workday interruptions. Prudential's 21,000 employees, with one phone call to Work Options Group, can get help for parents by the next morning, for a co-payment of $4 an hour.

A $20-an-hour aide, on an eight-hour shift, would otherwise cost a Prudential employee $160, rather than $32. Yet the company says it will save $650,000 during a three-year contract with Work Options, Ms. Corcoran said, because "if our employees needs are taken care of, they can focus on work."

Diane Yankencheck, a Prudential employee in Newark, said the service kept her working during a crisis. Her father has a degenerative neurological disease and round-the-clock care. Her mother manages the household, or did until she broke her wrist. Now an aide from Work Options cooks, cleans and helps her bathe and dress.

Kent Burtis, a Verizon technician in Bayville, N.J., uses similar backup care for his father, who is paralyzed and incontinent. For a while, Mr. Burtis spent hours before work feeding, diapering and dressing him. Now an aide does the morning shift. "It's kept me from slitting my throat," Mr. Burtis said.

Elder care benefits most often seem a luxury at small companies and nonprofits. So even at AARP, dedicated to the needs of older Americans, Deborah Russell, the director of work force issues, was daunted by coordinating long-distance care for her mother and then missing weeks of work to be at her bedside when death neared.

Ms. Russell and her two sisters, grateful for AARP's excellent referral service, still spent "an inordinate amount of time on the telephone" during working hours, distracted and unproductive. As their mother's condition deteriorated, and the siblings rotated weeks in Florida, Ms. Russell used paid vacation time rather than the 12 weeks of unpaid leave guaranteed by the federal Family Medical Leave Act or AARP's more generous 16-week program, also unpaid.

Another benefit assumed to be useful is the flexible spending account, governed by the Internal Revenue Service and widely offered by companies. It permits the use of pretax dollars for dependent care, as long as the dependent meets the I.R.S. definition. Virtually all children do, but most aged parents do not. That means tax breaks for baby sitters but not companions for the elderly.

Experts disagree about whether women will push employers for help with their parents, as they did 30 years ago when child care was their pressing issue.

Ellen Galinsky, 63, president of the Family and Work Institute, led the charge for a day care center at Bank Street College when she was a researcher there in 1969. After "huge resistance," the center opened in 1974. Ms. Galinsky predicts a similar awakening to elder care issues because "demographics are destiny."

"Everyone I know is dealing with this," said Ms. Galinsky, who recently stayed at the bedside of her 98-year-old mother for the last two months of her life. The institute allows unlimited sick leave for such family emergencies. But even with that leeway, Ms. Galinsky said: "I was on another planet. It's like no other experience. I barely have words for how hard it is."

Todd Groves, founder of LTC Financial Partners in Seattle, who advises human resource managers on long term care, is not convinced that women like Ms. Galinsky will have the same galvanizing effect this time around, regardless of their numbers or their passion.

"Back then you still had a paternal business culture," Mr. Groves said. "Now people feel out on their own. They are fearful about their careers and don't feel they can ask for help."



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Gunman kills 7 including himself at Seattle party Yahoo! NEWS
A man shot and killed six people he was partying with in a Seattle home on Saturday before taking his own life with a sawed-off shotgun, police said. The seven killed included both males and females and all were teens or in their 20s, Seattle police Sgt. Deanna Nollette said. Two more people were wounded in the shooting, which took place about 7 a.m. in a residential neighborhood, Nollette said. One of the wounded was hospitalized in life-threatening condition. "The scene was chaotic," she said. There were 15 other people at the house who witnessed the shooting, and it appeared everybody had been at a party at another house and came to the scene of the shooting to continue partying, she said. The suspected shooter appeared to have left the party, then come back and started firing. It is not clear if there had been a fight at the party, or whether drugs or alcohol were involved, Nollette said. Police converged on the scene after reports of gunshots and found the suspected shooter chasing one of the victims who staggered from the home. When confronted, the suspect turned the gun on himself, police said. The suspected shooter was carrying other weapons and ammunition, police said.

Judge Quashes Subpoena for TSA Lawye Yahoo! NEWS
The federal judge in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui quashed a subpoena Friday for the government lawyer whose conduct caused major problems for the prosecution. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema canceled a scheduled court appearance Monday for Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla J. Martin. Martin improperly coached witnesses, resulting in two government aviation witnesses being barred from the case in which admitted terrorist conspirator Moussaoui is on trial for his life. Brinkema said Martin violated federal witness rules when she sent trial transcripts to seven aviation witnesses, coached them on how to deflect defense attacks and lied to defense lawyers to prevent them from interviewing witnesses they wanted to call. The trial will resume Monday morning.
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer

Bush Calls for Fair Immigration Bill Yahoo! NEWS
The debate over immigration stretched from the White House to the West Coast on Saturday as thousands of demonstrators protested proposals to crack down on illegal immigrants. President Bush, in addressing an issue that has divided his party, underscored America's immigrant history and called for secure borders and strict immigration enforcement. Bush also urged Congress to write new immigration law with a guest worker program that could provide legal status — short of citizenship — for some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. "As we debate the immigration issue, we must remember there are hardworking individuals, doing jobs that Americans will not do, who are contributing to the economic vitality of our country," Bush said in his weekly radio address. The House has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate is to begin debating immigration proposals on Tuesday. In Los Angeles, thousands of people — some waving and wearing flags of Mexico and other nations — streamed into downtown streets for what was expected to be one of the city's largest pro-immigrant rallies. Efforts to get tough on illegal immigration also spurred thousands of people to stage school walkouts, work stoppages and marches on Friday in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta. The demonstrations are expected to culminate April 10 in a "National Day of Action" organized by labor, immigration, civil rights and religious groups. Bush, who plans to attend a naturalization ceremony on Monday in Washington, is bracing for a standoff in the Senate this week before he heads south to Cancun, Mexico, where he'll discuss immigration with Mexican President Vicente Fox, a supporter of Bush's guest worker plan. "America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws, and our immigration laws are in need of reform," Bush said. Bush wants Congress to create a program to let foreigners gain legal status for a set amount of time to do specific jobs. When the time is up, they would be required to return home without an automatic path to citizenship. "This program would create a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do," he said. Some critics argue that a guest worker program would create an underclass of foreign workers and stigmatize some jobs associated with foreign labor. Some Republicans worry that the foreign workers would stay on and become citizens, further straining America's social service and education systems. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., thinks immigration enforcement, national security and border concerns should drive immigration reform. Frist's bill, which sidesteps the question of temporary work permits, would tighten borders, add Border Patrol agents and punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., backed by labor unions, has said he will do all he can, including filibuster, to thwart Frist's legislation. The hottest debate in the Senate will be whether to pass some version of a guest worker program proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Their bill would provide up to 400,000 visas in the first year and allow participants, after six years, to seek permanent residency.
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

Fault East of Bay Area 'Locked and Loaded' Yahoo! NEWS
New cracks appear in Elke DeMuynck's ceiling every few weeks, zigzagging across her living room, creeping toward the fireplace, veering down the wall. Month after month, year after year, she patches, paints and waits. "It definitely lets you know your house is constantly shifting," DeMuynck said. So do the gate outside that swings uselessly 2 1/2 inches from its latch, the strange bulges in the street and the geology students who make pilgrimages to her cul-de-sac. DeMuynck could throw her paint brush from her front stoop and hit the Hayward Fault, which geologists consider the most dangerous in the San Francisco Bay Area, if not the nation. Like others who live here, she gets by on a blend of denial, hope and humor. It's the geologists, emergency planners and historians who seem to do most of the worrying, even in this year of heightened earthquake awareness for the 100th anniversary of San Francisco's Great Quake of April 18, 1906. Several faults lurk beneath this region, including the San Andreas Fault on the west side of the Bay area, but geologists say the parallel Hayward on the Bay's east side is the most likely to snap next. "It is locked and loaded and ready to fire at any time," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Tom Brocher. The Hayward Fault runs through one of the country's most densely populated areas; experts say 2 million people live close enough to be strongly shaken by a big quake. It slices the earth's crust along a 50-mile swath of suburbia east of San Francisco, from exclusive hilltop manors overlooking the bay to Hayward's humble flatlands. It snakes beneath highway bridges, strip malls, nursing facilities and retirement centers, and it splits the uprights of the football stadium at the University of California, Berkeley. "A lot of these structures are going to come down," said David P. Schwartz, chief of the USGS's Bay Area Earthquake Hazards Project. He spoke with one foot on either side of the fault, marked by a crack that snaked through a parking lot in Hayward's business district. Before San Francisco's Great Quake of 1906, on the San Andreas fault, there was the Great Quake of 1868 on the Hayward, a magnitude 6.9 rumbler that killed five people. Severe quakes have happened on the Hayward Fault every 151 years, give or take 23 years, meaning it is now into the danger zone. Experts forecast the next big one will be in the potentially lethal 6.7 to 7.0 range. The Association of Bay Area Governments estimates it would wipe out some 155,000 housing units, 37,000 in San Francisco alone. The ground on each side of the fault could shift 3 feet, meaning two objects on opposite sides could be abruptly carried a total of 6 feet apart, Schwartz said. The Hayward Fault runs directly beneath Eden Jewelry and Loan, but the men working in the pawn shop shrugged when asked if they fear a quake. "Honestly, it's a non-issue," said Saul Gevertz, 64. The building was renovated about five years ago and now is essentially an enormous steel cage, designed to flex in an earthquake without breaking, said one of the building's co-owners, Darrell Davidson. "I'm not worried-worried. I've thought about it," said Davidson, 47. "I think we're in good shape. I hope to God we are." Nickey Avila acknowledged some alarm when informed that the fractures in the pavement outside his house were caused by the fault. "I'm thinking one day it's going to move, but if I survive it, I'll be able to say I survived one of the biggest quakes of all time," said Avila, 23. The quake could come at any moment. "If it moved while we were walking, it wouldn't surprise me," Schwartz said during a tour of Hayward's misaligned street curbs, warped concrete gutters and abandoned buildings. They include the former Hayward City Hall, deemed too dangerous to occupy because it's right on the fault. The City Hall was built in 1930, during an unusually quake-free period after the Great Quake of 1906 released stress on all faults in the region. A "virtual tour" developed by the USGS shows the Hayward Fault slashing through identifiable structures, like DeMuynck's house, but she is resolved not to worry. "There's dangers all around us, all the time, so if we thought about those dangers all the time, we wouldn't have anything else to think about," said DeMuynck, 62. "We just come home and say, 'The house is still here.' We're OK for another day."
On the Net:
USGS Bay Area Earthquake Hazards Project: http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/cencal/
Northern California Quake Hazards: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/
Great Quake Centennial: http://www.1906centennial.org
Shaking Hazard Maps: http://www.abag.ca.gov/bayarea/eqmaps/pickcity.html
By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

Country Music Star Buck Owens Dies at 76 Yhoo! NEWS
Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday. He was 76. Owens died at his home in Bakersfield, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997. His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home. "I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge." Owens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations. "I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time," he said in 1992. An indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles. Among his biggest hits were "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line." And he was the answer to this music trivia question: What country star had a hit record that was later done by the Beatles? "Those guys were phenomenal," Owens once said. Ringo Starr recorded "Act Naturally" twice, singing lead on the Beatles' 1965 version and recording it as a duet with Owens in 1989. The song, by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, tells of a poor soul who foresees a movie career playing "a man who's sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally. ... Might win an Oscar, you can never tell." In addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of "Hee Haw" from 1969 to 1986. With guitarist Roy Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor. "It's an honest show," Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. "There's no social message — no crusade. It's fun and simple." Owens himself could be rebellious, choosing among other things to label what he did "American music" rather than country. "I took a little heat," he once said. "People asked me, `Isn't country music good enough for you?' " He also criticized the syrupy arrangements of some country singers, saying "assembly-line, robot music turns me off." After his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam. He spent much of his time away concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix. "I never wanted to hang around like the punch-drunk fighter," he told The Associated Press in 1992. He had moved to Bakersfield in 1951, hoping to find work in the thriving juke joints of what in the years before suburban sprawl was a truck-stop town on Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. "We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the bandleader who was the king of Western swing. "And lots of rock 'n' roll," he added. Owens started recording in the mid-1950s, but gained little success until 1963 with "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single. Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With opportunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was 8. He dropped out of school at age 13 to haul produce and harvest crops, and by 16 he was playing music in taverns. He once told an audience, "When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of." Owens' first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the '60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard. One of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin'," and recorded a number of duets with his father. In addition to Buddy, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.
On the Net:
http://www.buckowens.com
http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/
By GREG RISLING, Associated Press Writer

