March 20, 2006
On Anniversary, Bush and Cheney See Iraq Success
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, March 19 — On the third anniversary of a war that they once expected to be over by now, President Bush and senior officials argued Sunday that their strategy was working despite escalating violence in Iraq, even as a former Iraqi prime minister once favored by the White House declared that a civil war had already started.

Displaying a carefully calibrated mix of optimism about eventual victory and caution about how long American troops would be involved, the officials who marked the day — including Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld — sounded much as they had on the first anniversary of the invasion. At that time, the rebuilding effort had just begun, the insurgency was far less fierce, and the American occupation had suppressed, temporarily, the sectarian violence scarring Iraq today.

The picture painted by the administration clashed with that of the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, once hailed by Mr. Bush as the kind of fair-minded leader Iraq needed. He declared in an interview with the BBC that the country was nearing a "point of no return."

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war," said Mr. Allawi, who served as prime minister after the American invasion and now leads a 25-seat secular alliance of representatives in Iraq's 275-seat National Assembly. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more."

"If this is not civil war," he said, "then God knows what civil war is."

Mr. Allawi's assessment was contradicted by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, who said on CNN's "Late Edition" that "We're a long way from civil war."

As politicians in Baghdad moved incrementally forward on Sunday on forming a unified government, at least 15 more bodies were discovered around the capital, bringing to more than 200 the number of people believed killed in sectarian violence in the past few weeks. [Page A10.]

On CBS News' "Face the Nation," Mr. Cheney sought to place the war in a broader context. "It's not just about Iraq, it's not about just today's situation in Iraq," he said. "It's about where we're going to be 10 years from now in the Middle East and whether or not there's going to be hope and the development of the governments that are responsive to the will of the people, that are not a threat to anyone, that are not safe havens for terror or manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction."

The war has taken more than 2,300 American lives, and those of 33,000 to 37,000 Iraqis, according to the estimates of the Iraq Body Count Project, an independent group that monitors the news media.

Mr. Rumsfeld dismissed calls for withdrawal by comparing the current battle to the two great struggles of his generation: World War II and the cold war. "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," he wrote in an op-ed article published in The Washington Post. "It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination."

Mr. Bush is entering the fourth year of the war able to declare success in the dismantling of Saddam Hussein's tyrannical government and in providing a framework for democratic elections, though the country has so far failed to put together the institutions to make a democracy work. Mr. Bush's approval rating, which soared in the early days of the invasion as Americans rushed to Baghdad, has sunk to the low-to-mid 30 percent range as the chaos and number of Iraqis meeting violent deaths has escalated.

Mr. Cheney was challenged on "Face the Nation" about his statement three years ago that "we will be greeted as liberators" and his assertion 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

He insisted that in both cases his facts were right, but that the news media had created a different perception with vivid imagery of killing.

"I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad," he said.

The administration could take heart this weekend from the relatively small antiwar protests around the country, compared with protests held on the previous anniversaries of the invasion. An estimated 7,000 people demonstrated in Chicago on Saturday and smaller protests were held over the weekend in Boston, San Francisco and other cities. In Times Square, the figure was about 1,000.

Television was the forum where the administration's representatives and opponents marshaled the statistics that they believe made their cases. Mr. Bush argued last week that by year's end, Iraqi forces would control more than half the country; Representative John P. Murtha, the hawkish Pennsylvania Democrat who late last year called for American withdrawal, said Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that the statistic was meaningless.

"I flew for an hour and 15 minutes over desert," he said of a recent trip. "Wasn't a soul. And that's the territory I guess they're talking about." Meanwhile, he noted, unemployment has soared in areas hardest hit by sectarian violence. Oil production, which the administration once said would pay for Iraq's rebuilding, was markedly below last year's levels.

As midterm elections approach, the White House is concerned that support for the war is ebbing fastest among Republicans who supported the war, including some influential conservatives who argue that the job of liberation is done, and American troops should not be left in the crossfire of civil strife.

Mr. Bush talked about the war in a two-minute statement to reporters on Sunday when he returned to the White House from Camp David, urging Iraq to form a unity government, and saying, "I'm encouraged by the progress." Then he entered the White House with his wife, Laura.

He offered no answers to questions about the gap between his expectations three years ago and the realities of Iraq today, seemingly underscoring the problem the White House has faced in explaining the war. Suspicions that Mr. Hussein had unconventional weapons, an original justification for the invasion, have proved unfounded.

Mr. Bush halted eroding support for his Iraq strategy last December, explaining his military, political and economic strategy and admitting some early errors. But that was before images of Shiites fighting Sunnis began a new erosion of support.

On the critical political question — how long American forces will stay — General Casey has said a significant presence will be required for "a couple more years," and "over 2006, we will continue to see a gradual reduction in coalition forces."

When the war was launched, the Pentagon expected a short conflict. Its classified plans called for the withdrawal of the majority of American troops by the fall of 2003. Today there are roughly 133,000 still there.

As of Friday, 2,313 American military personnel and Defense Department civilians had died during the Iraq effort; of those, 1,811 were killed in action and 502 in non-hostile events, like accidents, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday. The spokesman also cited statistics that 7,912 American military personnel had been wounded so severely in action they could not return to duty, and 9,212 had been wounded in action but could return to duty.

Mr. Rumsfeld, whose refusal to send larger numbers of troops into Iraq after the invasion has made him a lightning rod for critics, said in his published remarks on Sunday that terrorists, not the American-led coalition, are losing in Iraq, a message repeated by Mr. Cheney.

And like Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld insisted the problem was the imagery from a 24-hour news cycle. "Fortunately, history is not made up of daily headlines, blogs on Web sites or the latest sensational attack," Mr. Rumsfeld wrote. "History is a bigger picture, and it takes some time and perspective to measure accurately."



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March 20, 2006
On the Brink
Rumor, Fear and Fatigue Hinder Final Push to End Polio
By CELIA W. DUGGER
and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
BAREILLY, India — The cry went up the moment the polio vaccination team was spotted — "Hide your children!"

Some families slammed doors on the two volunteers going house to house with polio drops in this teeming city's decrepit maze of lanes, saying that they feared the vaccine would sicken or sterilize their children, or simply that they were fed up with the long drive to eradicate polio.

"We have a lot of other problems, and you don't care about those," shouted one woman from behind a locked door. "All you have is drops. My children get other diseases, and we don't get help."

Nearly 18 years ago, in what they described as a "gift from the 20th century to the 21st," public health officials and volunteers around the world committed themselves to eliminating polio from the planet by the year 2000.

Since then, some two billion children have been vaccinated, cutting incidence of the disease more than 99 percent and saving some five million from paralysis or death, the World Health Organization estimates.

But six years past the deadline, even optimists warn that total eradication is far from assured. The drive against polio threatens to become a costly display of all that can conspire against even the most ambitious efforts to eliminate a disease: cultural suspicions, logistical nightmares, competition for resources from many other afflictions, and simple exhaustion. So monumental is the challenge, in fact, that only one disease has ever been eradicated — smallpox. As the polio campaign has shown, even the miracle of discovering a vaccine is not enough.

Not least among the obstacles is that many poor countries that eliminated polio have let their vaccination efforts slide, making the immunity covering much of the world extremely fragile, polio experts warn. They compare it to a vast, tinder-dry forest: if even one tree is still burning, a single cinder can drift downwind and start a fire virtually anywhere.

Here in northern India the embers are still glowing. And northern Nigeria, another densely populated, desperately poor region, is aflame.

In a calamitous setback in mid-2003, Nigeria's northern states halted the vaccination campaign for a year after rumors swept the region that the vaccine contained the AIDS virus or was part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls. Within a couple of years, 18 once polio-free countries have had outbreaks traceable to Nigeria. Though most have since been tamed, Indonesia and Nigeria itself remain major worries. In 2001, there were fewer than 500 confirmed cases of polio paralysis in the world. Last year, the number jumped to more than 1,900 — and each paralyzed child means another 200 "silent carriers" spreading the disease.

This year in addition to India and Nigeria, cases have been reported in Somalia, Niger, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Yet no eradication effort against any disease has been as well financed or as comprehensive as the polio drive, which has cost $4 billion so far. In the balance is not just whether polio will be extinguished, many public health officials say, but whether a world that could not quite conquer polio will have the stomach to try to wipe out other diseases, like measles. The closer a disease is to eradication, they say, the harder won the gains. Interest lags as the number of cases falls. Fatigue sets in among volunteers, donors and average people. Yet even one unvaccinated child can allow a new pocket of the disease to bloom.

Here and elsewhere, eradicating polio means finding ways to get polio drops into the mouths of every child under 5 — over and over. Because it can take many doses to effectively immunize a child in parts of the world where the disease circulates intensely, eradication requires repeated sweeps. Campaigns are planned to the smallest detail. Each lane is mapped. Supervisors shadow vaccination teams. Follow-up specialists pursue resistant families. "Here, polio eradication has been going on for 10 years, and that's too long," said David C. Bassett, 63, an old smallpox hand sent to India by the World Health Organization to help with polio. "The public's sick of it. The workers are sick of it. The government's sick of it. We're close now. We need to mobilize resources. The donors aren't going to keep putting up money for this forever."

Nigeria's Agony

Aminu Ahmed's legs are so withered he must lean on something just to sit up in the cement courtyard of his home in Kano, in northern Nigeria. He "walks" by swinging his hips in an arc on his six-inch hand crutches.

But Mr. Ahmed, 45, is a natural leader. He is the president of the Kano State Polio Victims Association, which owns the welding shop where he builds hand-cranked tricycles for other polio victims. He coached Kano's handicapped soccer team to three national championships. And he owns a home. It may be at the end of a slum alley, where drinking water is sold in cans and the sewers are shallow ditches, but he earned enough to pay healthy men to build it.

His wife, Hadiza, whom he met at the polio association, has given him six children. The youngest, Omar, 2, was born shortly before Kano's conservative Muslim government stopped its polio vaccinations. Today, like his father before him, he drags himself across the cement courtyard. The joints of his spindly legs are covered with calluses.

He has polio, too.

"This is why we enlighten people to give their children the vaccine," Mr. Ahmed said, explaining why he went on local radio programs to ask for an end to the vaccination moratorium. "Because we don't want people to be cripples like us."

The collapse of Nigeria's drive has become a lesson in the ways eradication campaigns can go terribly awry. "Nigeria is clearly far and away the greatest risk to the eradication effort," said Dr. Stephen L. Cochi, a senior adviser in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's immunization program. The quality of its campaigns is the worst in Africa, he said. "They're just missing lots and lots of kids."

Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who is from the Christian, Yoruba-speaking south, has apologized for his country's role in reigniting the disease, but officials in the Muslim north are defensive. Asked last year whether he had been right to stop the vaccinations, Kano's governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, cut off an interview. "We're not saying it didn't spread, and we're not saying people didn't suffer," he said. "But I had a moral responsibility to our population to stop it until it was clear there was no harm."

His health minister, Dr. Sanda Mohammed, also refused to discuss the subject, even sending word into his waiting room that he was out of the city, while aides admitted he was behind a locked door. But in a brief conversation on his cellphone, he insisted that the decision was right because Kano residents had become so suspicious of government health workers that they were refusing all vaccinations. "It would have been a bigger disaster if we had vaccinated people at gunpoint," Dr. Mohammed said.

As is often the case with rumors, they appeared based on distortions of fact amplified by an alarmist media and by politicians and clerics absorbed in a religiously divisive presidential election campaign.

A controversial 1999 book, "The River," helped raise doubts. Its thesis was that the source of human AIDS was an experimental polio vaccine used in the Belgian Congo in the 1950's that had been grown on a medium of chimpanzee cells containing a monkey virus that is considered the precursor of AIDS. Most AIDS experts reject the theory. The author of the book, Edward Hooper, has never suggested that modern polio vaccines contain any AIDS virus, but confused Nigerian journalists raised the possibility that they did. Then scientists from a Nigerian university claimed they had found estrogen in the polio vaccine. Estrogen is the main ingredient in birth control pills, and in Africa any talk of birth control is highly controversial. Inflammatory speakers equate it with genocide by whites or by ruling tribes trying to eliminate lesser ones.

Some vaccines are grown in calf serum, and experts say it is possible that tiny, harmless amounts of estrogen were found, but at levels that are far lower than in, say, breast milk.

With such rumors circulating during the hotly contested 2003 elections, in which a Muslim candidate lost to Mr. Obasanjo, "The situation got hijacked," said Dr. Barbara G. Reynolds, deputy chief of the Nigerian office of Unicef. "People who had multiple agendas ran with it."

Most vocal was a wealthy Kano doctor who was both head of a campaign to impose Islamic law in northern Nigeria and a candidate for a top job in the national health department. After being denied the post, he turned against the polio drive, calling the vaccine "tainted by evildoers from America." Governor Shekarau's spokesman publicly speculated that the vaccine was "America's revenge for Sept. 11."

With residents turning vaccinators away and the threat of riots growing, Mr. Shekarau — a well-educated rival to southern politicians — decided to halt vaccinations until local doctors could test the vaccine. That took 10 months. Hearings were held, and teams visited vaccine factories in Indonesia, India and South Africa. Medical and religious experts from Saudi Arabia flew in to meet local clerics. Finally, the case was made that the vaccine was safe.

In October 2004, at a kickoff of a new round of vaccinations of 80 million children, Mr. Shekarau allowed Mr. Obasanjo personally to give his 1-year-old daughter, Zainab, the drops — a picture that became famous in Nigeria. The emir of Kano, who rarely lets himself be seen in public, allowed himself to be photographed vaccinating children. But by then, the virus was on the loose.

New Drive, Old Obstacles

Now that official opposition to Nigeria's eradication drive has melted, it is facing its old obstacles, like those in India: Scotch-tape logistics and pockets of resistance.

At 7 a.m. on the first day of a vaccination drive last year, the dirt courtyard of the public clinic in Kano looked like the deck of the world's most bedraggled aircraft carrier. Smashed-up minibus taxis, many with their front ends crumpled and doors held closed by rope, were waiting to take off. Like F-18's, each had a name painted on: Titanic, Dollars, Thank You Daddy.

By 8 a.m., after some near misses with the wobbly benches in the courtyard, most of the minibuses had left, bearing vaccinators on their rounds. But problems were quick to arise. The chief of a nearby district was unhappy that each of his teams got $23 to hire transportation for the day. Last time, he said, the money had gone directly to him, and he had made the arrangements. That was changed, a World Health Organization official said privately, because half the money was pocketed.

The vaccine must be kept chilled from the time it leaves the factory until it reaches a child's mouth, and the clinic's freezers looked as battered as the taxis. The day was already hot, and World Health Organization officials worried that the ice packs keeping the vaccines cold were not fully frozen. A big problem, one confided, was clinic officials "who take the money we give them to buy big freezers, and then buy refrigerators to keep their cold drinks in."

Finding enough women for the teams proved particularly tough. Only women can enter a Nigerian Muslim household if the husband is away, and women with children are better at persuading other mothers to vaccinate. But many men refused to let their wives leave home, and either wanted the jobs, which pay about $3 a day, for themselves, or sent their young daughters.

As a result, teenage girls could be seen leaving with empty boxes, not understanding that they were supposed to carry ice packs and 40 doses of vaccine. Others carried tally sheets that they could not fill out because they could not read.

"We wanted to remove males completely from the teams, but we realized it would create too much antagonism," said Dr. Ahmed Bello Sulaiman, a World Health Organization coordinator in rural Kano. "For the program to work, we need each local government involved. But many local politicians want to give the jobs to people who helped them get elected — and those are mostly men."

Some families tricked the teams, erasing the chalk marks on their doorways showing that they had not cooperated, or blackening their children's thumbs with the same ink that the vaccinators had used and falsely claiming that they had been immunized.

Still, the government seemed determined to succeed. At the campaign's command center in the capital, Abuja, the officer in charge of the vaccine "cold chain" — keeping it chilled from the time it arrives in Nigeria — knew exactly which district leader in a remote part of Kano was considered a "joker" by his peers and arranged for his removal and the shipping of two new freezers.

Sometimes the new determination was a bit excessive. The chief prosecutor of Katsina, another northern Nigerian state, announced he would jail for a year any parents who refused drops for their children.

India's Uphill Campaign

While Nigeria struggles to restart its campaign, India, whose need is such that it uses more than half the world's two billion polio vaccine doses each year, has long made an extraordinary commitment to wipe out polio. Teams like the one that faced scorn in squalid warrens of Bareilly have made repeated sweeps in the state of Uttar Pradesh, home to 180 million people, which Dr. Cochi of the Centers for Disease Control describes as "historically the center of the universe for the polio virus."

Nowhere are the prospects for conquering polio more intimidating. Living conditions are so dense, public health services so awful, summer heat so sweltering, and open sewers and monsoon floods so common that a more perfect breeding ground could hardly be conjured.

The state, populous enough to make it the world's sixth-largest nation, has endured more than two dozen campaigns in recent years. In 2004, teams went door to door eight times. They came eight more times last year. Each round requires almost every health worker to join in for at least a week or two, local managers say, and each time vaccinators must try to get the polio drops into the mouths of 50 million children.

International leaders of the global drive were hopeful last year that the country would finish off the disease — but it still registered 66 cases. That was the lowest tally ever, but not zero. And so this year, India must repeat its consuming effort yet again, with special focus on Uttar Pradesh and other regions still trying to extinguish the last cases. Resistance has persisted where services are weakest and distrust of public officials deepest.

"Please open up," pleaded one polio volunteer, Firoza Rafiq, outside the locked door in Bareilly during a drive last year. "We won't force you." The woman inside first shouted through a crack that she had no children, though a little girl had just scampered in. Challenged, she changed her story and complained that she was sick and tired of the polio drive. Mrs. Rafiq, a Muslim, and her team partner, Parvati Devi Rajput, a Hindu, chalked an X on the door, marking it for someone to come back later and try again.

Polio spreads through oral-fecal contact: children can get it by drinking well water tainted by sewage, or simply by picking up a ball that rolled through a gutter choking with human waste. In warm or tropical climates, many similar viruses can attach to the same receptors in the intestine as the polio virus does, making it even harder to immunize a child. It can take up to 10 vaccine doses, spaced months apart.

With great anticipation, India and other countries began trying a new eradication strategy last year, using a "monovalent" vaccine that focuses only on the most common strain of polio, but gives immunity in fewer doses. The old vaccine attacked three strains of the virus, two of them less common. "The great hope was that monovalent vaccine would be the magic bullet and melt all polio cases away, but that hasn't happened," Dr. Cochi said.

While the new vaccine has brought India closer than ever to eradication, resistance to the vaccine has persisted in some areas.

Here in Bareilly, the two-woman team was bolstered by a new, more senior volunteer, Mohammad Ejaz Anjum, the vice principal of an Islamic school. Mr. Anjum, his eyes obscured by sunglasses, was not from the neighborhood, but was a Muslim and spoke with authority.

"We've come from God," he announced as he stepped into the small, cluttered home of Navir Ahmed, a bottle scavenger. "You should give the children drops. The government only wants good for you."

Mr. Ahmed snapped back, "If you give drops for one disease, you create others."

"Polio is the kind of disease with no treatment," the vice principal replied.

The two continued talking past each other until Mr. Ahmed ordered Mr. Anjum out: "You people keep coming. I don't like it. Go!"

As the team walked on, a growing band of children with dusty hair and ragged clothes trailed behind them, the patter of bare feet echoing in the narrow lanes. At the back of the pack was Sajana, 9, a forlorn shadow of a girl with a bedraggled ponytail, her withered leg and jerky limp a reminder of the virus that lurked in the muck.

Big Money, but Also Skepticism

The world has donated billions of dollars for polio eradication. Japan and Great Britain have given more than $250 million, and Canada, the Netherlands, the European Commission and the World Bank each have given more than $100 million. Far and away the biggest donors have been the United States and Rotary International, which initiated the "gift to the 21st century" idea. Each has given more than $500 million.

But as the polio campaign has dragged on, the voices of skeptics have grown louder. Dr. Donald A. Henderson, renowned for leading the successful war on smallpox, and currently a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Pittsburgh, said he believed the polio campaign was all but doomed. He suspects that the official caseload figures on www.polioeradication.org are incomplete and that the World Health Organization may not actually know every pocket of virus in the world.

But even if it does, and even if all the world's polio cases can be wiped out, he argued, problems that are now being nearly ignored in the all-out effort to corral the last few cases will suddenly loom large. For example, as a precaution, vaccination must be continued for many years after the last case is found, polio experts agree. (Nearly every American child is still immunized — albeit with a killed vaccine given by injection — even though polio was virtually wiped out in the United States in the 1960's.)

But in about one in three million doses, the live oral vaccine used in poor countries can mutate back into a wild-type virus that can infect and paralyze victims. They are used, however, because they give better immunity than the killed vaccine and are easier to administer.

A tiny number of healthy people with a rare immune-system defect can keep excreting polio virus for decades — creating a reservoir that could, theoretically, cause a new outbreak many years in the future. (That is what happened in an unusual case last year in an Amish community in Minnesota where some had refused vaccinations.)

Dr. David L. Heymann, of the World Health Organization, acknowledged the concerns, but said the problems were not insurmountable. For example, the use of oral vaccine could be discontinued after eradication to avoid its mutation into a wild form, he said.

Through the years — as experts have sparred over strategy — thousands of Rotary volunteers have never lost faith in the prize of eradication. And they have spread their fervor into the American heartland. Dave Groner, a funeral home director from Dowagiac, Mich., and his wife, Barbara, a retired schoolteacher, have led seven teams of volunteers to India and Nigeria to help out in vaccination campaigns. On a recent trip to India, a hog farmer, a psychologist, married real estate brokers and a retired obstetrician were among those who went along.

Ann Lee Hussey, an animal medical technician from Maine who had polio as a child, got down on the floor with one little girl, and compared their deformed feet.

"The girl ran her hand on Ann's foot and scars and all the other kids scooted up," Mr. Groner recalled. "No one snapped photos. Everyone swallowed their Adam's apple."

Thousands of such volunteers have offered testimonials at club meetings back home and constitute an extraordinary grass-roots network of fund-raisers. When $93,000 was needed for balloons, whistles and other materials for an immunization campaign in the north Indian state of Bihar, Mr. Groner sent an urgent e-mail plea. In 72 hours, he had pledges for $115,000.