Bush's Powers Again Under Review by Court Yahoo! NEWS
His wartime powers undercut once before by the Supreme Court, President Bush could take a second hit in a case in which Osama bin Laden's former driver is seeking to head off a trial before military officers. At stake is more than whether Salim Ahmed Hamdan, after nearly four years at the Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, goes on trial for war crimes before a special military commission. Analysts say if the high court rejects Bush's plan to hold such trials for the first time since the aftermath of World War II, it could rein in the president's expanded powers in pursuing and punishing suspected terrorists. In addition to special military trials for Hamdan and others, the Bush administration since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has claimed it has the authority to eavesdrop on telephone conversations without court oversight, aggressively interrogate foreigners and imprison people without giving them traditional legal rights. Hamdan was one of hundreds of people captured during the 2001 U.S.-led war that drove the ruling Taliban from power in Afghanistan. The native of Yemen denies that he is a terrorist and claims he took the driving job to provide for his young family. Hamdan's appeal, set for arguments Tuesday, is one of the biggest cases of the court's current term, the first for Chief Justice John Roberts. He, however, will not participate in the Hamdan case. Last year, Roberts was on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that ruled unanimously against Hamdan. It is that ruling that the Supreme Court now is reviewing. With Roberts withdrawing from the case, the high court could split 4-4, leaving the appeals court ruling in place. A ruling is expected before July. "The stakes are very high for this administration because it has predicated all of its policies in this war on terror on the principle that the president as commander in chief cannot be constrained by Congress or the courts," said Scott Silliman, a former military lawyer who teaches at Duke University. "If the court in any way limits presidential authority with regard to military commissions, it will spill over into other areas of his authority in this new type of war," Silliman said. A second element of Bush's terrorism-fighting measures is under scrutiny as the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday examines the president's domestic eavesdropping program, which The New York Times disclosed in December. Since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the National Security Agency has monitored the international communications of people inside the United States when their calls and e-mails are believed to be linked to al-Qaida. The government normally has to get a court order to monitor domestic communications; Bush signed an executive order directing the NSA to conduct the operations without a judge's approval. Hamdan may find hope for his appeal from a pair of 2004 rulings in which the justices rejected the president's claim of authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects while indefinitely deny access to courts or lawyers. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote at the time that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." The moderate O'Connor has been replaced by a Bush appointee, Samuel Alito, who could play a prominent role in the Hamdan case. As a former Reagan administration lawyer he could be sympathetic to White House arguments. Hamdan is one of about 490 prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay as what the administration terms as enemy combatants. Only 10 of them have been charged with a crime. The administration had kept secret the identities, home countries and other information about the men, who were accused of having links to the Taliban or al-Qaida. But this month the Pentagon released details after losing a lawsuit filing by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. The importance of the Hamdan case is illustrated by the dozens of filings on both sides. The issues it raises are complex, with claims based on the Constitution, federal laws and treaties. The administration hopes to get Hamdan's appeal dismissed altogether, on grounds that Congress last year stripped the Supreme Court's authority to consider it. A law passed late last year bars Guantanamo prisoners from filing petitions to fight their detentions; the administration claims this law retroactively voided hundreds of lawsuits. Hamdan's lawyers dispute the government's claim that the law is retroactive and they say the administration has set up a sham system to try Hamdan on a charge of conspiracy to commit war crimes, murder and terrorism. "The president's assertion of absolute dominion over human subjects and trial and punishment cannot be reconciled" with the Constitution, lead lawyer Neal Katyal, a Georgetown law professor, told justices in a filing this month. Accused terrorists can receive the death penalty in the military trials, although the government says it is not seeking that against Hamdan. In his filings, the administration's Supreme Court lawyer, Paul Clement, cites the "savage attacks" of Sept. 11 and the president's response. Clement portrays Hamdan as a trained terrorist who served as a personal bodyguard to bin Laden. The justices said they will release an audio of the argument after it concludes, something done only for high-profile cases. The case is Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 05-184.
On the Net:
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
Military tribunals: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/commissions.html
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

March 26, 2006
With an Eye on Politics, Edwards Makes Poverty His Cause
By ERIK ECKHOLM
CHAPEL HILL, N.C., March 25 — As he sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2004 and later as John Kerry's running mate, John Edwards talked about poverty more than any other candidate.

But when he spoke on the campaign trail about what he referred to as the "two Americas," he told a conference on poverty here this week, "people called it a downer."

Now Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and a presumed contender for his party's 2008 presidential nomination, has made curbing poverty the centerpiece of his work and his political approach.

This is his true passion, he said in an interview, and he thinks that voters may be more responsive in the coming years, both because the middle class is becoming less secure and because of a shared sense of fairness.

"I think there is political traction in helping people help themselves," he said, emphasizing that he also believed that "if you can work, you should work, and parents should be responsible for their children."

"I think that for most Americans, what they saw on TV from the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans was just not right," he said, referring to the severe poverty revealed there after Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Edwards was the organizer and the most assiduous note-taker at the poverty conference, sponsored by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, an organization that he founded and directs.

The meeting drew more than 200 scholars and leaders of private antipoverty agencies to discuss issues like the problems of the working poor and the effects globalization has on labor.

The challenge, Mr. Edwards and other speakers said, is not just to devise better ways to fight poverty but to find strategies with broad appeal.

Some of the scholars offered, if not cheerful data, themes that they said might grab the attention of middle-income Americans. Many of the same economic trends that hurt the poor, the experts said, are also creating "a harsh new world of economic insecurity for middle-class families," in the words of Jacob S. Hacker, a political scientist at Yale.

Mr. Hacker described a decline in shared safety nets, like health insurance, that leave more families confronting medical crises or job losses without assistance.

Rising costs for housing, health care and other necessities have affected middle-class families as well as the poor, said Elizabeth Warren, an expert on family bankruptcy and a law professor at Harvard. Even with more mothers now working outside the home, Ms. Warren said, families have more debt, fewer reserves and more volatile incomes than they did a few decades ago.

"It used to be that if you worked hard you'd be in the middle class and have a secure retirement," she said, "but the rules have changed." Policies to improve the security of the middle class will also help the poor, she added.

Several scholars lamented the racial and class disparities in family assets, including home equity and other savings, a topic that receives less attention than those disparities in income. Income is used to get by, they said, but assets provide a safety net and a means to climb ahead. Helping low-income people buy homes and using tax credits to encourage savings accounts were among the potential answers put forth.

In interviews, several scholars said they were grateful for the chance to discuss research and issues, though they said they knew that Mr. Edwards was most likely banking ideas for a political campaign.

"We'll say whatever we want to say," said Kathryn Edin, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "But as academics who do this kind of work, we're eager to discuss our work with political leaders."

Mr. Edwards said that after his decision not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2004 and the defeat of the Kerry-Edwards ticket, he talked with friends and his wife about how to spend his time. They all agreed, he said, that "I really lit up when I talked about poverty."

Beyond directing the poverty center, a part of the university law school, Mr. Edwards has campaigned in several states for initiatives to raise the minimum wage and on behalf of unions for service sector groups like hotel workers.

Those attending this week's conference offered no simple answers to the challenge of globalization, which brings consumer benefits but has cost factory jobs, especially here in the onetime textile belt of North Carolina.

Mr. Edwards has shied away from calls for protectionism. But he said that promoting unions, and thus better pay and conditions, in the expanding service sector "is an example where we can have a real impact without endangering our economic position in the world."

"Those jobs aren't going anywhere," he said.



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Court Case Challenges Power of President

By Charles Lane

Seized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Osama bin Laden's former chauffeur is now seeking victory over President Bush in a new arena: the Supreme Court.

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

500,000 Cram Streets to Protest Immigration Bill

A crowd estimated by police at more than 500,000 boisterously
marched in Los Angeles to protest federal legislation that would
crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help
them and build a security wall along the U.S.' southern border. By
Teresa Watanabe and Hector Becerra.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOuX0Er

As Dynasty Evolved, So Did Power in L.A.

The Chandlers, who owned The Times, were a potent force in shaping
the city. But in a diverse metropolis, such sheer clout no longer
exists. By Peter H. King and Mark Arax.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOuY0Es

War May Hurt GOP in Heartland

SEYMOUR, Ind. - Democrats hope that souring public opinion will
swing parts of the country their way. By Maura Reynolds and
Johanna Neuman.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOuZ0Et

A Silenced 'Scream' Haunts Art Heist Trial

OSLO - Six men in Norway face charges in the theft of Munch's
masterpiece, which is still missing. By Jeffrey Fleishman.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOua0E1

Singer Found Gold and Inspiration in California

Buck Owens, the Bakersfield rebel who brought a distinctly
California flavor to country music in the 1950s and '60s and built
a Central Valley-based multimedia empire belying his "Hee
Haw"-bred bumpkin persona, died Saturday. By Randy Lewis.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOub0E2

9/11 Trial Reveals Troubles Then, and Ahead

WASHINGTON - Much has been done to improve the nation's defenses
against terrorism, but the evidence presented over the last
several weeks underscores just how daunting the challenge remains.
By Richard A. Serrano.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOuf0E6

Debating Bush Censure Serves Dueling Purposes

Maybe to save money and reduce duplication, MoveOn.org and the
Republican National Committee should just hire the same ad agency.
By Ronald Brownstein.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezw...Io30G2B0HOug0E7

Senate gears up for divisive immigration debate Yahoo! NEWS
U.S. lawmakers begin this week what President George W. Bush says could be a "fractious debate" over border security, his temporary-worker proposal and measures to let some of the 12 million illegal aliens in the United States earn citizenship. The U.S. Senate is expected to take up immigration legislation after lawmakers return from a break. They can expect to be greeted at the Capitol by dozens of clergy wearing handcuffs to protest proposals that will make it a criminal offense to help an illegal alien. At least 200,000 mostly Hispanic demonstrators protested in Los Angeles on Saturday against the proposals, capping a series of smaller demonstrations for immigrant rights in U.S. cities this month. The issue looms large before the November congressional elections and is playing a role in jockeying among potential 2008 presidential candidates. Emotions run high and Americans, including Bush's Republican party, are divided between those who favor curbing illegal immigration through tighter border security and tougher enforcement and those who say it is essential to bring illegal workers out of the shadows with a comprehensive overhaul. "This could be a fractious debate, and I hope it's not," Bush said at a news conference last week. Bush leaves on Wednesday for meetings in Cancun, Mexico with Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has been disappointed by the lack of progress on a U.S. guest-worker program. Immigrant, labor and business groups are pushing comprehensive reform to give some of the illegal aliens who have been living and working in the United States for years a way to legalize their status. "Any immigration reform has to be comprehensive and not mean-spirited," said Jaime Contreras, head of the National Capital Immigration Coalition.

VOTING POWER
Speaking at a news conference with Contreras last week, Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, said, "There are millions of immigrants who have become citizens who are deeply motivated by what is happening to their families and communities and neighbors." "Those immigrants can be expected to vote this November in record numbers," he added. "We can expect them to help turn the tide in this anti-immigrant debate." The Senate Judiciary Committee is rushing to craft comprehensive immigration overhaul that would establish a temporary-worker program and provide a way for illegal immigrants in the country to legalize their status. They are trying to meet a deadline set by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and potential presidential contender in 2008. He plans to bring up his own border-security and enforcement legislation this week if the Judiciary Committee fails to produce a compromise. Frist's tough approach mirrors a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Neither includes a guest-worker program or offers a way to legalize the status of illegal workers. Legalizing some of the 12 million undocumented workers is supported by union and business groups. Businesses also back Bush's guest-worker proposal to help fill jobs that Americans do not want or are unable to perform. The Judiciary Committee is set to meet on Monday in hopes of completing legislation that will incorporate elements of a proposal offered by Sens. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican who also has presidential ambitions. That compromise would provide a way for some illegal aliens to legalize their status and eventually earn citizenship. Such a bill would anger some conservatives in the House who believe it would reward people for illegal actions. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado joined 70 other House Republicans to oppose a comprehensive approach. In a letter to Senate Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, they said such a bill "would doom any chance" of legislation reaching the president this year.
By Donna Smith

Edwards vows to continue campaign against poverty desertnews.com
As he sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2004 and then as John Kerry's running mate, John Edwards talked about poverty more than any other candidate. But when he spoke on the campaign trail about what he referred to as the "two Americas," he told a conference on poverty last week in Chapel Hill, N.C., "people called it a downer." Now Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and a presumed contender for his party's 2008 presidential nomination, has more than ever made curbing poverty the centerpiece of his work and his political approach. This is his true passion, he said in an interview, and he thinks that voters may be more responsive in the coming years.

Meehan has cash for possible Senate clash Boston Herald
Sen. John Kerry might be eyeing another bid for the White House in ’08 and if he does, Rep. Martin T. Meehan has 5 million reasons to claim an early lead in the fight for his vacant Senate seat. Meehan, the poster child for campaign finance reform, enjoys a whopping two-to-one fund-raising advantage over the other members of the Bay State’s congressional delegation, with $5 million in the bank at the end of 2005. The Lowell Democrat and several other congressmen are actively eyeing a Senate run should Kerry decide against running for re-election, a high-level Democratic source said. “Meehan, Barney (Frank) and Stephen Lynch all will likely run, except if the Democrats take back the House. Then Frank will be chair of the banking committee,” the source said. Meehan has made a national name for himself sponsoring campaign finance reform legislationto remove special-interest money from politics. But he said there is nothing wrong with building up a war chest. “Authoring and passing landmark campaign finance legislation does not mean you raise the white flag and give up raising money for campaigns. The reality is that modern campaigns are very expensive,” he said in an e-mail to the Herald. Meehan doesn’t accept money from political action committees. He said 90 percent of his contributions come from people in Massachusetts and 65 percent of his donations were $250 or less. That’s not to say there isn’t a corporate presence in his donor list. Employees of the Simmons Cooper law firm make up the biggest block of contributors, donating $38,500, according to analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Simmons Cooper is an Illinois-based law firm specializing in class-action lawsuits. Meehan’s war chest stands far above the second-biggest fund-raiser in the state delegation, Congressman Edward Markey, who has $2.3 million in his campaign account. Markey is not considered a candidate, though. Lynch has $875,000 in the bank while Frank has a relatively scant $274,000 on hand.
By Kevin Rothstein

Size of L.A. March Surprises Authorities Yahoo! NEWS
Thousands of immigration advocates marched through downtown Los Angeles in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history. More than 500,000 protesters — demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border — surprised police who estimated the crowd size using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said. Wearing white T-shirts to symbolize peace, the demonstrators chanted "Mexico!" "USA!" and "Si se puede," an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means "Yes, we can." In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown Saturday, according to police who had expected only a few thousand. Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday. "We construct your schools. We cook your food," rapper Jorge Ruiz said after performing at a Dallas rally that drew 1,500. "We are the motor of this nation, but people don't see us. Blacks and whites, they had their revolution. They had their Martin Luther King. Now it is time for us." Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America's economy. "Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement," said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child and marched in Los Angeles. "They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country." The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate is to begin debating the proposals on Tuesday. President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one. "America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws," Bush said in his weekly radio address, discussing an issue that had driven a wedge into his own party. Bush sides with business leaders who want to let some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, say national security concerns should drive immigration reform. But many protesters rejected claims the national security claim, noting that the legislation would hurt Hispanics the most. "When did you ever see a Mexican blow up the World Trade Center? Who do you think built the World Trade Center?" said David Gonzalez, 22, who marched in Los Angeles with a sign that read, "I'm in my homeland.'" Between 5,000 and 7,000 people gathered Saturday in Charlotte, carrying signs with slogans such as "Am I Not a Human Being?" In Sacramento, more than 4,000 people protested immigration legislation at an annual march honoring the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. The demonstrations are expected to culminate April 10 in a "National Day of Action" organized by labor, immigration, civil rights and religious groups.
By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer

Speed Traps Stir Debate in Small Towns Yahoo! NEWS
In local diners and truck stops, drivers talk about this little highway town with a word of warning. Watch your lead foot when driving through, they say. This is a speed trap town. Eolia gained national recognition earlier this month when it was added to a rogue's gallery of speed traps listed on a Web site, speedtrap.org. That doesn't come as news to many residents, who are furious over a jump in speeding tickets being handed out under the new police chief who took over in November. "You can be in Illinois or Iowa, and you mention Eolia, and they say: Oh — the speed trap," said Jerry Burbridge, a trucker who lives in Eolia, about 70 miles northwest of St. Louis. Eolia Police Chief Jerry Sutton said he's just enforcing the law. "Safety — it's a big thing with me. I would hate to see one child or one pedestrian get hurt in any way," Sutton said. Eolia's situation is hardly unique. For isolated towns with crumbling streets, speeding tickets can be an important source of revenue. In Eolia, for example, a ticket for 1 mph over the limit costs $67.50 in fines and court costs. Missouri law lets cities keep all the revenue they collect from tickets. Most speed trap towns have highways running through their city limits, providing steady access to out-of-towners who won't raise too big a stink when ticketed, said Eric Scrum with the National Motorists Association. But handing out speeding tickets isn't always easy money. Eleven states have laws against speed traps, usually limiting the proportion of a city's budget that can come from tickets. And there's been backlash. A prosecutor temporarily barred the town of Reed, Ark., from issuing tickets in 2004 because of speed trap complaints. In Coburg, Ore. in 2005, two municipal employees filed a $2 million lawsuit claiming the city fired them for not going along with a speed trap scheme. Web sites like speedtrap.org list towns with a reputation for ticketing and many drivers avoid them altogether. Still, the financial incentive for giving tickets is clear. In Missouri, municipal governments set their own fines for speeding and keep all the money they collect from tickets issued in city limits, said Nancy Griggs, division director of court services for Missouri's Office of State Courts Administrator. Griggs said some towns have been known to collect as much as 90 percent of city revenue from speeding tickets. The town of Curryville generated $133,507 from traffic violations in 2004, according to a state audit. Excluding money from a federal development grant, traffic violations accounted for more than half of Curryville's budget that year. Highway 54 runs through the middle of Curryville, in rural northeast Missouri, becoming the town's Main Street as the speed limit drops from 55 mph to 35 mph over about a half-mile stretch. Mayor Bill Dixon remembers when the city gave 100 tickets a month, but he says things have changed. The city recently hired Charles Francis as its new police chief — he says he writes about nine to 15 tickets a month. Convenience store owner Ellis Feith worries Curryville's past ticketing may have caught up with the city. Feith says traffic used to be heavy on the weekends, but now drivers bypass the town and Feith's store. "If you build a town on giving tickets, you're asking for trouble in the long run," Feith said. Business owners in Eolia worry the same fate might await them. Debbie Reading said business has fallen off steeply at her beauty salon. "People are just getting pulled over for piddly little things," Reading said. "They actually tell us they don't want to come over here and get their hair cut because they're scared."
On the Net: Speed Trap Exchange: http://www.speedtrap.org
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Associated Press Writer

AMERICA, THE GLOBAL TARGET - JIM HOAGLAND (WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 26): Repairing America's image at home and abroad is a complex, generational task that begins now.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6032401715.html

THE WORD AT WAR: PROPAGANDA? NAH, HERE'S THE SCOOP, SAY THE GUYS WHO PLANTED STORIES IN IRAQI PAPERS - LYNNE DUKE (WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 26): The info war -- far more intense than mere "spin" ? has been raging in the United States since the words "war on terror" were uttered in public and the national zeitgeist became one of fear. With the body politic and the vox populi deeply polarized before and after the war started, "we look at everything in terms of propaganda," says Nancy Snow, author of "Information War." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6032500983.html

A VICTORY OVER TERRORIST MEDIA ? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 25): The Treasury Department struck a blow against one branch of Iran's propaganda network on Thursday, designating Hezbollah's al Manar satellite television operation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization. The designation prohibits transactions between Americans and U.S. entities and al Manar, and freezes any assets al Manar may have under American jurisdiction.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060324-084903-5309r.htm

TRANSLATION: IS THE WHOLE WORLD WATCHING? - LORNE MANLY (NEW YORK TIMES, MARCH 26): In the Arab world, Al Jazeera has a reputation for tackling the thorny issues. But in the United States, where it is best known for showing tapes of Osama Bin Laden's tirades, one person's fearless reporting can quickly become another's dangerous propaganda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/arts/tel...ion/26manl.html

AL JAZEERA MEETS AMERICAN RESISTANCE: ITS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWS CHANNEL CAN'T FIND A U.S. CARRIER, BUT THAT WON'T STOP ITS LAUNCH - STANLEY REED (BUSINESS WEEK): It's not just the controversial nature of Al Jazeera that gives distributors pause, say some cable executives privately. Whether it's a convenient cloak for them or not, they say it also makes little economic sense for them to pay a fee for yet another channel in the overly fragmented 400-channel TV universe.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/cont...0323_571451.htm

IN PLAIN ENGLISH, AL JAZEERA ISN'T QUITE READY ? LAWRENCE VAN GELDER (ARTS, BRIEFLY, NEW YORK TIMES, MARCH 25): Plans to introduce an English-language channel on the Arab news network Al Jazeera as early as this month were scrapped yesterday when the director general of the satellite channel, Wadah Khanfar, announced a delay, Agence France-Presse reported. Nigel Parsons, the Al Jazeera International director, said that technical installations were incomplete but that a spring start to the operation remained possible.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/arts/24arts.html (SCROLL DOWN LINK FOR ITEM)

BENCHMARKS: US IRAQ CASUALTIES STAY HIGH - MARTIN SIEFF (UPI, MARCH 22): Over the past month, the average rate at which U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq has significantly fallen, but the rates at which they are being wounded have dramatically increased.
http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?...22-030818-1584r

THE DEFIANT WAR: WHEN IT BEGAN THREE YEARS AGO, FEW PEOPLE COULD HAVE ANTICIPATED THAT THE COMBAT IN IRAQ WOULD LAST SO LONG OR THAT THE ENEMY WOULD BECOME A STUBBORN AND RESILIENT INSURGENCY; JUDGED ONLY ON ETHICS, IRAQ WAR GETS JUST A C - JOHN ARQUILLA (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, MARCH 19): In Iraq our troops have learned to cope with extreme heat, pestilential conditions and wily, dogged insurgents. But those at the top rungs of managing the war for the United States have not done nearly so well in meeting the challenge of maintaining good moral conduct -- a failure whose contagion has even spread to some American soldiers.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...INGEQHOQA61.DTL

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN - DAVID IGNATIUS (WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 24): Ask senior military commanders what they think about Bush and they will tell you they love his toughness -- but wish the White House could communicate its Iraq strategy better.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6032301145.html