'A Load on My Heart'

Success is tantalizingly close in India, but still too late for those like Amitkumar whose daily torments are a testament to polio's cruelty. A brainy, square-jawed 15-year-old, he has been paralyzed from the waist down since he was a year-old baby whose plump, sturdy legs steadily wasted away.

At 11:30 one morning at the Amar Jyoti School in New Delhi, the bell rang for recess and rambunctious children — both able-bodied and disabled — went out to play. Amit, on crutches, swung his shrunken legs at high speed, using his broad chest and shoulders to propel himself. He balanced on legs of skin and bones, held stiff and straight by heavy braces.

He has since childhood suffered the taunts of "cripple," and toughened himself to play cricket with neighborhood children. He positioned himself smack in the middle of the field this day. As a ball flew by, he lifted his powerful hand, big as a catcher's mitt, to pluck it from the air.

That afternoon, his father, Jaganath, a genial railway worker with a big belly, picked him up at the bus stop on a rusty old bicycle. The son rode sidesaddle, his legs dangling over the back wheel. Mr. Jaganath confided that he was never at peace because of his eldest son's suffering. Some years back, he and his wife stood outside the hospital door while attendants straightened their boy's twisted legs using brute force. They listened to his screams of agony.

"I feel a load on my heart," Mr. Jaganath said. Amit's mother, Arti Devi, confessed, "It's a torture for me every day to watch him."

Once home from school, Amit shed his painfully tight braces, lifting his legs, lifeless as sausages, and stuffed them into a pair of pants. His four younger brothers and sisters treat him with awe and a measure of fear. He is a stern big brother who insists that his siblings study hard, as he does. He is one of the best students in the slum.

"I want to become a doctor," he said fiercely. "I want to eradicate polio so that no other child faces the problems that I do."

Celia W. Dugger reported from India for this article, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from Nigeria.



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March 20, 2006
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn
By ERIK ECKHOLM
BALTIMORE — Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.

Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.

Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.

Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.

"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."

Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated.

"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills — like parenting, conflict resolution and character building — as they are on teaching job skills.

These were among the recent findings:

¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless — that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.

¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.

One of them, Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.

"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get myself together," Mr. Brannon said recently in the row-house flat he shares with his girlfriend and four children. "You get tired of incarceration."

Mr. Brannon, 28, said he planned to look for work, perhaps as a mover, and he noted optimistically that he had not been locked up in six months.

A group of men, including Mr. Brannon, gathered at the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of several private agencies trying to help men build character along with workplace skills.

The clients readily admit to their own bad choices but say they also fight a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

"It hurts to get that boot in the face all the time," said Steve Diggs, 34. "I've had a lot of charges but only a few convictions," he said of his criminal record.

Mr. Diggs is now trying to strike out on his own, developing a party space for rentals, but he needs help with business skills.

"I don't understand," said William Baker, 47. "If a man wants to change, why won't society give him a chance to prove he's a changed person?" Mr. Baker has a lot of record to overcome, he admits, not least his recent 15-year stay in the state penitentiary for armed robbery.

Mr. Baker led a visitor down the Pennsylvania Avenue strip he wants to escape — past idlers, addicts and hustlers, storefront churches and fortresslike liquor stores — and described a life that seemed inevitable.

He sold marijuana for his parents, he said, left school in the sixth grade and later dealt heroin and cocaine. He was for decades addicted to heroin, he said, easily keeping the habit during three terms in prison. But during his last long stay, he also studied hard to get a G.E.D. and an associate's degree.

Now out for 18 months, Mr. Baker is living in a home for recovering drug addicts. He is working a $10-an-hour warehouse job while he ponders how to make a living from his real passion, drawing and graphic arts.

"I don't want to be a criminal at 50," Mr. Baker said.

According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States.

Terrible schools, absent parents, racism, the decline in blue collar jobs and a subculture that glorifies swagger over work have all been cited as causes of the deepening ruin of black youths. Scholars — and the young men themselves — agree that all of these issues must be addressed.

Joseph T. Jones, director of the fatherhood and work skills center here, puts the breakdown of families at the core.

"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role models," said Mr. Jones, who overcame addiction and prison time. "No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society."

All the negative trends are associated with poor schooling, studies have shown, and progress has been slight in recent years. Federal data tend to understate dropout rates among the poor, in part because imprisoned youths are not counted.

Closer studies reveal that in inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school, said Gary Orfield, an education expert at Harvard and editor of "Dropouts in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2004).

"We're pumping out boys with no honest alternative," Mr. Orfield said in an interview, "and of course their neighborhoods offer many other alternatives."

Dropout rates for Hispanic youths are as bad or worse but are not associated with nearly as much unemployment or crime, the data show.

With the shift from factory jobs, unskilled workers of all races have lost ground, but none more so than blacks. By 2004, 50 percent of black men in their 20's who lacked a college education were jobless, as were 72 percent of high school dropouts, according to data compiled by Bruce Western, a sociologist at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book "Punishment and Inequality in America" (Russell Sage Press). These are more than double the rates for white and Hispanic men.

Mr. Holzer of Georgetown and his co-authors cite two factors that have curbed black employment in particular.

First, the high rate of incarceration and attendant flood of former offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned by employers, and young blacks with clean records suffer by association, studies have found.

Arrests of black men climbed steeply during the crack epidemic of the 1980's, but since then the political shift toward harsher punishments, more than any trends in crime, has accounted for the continued growth in the prison population, Mr. Western said.

By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with no more than a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have, Mr. Western said.

Among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day — 34 percent — than are working — 30 percent — according to an analysis of 2000 census data by Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley.

The second special factor is related to an otherwise successful policy: the stricter enforcement of child support. Improved collection of money from absent fathers has been a pillar of welfare overhaul. But the system can leave young men feeling overwhelmed with debt and deter them from seeking legal work, since a large share of any earnings could be seized.

About half of all black men in their late 20's and early 30's who did not go to college are noncustodial fathers, according to Mr. Holzer. From the fathers' viewpoint, support obligations "amount to a tax on earnings," he said.

Some fathers give up, while others find casual work. "The work is sporadic, not the kind that leads to advancement or provides unemployment insurance," Mr. Holzer said. "It's nothing like having a real job."

The recent studies identified a range of government programs and experiments, especially education and training efforts like the Job Corps, that had shown success and could be scaled up.

Scholars call for intensive new efforts to give children a better start, including support for parents and extra schooling for children.

They call for teaching skills to prisoners and helping them re-enter society more productively, and for less automatic incarceration of minor offenders.

In a society where higher education is vital to economic success, Mr. Mincy of Columbia said, programs to help more men enter and succeed in college may hold promise. But he lamented the dearth of policies and resources to aid single men.

"We spent $50 billion in efforts that produced the turnaround for poor women," Mr. Mincy said. "We are not even beginning to think about the men's problem on similar orders of magnitude."



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March 20, 2006
Utilities Offer Energy Dept. Site for Waste
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, March 19 — A group of nuclear utilities that is planning to build a private nuclear waste dump on an Indian reservation in Utah has offered to sell space there to the federal government. The move could help the government avoid billions of dollars in potential legal damages over its failure to build its own repository.

This month the utilities, eight companies from around the country, won a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open a repository at Skull Valley, on land leased on a Goshute Indian reservation, about 60 miles west of Salt Lake City.

The utility consortium, called Private Fuel Storage, does not have the permits it needs to transport waste to the site, however, and the State of Utah is trying to block those.

The Energy Department signed contracts in the 1980's with each of the nuclear operators, promising to accept their spent fuel beginning in January 1998, in exchange for a payment of a tenth of a cent for each kilowatt-hour they generated.

The project now appears to be at least 20 years behind schedule, and the department faces approximately $50 billion in damage claims from the utilities, many of which have resorted to building giant casks adjacent to their reactors to store the old fuel.

In a letter to the chairmen and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate Energy Committees, Private Fuel Storage said it could begin taking fuel within three years, at a cost of about $61 million a year. In the letter, which was sent in December but released last week, the company estimated the Energy Department's costs to maintain the fuel at the reactor sites at about $500 million a year.

The fuel is currently kept at 72 sites whose storage costs vary widely. At some sites, the reactors have been retired and torn down, and maintenance and security personnel remain in place simply for the fuel. At others, while construction of the casks was expensive, the cost to maintain them is small.

Of the eight utility partners, three have announced that they have no immediate need for off-site waste storage.

The consortium proposed either that the Energy Department take title to the fuel and pay for storage, or let the utilities continue to own the fuel but reimburse them for the storage costs. It suggested legislation to reassure Utah that even if the government's proposed repository, at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, never opened, the Goshute site would not become permanent.

Representative David L. Hobson, the Ohio Republican who is chairman of the energy and water subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, has been pushing for dry-cask storage, possibly as a prelude to chemical processing of the wastes to extract useful material before burial. And last month, the Bush administration endorsed such chemical processing, through a partnership. But the cask idea has not gone far with the Energy Committees.

"The view right now on Capitol Hill is that this is a free-market project, and let's see if the market sends business their way," said Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for the Senate Energy Committee.



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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=710...id=ak3gHkUGPtpY

U.S. War Spending to Rise 44% to $9.8 Bln a Month, Report Says
March 17 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will average 44 percent more in the current fiscal year than in fiscal 2005, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said.

Spending will rise to $9.8 billion a month from the $6.8 billion a month the Pentagon said it spent last year, the research service said. The group's March 10 report cites ``substantial'' expenses to replace or repair damaged weapons, aircraft, vehicles, radios and spare parts.

It also figures in costs for health care, fuel, national intelligence and the training of Iraqi and Afghan security forces -- ``now a substantial expense,'' it said.

The research service said it considers ``all war and occupation costs,'' while the Pentagon counts just the cost of personnel, maintenance and operations.

The House approved emergency funding that includes the military spending last night by a vote of 348-71. The measure authorizes $72 billion for war costs and almost $20 billion for hurricane relief. The Senate is expected to pass it next month.

Congress already has approved $50 billion in supplemental war funding for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, after spending $100 billion last year. To date, Congress has approved about $337 billion for the wars since Sept. 11, 2001.

2007 Funding

The administration has said it also will seek $50 billion in war funding for fiscal 2007 to serve as a bridge fund until needs are assessed. That will be on top of the $439.3 billion defense budget the president submitted.

The request the House approved last night includes $67.6 billion for war operations, much of it in costs for personnel and repair and replacement of equipment; about $4.9 billion to train and equip Afghan and Iraqi security forces; and about $2 billion for defenses against roadside bombs, which have been a leading cause of death for U.S. servicemen in Iraq.

To date, 2,310 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the war began three years ago, 1,808 of them in combat, according to the Pentagon.

The hurricane money approved last night will go toward housing, enhancing levees and public safety projects in Louisiana and Mississippi following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina last August, the administration has said.

Spending on the wars and hurricane relief will help widen the federal budget deficit to a record $423 billion this fiscal 2006, an increase from last year's $319 billion deficit, the administration forecast last month.

$87 Billion Already

Of the $87 billion already approved for hurricane relief and rebuilding, $31 billion has been earmarked for health and social services, school repairs, payments to farmers and unemployment insurance; $41 billion is going for temporary housing and flood insurance payments and $15 billion is set aside for levee and road repairs and repairs to damaged federal facilities, according to the administration.

The measure passed last night includes an amendment to prohibit a Dubai-owned company from operating port facilities in the U.S. DP World, the third-largest container port operator, has already promised it will sell its U.S. operations to a U.S. buyer. Most lawmakers conceded the issue was moot but wanted their opposition to the original deal to be on record.