U.S. EMBASSY FOCUSES ON HIRING JORDANIANS - ASSOCIATED PRESS (NEW YORK TIMES, MARCH 24): The U.S. Embassy, a diplomatic fortress in central Baghdad's isolated ''Green Zone,'' has begun hiring its local staff from neighboring Jordan, rather than recruiting Iraqis.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/internatio...ssy-Hiring.html

Mobile-phone cheating in exams on the rise Yahoo! NEWS
The number of students penalized for cheating in school exams and coursework in England rose by over a quarter last summer, the country's exam watchdog said on Monday. Candidates caught with mobile phones in exam halls accounted for around 25 percent of the offences, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) said. "Over recent years we have seen a noticeable rise in the number of mobile-phone related incidents in examination halls across the country," said QCA Chief Executive Ken Boston. Students can be marked down or even failed for just having a mobile phone with them during exams, whether they use them to cheat or not. Boston said he would be writing to all schools about the importance of students leaving their phones outside exam halls. Just over 4,500 students were penalized during last summer's round of A-level and GCSE exams, a rise of 27 percent over the previous year. However, the overall number of candidates penalized remains low, with less than one incident for every 1,500 exams taken. Around one-third of the offences involved students caught for plagiarism, collusion or copying another candidate's work, typically in coursework done before a final exam. Others were penalized for cheating or disruptive behavior during exams, writing obscenities on their exam papers or failing to follow instructions from invigilators.
By Tim Castle

Rice Accepts DJ's Apology for Racial Slur Yahoo! NEWS
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has accepted the apology of a disc jockey fired for using a racial slur to describe her, saying the incident shows that even mature democracies take centuries to heal racial wounds. "My understanding is that he apologized, said he didn't mean it," Rice told "Fox News Sunday." "I accept that because we all say things from time to time that we shouldn't say or didn't mean to say." Dave Lenihan of KTRS in St. Louis apologized on the air immediately after making what he said was a slip of the tongue during his morning show on Wednesday. Lenihan had praised Rice, who has frequently said she aspires to run the NFL one day but has ruled out seeking to replace retiring Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who recently announced his retirement. On his show, Lenihan said: "She's been chancellor of Stanford. She's got the patent resume of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that." He said he had meant to say "coup" instead of the slur. KTRS president and general manager Tim Dorsey agreed that the remark was accidental but announced the same day that Lenihan had been fired. Rice said Sunday that the incident is evidence that the "birth defect" of slavery infuses even mature democracies with racial tensions that take generations to heal. Rice added that she hopes the episode inspires Americans to "be a little bit more humble" about the progress of emerging democracies such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan

US Border Weaknesses Remain Unplugged
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Border_..._Unplugged.html

Washington (UPI) Mar 27, 2006 - The Bush administration argues that by staying in Iraq, we keep "terrorists" attention and efforts focused there rather than on America's homeland. It could more plausibly be posited that by keeping America's eyes riveted on Iraq, the war allows a variety of Fourth Generation War, or 4GW elements to creep in through our postern gate.

- Pentagon Unveils new Quadrennial Defense Review
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Pentagon_U...nse_Review.html

At court, a terror case rife with tough issues
Presidential power, detainee treatment, and separation of powers in an
emergency are all at stake. By Warren Richey
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p01s01-usju.html?s=hns

Latin leaders balk at US 'wall'
The proposed 700-mile barrier is to be a big issue at Thursday's North
American summit. By Danna Harman
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p01s02-woam.html?s=hns

Paradoxes of immigration hit US Senate
Huge protests across the country are heating up this week's legislative
debate. By Gail Russell Chaddock
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p01s03-uspo.html?s=hns

Conversion a thorny issue in Muslim world
A case in Kabul spotlights the practices of the US-backed Afghan
government, and is a reminder of limits placed on religious freedom. By
Rachel Morarjee and Dan Murphy
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p01s04-wosc.html?s=hns

Today's wars are less about ideas than extreme tribalism
The West must oppose the reduction of Islam to raw tribalist tenets. By
David Ronfeldt
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p09s01-coop.html?s=hns

How abortion bans might help the debate
They could force the majority of people on both sides to find common
ground. By Jim Sollisch
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns

Georgia may OK Bible as textbook
If a new law passes, it would be the first state to make the Bible part
of public school curriculum in modern times. By Patrik Jonsson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p02s01-ussc.html?s=hns

Why interest rates may rise further
This week's Federal Reserve meeting may produce the 15th consecutive
increase. By Ron Scherer
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0327/p03s03-usec.html?s=hns

March 27, 2006
In an Election Year, a Shift in Public Opinion on the War
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ADAM NAGOURNEY
ALBUQUERQUE, March 25 — Neil Mondragon watched with approval at an auto repair shop recently as Representative Heather A. Wilson, a New Mexico Republican visiting her district, dropped into the pit and drained the oil from a car.

Afterward, Mr. Mondragon recalled how he had backed Ms. Wilson, a supporter of the Iraq war, in her race for Congress two years ago. He, too, supported the war.

But now, Mr. Mondragon said, it is time to bring the troops home. And he is leaning toward voting for Ms. Wilson's opponent, Patricia Madrid, who has called for pulling the troops out of Iraq by the end of the year.

"The way I see the situation is, we have done what we had to," said Mr. Mondragon, 27, whose brother fought in the war and returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. "I don't see the point of having so many guys over there right now. We can't just stay there and baby-sit forever."

Mr. Mondragon is far from alone in reassessing his view of the war that has come to define George W. Bush's presidency.

Mr. Bush is pressing ahead with an intensified effort to shore up support for the war, but an increasingly skeptical and pessimistic public is putting pressure on Congress about the wisdom behind it, testing the political support for the White House's determination to remain in Iraq.

The results have been on display over the past week as members of Congress returned home and heard first-hand what public opinion polls have been indicating.

"We have been there now for three years, and we have suffered more losses than I think most people thought we would see," Representative Steve Chabot, an Ohio Republican from a relatively conservative district near Cincinnati, said in an interview on Friday. "You may have the president or others now who say we always knew this would be a long slog, but I think most people did not expect it to be as hard as it has been."

In Connecticut, Representative Christopher Shays, a Republican who is one of the Democrats' top targets this year in the midterm elections, has distanced himself from the White House even as he has emphasized his support for the war, saying the administration has made "huge mistakes" by allowing looting, disbanding the Iraqi army and failing to have enough troops on the ground

Senator Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican who is also facing a tough re-election challenge, said that "people are not optimistic about what they see."

Even Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who has made her support for the war a centerpiece of her campaign, said the public seemed "to be losing patience" with the war.

Interviews with voters, elected officials and candidates around the country suggest a deepening and hardening opposition to the war. Historians and analysts said this might mark a turning point in public perception.

"I'm less optimistic because I see the fatalities every day," said Angela Kirby, 32, a lawyer from St. Louis who initially supported the war. "And the longer it goes on, the less optimistic I am."

Here in New Mexico, Dollie Shoun, 67, said she had gone from being an ardent supporter of the war and the president to a fierce critic of both.

"There has been too many deaths, and it is time for them to come back home," Ms. Shoun said. Speaking of Mr. Bush, she added: "I was very much for him, but I don't trust him at this point in time."

Polls have found that support for the war and expectations about its outcome have reached their lowest level since the invasion. A Pew Research Center poll this week found that 66 percent of respondents said the United States was losing ground in preventing a civil war in Iraq, a jump of 18 percent since January.

The Pew poll also found that 49 percent now believed that the United States would succeed in Iraq, compared with 60 percent last July. A CBS News poll completed two weeks ago found that a majority (54 percent) believed Iraq would never become a stable democracy.

Richard B. Wirthlin, who was the pollster for President Ronald Reagan, says he sees the beginning of a decisive turn in public opinion against the war. "It is hard for me to imagine any set of circumstances that would lead to an enhancement of the public support that we have seen," he said. "It is more likely to go down, and the question is how far and how fast."

Even more problematic for the administration, pollsters have found, is that Americans who have soured on the war include many independent voters and some self-described Republicans.

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, argued that views on the war remained fluid and that the White House could still rally support for the effort if Americans "are convinced we can win."

A perception of progress on the ground could help turn public opinion back toward Mr. Bush's way, some analysts said. As it is, a significant number of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, want Mr. Bush to continue the war.

"Bush is right in being optimistic," said Susan Knapp, 64, a Florida Republican. "I listened to the news this morning and there are people who think he's out of touch with reality, but in fact I think he knows better than most of us about what is going on, and he does know the situation."

And in interviews, some respondents said they agreed with Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that journalists were exaggerating the bad news. "I have quite a few friends who have served over there and they come back with a different story than the media portrays," said Jerry Brown, a Republican in Fairfield County, Conn.

For Mr. Bush today, as it was for Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon decades ago, the question is how long can he continue fighting an unpopular war without it crippling his presidency by eroding trust in his judgment and credibility.

"Once the public loses confidence in a president's leadership at a time of war, once they don't trust him anymore, once his credibility is sharply diminished, how does he get it back?" said Robert Dallek, a historian who has written biographies of Johnson and Nixon.

The anxiety about the war could be seen in contested districts around the country. In recent weeks, Representative Wilson of New Mexico has been sharply critical of the administration on issues like domestic surveillance and its public projections about the war. Ms. Wilson said she worried that public opinion could turn decisively against the war in Iraq as it did during the Vietnam War. "Wasn't it Kissinger who said the acid test of foreign policy is public support?" she said.

In Connecticut, Diane Farrell, a Democrat challenging Mr. Shays, said she had consistently run into voters who drew comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam.

"People are throwing up their hands between the civil unrest, the number of deaths and the cost to taxpayers," Ms. Farrell said. "People feel worn out by the war, and they don't see an end. "

At the Capitol recently, Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who was the secretary of the Navy during part of the Vietnam War, was introduced to a visiting Iraqi. Mr. Warner proceeded to lecture her about the need for Iraqis to form a new government, and fast.

"The American people have a mind of their own," he told her, recalling how he watched during the Vietnam War as public opinion turned against the conflict — and inevitably Congress followed. In a later conversation, Mr. Warner said that such a moment had not been reached yet, but he warned that he sensed a "certain degree of impatience" in the country and around the world.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Albuquerque, N.M., for this article, and Adam Nagourney from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Coke Ellington in Alabama, Ellen F. Harris in St. Louis, Stacey Stowe in Connecticut, and Andrea Zarate in Miami.



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March 27, 2006
Vague Law and Hard Lobbying Add Up to Billions for Big Oil
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, March 26 — It was after midnight and every lawmaker in the committee room wanted to go home, but there was still time to sweeten a deal encouraging oil and gas companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"There is no cost," declared Representative Joe L. Barton, a Texas Republican who was presiding over Congressional negotiations on the sprawling energy bill last July. An obscure provision on new drilling incentives was "so noncontroversial," he added, that senior House and Senate negotiators had not even discussed it.

Mr. Barton's claim had a long history. For more than a decade, lawmakers and administration officials, both Republicans and Democrats, have promised there would be no cost to taxpayers for a program allowing companies to avoid paying the government royalties on oil and gas produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf.

But last month, the Bush administration confirmed that it expected the government to waive about $7 billion in royalties over the next five years, even though the industry incentive was expressly conceived of for times when energy prices were low. And that number could quadruple to more than $28 billion if a lawsuit filed last week challenging one of the program's remaining restrictions proves successful.

"The big lie about this whole program is that it doesn't cost anything," said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who tried to block its expansion last July. "Taxpayers are being asked to provide huge subsidies to oil companies to produce oil — it's like subsidizing a fish to swim."

How did a supposedly cost-free incentive become a multibillion-dollar break to an industry making record profits?

The answer is a familiar Washington story of special-interest politics at work: the people who pay the closest attention and make the fewest mistakes are those with the most profit at stake.

It is an account of legislators who passed a law riddled with ambiguities; of crucial errors by midlevel bureaucrats under President Bill Clinton; of $2 billion in inducements from the Bush administration, which was intent on promoting energy production; and of Republican lawmakers who wanted to do even more. At each turn, through shrewd lobbying and litigation, oil and gas companies ended up with bigger incentives than before.

Until last month, hardy anyone noticed — or even knew — the real costs. They were obscured in part by the long gap between the time incentives are offered and when new offshore wells start producing. But lawmakers shrouded the costs with rosy projections. And administration officials consistently declined to tally up the money they were forfeiting.

Most industry executives say that the royalty relief spurred drilling and exploration when prices were relatively low. But the industry is divided about whether it is appropriate to continue the incentives with prices at current levels. Michael Coney, a lawyer for Shell Oil, said, "Under the current environment, we don't need royalty relief."

The program's original architect said he was surprised by what had happened. "The one thing I can tell you is that this is not what we intended," said J. Bennett Johnston, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who had pushed for the original incentives that Congress passed in 1995.

Mr. Johnston conceded that he was confused by his own law. "I got out the language a few days ago," he said in a recent interview. "I had it out just long enough to know that it's got a lot of very obscure language."

A Subsidy of Disputed Need

Things looked bleak for oil and gas companies in 1995, especially for those along the Gulf Coast.

Energy prices had been so low for so long that investment had dried up. With crude oil selling for about $16 a barrel, scores of wildcatters and small exploration companies had gone out of business. Few companies had any stomach for drilling in water thousands of feet deep, and industry leaders like Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell were increasingly focused on opportunities abroad.

"At the time, the Gulf of Mexico was like the Dead Sea," recalled John Northington, then an Energy Department policy adviser and now an industry lobbyist.

Senator Johnston, convinced that the Gulf's vast reservoirs and Louisiana's oil-based economy were being neglected, had argued for years that Congress should offer incentives for deep-water drilling and exploration.

"Failure to invest in the Gulf of Mexico is a lost opportunity for the U.S.," Mr. Johnston pleaded in a letter to other lawmakers. "Those dollars will not move into other domestic development, they will move to Asia, South America, the Middle East or the former Soviet Union."

Working closely with industry executives, he wrote legislation that would allow a company drilling in deep water to escape the standard 12 percent royalty on up to 87.5 million barrels of oil or its equivalent in natural gas. The coastal waters are mostly owned by the federal government, which leases tens of millions of acres in exchange for upfront fees and a share of sales, or royalties.

Mr. Johnston and other supporters argued that the incentives would actually generate money for the government by increasing production and prompting companies to bid higher prices for new leases.

"The provision will result in a minimum net benefit to the Treasury of $200 million by the year 2000," Mr. Johnston declared in November 1995, denouncing what he called "outrageous allegations" that the plan was a giveaway.

He won support from oil-state Democrats, Republicans and the Clinton administration. Hazel O'Leary, the energy secretary at the time, said the assistance would reduce American dependence on foreign oil and "enhance national security."

Representative Robert Livingston of Louisiana, then a rising Republican leader, declared that the inducements would "create thousands of jobs" and "reduce the deficit."

Many budget experts agree that the rosy estimates were misleading. The reason, they say, is that it often takes seven years before a new offshore field begins producing. As a result, almost all the costs of royalty relief would occur outside of Congress's five-year budget timeframe.

Opponents protested that the cost estimates were wrong, that the incentives amounted to corporate welfare and that companies did not need government incentives to invest.

"They are going to the Gulf of Mexico because that's where the oil is," said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, during a House debate. "What we do here is not going to change that. We are just going to decide whether or not we are going to give away the taxpayers' dollars to a lot of oil companies that do not need it."

Industry executives and lobbyists fanned out across Capitol Hill to shore up support for the program, visiting 150 lawmakers in October 1995. The effort succeeded. A month later, Congress passed Mr. Johnston's bill.

A Missing Escape Clause

To hear lawmakers today, they never intended to waive royalties when energy prices were high.

The 1995 law, according to Republicans and Democrats alike, was supposed to include an escape clause: in any year when average spot prices for oil or gas climbed above certain threshold levels, companies would pay full royalties instead.

"Royalty relief is an effective tool for two things: keeping investment in America during times of super-low prices, and spurring American energy production when massive capital and technological risks would otherwise preclude it," said Representative Richard W. Pombo, Republican of California and chairman of the House Resources Committee. "Absent those criteria, I do not believe any relief should be granted."

But in what administration officials said appeared to have been a mistake, Clinton administration managers omitted the crucial escape clause in all offshore leases signed in 1998 and 1999.

At the time, with oil prices still below $20 a barrel, the mistake seemed harmless. But energy prices have been above the cutoff points since 2002, and Interior Department officials estimate that about one-sixth of production in the Gulf of Mexico is still exempt from royalties.

Walter Cruickshank, a senior official in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, told lawmakers last month that officials writing the lease contracts thought the price thresholds were spelled out in the new regulations, which were completed in 1998. But officials writing the regulations left those details out, preferring to set the precise rules at each new lease sale.

"It seems to have been a massive screw-up," said Mr. Northington, who was then in the Energy Department. No one noticed the error for two years, and no one informed Congress about it until last month.

Five years later, the costs of that lapse were compounded. A group of oil companies, led by Shell, defeated the Bush administration in court. The decision more than doubled the amount of oil and gas that companies could produce without paying royalties.

The case began as a relatively obscure dispute. Shell paid $3.8 million in 1997 for a Gulf lease and soon drilled a successful well. But the Interior Department denied the company royalty relief, saying that Shell had drilled into an older field already producing oil and gas. The decision hinged on undersea geography and the court's interpretation of language in the 1995 law.

A typical field, or geological reservoir, often encompasses two or three separately leased tracts of ocean floor. Interior Department officials insisted that the maximum amount of royalty-free oil and gas was based on each field. Shell and its partners argued that limit applied only to each lease.

Perhaps shrewdly, the oil companies sued the Bush administration in Louisiana, where federal courts previously had sided with the industry in spats with the government.

The fight was not even close. In January 2003, a federal district judge declared that the Interior Department's rules violated the 1995 law. If the department "disagrees with Congress's policy choices," Judge James T. Trimble Jr. wrote, "then such arguments are best addressed to Congress."

What might have been a $2 billion mistake in the Clinton administration suddenly ballooned into a $5 billion headache under Mr. Bush.

But even as the Bush administration was losing in court, it was offering new incentives for the energy industry.

Mr. Bush placed a top priority on expanding oil and gas production as soon as he took office in 2001. Vice President Dick Cheney's task force on energy, warning of a deepening shortfall in domestic energy production, urged the government to "explore opportunities for royalty reduction" and to open areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

Gale A. Norton, who stepped down this month as interior secretary, moved quickly to speed up approvals of new drilling permits. Starting in 2001, she offered royalty incentives to shallow-water producers who drilled more than 15,000 feet below the sea bottom.

In January 2004, Ms. Norton made the incentives far more generous by raising the threshold prices. Her decision meant that deep-gas drillers were able to escape royalties in 2005, when prices spiked to record levels, and would probably escape them this year as well.

She also offered to sweeten less-generous contracts the drillers had signed before the regulation was approved.

"These incentives will help ensure we have a reliable supply of natural gas in the future," Ms. Norton proclaimed, predicting that American consumers would save "an estimated $570 million a year" in lower fuel prices.

Ms. Norton's decision was influenced by the industry. The Interior Department had originally proposed a cut-off price for royalty exemptions of $5 per million British thermal units, or B.T.U.'s, of gas. But the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents smaller producers, argued that the new incentive would have little value because natural gas prices were already above $5. Ms. Norton set the threshold at $9.34.

Based on administration assumptions about future production and prices, that change could cost the government about $1.9 billion in lost royalties.

"There is no cost rationale," said Shirley J. Neff, an economist at Columbia University and Senator Johnston's top legislative aide in drafting the 1995 royalty law. "It is astounding to me that the administration would so blatantly cave in to the industry's demands." Incentives Keep Growing

Last April, President Bush himself expressed skepticism about giving new incentives to oil and gas drillers. "With oil at $50 a barrel," Mr. Bush remarked, "I don't think energy companies need taxpayer-funded incentives to explore."

But on Aug. 8, Mr. Bush signed a sweeping energy bill that contained $2.6 billion in new tax breaks for oil and gas drillers and a modest expansion of the 10-year-old "royalty relief" program. For the most part, the law locked in incentives that the Interior Department was already offering for another five years. But it included some embellishments, like an extra break on royalties for companies drilling in the deepest waters.

Lee Fuller, vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said smaller companies wanted to prevent future administrations from cutting back on incentives. "Having a clear, stable royalty policy was of value to independent producers," he said.

And energy companies, whose executives had long contributed campaign funds to Republican candidates, pushed to block any amendments aimed at diluting the benefits.

The push to lock in the royalty inducements came primarily from House Republicans. The only real opposition came from a handful of House Democrats, in a showdown about 1 a.m. on July 25, according to a transcript of the session.

"It is indefensible to be keeping these companies on the government dole when oil and gas prices are so high," charged Representative Markey of Massachusetts, who proposed to strip the royalty provisions. "We might as well be giving tax breaks to Donald Trump and Warren Buffett."

Mr. Barton, the Texas Republican, brushed aside the objections. He reassured lawmakers that the new provisions would not cost taxpayers anything.

When Mr. Markey proposed a more modest change — having Congress prohibit incentives if crude oil prices rose above $40 a barrel — Republicans quickly voted him down again.

"The only reason they waited until after midnight to bring up these issues is that they couldn't stand up in the light of day," Mr. Markey said in a recent interview. "They all expected me to give up because it was so late and I didn't have the votes. But if nothing else, I wanted to get these things on the record."

A Royalty-Free Future?

It is still not clear how much impact the reduced royalties had in encouraging deep-water drilling. While activity in the Gulf has increased since 1995, prices for oil and gas have more than quadrupled over the same period, providing a powerful motivation, experts say.

"It's hard to make a case for royalty relief, especially at these high prices," said Jack Overstreet, owner of an independent oil exploration company in Texas. "But the oil industry is like the farm lobby and will have its hand out at every opportunity."

The size of the subsidies will soar far higher if oil companies win their newest court battle.

In a lawsuit filed March 17, Kerr-McGee Exploration and Production argued that Congress never authorized the government to set price cut-offs for incentives on leases awarded from 1996 through 2000. If the company wins, the Interior Department recently estimated, about three-quarters of oil and gas produced in the Gulf of Mexico will be royalty-free for the next five years.

Mr. Markey and other Democrats recently introduced legislation that would pressure companies to pay full royalties when energy prices are high, regardless of what their leases allow.

But Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration have signaled their opposition.

"These are binding contracts that the government signed with companies," Ms. Norton recently remarked. "I don't think we can change them just because we don't like them."



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March 27, 2006
Clinton Keeps Focus on '06, and That Could Be a Strategy for '08
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
MELVILLE, N.Y., March 23 — Taking the stage in a ballroom here to address a group of Realtors on Thursday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton faced a familiar battery of comments and questions about her future.

The host introduced her as a "formidable presidential candidate." An audience member asked whether her husband, the former president, would wash the windows upon their return to the White House. "He's never done them in any of our other houses," Mrs. Clinton said, sending a ripple of laughter through the crowd.

The notion that Mrs. Clinton might be courting once-wary voters in Suffolk County as part of her 2006 re-election race went unacknowledged. In fact, her Senate race has become something of an afterthought these days, with the Republican Party failing to mount much opposition and national attention focused on Mrs. Clinton's potential to capture the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

But Mrs. Clinton herself appears not to have lost sight of 2006 — judging not only by her painstaking attention to local details during her public appearances, but also by a schedule that frequently takes her to Republican areas across the state.

On the contrary, the senator appears to be treating her re-election bid as, among other things, a chance to prove her viability in tough parts of the New York, with Democrats and associates saying that she is aiming both to run up a big margin of victory statewide and to exceed expectations in Republican strongholds.