Other amendments provide extra money for anti-drug operations in Colombia and peacekeeping efforts in the Darfur region of Sudan.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net.
Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 17, 2006 00:07 EST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE IRAQ WAR: Three years
White House no longer sees quick end to difficult war
- James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 19, 2006



When the U.S.-led coalition attacked Iraq three years ago, the Bush administration was brimming with confidence that this would be a war only in the sense that a lot of bombs would be dropped and the military would seize, temporarily, a foreign capital. It was going to be swift, high-tech, clean.

Six weeks later, President Bush spoke in the past tense about Operation Iraqi Freedom, thanking the Iraqis who welcomed the U.S. troops and promising that democratic change would sweep the region.

Now, with sectarian violence roaring and casualties rising, the White House increasingly is talking, in the present tense, about a long war, meaning the old-fashioned kind -- "the crucible with the blood and the dust and the gore," as Gen. Richard Myers, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last fall.

Three years on, experts from the left and the right say, the costly Iraq war has barely begun, and if there are to be broad benefits, as the president still promises, they could be years away.

William Odom, a retired lieutenant general who ran Army intelligence and later the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, has called the Iraqi adventure "the greatest strategic disaster in our history."

"What we've learned is that you cannot impose a Pax Americana solution," said Conrad Crane, a Middle East expert at the Army War College who is leading a crash rewriting of the military's counterinsurgency manual in response to the unanticipated tenacity of the resistance. "You are not going to have a Western-style democracy, and you're not going to have a market economy."

David Mack, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and one of the organizers of a pre-war State Department study on how to rebuild Iraq, which he says was largely ignored by the administration, said victory now may mean little more than avoiding the worst.

"Americans would like to think that for all we've done, we should have gotten something really good for our efforts," he said. "We just have to accept that we are not going be happy with the outcome. In fact, nobody over there in the region is viewing any of this as being positive."

Mack added, "Did I imagine when we went in things would become this bad? No, I never envisioned we'd have this disaster."

So far, American taxpayers have spent about $320 billion, a figure that is rising at about $7 billion a month, if the costs of Afghanistan are included.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz co-wrote a study earlier this year that estimated the real long-term costs to the U.S. economy, due to everything from higher oil prices and the long-term care of grievously wounded soldiers to interest payments on the expanding national debt, at more than $1 trillion if the war continues, and nobody doubts that that will be the case.

Americans will have to ratchet down their expectations about what the war in Iraq can achieve, the experts generally agree, and they must understand that failure -- in the form of a catastrophic descent into civil war, with broad political and economic implications -- is a prospect that the country must be prepared for.

This is, said Frederick Kagan, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a strong proponent of the war, "the first stage of the first stage of the first stage."

He said he tempers his optimism with realism. "This may be what failure looks like," Kagan conceded. "But it may also be what success looks like. If we're going to succeed, it's going to look bad for a while."

Added Crane, co-author of two prescient studies for the Army War College predicting the fiery insurgency and the descent toward civil war, "I would argue that this is where we should have expected to be. Somehow we thought things would be different, that it would be a 'virtual war.' We've been jolted back to reality. Because our expectations were so high, it's much harder to adapt now to what's happening."

James Phillips, a national security expert at the Heritage Foundation, said Iraq is potentially far worse than the bruising U.S. experience in Vietnam.

Failure, he argued, would not just mean the creation of an unfriendly government, as happened in Vietnam, or even a breakup of Iraq, but a potential safe haven from which terrorists could attack around the globe and threaten two-thirds of global oil supplies.

"If we lose Iraq, we lose the war on terrorism," Phillips said.

He contends that the United States has no choice but to stay the course, as Bush has urged.

Even if the U.S. military campaign eventually succeeds, he said, "It's going to be generations for the things we said we wanted -- democratic institutions -- to spread around the Middle East."

Some experts say that the problem is not just the peril of civil war in Iraq, or the prospect that the unrest among Muslim sects might spread more widely in the region, but that the Bush administration raised expectations so high three years ago that the current difficulties look that much worse by comparison.

On Monday, Bush gave a major Iraq speech notable for its contrast between the heady promises of March 2003 and the realities of March 2006. He acknowledged that the military is fixing what hasn't worked in the effort to quell raging sectarian strife, and that Iraqi security forces that had been expected to relieve U.S. troops were performing poorly in some instances, particularly in the tumultuous streets of Baghdad.

While he repeated his broader goals of spreading democracy and insisted the United States would not flinch, he also hit a humbler note.

"I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," Bush said. "It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle, and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."

E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file...MNG3SHQOCR1.DTL

Chicago Schools Offer L.A. a Cautionary Tale

CHICAGO - Mayor Daley has made gains in 10 years, but reforms are
uneven and test scores remain low. By Joel Rubin.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezh...Io30G2B0HNpT0ET

N.Y. Chaplain's Suspension Ignites Debate

NEW YORK - The Mayor's punishment of a jailhouse cleric over his
offending comments leaves both sides upset and angrily arguing the
limits of free speech. By Josh Getlin.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezh...Io30G2B0HNpY0EY

Corruption Case Swallows the Police Force of a Texas Town

TROUP, Texas - It happened without warning. The FBI swooped in,
shut down Troup's five-man police force and jailed the chief and a
sergeant - the 2005 Chamber of Commerce officer of the year, no
less - on charges of corruption. By Lianne Hart.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezh...Io30G2B0HNpZ0EZ

Report Shows Prominence of Nuclear Weapons in Global Strike Mission
Nuclear weapons are surprisingly prominent in the Pentagon’s new offensive Global Strike mission, according to the new FAS report Global Strike: A Chronology of the Pentagon’s New Offensive Strike Plan. The 250-page report traces the development of Global Strike through a comprehensive compilation of guidance documents, public statements, budget program descriptions, contracts, and declassified military documents obtained under the FOIA.

One of the FOIA documents is the Concept of Operations for the Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike, the new organization established in 2005 at U.S. Strategic Command to prepare and execute the Global Strike mission. The mission is normally portrayed as a conventional mission, but the Concept of Operations reveals the prominent nuclear role the command has.

Publication of the FAS report coincides with a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Global Strike on March 16. [Update: Hearing postponed. Check link for details.]

Download: The full report | Background information and FOIA documents.

http://www.fas.org/ssp/docs/GlobalStrikeReport.pdf
Global Strike
A Chronology of the Pentagon's New Offensive Strike Plan

http://www.nukestrat.com/us/stratcom/GSconops.htm

the Nuclear Information Project documenting nuclear policy and operations
Space and Global Strike Concept of Operations

March 20, 2006
Biden Urges Bush to Take Steps to Head Off Iraqi Civil War
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
President Bush gave a blunt defense of the American strategy in Iraq today, while acknowledging that ordinary Iraqis had been left exposed to the horrors of terrorism during the war's earlier stages.

As the debate continued over where the war is headed at its third anniversary, a leading Democrat, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., called on Mr. Bush to throw himself into an all-out effort to forge a government of national unity in Iraq and to begin planning for a civil war that was likely to follow if the effort failed.

Mr. Bush delivered an account from the Iraq war today that was both uncharacteristically grim and characteristically optimistic. Speaking to the City Club in Cleveland, the president told how Tal Afar, a city in western Iraq, had been freed from the control of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which had taken over after a too-brief military operation by American forces in 2004.

American forces concentrated intiially on rooting out insurgents from a given area and then pursuing them elsewhere, an approach that left Iraqi citizens vulnerable, he said.

"We recognized the problem and changed our strategy," Mr. Bush said. He described how the city was retaken in 2005 in a painstaking effort that combined military operations with the steady rebuilding of both the local security forces and the city's economic and political life.

Mr. Bush held out the story of Tal Afar as an example of the kind of progress "you won't see on the evening news or in your newspaper."

Senior administration officials had taken to the airwaves en masse on Sunday, the third anniversary of the war's beginning, to argue that the news media's focus on bombings and sectarian violence had given a skewed view of the progress being made in Iraq.

But Mr. Bush's speech, including a grim account of the beheadings, kidnappings and intimidation that followed the initial American assault, gave a far more sober picture of the suffering of Iraqis since the war's inception.

Mr. Bush began by citing the recent outbreaks of violence that followed the bombing of a Shiite shrine a month ago. "The situation on the ground remains tense," he said. "I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken."

Mr. Bush also took note of a statement by Senator Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, who said this morning that "we can't want democracy and peace more than the Iraqis."

"I agree," Mr. Bush said, and went to argue that the best way to build democracy there was by declaring "that the United States will never abandon Iraq."

Mr. Biden called for President Bush to make an all-out effort to forge a government of national unity there or get ready for full-scale civil war.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Mr. Biden said that he agreed with the assessment made on Sunday by a former Iraqi prime minister once favored by the White House who declared that a low-level civil war had already started.

The death toll from the sectarian violence described by the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, continued to mount, as nine more bodies were found in Baghdad this morning, an official in the Interior Ministry said. Fifteen bodies had been found on Sunday and more than 200 people are believed to have died in tit-for-tat sectarian killings over the last few weeks.

Also today, three Iraqi police commandos were killed along with three suspected insurgents when a bomb struck a police convoy carrying suspects in southern Baghdad, the official said.

Three civilians were killed and 22 wounded when a bomb exploded in a coffee shop in the city, and a group of insurgents laid siege briefly to an Iraqi army headquarters in Kirkuk, according to the Interior Ministry.

. Mr. Biden told reporters today that the United States had only a brief opportunity to head off a civil war that could destabilize the Middle East.

While praising the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr. Biden said that the only chance of Iraq's divided parties coming together was if Mr. Bush threw himself into the talks directly. Mr. Biden called for the president to convene a meeting of Iraq's top leaders and precede it by working to persuade countries around the globe to pressure Iraqis to settle their differences.

"We can't want democracy and peace more than the Iraqis," he said.

If a unity government is not formed by the summer, he said, the situation will be beyond repair. In that case, Mr. Biden said, America should withdraw all but 30,000 troops, who would be used to "keep the chaos confined to Iraq."

Mr. Bush's speech followed a carefully calibrated mix of optimism about eventual victory and caution about how long American troops would be involved that was displayed on Sunday by Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who sounded much as they had on the first anniversary of the invasion. At that time, the rebuilding effort had just begun, the insurgency was far less fierce, and the American occupation had suppressed, temporarily, the sectarian violence scarring Iraq today.

The picture painted by the administration clashed with that of Mr. Allawi, once hailed by Mr. Bush as the kind of fair-minded leader Iraq needed. He declared in an interview with the BBC on Sunday that the country was nearing a "point of no return."

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war," said Mr. Allawi, who served as prime minister after the American invasion and now leads a 25-seat secular alliance of representatives in Iraq's 275-seat National Assembly. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more."

"If this is not civil war," he said, "then God knows what civil war is."

Mr. Allawi's assessment was contradicted by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, who said on the CNN program "Late Edition" on Sunday that "We're a long way from civil war."

On the CBS News program "Face the Nation" Mr. Cheney sought on Sunday to place the war in a broader context. "It's not just about Iraq, it's not about just today's situation in Iraq," he said. "It's about where we're going to be 10 years from now in the Middle East and whether or not there's going to be hope and the development of the governments that are responsive to the will of the people, that are not a threat to anyone, that are not safe havens for terror or manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction."

The war has taken more than 2,300 American lives, and those of 33,000 to 37,000 Iraqis, according to the estimates of the Iraq Body Count Project, an independent group that monitors the news media.

John O'Neil reported for this article from New York. David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Ali Adeebfrom Baghdad..



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Bird flu likely in US this year: gov't Yahoo! NEWS
Bush administration officials said on Monday it was "increasingly likely" that bird flu would be detected in the United States as early as this year but added it would not mean the start of a human pandemic. Speaking to reporters, Interior Secretary Gail Norton, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt unveiled a plan to increase monitoring of migratory birds that are likely to bring the bird flu virus to U.S. shores. Norton said the early detection plan would prioritize sampling in Alaska and the Pacific islands, where scientists believe the strain of highly pathogenic H5N1 virus currently affecting Southeast Asia would most likely arrive. The H5N1 avian flu virus has spread across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia and killed at least 98 people worldwide since 2003. Norton said she anticipated initial, so-called "presumptive" H5N1 results could be announced some 20 to 100 times this year but those first tests would not tell whether the virus was high or low pathogen. Discovery of bird flu in the United States will not be reason to panic, Johanns said, noting that positive test results could turn out to be a harmless version of the virus. Should U.S. domestic poultry become infected, the Agriculture Department would "act quickly" to quarantine an affected area and destroy the infected flock, he said. Poultry farmers would be compensated for their loss, he added. Although hard to catch, people can contract bird flu by coming into contact with infected birds. Scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that could pass easily between humans, triggering a pandemic in which millions could die.

Thumbs up! The Entreprise
To Sen. John Kerry, who said Tuesday he will prevent the former head of Boston's $14.6 billion Big Dig, Richard Capka, from becoming head of the Federal Highway Administration. Kerry called Capka "the Brownie of highways," a derogatory reference to former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown, who bungled the Hurricane Katrina emergency response. President Bush has nominated Capka for the top highway job, prompting Kerry to threaten a roadblock. Capka was chief executive officer of the Big Dig for 18 months, and among the highlights of his tenure was his approval of lucrative severance packages for several Big Dig lawyers while cost overruns continued to increase. Hasn't Bush learned anything about appointing political buddies to important positions?

Thumbs down!
To State Sen. Therese Murray, for following in the time-honored tradition of the Legislature and going on vacation at a time when she is most needed. Murray jetted off to Ireland Wednesday "due to a longstanding family commitment," her office said, at the same time the Legislature was trying to hammer out a compromise on a health insurance bill. Murray, a Plymouth Democrat and Senate Ways and Means chairman, was one of six legislators trying to hammer out a compromise on the bill. Her "spring break was reminiscent of last fall, when a group of legislators fled the scene for fun and sun in Portugal during a heated debate over drunken driving laws. Murray said she was reachable by phone, if she was needed. Gee, thanks.

Thumbs up!
To Brockton brothers Danny, Shamus and Ryan Clifford, who are helping to raise money for an 11-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy who needs a wheelchair. The boys don't know Casey Pittman, but have made it their mission to help him buy a wheelchair, "so he can play with his friends," said Ryan, 7, a second-grader at the Angelo Elementary School. Danny, 13, is an eighth-grader at the East Junior High School, and Shamus, 11, attends Gilmore Academy in the city. The Cliffords have created a flier that will be posted at the schools, asking students and teachers to contribute $1. They figured if half the district's 16,000 students contribute, they could raise the $8,000 Casey needs to help slow the curving of his spine from scoliosis.

Cheney praises Gard at state fund-raiser JS ONLINE
Vice president also defends Bush security policies
Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) was "exactly the type of person we need in Washington, D.C.," during a fund-raiser that netted more than $200,000. Vice President Dick Cheney, along with congressional candidate John Gard and his wife, Cate Zeuske, wave to supporters Monday at a fund-raiser in the Town of Lawrence. During the event, Cheney said Gard is exactly the type of person we need in Washington, D.C. Cheney praised Gard, who is running for a U.S. congressional seat, for his commitment to the Bush administration's security and tax policies. Cheney also criticized U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold's effort Monday in the Senate to censure Bush for wiretapping practices. "This outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemy's ability to communicate as it plots against America poses an extreme test for Democratic leaders," said Cheney, who was last in Wisconsin during the 2004 presidential campaign, when Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) won Wisconsin by a slender margin. "The American people have already made their decision, and they agree with the president," Cheney said. "And our administration's position is clear: If there are individuals inside our country talking to al-Qaida overseas, we want to know about it because we will not sit back and wait to get hit." The vice president praised the Bush administration's record, saying that despite the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, natural disasters and a recession, "We have shown our strengths." Cheney's speech also touched on domestic issues, but he focused on security, saying, "It's important to understand that our nation has been supported by more than luck." He repeated his argument that the invasion of Iraq has been a success and that it ultimately has weakened the Islamic extremist movement against the United States. "The troops know we're proud of them and the tremendous progress they continue to make every day," he said. Cheney spoke to a sold-out room at the SC Grand Banquet and Convention Center, where tickets started at $250 and went as high as $5,000. The fund-raiser benefited Gard and other state Republicans. Cheney did not take questions from reporters attending the event. Meanwhile, Gard's opponent in the September primary, three-term state Rep. Terri McCormick (R-Appleton), was shut out of the event, which was attended by the state's Republican hierarchy. Party leaders said it was the decision of national Republicans, who were swayed to lend early support because they were impressed by Gard's fund-raising advantage and months of campaigning he already has under his belt. McCormick used the visit to highlight her underdog status. "This visit, a pre-primary endorsement before the voters and my neighbors have had the opportunity to listen and learn about both Republican candidates, has raised legitimate concerns for many," McCormick said in a statement after Cheney's address. Opinion polls have shown Democrats with an advantage on generic ballots and Republicans hold a margin of about two dozen seats in the House of Representatives. Both parties' congressional campaign committees have said the open Wisconsin seat is of paramount importance within this context. The three Democrats in the race - consultant Jamie Wall, former Brown County Executive Nancy Nusbaum and allergist Steve Kagen - criticized Gard's potential to be a "rubber stamp" for the Bush administration.
By GRAEME ZIELINSKI

March 20, 2006
Dell to Double Workforce in India
By SARITHA RAI
BANGALORE, India, Mar. 20 — Dell, the world's largest maker of personal computers, plans to double its employee strength in India to 20,000, and is scouting for a site to set up a manufacturing unit in the country, its chairman, Michael Dell, said today.

"There is a fantastic opportunity to attract talent," Mr. Dell said, referring to the country's technically qualified, English-speaking pool of workers. "We will ensure a major recruitment push in engineering talents," he said in a press meeting during a visit to Bangalore, India's outsourcing capital.

Dell, which is based in Round Rock, Tex., has four call centers in India, where the bulk of its 10,000 employees work, as well as software development and product testing centers.

Dell plans to double its hardware engineering staff to 600 in one year, Mr. Dell said.

Dell's statement today followed similar pronouncements by Microsoft Corp and Cisco Systems which plan to double and treble, respectively, their Indian headcounts.

Many Western multinationals, particularly technology companies, have recently been moving many key functions such as design and research and development to India. Many of these were earlier in the forefront of shifting software development and back office work like call centers to this country.

Salaries in India are rising rapidly, but still are about a fifth of what they are in the West for comparable jobs.

Mr. Dell said his firm was talking with several state governments about a site for manufacturing plant..

In a market where the penetration of computers is very low, companies such as Dell are eager to set up a manufacturing base to help expand sales. Dell accounts for about four percent of the 4 million computers purchased in India.

Sales of computers in India are expected to grow to 20 million a year in the next few years.



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Ohio Couple Loses Custody of Adopted Kids Yahoo! NEWS
A couple accused of abusing their 11 adopted special-needs children by making them sleep in cages lost permanent custody of them Monday. Huron County Juvenile Judge Timothy Cardwell awarded custody to the county, which had placed the children in foster care last fall after a social worker discovered the enclosures. The judge ruled earlier that Michael and Sharen Gravelle had abused the children, and he said evidence showed there was a good chance they would repeat the behavior. The couple have pleaded not guilty to several charges, including child endangerment, in a separate criminal case. They deny abusing the children, ages 1 to 15, and say the beds were necessary to protect the youngsters, who suffered from psychological and behavioral problems. "They love their children. They want them back. They are truly devastated," the couple's attorney, Kenneth Myers, said outside the courthouse. He said they will appeal Monday's ruling. Sharen Gravelle testified at an earlier custody hearing that she and her husband built bunk beds and attached a wooden playhouse the family called a clubhouse for some of the children's toys. The other children then requested and got them. The couple eventually added wire enclosures and alarms to help corral what the mother described as uncontrollable wandering at night. The couple felt the cage-like, brightly painted enclosures helped keep the children from getting dangerous kitchen utensils and into other trouble, the mother testified. Prosecutors accuse the couple of locking the children in cages to discipline them. One child testified that he was forced to sleep in a bathtub as punishment for wetting the bed. Two of Michael Gravelle's biological children, Jenna and Jesse Gravelle, testified that their father inappropriately touched Jenna when she was a minor. Michael Gravelle denies that accusation. The couple said during the custody hearing that they love the children and can provide a proper, permanent home, which they argued the children are unlikely to find in the custody of the county. The children's guardian, Margaret Kern, said the youngsters are spread among several foster homes and are doing well. "They're really great kids. They're normal everyday kids but they didn't have a chance because of the isolation," Kern said. "They're ready to move on." Prosecutor Russ Leffler said the ruling was in the best interest of the children. "This allows the children to be placed with good adoptive families, which I know everyone wants for these children," Leffler said. The judge said that among the factors he considered was Sharen Gravelle's testimony during the custody hearing in which she acknowledged that some of the adoption paperwork she and her husband signed contained untrue information, though she said the couple never saw the documents that contained their signatures. Cardwell wrote that the testimony was "troubling to the court and certainly reflects adversely on Mrs. Gravelle's credibility." Cardwell ordered 10 of the children placed in the permanent custody of the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services. The eleventh child, a 2-year-old girl, was placed in temporary custody with the department because the Illinois adoption agency that placed her with the Gravelles has asked that she be returned.
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer

March 20, 2006
FBI Agent: Warnings About Moussaoui Unheeded
By REUTERS
Filed at 6:31 p.m. ET

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - An FBI agent testified in the sentencing trial of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Monday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack.

Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3,000 people, said he tried to tell his superiors that he thought a hijacking plan might be in the works.

``You tried to move heaven and earth to get a search warrant to search this man's belongings. You were obstructed,'' defense attorney Edward MacMahon said as the trial resumed after a week's delay over improper witness coaching.

``From a particular individual in the (FBI's) Radical Fundamentalist Unit, yes sir, I was obstructed,'' Samit said.

Moussaoui has already pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy. The trial -- the only one for anyone charged in connection with the September 11 attacks -- will determine if he is sentenced to death.

Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member who regularly yells ''God curse America!'' when the jury and judge leave the courtroom, was arrested on August 16, 2001, after raising suspicions at a flight school.

Samit said after questioning Moussaoui he knew the Frenchman of Moroccan descent had ``radical Islamic fundamentalist beliefs'' and thought he was part of a bigger plot to attack the United States. In an message to his superiors on August 18, 2001, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was ``conspiring to commit a terrorist act.''