Rather than traveling to New Hampshire or Iowa as have the other likely presidential contenders — she has not visited New Hampshire in roughly a decade — Mrs. Clinton spends significant amounts of time in areas of New York that have historically been enemy territory for a Democrat. Many of her recent stops — in the Niagara Falls, Rochester and Syracuse regions — are, on the surface, even more difficult political territory for her than Suffolk County, which she lost, 56 percent to 41 percent, in 2000.

The strategy is strikingly similar to the one used by George W. Bush in 1998, when he ran up the score among Hispanics and moderates in Texas during his re-election campaign as governor, allowing him to promote the results as proof of his broad electoral appeal.

Still, even if it proves successful, the approach has its limitations. New York Republicans, by and large, are less conservative than their counterparts in the South and West, especially on social issues like abortion.

In some ways, her re-election race is all about risk. If she fails to run up a substantial margin of victory, her opponents in both parties are sure to cite her performance as evidence that she has too much ideological and personal baggage to win a nationwide race.

But it is also true that Mrs. Clinton has strengthened her standing in parts of the state in which she was viewed skeptically at best in 2000, and that showing her own party that she can temper her image as a liberal can only help her in 2008.

"They're going to try to write a story about her success here coming out of 2006, to try and answer some of the questions people have raised" about her ability to reach past liberal Democrats and build an appeal nationally, said David Axelrod, a Democratic media strategist.

Should Mrs. Clinton achieve her goals in the Senate race, Mr. Axelrod said, "They're going to say she can do the same thing across the country, to their advantage."

Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns, said the "starting gun" on the presidential race would formally go off the Wednesday after this year's midterm elections.

"The question is, where does Hillary Clinton want to be that Wednesday?" Mr. Lehane said. "The first thing she wants is to have an impressive victory, including in parts of the state, such as upstate, that will be indicative of her ability to attract moderate, independent and even Republican support."

And so it was that Mrs. Clinton found herself in a dual role at the Hilton hotel here on Thursday — as both a celebrity, rushed by a throng of supporters seeking her autograph, and as a policy wonk with a firm command of issues important to the constituents she most wants to woo.

In her remarks to the Long Island Board of Realtors, she repeatedly addressed the kind of core suburban issues that typically matter to middle-class Republicans: issues like traffic congestion, economic tax incentives for suburban areas and maintaining the mortgage interest rate deduction.

After an initial standing ovation subsided, Mrs. Clinton told the group that she had made it a priority to determine "what we need to do to revitalize suburbia, because, after all, suburbia started on Long Island."

"Some of our suburbs are old now themselves, and they need some help, so what we've tried to do is pay attention," she said, specifically citing Long Island, Westchester and suburbs upstate as the objects of her attention.

Polling data strongly suggests that Mrs. Clinton has managed to pick up what would have once seemed like unlikely support across the state, and not simply because she is running without formidable opposition. In January, about 31 percent of registered Republicans said they approved of her, up from 18 percent in early 2001, according to polls conducted by Quinnipiac University.

Upstate, her approval rating jumped to 56 percent from 36 percent, while in the suburbs of New York City, it grew to 55 percent from 28 percent.

There is even greater anecdotal evidence that the junior senator has overcome some initial concern among Republicans. Timothy J. Regan, the senior vice president for government affairs at Corning, the upstate glassware company, said that after some "rough sledding" right after the 2000 race — when only a limited number of Republicans in his area voted for her — she had become "incredibly popular," by securing appropriations and other funding for the community and by responding to questions and complaints.

Her ability to help mostly Republican and upstate areas "has surprised everybody," Mr. Regan said.

Potentially, Mrs. Clinton could use solid gains in those communities to argue that she is viable in the outlying suburbs that have tipped the balance in the last two presidential elections — and among white, middle-class voters in places like Ohio and West Virginia.

Mrs. Clinton's advisers would not publicly discuss what, if anything, the 2006 election might mean for any national run. "She is single-mindedly focused on this '06 race right now," said Terry McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a close friend of the Clintons'.

At the same time, Mrs. Clinton could get herself into trouble if she and her strategists publicly set a bar for how well she should perform in 2006. Indeed, aides to Mrs. Clinton are reluctant even to predict how much of the overall vote she will win. Last time, she reached 55 percent; most Democrats believe she will do much better this fall.

"No smart strategist is going to set a bar seven months before an election," said Paul Begala, a political adviser to former President Clinton. "Governor Bush and Karl Rove did not go around in March of 1998 saying that they were going to significantly increase their performance among Hispanics."

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush, in his 1998 race for re-election as governor of Texas, did specifically set out to outperform himself and other Republicans in order to demonstrate his electoral strength.

In the end, Mr. Bush won 47 percent of the state's Hispanic vote. That was unprecedented for a Republican, and a performance that "helped brand him, in a way, as a different kind of Republican, one that could go get votes among constituencies that hadn't been traditionally Republican," said Matthew Dowd, a strategist for Mr. Bush.

Similarly, Mr. Dowd said, Mrs. Clinton is "going to need to win upstate in smaller communities that may have even voted against her last time, to show she's got their votes now."



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March 27, 2006
Despite 9/11 Effect, Railyards Are Still Vulnerable
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
NEWARK — Two signs just inside the entrance of the Oak Island rail depot here hint at dangers inside. "Our Employees' Safety Is in Your Hands." one reads. "You Are Accountable for Your Safety," reads another.

Beyond those two placards, however, there are few visible signs that security is a high priority at the railyard, just three miles from downtown Newark and seven miles from Manhattan, where 90-ton tanker cars full of deadly chemical gases are routinely stored and shipped.

Gates to the depot are unlocked and unguarded, allowing unimpeded access to tracks where cars loaded with deadly chlorine, ammonia or oleum gases are stored.

Along the track bed, many switching devices are unlocked, so unauthorized passers-by could redirect, and possibly derail, a train by simply pulling a lever. Security is so lax that a reporter and photographer recently spent 10 minutes driving along a rail bed beside cars holding toxic chemicals without being challenged, or even approached, by railroad employees.

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, public concern about a potential terrorist strike at one of the nation's chemical plants has caused federal and local officials to inch toward tighter safeguards at manufacturing and processing plants. On Tuesday, in a speech before the American Chemistry Council, Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, said he would ask Congress to adopt a series of chemical plant security measures that have largely been endorsed by the industry.

Even if the chemical plants are secure, the public could be left vulnerable by the railways running in and out of many of them. The railways transport more than 1.7 million shipments of hazardous materials every year, including 100,000 tank cars filled with toxic gases like chlorine and anhydrous ammonia.

According to a recent study by the Navy, an accident or terrorist attack involving a single car of chlorine near a densely populated area could kill as many as 100,000 people.

In New Jersey, where so many chemical factories and refineries are crowded near major population centers, including a stretch near Newark Liberty International Airport that has been called "the most dangerous two miles in America," the difficulty of managing that potentially deadly cargo is particularly complex.

Since 9/11, railroads have spent millions to install fences and security cameras and add additional officers around the state, but industry officials concede that their facilities are far too large to be completely sealed. Leaders of railroad workers' unions say it is not uncommon for tanker cars to be left unattended for days, and that security along the rails is frighteningly inadequate. And the sight of graffiti-covered tank cars filled with deadly gases is a reminder of the holes in the security system.

State and local officials say they are limited in what they can do to regulate the thousands of tank cars of deadly gases hauled around New Jersey each year. In other cities and states, proposals to reroute dangerous chemicals away from major population centers, most notably in Washington, D.C., have faced fierce opposition and legal challenges from both the railroads and local communities where the chemicals would be rerouted. The courts have also upheld the railroads' assertion that only the federal government can regulate rail traffic.

The Homeland Security Department has been reluctant to tighten regulations regarding the transportation of deadly chemicals by rail. In his speech last week, Mr. Chertoff made only passing reference to the risks of transporting the deadly cargo, and there is no indication that the department will require the kind of changes in equipment and procedures that security experts say will reduce the risk of a terrorist attack or catastrophic accident.

"Chemical transport is clearly the greatest vulnerability in the country today, and for some reason — and I'm not sure what it is — the federal government has not acted," said Richard A. Falkenrath, President Bush's former deputy homeland security adviser. "There's no legislation necessary, the government already has the authority to require stronger containers, reroute shipments, and allow the kind of tracking that would allow local police agencies to know what they have to contend with in their communities. But to date it hasn't been done."

The risks involved in moving toxic rail cargo are a particular concern in New Jersey. Last fall, it became the first state to enact regulations intended to deter terror attacks on chemical plants by requiring companies to explore the feasibility of switching to safer technologies.

Because many of the railyards in New Jersey are near petroleum storage tanks, natural-gas depots, or propane tanks, the effect of an attack on a rail car is likely to be magnified, said Paul DeMatteis, a security analyst at Global Security Risk Management, a corporate security company.

When Gov. Jon S. Corzine was still in the United States Senate, he helped write federal legislation to tighten safety standards for both chemical plants and the railroads that supply them.

Since being sworn in as governor two months ago, Mr. Corzine has earmarked $20 million to strengthen security around New Jersey's critical highways, rail links and bridges against possible terror attacks, and vowed to strengthen safeguards at railway chemical depots and plants around the state.

The vulnerability of the rail lines has even undercut some of New Jersey officials' progress in making chemical plants safer. Last fall, owners of the Keene Chemical plant in Kearney agreed to reduce their stockpiles of chlorine by keeping no more than one tanker car of chlorine on the premises at a time. That policy means that tanker cars that were once stored in the moderately guarded chemical plant will spend more time waiting on less secure railway sidings.

"It's this shell game," said Rick Engler, director of the New Jersey Work Environment Council, a union group that has lobbied for an assortment of restrictions on toxic chemicals. "But shifting around the problem doesn't solve the problem."

Railroad officials say their self-imposed security measures have provided a web of security far more effective and sophisticated than that in virtually any other industry. Peggy Wilhide, spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads, said that major rail carriers have spent more than $200 million since 9/11 on security measures, including fences and motion detectors, training, high-tech scanning devices, and tracking to monitor the shipment of some dangerous cargo.

After two accidental derailments in 2004 and 2005 caused toxic chemical releases that killed 12 people and injured hundreds, the railroads have also been considering a requirement that chemical companies replace their aging tankers with a newer, more highly reinforced generation of cars, Ms. Wilhide said.

Ms. Wilhide said that the industry opposed the plan to reroute shipments because it would actually increase the chance of an accident by forcing trains to haul the tankers full of toxic chemicals for longer distances, over older, less well-maintained rails.

Homeland Security Department officials have praised the rail carriers' cooperation, saying the railroads have moved responsibly to bolster the security of their facilities and to give law enforcement officials the information needed to develop a real-time tracking system for the most dangerous toxic rail cars. Homeland Security officials are also working with the railroads and the federal Department of Transportation to devise buffer zone protection plans to provide security near the most perilous rail sites.

But the Homeland Security Department has not embraced calls to reroute trains carrying toxics or require that chemical companies update their fleet of tank cars.

Brian Doyle, a Homeland Security Department spokesman, said it wanted to complete a thorough assessment of the system before imposing any restrictions on the railways. "It's one thing to just throw money at something and say it is fixed," he said. "But you want to do it right." In his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Chertoff said the department supported the one policy that local communities, environmental advocates and the railroads all agree on — that chemical plants and manufacturers should be urged to adopt processes that reduce, or eliminate, the need for toxic chemicals like chlorine and ammonia.

But the department will not require any shift to safer technology, Mr. Chertoff said, and the chemical security bill he is now advocating is likely to prevent states from adopting any such requirement.