Samit also warned that Moussaoui, who did not have a pilot's license, had been taking simulator lessons to learn the basics of flying a jumbo jet. Samit expressed his concerns that Moussaoui was plotting a possible hijacking.

WARNINGS GO UNHEEDED

``You thought you had a terrorist who was planning a terrorist attack. And you wanted everyone in the government to know,'' MacMahon asked Samit.

``Yes,'' he replied.

Although he sent numerous e-mails and formal requests to agents and to his superiors warning of a potential hijacking attack, Samit said he was unable to get authority to seek a warrant in order to search Moussaoui's belongings.

He even sought assistance from FBI agents in France and Britain and consulted with people in different agencies.

``I am so desperate to get into his computer, I'll take anything,'' he wrote in an e-mail to Catherine Kiser, an intelligence official, one day before the deadly attacks.

Her response was ominous: ``You fought the good fight. God help us all if the next terrorist incident involves the same type of plane.''

Samit also drafted a memo to the Federal Aviation Administration warning that Moussaoui might have been part of a plot to seize a jumbo jet but it was not clear ``how far advanced were his plans to do so.'' Samit's bosses at FBI headquarters did not send the memo.

MacMahon quoted from a report in which Samit accused people at FBI headquarters of ``criminal negligence'' and said they were just trying to protect their own careers.

The trial resumed on Monday after a week's delay caused by the discovery that a Transportation Security Administration lawyer, Carla Martin, had improperly discussed the trial with aviation witnesses who were to testify for the defense and the prosecution.

After initially throwing out all aviation-related evidence and testimony, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed to allow the government to bring forward new ``untainted'' witnesses and evidence, but limited the parameters for the questioning.



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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ja...d_previews_.htm


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
March 20, 2006

Fitzgerald Previews Government's Case Against Libby

By Jason Leopold

The criminal trial against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, may still be nearly a year away, but the special counsel prosecuting the case has already provided a preview into the government's criminal case against the ex-White House official, who is accused of lying to the FBI and a grand jury about his role in the leak of a covert CIA operative.

During a recent federal court hearing, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he plans to focus on the week of July 7 to 14, 2003, in which Libby allegedly told several reporters that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and was responsible for convincing the agency to send her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq sought 500 tons of uranium from the African country.

"I'm not going to argue it was the most important issue consuming the Bush administration," Fitzgerald told US District Court Judge Reggie Walton during a February 24 federal court hearing, a transcript of which was obtained by this reporter.

"I will argue during that week Mr. Libby was consumed with [Wilson] to an extent more than he should have been but he was and you can look at the time he spent with people," Fitzgerald added. "When talking about Mr. Wilson for the first time, he described himself as a former Hill staffer. He meets with people off premises. There were some unusual things I won't get into about that week. At the end of the day we're talking about someone who spent a lot of time during the week of July 7 to July 14 focused on the issue of Wilson and Wilson's wife."

Libby told FBI investigators and testified before a grand jury that he found out about Plame Wilson's CIA employment from reporters on July 9 or 10, 2003. But Fitzgerald said Libby discussed Plame Wilson with former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer on July 7, 2003, and Fleischer testified that Libby said the information was "hush, hush" on the "QT" and was not widely known ...

Libby's defense team responded to Fitzgerald's comments, saying that Plame Wilson was a blip on Libby's radar screen and that Libby was too busy dealing with terrorism, the Iraq war and national security issues to pay any attention to her.

If Libby did not provide accurate answers to the FBI or the grand jury, his attorneys said, it's only because he was dealing with national security matters and therefore forgot about how and when he found out about Plame Wilson. He did not intentionally lie, Libby's attorneys William Jeffress and Theodore Wells said during the court hearing.

But Fitzgerald said the evidence he has collected speaks for itself and proves Libby knowingly lied about his involvement in the leak.

On July 7, 2003, Libby "had a lunch where he imparted that information in what was described as a weird situation," Fitzgerald said at the hearing. "He had a private meeting with a reporter outside the White House with this meeting. He was quoted in a very rare interview on a Saturday on the record in an interview with Time magazine, a very weird circumstance. There are a lot of markers I won't get into that show that this was a very important focus, the Wilson controversy from July 7 to 14 because it was a direct attack on the credibility of the administration, whether accurate or not, and upon the vice president and people were attacking Mr. Libby. So it was a focus."

Additionally, Fitzgerald said that during Libby's trial he will argue that because Libby tiptoed around Washington when meeting with reporters, Fleischer, and others to discuss Plame Wilson's CIA work, he must have known that her status was classified.

"We will argue that [Libby] knew or should have known it was classified and that he was being investigated for disclosing classified information," Fitzgerald told Judge Walton. "We will argue that he committed the crime of lying."

Ambassador Wilson emerged in February 2003 as a vocal critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. He accused the White House of ignoring his March 2002 oral report to the CIA, in which he told a CIA analyst that there was no truth to intelligence reports about Iraq's attempts to acquire uranium from Niger. It would later be revealed that the intelligence documents on Niger were forgeries.

Despite Wilson's findings, and warnings from the State Department and the CIA that the Niger intelligence was suspect, President Bush cited Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium in his January 2003 State of the Union address, which helped convince the public and Congress to back the war. Wilson exposed the administration's flawed Niger intelligence in a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed column.

Plame Wilson's identity was unmasked by high-ranking White House officials, including Libby and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, according to several reporters who testified before the grand jury. Rove remains under investigation for his role in the leak. Wilson has charged that the leak was in retaliation for his criticism of the Bush administration.

Libby and numerous other White House officials were questioned by investigators about their role in the leak and whether they were involved in a campaign to discredit Wilson. Libby told the FBI in October and November 2003 that he first learned from NBC News correspondent Tim Russert that Plame Wilson worked at the CIA and that she was Ambassador Wilson's wife.

Russert vehemently denied Libby's account, and it has since been reported that Libby had actually been a source for at least two reporters who wrote about Plame Wilson in July 2003.

Fitzgerald secured a five-count indictment against Libby in late October, charging him with perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators about the Plame Wilson leak.

The two-and-a-half hour courtroom hearing also shed light on the defense strategy that will be employed in an attempt to prove Libby's innocence. Instead of focusing on the obstruction of justice and perjury charges their client is charged with, Libby's attorneys have attempted to downplay the importance of Plame Wilson's CIA status and work with the agency.

By devaluing Plame Wilson's work and status with the agency, Libby's attorneys said they hope to prove to a jury that their client had no incentive to lie to investigators and the grand jury about how and when he found out that she was a CIA employee as well as Ambassador Wilson's wife.

Proving how adept the defense can be in circumventing the facts related to the perjury and obstruction of justice charges filed against Libby, at one point during the hearing, Wells suggested that Plame Wilson's undercover status should have been declassified five years ago, but wasn't because of a bureaucratic error.

"I need to understand is she covert or not," Wells said. "If she's classified, is she really classified or is just classified because some bureaucracy didn't unclassify her five years ago when they should have. I just want to know the facts. I want to know when [Fitzgerald] stands up is there nothing to it because maybe she, even if she was classified based on a piece of paper, it was some bureaucracy."

Furthermore, Libby's attorneys have once again argued that Fitzgerald should be required to provide the defense with a so-called damage assessment on the Plame Wilson leak. The defense has argued that since no damage was done to national security by leaking Plame Wilson's identity the case has no merit.

But Fitzgerald said he does not intend to offer any proof at trial of "actual damage" as a result of the leak because the case is about perjury and obstruction of justice.

"We don't intend to offer any proof of actual damage," Fitzgerald told Judge Walton in response to Wells' comments. "We're not going to get into whether that would occur or not. It's not part of the perjury statute. It's not part of the underlying statutes."

Wells fired back.

"Mr. Fitzgerald has indicated correctly that under the perjury or obstruction statues that showing actual damage is not an essential element of the offense," Wells said. "We both agree with that. But there's no question, he is going to stand up in front of that jury and he's going to convey to that jury that Mr. Libby has engaged in a very serious crime involving disclosing the identity of a CIA agent. It's in the indictment. I don't even understand how the government can draft the indictment, put these issues in play and then act like it's not an issue at trial.

Walton indicated that he would likely determine that if Fitzgerald made that argument during the trial it would not be admissible.

But Fitzgerald told the judge that Wells has confused the issue and has continued to ignore the facts surrounding the charges against Libby.

"The argument they are making is Mr. Libby had no motive to lie to the grand jury," Fitzgerald said. "Since nothing bad happened, there is no actual damage. There is no showing, not even an attempt or proffer that Mr. Libby had any idea what the damage was. We would never intend to put in actual damage" that took place by leaking Plame Wilson's CIA employment.

"Our only view would be the materiality of the perjury is that, you know, it's a serious matter if he lied about whether or not he talked about a CIA employee's association and we believe that there will be evidence at the trial that at times he talked about it with other people as if he couldn't talk about it on an open telephone line or told someone else it was hush, hush or QT," Fitzgerald said.

This article first appeared on TruthOut



Authors Bio: Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates. Jason Leopold is the author of the forthcoming book NEWS JUNKIE, to be published in April 2006. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com for a preview.

- FBI Agent Warned Of Possible Hijacking Before September 11
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/FBI_Agent_...ptember_11.html

Alexandria VA (AFP) Mar 21, 2006 - An FBI agent testified Monday that he warned his bosses about Zacarias Moussaoui 70 times before the September 11 attacks, and raised fears he planned to hijack an airliner.

- Interview: Bruce Hoffmann
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Interview_...e_Hoffmann.html

- FluWrap: Deadly Strain Divides
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/FluWrap_...in_Divides.html

Oxford, England (UPI) Mar 21, 2006 - U.S. researchers announced Monday that the much-feared H5N1 strain of avian influenza has in fact split into two strains. "Back in 2003 we only had one genetically distinct population of H5N1 with the potential to cause a human pandemic," Rebecca Garten, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told an infectious-diseases conference in Atlanta. "Now we have two."

- Death Toll Hits 150 In French Island Epidemic
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Death_To...d_Epidemic.html

March 21, 2006
U.S. Calls Belarus Vote for Leader Invalid
By C. J. CHIVERS and STEVEN LEE MYERS
MINSK, Belarus, March 20 — The United States declared the results of the president election in Belarus invalid on Monday and called for a new race, even as President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko defiantly swept aside criticism and declared himself the winner of a third term.

In an impassioned appearance hours after state television announced that he had won nearly 83 percent of the vote, Mr. Lukashenko exuded confidence and said the outcome had "convincingly demonstrated who the Belarussians are and who is the master of our house."

He said he was unafraid of further economic and political isolation after an election that Washington and international observers described as illegitimate, rigged and held under widespread repression.

"The United States does not accept the results of the election," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. "We support the call for a new election."

The principal opposition candidate, Aleksandr Milinkevich, who received 6 percent of the vote, according to the government's initial count, also declared Mr. Lukashenko's presidency illegitimate.

"We are simply not going to recognize the election," he said, calling for a new vote to be conducted with new election commissioners and a campaign free of arrests and harassment.

Several thousand opposition demonstrators once again ignored warnings that they could be arrested or beaten, and returned in the evening to a central square in Minsk to continue peaceful protests against the results.

But the crowd that appeared Monday was smaller than that on Sunday, and Mr. Milinkevich's campaign manager, Sergei Kalyakin, acknowledged the difficulties of challenging the deeply entrenched power of Mr. Lukashenko, often referred to as Europe's last dictator. "The number who came to the square was not enough," he said. "We need 10 times more."

By late Monday the number of protesters dwindled to several hundred, but those who remained appeared determined to stay, pitching tents and locking arms around them. For a second night the police refrained from dispersing them, but blocked others from bringing food, clothing or blankets.

Many in the crowd, and even Mr. Milinkevich himself, said they were disappointed that they had not been able to rally more people. He said they would stay through the night if allowed, but hinted at a concession. "I think that the dictatorship will fall, not on the day of elections," he said on the edge of the crowd. "I can't say when, but I feel its days are coming to an end."

Unsure that it can muster and maintain large crowds in the face of official threats, the opposition here has rested much of its diminishing hope on international disapproval.

Reaction has broken along familiar lines, with Western organizations and officials issuing condemnations and in some cases vowing to seek punitive measures against Belarus, and Russia and other former Soviet states celebrating Mr. Lukashenko's victory.

Echoing the Bush administration, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which brought 400 observers here, sharply criticized the election, noting harassment and arrests of opposition candidates, propagandistic coverage on state media and extensive irregularities in the counting of ballots.

"The arbitrary abuse of state power, obviously designed to protect the incumbent president, went far beyond acceptable practice," the report said.

Senior Bush administration officials said the United States would work with Europe to coordinate sanctions, like travel bans against those in the Belarus government believed to be responsible for the voting process. But American officials noted that they had numerous sanctions of this type in place.

Even as the European group issued its report, Mr. Lukashenko was several blocks away in a government auditorium, gruffly and at times crudely sweeping aside any questions about his victory or his leadership style.

The appearance was part news conference and part testimonial to Mr. Lukashenko's power, as the audience was stacked with his supporters and hand-picked visitors who described themselves as election observers. One pair of these self-described observers presented Mr. Lukashenko with a bouquet of roses.

Between statements of praise and bursts of applause, Mr. Lukashenko belittled the opposition's supporters as "children" paid by foreign governments, and described their demonstration on Sunday night as a display of weakness. "They were 14- and 15-year-old children who were paid 20,000 Belarussian rubles," he said, referring to a sum worth a little more than $9. "So they worked for their 20,000 rubles."

He also took questions from journalists, sometimes appearing to enjoy testy exchanges and other times interrupting speakers or arguing about their questions.

When asked whether he could assure the safety of demonstrators, whom he threatened last week with having their necks wrung, he chided the journalist for posing the question. "I see your neck is in place," he said. "Why are you so concerned?"

As his appearance dragged on, reaching nearly two and a half hours, more denunciations appeared from the West.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, secretary general of NATO, said in a statement that Belarussians had been cheated of a choice. "The people of Belarus have the right to choose their leadership through a true democratic process," he said. "That right was again denied to them."

Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik of Austria, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, criticized the "climate of intimidation" that hindered the opposition campaign.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the union's commissioner of external relations, said the group would continue with democracy-building programs and relief aid and would not impose economic sanctions because that could hurt the Belarussian people. But she said European Union members were likely to widen a visa ban on top Belarussian officials.

In Moscow, underscoring the widening gap between the West and Russia over the conduct of elections and the state of reform in former Soviet republics, the Kremlin rushed to applaud the result. The Foreign Ministry said, "The elections were testament to a high civic awareness and an interest amongst the Belarussian people for stability."

The statement made no mention of the mass arrests, wide-scale intimidation and the fawning official media coverage of Mr. Lukashenko and his policies.

Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting from Minsk for this article, and Joel Brinkley from Washington.



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March 21, 2006
F.B.I. Agent Testifies Superiors Didn't Pursue Moussaoui Case
By NEIL A. LEWIS
ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 20 — The F.B.I. agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a jury on Monday how he had tried repeatedly to get his superiors in Washington to help confirm his certainty that Mr. Moussaoui was involved in an imminent terrorist airline hijacking plot.

But, said the agent, Harry Samit, he was regularly thwarted by senior bureau officials whose obstructionism he later described to Justice Department investigators as "criminally negligent" and who were, he believed, motivated principally by a need to protect their careers.

Mr. Samit's testimony added a wealth of detail to the notion that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation played down, ignored and purposely mischaracterized the increasingly dire warnings from field agents in the Minneapolis office that they had a terrorist on their hands in Mr. Moussaoui.

"I accused the people in F.B.I. headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Mr. Samit acknowledged under intense questioning by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., Mr. Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer.

Mr. Samit confirmed that he had told Justice Department investigators that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Mr. Moussaoui's belongings and computer. He testified that he had come to believe that "the wager was a national tragedy."

Mr. Samit was a witness for the prosecution, which is trying to have Mr. Moussaoui executed for the deaths that occurred on Sept. 11. In his direct testimony more than a week ago, he bolstered the prosecutors' case by saying that had Mr. Moussaoui answered his questions honestly when he arrested him for immigration violations, it would have set off a chain of inquiries that could have foiled the Sept. 11 plot.

But under Mr. MacMahon's questions, Mr. Samit provided much new evidence and testimony suggesting strongly that the more significant factors in the failure to learn of the plot from Mr. Moussaoui involved the decisions of senior F.B.I. officials.

Mr. Samit's testimony paralleled the complaints of Coleen Rowley, an agent and lawyer in the Minneapolis office who sent a letter on May 21, 2002, to the bureau director, Robert S. Mueller III, bitterly criticizing the performance of F.B.I. headquarters agents in handling the Moussaoui case.

But unlike Ms. Rowley, who has since left the bureau, Mr. Samit remains an agent and tried on Monday to adopt a defensive posture on its behalf. Nonetheless, his testimony provided a vivid condemnation of the bureau, as he was obliged to confirm how he had told investigators of his belief that his superiors had tried to sidestep their responsibilities.

Mr. Samit said two senior agents had declined to provide help in obtaining a search warrant, either through a special panel of judges that considers applications for foreign intelligence cases or through a normal application to any federal court for a criminal investigation.

As a field agent in Minnesota, he said, he required help and approval from headquarters to continue his investigation. He acknowledged that he had asserted that Michael Maltbie, a supervisor in the bureau's Radical Fundamentalist Unit, had told him that applications for the special intelligence court warrants had proved troublesome for the bureau and that seeking one "was just the kind of thing that would get F.B.I. agents in trouble."

Mr. Samit wrote that Mr. Maltbie had told him that "he was not about to let that happen to him." During that period, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had complained about improper applications from the bureau.

Mr. Samit also acknowledged that he had asserted to investigators that David Frasca, Mr. Maltbie's superior, had similarly blocked him from seeking a search warrant under the more common route, a criminal investigation. Some of the special court's complaints dealt with the idea that law-enforcement officials were sometimes exploiting the lower standard required for warrants in intelligence investigations and then using the information that they obtained in criminal cases.

Mr. Frasca, Mr. Samit explained, believed that once the Moussaoui investigation was opened as an intelligence inquiry, it would arouse suspicion that agents had been trying to abuse the intelligence law to get information for a case they now believed was a criminal one.

Mr. Samit's comments, which were made to investigators for the Justice Department's inspector general and in a subsequent memorandum to the F.B.I., had not been made public before. The report by the inspector general on the bureau's Sept. 11 performance was released in June 2005 but had substantial deletions.

Mr. Samit said senior bureau officials had even been told he was trying to prevent someone from flying a plane into the World Trade Center.

William Carter, an F.B.I. spokesman, said that neither the bureau nor Mr. Maltbie nor Mr. Frasca, who are still employed there, would have any comment.

The cross-examination of Mr. Samit was delayed after his initial testimony when the trial was interrupted following disclosures that a government lawyer had improperly coached several aviation security officials who were to testify.

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ruled that because of the coaching, the prosecution would be unable to use those witnesses to make the case that security could have been bolstered, possibly foiling the plot, if Mr. Moussaoui had told Mr. Samit about his knowledge of plans by Al Qaeda to fly planes into buildings.

Judge Brinkema's sanctions on the prosecution for Ms. Martin's behavior nearly wrecked the government's case. But on Friday, Judge Brinkema ruled that the government could try to find new untainted aviation security witnesses.



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March 21, 2006
G.O.P. Makes Its Pitch to Firefighters' Union
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, March 20 — With the election season heating up, the Bush administration and the Republican Party used a good deal of energy and charm on Monday to woo a group that has long been part of the Democrats' base: organized labor.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska; and the Republican National Committee chairman, Ken Mehlman, spoke to the annual legislative conference of the main firefighters' union, saying they were eager to work with the union on issues of common ground.

The White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., had been scheduled to speak, but canceled, citing illness. Mr. Mehlman praised the union for an increasing focus on bipartisanship and said if the firefighters and other unions worked with Republicans they could achieve more of what they were seeking, including greater preparedness for emergencies.

"We've sometimes disagreed, but we've always kept the dialogue open," he said. "There are areas where we can work together over the coming year."

Mr. Mehlman said the Republicans hoped to attract more union voters this year than in 2004, when 38 percent of union members backed President Bush, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls.

"I do think we can make greater inroads," he said.

Harold A. Schaitberger, the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters and the first prominent labor leader to back Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, for president in 2004, voiced the views of an increasing number of union leaders in saying it was important to work with Republicans.

"I realize that historically the Democrats have been friendlier toward workers," said Mr. Schaitberger, whose union has remained in the A.F.L.-C.I.O. as five unions have left the federation. "The bottom line is that at almost every level of government the government is split, and most legislatures are split. And you have to work both sides of the aisle to move an agenda."

The Teamsters, the service employees and other unions have begun cooperating with Republicans. But rarely have the Republicans made such strong overtures toward a union as they did on Monday toward the firefighters.

The firefighters have cachet because they are viewed as pillars in many communities and because 343 New York firefighters were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Main Street Republican Partnership, a group of Republican lawmakers that works closely with unions, said it was no coincidence that Republican leaders were courting union members.

"When the president is at 34, 36 percent in the polls, you have to begin to reach out," Ms. Resnick said. "The unions are not the president's base. So the White House is starting to reach out."

Her group has told unions that it is smart to reach out to Republicans.

"Republicans are in control, so it's good to have some friends who are in the majority," she said.

Mr. Chertoff promised that the administration would do a better job dispatching vital supplies to firefighters and other emergency workers when they respond to disasters.

Mr. Hagel urged the firefighters to help build a bipartisan consensus to deal with overarching problems like terrorism, poverty and health care.

Underlining the Republicans' difficulties in wooing union members, Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman, received far more applause than any Republican speaker. "We want American jobs that will stay in America," Mr. Dean said to thunderous applause.

He also called for "retirement security," saying Democrats, unlike many Republicans, would not seek to reduce public-employee pensions.

Some union leaders have voiced fears that labor's flirtation with bipartisanship could undercut efforts to return control of Congress to the Democrats, who have been friendlier to labor on issues like workplace regulation and raising the minimum wage.

As part of the bipartisan approach, Mr. Schaitberger said his union would back candidates, Republicans and Democrats, who have stood with the firefighters on issues like increased spending to hire first responders.

He said his union would back the re-elections of Republicans like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio but would seek to defeat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Senator Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, two other Republicans.

"For those politicians who support our agenda, we will support them," Mr. Schaitberger said. "And for those who are looking to roll back the rights and improvements we've earned, we'll oppose them at every turn."