In Spotswood, N.J., about 17 miles northeast of Princeton, many residents were startled to learn in the months after 9/11 that their community was home to a plant that had enough chlorine on hand kill as many as 960,000 people if an accident or terrorist attack caused it to be released and carried on the wind. Local officials worked with the company, Schweitzer-Mauduit, which makes cigarette papers, to tighten its security procedures and adopt more sophisticated plans for evacuation, detection and cleanup.

Bill Foust, a spokesman for the company, said switching to new technology that would eliminate the need for chlorine would be too expensive.

Barry H. Zagnit, mayor of Spotswood, said that despite the continuing risks, he could understand why company officials did not feel the investment was warranted.

"You have a mill that's our largest employer, our largest taxpayer," he said. "It's essential to the economy of the borough. "We certainly would never want to see Schweitzer move the plant," he said. "That would have a devastating effect on the borough, where people are already saddled with high property taxes."

A similar political struggle has been simmering in Paulsboro in South Jersey, where the Valero refinery has enough toxic hydrofluoric acid on hand at one time to create an airborne plume 19 miles long that could affect as many as three million people, according to a study by the Work Environmental Council based on federal Environmental Protection Agency data.

The company has spent more than $5 million on bolstering security since 9/11, according to its spokeswoman, and has several systems designed to dissipate toxic gases in the event of a discharge. But Valero officials have resisted demands that they move to a process that would not use hydrofluoric acid, saying that it would be unworkable.

Steven M. Sweeney, the state senator whose district includes the Valero plant and at least three others that use large amounts of toxic gases, said that unless the state and federal governments intercede, little will be done to make communities like his safer.

"In Fieldsboro, there are a few trains a week that roll through town, 125 cars long; at least 80 of them are the kind of toxic chemicals that could cause a catastrophe, just devastate a community," he said. "Anyone who feels safe is living in a dream world."



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March 27, 2006
Senate to Debate Bill on Immigration
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:24 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Monday that overhauling the nation's immigration laws ''is not going to be easy'' and warned critics against stoking anti-immigrant feelings by calling them a threat to the nation's identity or a burden to the economy.

''The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way,'' the president said as the Senate prepared to tackle the hot-button election issue of what to do with the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants this week.

Bush used a naturalization ceremony for swearing in 30 new citizens from 20 countries and five continents to press his call for a ''guest worker'' program. The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, faced a midnight deadline for completing a bill.

''No one should play on people's fears or try to pit neighbors against each other,'' Bush said. ''No one should pretend that immigrants are threats to America's identity because immigrants have shaped America's identity.

''No one should claim that immigrants are a burden on our economy because the work and enterprise of immigrants helps sustain our economy,'' the president said. ''We should not give in to pessimism. If we work together I am confident we can meet our duty to fix our immigration system and deliver a bill that protects our people, upholds our laws and makes our people proud.''

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, calls for tougher border security have dominated debate over the knotty problem of controlling immigration.

But a tough immigration-enforcement bill passed by the House last year has galvanized forces that want worker programs for illegal immigrants already in the country.

''We will not accept enforcement-only approaches,'' said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Immigration reform advocates scheduled a rally Monday at the U.S. Capitol, where dozens of members of the clergy planned to wear handcuffs to protest what they said is the House bill's criminalization of their aid programs for poor immigrants.

More than 500,000 people rallied in Los Angeles on Saturday, demanding that Congress abandon the House-passed measures that would make being an undocumented immigrant a felony and erect a 700-mile fence along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Similar but smaller protests were held in Dallas, Phoenix, Milwaukee and Columbus, Ohio, among other cities.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, said Monday it would be unrealistic to round up and deport the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Instead, he told CBS' ''The Early Show,'' the United States should create a ''path toward legalization'' based on whether the immigrants are law abiding, pay takes, are learning English or demonstrate other ''positive behavior.''

Senators up for re-election this year are being forced by the debate to juggle the demand from voters for tighter borders to keep out terrorists and businesses who look to the tide of immigrants to help fill jobs.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday his panel will get a bill to the full Senate before Tuesday, even if it has to work ''very, very late into the night.''

Senate aides met into the evening Sunday in advance of a Judiciary Committee meeting to debate legislation, but there was no evidence of a breakthrough on the issue most in dispute. Lawmakers have been divided on whether illegal immigrants should be required to return to their home country before they become eligible for U.S. citizenship.

Whether or not the committee produces a bill, Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to open two weeks of Senate debate on the issue Tuesday. Frist, R-Tenn., has offered a measure that would punish employers who hire illegal immigrants and provide more visas. It sidesteps the issue of whether to let illegal immigrants already here stay.

Employers and immigration advocates prefer a bill drafted by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that would allow illegal immigrants to become eligible for permanent residency after working for six years. Both McCain and Frist are likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

Another approach offered by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., would let illegal immigrants get temporary work permits for up to five years. They would have to leave the United States but could then apply for legal re-entry.

Aides to Specter, Cornyn, Kyl, Kennedy and McCain spent much of the congressional recess last week trying to find a compromise that would stave off Frist's bill.



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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 39
March 27, 2006

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

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


** NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUBPOENAS (CRS)
** SOME MORE FROM CRS
** ARMY ISSUES NEW MANUAL ON UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS
** THE THOMAS BUTLER AFFAIR


NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUBPOENAS (CRS)

National security letters are investigative tools used in foreign
intelligence investigations to compel the disclosure of certain
transactional information such as financial records and
communications data.

NSLs have become controversial due to their increasing use by
government agencies (primarily the FBI), and because of the
non-disclosure requirements and the limited judicial oversight
involved in their use.

A new report from the Congressional Research Service sorts through
the five statutes that authorize the use of National Security
Letters, including the latest amendments which provide for a
measure of judicial review.

See "National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence
Investigations: Legal Background and Recent Amendments," March 17,
2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33320.pdf

An abbreviated version of the same report, without footnotes or
appendices, is "National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence
Investigations: A Glimpse of the Legal Background and Recent
Amendments," March 21, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RS22406.pdf

Administrative subpoenas used in criminal investigations are
approximately analogous to national security letters used in
foreign intelligence investigations. They are the subject of
another new report from the Congressional Research Service.

For extended background on administrative subpoenas, see
"Administrative Subpoenas in Criminal Investigations: A Brief Legal
Analysis," March 17, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33321.pdf

An abbreviated version of that report is "Administrative Subpoenas
in Criminal Investigations: A Sketch," March 17, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RS22407.pdf

CRS does not make its publications directly available to the public.
Copies of these reports were obtained by Secrecy News.


SOME MORE FROM CRS

Some other notable new reports from the Congressional Research
Service are the following.

"Material Support of Terrorists and Foreign Terrorist Organizations:
Sunset Amendments in Brief," updated March 17, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RS22222.pdf

"Tactical Aircraft Modernization: Issues for Congress," updated
March 16, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/IB92115.pdf

"Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues," updated March 13,
2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB92075.pdf

"AIDS in Africa," updated March 9, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IB10050.pdf

"Internet Development and Information Control in the People's
Republic of China," February 10, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33167.pdf


ARMY ISSUES NEW MANUAL ON UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS

The U.S. Army has issued a new manual on unmanned aerial systems
(UAS), which are increasingly used in a wide spectrum of
reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting missions.

UAS include what were formerly referred to as unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs), plus their payloads and support systems.

The new Army manual includes fresh information on Army UAS programs
and operations.

A copy of the unclassified manual was obtained by Secrecy News.

See "Army Unmanned Aircraft System Operations," Field Manual Interim
FMI 3-04.155, dated 4 April 2006 (183 pages in a large 9 MB PDF
file):

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-04-155.pdf


THE THOMAS BUTLER AFFAIR

Dr. Thomas C. Butler is one of the rather few people in the history
of humanity of whom it can be truly said that he helped to save
millions of lives. A specialist in the plague and other infectious
diseases, his research helped lead to the adoption of oral
hydration as a standard treatment for diarrhea in the Third World
and elsewhere.

But in post-9/11 America, Dr. Butler is also a convicted criminal.

Because he apparently committed certain violations of the laws
governing the transport of toxic agents used in his medical
research, he was investigated and prosecuted as if he were a
potential terrorist. In 2004, he was sentenced to a term of two
years in prison, which he recently completed.

The strange tale of Dr. Butler is explored this week in an
exhaustive seven-part series in the Cleveland Plain Dealer
beginning March 26. See "Plagued by Fear" reported by John Mangels
here:

http://www.cleveland.com/plague/

Some related material in support of Dr. Butler from the Federation
of American Scientists is available here:

http://www.fas.org/butler/index.html

Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691

http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?...26-080918-6608r

3/27/2006 10:17:00 AM -0500

Security & Terrorism
Congress ponders new Dubai security sale
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- Lawmakers return from a week-long recess Monday with the issue of foreign -- and especially Gulf-Arab -- ownership of U.S. critical infrastructure front and center.

Several competing bills in both chambers of the U.S. Congress aim to reform the process by which the federal government assesses the national security implications of foreign takeovers of U.S. companies or assets.

And in the wake of the derailment of the Dubai ports takeover, lawmakers' concerns are also threatening another acquisition by the tiny oil-rich emirate.

Dubai International Capital, an investment company owned by the emirate's ruling al-Maktoum family, inked a deal last year to acquire a privately held British aerospace company called Doncasters Group, Ltd.

The company owns nine plants in the United States, and makes parts for U.S. tanks and military planes, including for the Joint Strike Fighter -- currently at the center of a transatlantic row about contracts and technology sharing.

After senators questioned officials about the Doncasters deal earlier this month, the secretive inter-agency panel known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which is responsible for assessing such takeovers, announced that it was launching a special 45-day national security review of the purchase.

The attention led Dubai International Capital to announce last week it was postponing the $1.2 billion takeover for two months while the CFIUS review went ahead.

During the furor over the Dubai Ports World acquisition, administration officials attempted unsuccessfully to head off angry lawmakers' efforts to stymie that deal by agreeing to exactly the same kind of review in that case.

Many lawmakers continue to believe the assessment process is inadequate.

"This CFIUS process is a flawed process that's being conducted behind closed doors," said Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., whose district includes one of the Doncasters plants. He charged there was not "adequate oversight in place to determine if these types of deals pose a national security concern."

Under current law, because of concerns about the huge financial implications of information about blocked or potentially blocked takeovers being leaked, CFIUS investigations are kept confidential.

After a firestorm of criticism engendered by a foiled Chinese effort to buy a U.S. oil company last year, the administration agreed to provide Congress with more information about deals that CFIUS blocks.

Critics say it's not enough, pointing out that since being given the authority to review these transactions, CFIUS has received over 1,500 notifications of foreign acquisitions, but only one has ever been blocked -- in 1990.

"Rubber stamping these types of deals may have been business as usual before Sept. 11, but it shouldn't be the way we do business after Sept. 11," Barrow said.

Barrow and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee are pushing a bill requiring that CFIUS notify Congress about pending foreign investments it is looking at, and calling on the president to make the homeland security secretary, rather than as at present the secretary of the treasury, the chairman of the CFIUS committee.

Business groups are concerned about proposals like the Barrow-Thompson bill that would extend the timeline of CFIUS reviews and increase notification to Congress, because many such investigations are instigated before a deal has been publicly announced.

Another bill, from the powerful House Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter of California, would effectively outlaw foreign ownership of any infrastructure listed as critical to national security by the Department of Defense and put the Pentagon rather than the Departments of the Treasury or Homeland Security in charge of the review.

Missouri Republican Roy Blunt is also working on CFIUS legislation in the House, while in the Senate several bills, including one drafted by the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, are jostling elbows.

Shelby has said that his bill "strikes the appropriate balance between national security and our open investment policy."

http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?...27-040404-2320r


3/27/2006 4:38:00 PM -0500

Security & Terrorism
Hamdan will tackle presidential war power
By PAMELA HESS
UPI Pentagon Correspondent

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear the arguments in a case that could decide once and for all whether the military commission and process set up to try "enemy combatants" captured in the war on terror is constitutionally legal.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, allegedly a personal driver, bodyguard and weapons runner for Osama bin Laden, was captured in Afganistan and has been charged with conspiracy, attacking civilians, murder, destruction of property and terrorism. He is due to face a military tribunal -- a controversial military trial process created specifically for the detainees with different rules of evidence and access to counsel than in U.S. civilian or military courts.

While Hamdan v. Rumseld is a case about the war on terrorism and Guantanamo, it is also a challenge to the checks and balances built into the U.S. Constitution. It will determine whether the president and Congress have the power to circumvent the U.S. judiciary when it comes to dealing with this newly created class of prisoner, and whether those prisoners have any rights at all under the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court will decide whether it has the power to limit presidential powers in war time.

The Bush administration firmly believes the court should not be involved. For added insurance, it stacked the deck against judicial review in its favor by selecting the location of the detainee camp carefully. Building it on Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was an intentional attempt to put it outside the reach of U.S. courts.

Bush also declared at the beginning of the Afghan conflict that all the prisoners taken would be denied prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention and its attendant privileges and the protections.

Among the new authorities claimed by U.S. President George Bush over these "enemy combatants" was the power to hold them indefinitely, without judicial review. A series of Supreme Court decisions have limited those powers somewhat but left unanswered key questions, including how long is too long for the detention of enemy combatants, and how high in the civilian court system a detainee can go to protest his internment and prosecution.

Congress stepped into the breach earlier this year with the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006. That law not only requires humane treatment for prisoners, it also prohibits enemy combatants from filing habeas corpus challenges to their detention in federal court. Finally, the law establishes the final authority for judicial review of military tribunals at the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, which has already sided with the government in the Hamdan case.

The Hamdan case to be argued to the Supreme Court will examine five central questions. First, it will decide whether the Detainee Treatment Act of 2006 purports to cut the Supreme Court out of the loop on detainee issues. If it does, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether that is constitutional.

Second, while a case decided by the Supreme Court in 2004, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, determined the president had the right to hold prisoners at Guantanamo, it was silent on whether the president had the right to create a new military court process to prosecute them.

Third, the court will decide whether Hamdan has any rights under the Geneva Convention, and whether the president can designate classes of prisoners as outside those boundaries.

Fourth, even if Hamdan does have Geneva Convention rights, can a U.S. court enforce them?

Finally, assuming the court does have jurisdiction over Guantanamo cases, it will need to decide whether it should wait until a military tribunal goes forward before rendering a decision as to its legality. The government's lawyers argue it must wait and then decide if the tribunal meets the requirements for due process. Hamdan's lawyers say the notion of tribunal -- distinct as it is from the civilian court system and from the military's legal system -- is on its face unconstitutional.

The Hamdan case was heard by the U.S. District Court of Appeals last summer. One of the three judges who denied Hamdan's pleas is now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts.

Roberts has recused himself from the case, so Hamdan will be decided by an eight-member court.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who wrote the Hamdi opinion last year has retired and been replaced by Justice Samuel Alito. A court watcher said while the court may be tipping conservative, the government's case is not a shoo-in. Hamdan is fundamentally about the power of the judiciary versus the executive in a system of checks and balances.

http://upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/v...26-063039-4056r


3/27/2006 6:10:00 AM -0500

Intl. Intelligence
Politics & Policies: Bush's second mistake
By CLAUDE SALHANI
UPI International Editor

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- Historians and politicians will undoubtedly argue for years to come whether the war in Iraq was worth starting or a mistake.

Despite the obvious outcome of the war -- the positive as well as the negative -- three years into the conflict is still too early to tell. The jury is still out as far as the results of the Iraq expedition is concerned and only time will tell if President George W. Bush's actions were justifiable or if he committed a major policy error.

What is clear, however, is that President Bush is about to make another policy decision that need not wait for historians to judge as a major mistake in Iraq, and that is inviting Iran to negotiate in Iraq's future.

This decision recognizes Iran as a de facto regional political power broker in the Middle East and legitimizes the theocratic regime of the mullahs. It also goes counter to the current policy of wanting to encourage a change in that direction and saps away efforts by Iranian opposition forces.

Such a move elevates the regime in Iran to the statute of being a "Potsdam-like" participant in deciding Iraq's future, even though the Islamic republic played no role in liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein.

As Amir Taheri, a noted writer on Iranian affairs, points out, it would be equivalent to the Allies inviting Switzerland or Poland to talks on Germany's future at the end of World War II.

Taheri warns that asking Iran to such talks may be Washington's first major mistake. Of course, many would dispute that point, arguing that this is yet another of a multitude of mistakes, in a long-running series of political faux pas made by this administration in conducting the war and consequently in its efforts to establish peace in Iraq.

Starting with the reason given for the invasion of Iraq, the mismanagement during the immediate aftermath of initial combat operations, and leading right up to the current running of affairs that has brought Iraq to the brink of civil war, and allowed Iran to establish a foothold in Iraq, it is reasonable to question where the first error lies.

Again, historians might well argue that the first mistake was made by Bush 41, the father of the incumbent, Bush 43, when the perfect opportunity to oust Saddam Hussein arose during the 1990-91 Gulf War and he chose not to follow through.

At the time all the elements were in place for Saddam to fall. All that was needed was a little more pressure, along with a little push from the U.S.-led coalition.

However, in retrospect, it is quite possible that history is not being kind enough to Bush 41, and not crediting him enough for his clairvoyance. It may just be that he realized what kind of mayhem would be unleashed once the Iraqi Pandora's box was thrown open by the removal of Saddam. Bush 41 chose to let things stand and allowed Saddam to remain in power. Of course an unpleasant result from that decision was the senseless slaughter of some 200,000 Iraqi Shiites by Saddam's goons as revenge for their uprising. Once again, history will be the judge of that decision.

Given recent history, and the maltreatment of Iraq's Shiites, it is quite understandable that Iran would want to play a role in Iraq's future. Iran sees itself as the protector of Muslim Shiites. And since the Islamic revolution in 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew the shah and installed the Islamic republic, Iran has tried -- without success -- to export its revolution to other countries in the region. Until now.

The war in Iraq, accompanied by the void of authority that ensued, has allowed Iran to establish an influential beachhead in Iraq via its client parties and militias. Inviting Tehran to negotiate in Iraq's future will further strengthen Iran's position.

Taheri points out this will allow Iran a strategic corridor "through which it can communicate with Syria and Lebanon, which it considers as part of its broader glacis." Once Tehran establishes its power in Iraq as it has in Syria and Lebanon, Taheri states, "it would be able to project power in the Levant for the first time since the early 7th century when the Persian Empire under Khosrow Parviz drove the Byzantines out of Mesopotamia and what is now Syria."

Tehran would very much like to see history repeat itself and see the new Byzantines -- the Americans -- repelled from Mesopotamia. The mystery, as writes Taheri, is "why Washington wants to give Tehran a place at the high table in Iraq."

Once more, the answer may be found one day in the history books.

No Legal Rights for Enemy Combatants, Scalia Says:

He also told the audience at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland that he was "astounded" by the "hypocritical" reaction in Europe to the prison'
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12510.htm

===
Should Scalia Recuse Himself From Gitmo Case? :

Supreme Court: Detainees' Rights—Scalia Speaks His Mind
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12511.htm

===
Justice Scalia flips the finger in church:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?Stor...27-100356-7854r

Towns, Cities Pass Resolutions Urging Impeachment:

Brattleboro, Vermont, has joined nine other towns and cities, five state Democratic parties, and 19 local Democratic committees in passing resolutions urging the impeachment of President Bush and -- in most cases -- Vice President Cheney.
http://impeachpac.org/?q=node/752

Between 500,000 to 2 Million Demonstrate Against Anti-Immigrant Bill:

Stretching for 26 blocks, the crowd of over half a million people marched peacefully in what was possibly the largest gathering in the city's history. Some estimates put the crowd total at around two million.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/27/1449257

March 27, 2006
Senate Panel Approves Broad Immigration Reform Bill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee approved sweeping election-year legislation Monday that clears the way for 11 million illegal aliens to seek U.S. citizenship, a victory for demonstrators who had spilled into the streets by the hundreds of thousands demanding better treatment for immigrants.

With a bipartisan coalition in control, the committee also voted down proposed criminal penalties on immigrants found to be in the country illegally. It approved a new temporary program allowing entry for 1.5 million workers seeking jobs in the agriculture industry.

"All Americans wanted fairness and they got it this evening," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who played a pivotal role in drafting the legislation.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. said he hoped President Bush would participate in efforts to fashion consensus legislation. "The only thing that's off the table is inaction," said Graham, who voted for the committee bill.

The 12-6 vote broke down along unusual lines, with a majority of the panel's Republicans opposed to the measure even though their party controls the Senate.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., seeking re-election this fall in his border state, said the bill offered amnesty to illegal immigrants, and sought unsuccessfully to insert tougher provisions. He told fellow committee members that the economy would turn sour some day and Americans workers would want the jobs that now go to illegal immigrants. They will ask, "how could you have let this happen," he added.

Committee chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania was one of four Republicans to support the bill, but he signaled strongly that some of the more controversial provisions could well be changed when the measure reaches the Senate floor. That is "very frequently" the case when efforts to reach a broad bipartisan compromise falter, he noted.

In general, the bill is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of so-called guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorizes a "virtual wall" of unmanned vehicles, cameras and censors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border.

It also allows more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelters humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

The most controversial provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years or more. They would have to pay a fine, learn English, study American civics, demonstrate they had paid their taxes and take their place behind other applicants for citizenship, according to aides to Kennedy.

"Well over 60 percent of Americans in all the polls I see think it's OK to have temporary workers, but you do not have to make them citizens," said Kyl.

"We have a fundamental difference between the way you look at them and the way I look at them," Kennedy observed later.

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, a potential presidential contender who worked with Kennedy on the issue, told reporters the street demonstrations had made an impact. "All those people who were demonstrating are not here illegally. They are the children and grandchildren" of those who may have been, he said.

The committee met as several thousand demonstrators rallied at the foot of the Capitol. Many were members of the clergy who donned handcuffs and sang "We Shall Overcome," the unofficial anthem of the civil rights era.

After a weekend of enormous rallies -- a crowd of as many as 500,000 demonstrators in Los Angeles -- thousands of students walked out of class in California and Texas to protest proposals to crack down on illegal immigrants.

"Do you see the community? Do you see how many people didn't go to work today," asked Janet Padron, attending a rally in Michigan.

Her remark underscored one of the issue's complexities.

Senators on all sides of the issue agreed that illegal workers hold thousands of jobs that otherwise would go unfilled at the wages offered.

The agriculture industry is "almost entirely dependent on undocumented workers," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

In purely political terms, the issue threatened to fracture Republicans as they head into the midterm election campaign -- one group eager to make labor readily available for low-wage jobs in industries such as agriculture, construction and meatpacking, the other determined to place a higher emphasis on law enforcement.

That was a split Bush was hoping to avoid after a political career spent building support for himself and his party from the fast-growing Hispanic population.

"America should not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a lawful society," Bush said at a naturalization ceremony for new citizens. "We can be both at the same time."

Bush has said he favors a guest worker program, but it is unclear whether the administration would insist on a provision to require illegal immigrants already in the country to return home before they are allowed to apply for citizenship.

At several critical points, committee Democrats showed unity while Republicans splintered. In general, Graham, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, who is seeking re-election this fall, voted with the Democrats. That created a majority that allowed them to shape the bill to their liking.

Feinstein won approval for the five-year program to permit as many as 1.5 million agriculture workers into the country. "It will provide the agriculture industry with a legal work force and offer agriculture workers a path to citizenship," she said. The vote was 11-5, with Republicans casting all the votes in opposition.

Kennedy prevailed on a proposal to allow an additional 400,000 green cards for future immigrants, regardless of the industry where they find jobs.



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