He criticized Mr. Bush for proposing to eliminate federal financing to hire additional first responders.

Mr. Schaitberger has revamped his union's political contribution so that 35 percent went to Republicans in 2004, up from 9 percent in 2000.

"We have one party that doesn't really care for us as labor and another that takes us for granted," he said. "I'm not sure which is worse."



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FBI Was Warned About Moussaoui

By Jerry Markon and Timothy Dwyer

An FBI agent who interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui before Sept. 11, 2001, warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist and spelled out his suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative was plotting to hijack an airplane, according to federal court testimony yesterday.

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

Increase in Contracting Intelligence Jobs Raises Concerns

By Walter Pincus

AllWorld Language Consultants Inc., a Rockville firm, is seeking experienced military interrogators to work in Iraq for $153,500 a year plus bonuses, with proficiency in Arabic "preferred but not required," according to Yahoo's Hot Jobs listings.

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

Nunn Urges Congress to Set Conditions on U.S.-India Nuclear Pact

By Glenn Kessler

In a setback for the administration's efforts to win approval of a landmark nuclear pact with India, former senator Sam Nunn said yesterday that he has serious concerns the deal would harm the "United States' vital interest" in preventing nuclear proliferation and urged Congress to set conditions...

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

The GOP's Shrinking Middle

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Members of Congress retire all the time, but some retirements are leading indicators of the direction of our politics. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert's announcement last week to call it quits matters, and in a depressing way.

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

A Possible Clue On NSA Spying

Did President Bush mention the government's secret warrantless surveillance program to the president of Pakistan more than four years ago? A brief passage of a 2002 book seems to raise that possibility.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/business...agewanted=print

March 21, 2006
Preparing for the Avian Flu Threat in the U.S.
By MELANIE WARNER
The deadly strain of avian flu has not been found anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, but Mark Holden, a chicken grower for Tyson Foods in Ellijay, Ga., is not taking any chances.

Every seven weeks a group of his chickens is tested before the birds are sent to be slaughtered. All people who enter or leave the chicken houses must walk through disinfecting baths. And visitors and workers must wear plastic booties over their shoes.

"Even though we don't have any outbreak now, we want to take all the precautions we can to protect our product," said Mr. Holden, who has been in the chicken business for 10 years and lives across the street from one of his chicken houses.

Poultry producers and restaurants doubt that their chickens will be infected by avian flu or that people would catch the virus even if there were contamination. But they are concerned that if the virus gets to the United States, people will eat less chicken, simply out of fear. And they are revving up big plans to be prepared.

In Senate testimony earlier this month, Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, declared that it was "just a matter of time" before birds infected with the virus found their way to the United States.

The stakes are enormous. United States poultry producers like Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride and Gold Kist sell 26 billion pounds of chicken each year. Restaurant chains — chief among them McDonald's, KFC and Wendy's — sell 45 percent of that.

Sales of chicken are growing. Over the last 10 years, consumption of chicken has increased by 22 percent, while beef consumption has remained flat, according to the Department of Agriculture.

If Europe and Asia are any indication, chicken sales could take quite a hit. In February, after avian flu was discovered in wild swans, poultry consumption declined 70 percent in Italy. In France, sales are down 30 percent since avian flu hit a turkey farm last month. In some areas of India, sales are down 40 percent since last month's discovery of avian flu in chickens.

These declines came even though none of the 175 human cases of avian flu confirmed by the World Health Organization since 2003 resulted from eating poultry.

Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said most of the cases of humans contracting avian flu have been from people coming into direct contact with infected poultry, though one case in Vietnam appears to have been a result of someone drinking infected duck blood.

Public health officials consider it unlikely that people will catch the virus from eating chicken. Chicken producers say that any sick birds would immediately be destroyed and would not enter the market. While the deadly strain of avian flu, called H5N1, now hitting Europe and Asia can reside in poultry meat, the virus is killed by the temperatures normally used to cook poultry.

Nonetheless, a Harvard School of Public Health nationwide telephone survey of 1,043 adults in January found that 46 percent of respondents who eat chicken said they would stop eating it if avian flu hit the United States poultry industry.

In October, Yum Brands, which owns KFC, told investors that, based on its experiences with avian flu in China, it estimated that in the worst situation, chicken sales would drop 10 percent to 20 percent if there were widespread concerns about avian flu.

Chicken processors and restaurant chains are already working feverishly to minimize any sales declines. Companies are working on communications strategies that can be set into motion at a moment's notice. These plans deal with avian flu in birds and not the feared hypothetical mutation of the virus into a human-to-human form. Future mutations could make avian flu contagious among humans, and possibly generate a pandemic.

Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, KFC, Chick-fil-A and Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits all say they have formed internal avian flu task forces that meet regularly and include top executives and leaders from different departments. These executives have been meeting with government health officials, discussing what information should go on the companies' Web sites and when, and devising sales loss projections.

Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits, the country's No. 3 chicken chain behind KFC and Chick-fil-A, said its task force met weekly, often in conjunction with the Ledlie Group, an Atlanta-based crisis management agency. KFC said that it had created TV and print ads aimed at convincing people that eating fully cooked chicken was safe. The ad campaign, which was produced by Creative Alliance, an agency in Louisville, Ky., where Yum Brands is based, is ready to go if a crisis strikes.

"It's on the shelf collecting dust," said Jonathan Blum, a Yum spokesman.

Tyson, the country's largest chicken producer, is working on an ad campaign that will run if chicken sales decline, or if consumers start to get nervous.

McDonald's, the country's largest restaurant buyer of chicken, said it had been working on avian flu contingency plans, but declined to discuss details.

At many chain restaurants, including McDonald's, chicken has helped bolster sales more than any other menu item. In presentations to analysts and investors, McDonald's has credited its new line of higher-priced premium chicken sandwiches and its chicken-topped premium salads with increasing sales at outlets in the United States that have been open for more than a year.

Arby's, which is known for its roast beef sandwiches but gets 15 percent of its sales from chicken products, said it was spending more money than it had for any other new product to promote its new line of so-called chicken naturals. Chicken naturals are all chicken, with no added water or chemicals.

Some analysts think avian flu in birds, like mad cow disease in beef, may turn out to be a nonissue for consumers. Since mad cow was first discovered in the United States in late 2003, beef consumption has remained constant, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"In the U.S. I think we generally have a greater trust in the government to ensure food safety than they do in Europe and Asia," said John Glass, an analyst at CIBC World Markets. "I'd be surprised if U.S. consumers really react to this."

But some in the chicken industry worry that avian flu will be much more frightening to consumers than mad cow. "I get asked about it all the time," said Steve Gold, vice president for marketing at Murray's Chicken, a producer of humanely raised chicken. "I think people have this idea that it's going to be like Alfred Hitchcock with all these birds flying into their community and everyone getting sick."

Mr. Gold notes that unlike mad cow, avian flu is highly contagious among birds and has the potential to travel long distances in unpredictable patterns.

He and others in the chicken industry are busy honing a message that the nation's chicken populations are well protected from wild, migratory birds that may be the initial carriers of the disease.

A Web site set up by the National Chicken Council, the National Turkey Federation and the Egg Safety Center (www.avianinfluenzainfo.com) promotes the industry's modern system of enclosed, confined chicken growing as an effective line of defense against the spread of avian flu.

The 20,000 to 24,000 birds that reside in a single growing house on the average industrial chicken farm lack access to the outdoors, or even to sunlight — something that has long drawn criticism from animal welfare activists and has helped fuel the growth in free-range and humanely produced chicken. The virtue of isolating chickens, said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, is that no chicken is likely to come into contact with wild birds that may be infected.

"Things here are not like they are in Asia where chickens are running around outdoors in people's backyards," Mr. Lobb said. "It's much more controlled."

He added that while thousands of free-roaming and backyard chickens were infected in Thailand in 2004, none of the country's large-scale, commercial chicken flocks in enclosed facilities were hit.

Mr. Lobb said chickens sold as free-range or organic, meaning they are allowed access to the outdoors, may be more susceptible to avian flu transmission, but this group represents less than 1 percent of the chicken production.

The Egg Safety Center said that consumers should not worry about eggs being infected with the avian flu virus because sick hens either stop laying eggs or lay poor-quality eggs that would not be acceptable for sale.

Some government officials said that if avian flu arrived on United States shores, it would probably be from migratory birds.

Susan Haseltine, assistant director for biology at the United States Geological Survey and an expert on bird migration, said government scientists had their eyes on the bird pathways from Asia to Alaska. "One species with high potential is the pintail," Ms. Haseltine said. "It migrates from Alaska to the southern U.S., to the Gulf Coast and Southern California. They have the ability to fly long distances."

The Department of Agriculture said that since 2000, 12,000 tests had been done on birds in western Alaska and none had been found with the deadly version of avian flu. Ms. Haseltine said there was little bird passage across the Atlantic from Europe.

Other experts say that avian flu is more likely to reach the United States through the illicit trade of poultry from infected countries. Importing birds or poultry meat from countries that have had outbreaks of avian flu is banned, but Rob Fergus, science coordinator for the National Audubon Society, said there were probably instances of smuggled products. "There are a lot of holes in biosecurity in our ports. I'm much more concerned about poultry shipments than wild birds," he said.

There is, of course, still the small chance that North America may be somehow spared from avian flu. But companies like Chick-fil-A are not counting on that. "The question is not if, but when," said Don Perry, a spokesman for Chick-fil-A. "You can't put big nets in the sky to prevent birds from flying here."

Agent Faults FBI on 9/11 Hijackings

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui
weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury that his own superiors
were guilty of "criminal negligence and obstruction" for blocking
his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger
cell about to hijack planes in the United States. By Richard A.
Serrano.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5s0E6

Welcome to Maywood, Where Roads Open Up for Immigrants

At a time when communities across the nation are considering
efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, one small city south
of downtown Los Angeles is charting a different course. By Hector
Becerra.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5t0E7

Choices Shrink in Drug Plan, Study Says

WASHINGTON - One of the first independent studies of the Medicare
prescription benefit has concluded that many low-income California
seniors now have access to a narrower range of drugs than when the
state covered their medications. By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5u0E8

Attack of the Pandas

WOLONG NATURE RESERVE, China - Taiwan and China quibble about
everything from diplomatic slights and hidden meanings to ancient
history and obscure definitions. So perhaps it's not surprising
that they'd argue over two chubby animals that bite each other's
ears and have trouble procreating. By Mark Magnier.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5v0EA

As Japanese Bring Work Home, Virus Hitches a Ride

TOKYO - There is a growing unease that Japan is under insidious
attack from within. The culprit is a digital worm that infects
computers using the file-sharing Winny software. By Bruce Wallace.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5w0EB

Some U.S. Officials Fear Iran Is Helping Al Qaeda

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence officials, already focused on
Iran's potential for building nuclear weapons, are struggling to
solve a more immediate mystery: the murky relationship between the
new Tehran leadership and the contingent of Al Qaeda leaders
residing in the country. By Josh Meyer.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5x0EC

Downsized and in Debt, Idealab Chief Still Pitching

Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, has survived so many close
calls he could be the Houdini of high-tech investing. Now, like a
magician wriggling free of a straitjacket, the 47-year-old
entrepreneur appears to be escaping ruin once again. At a special
meeting today, Idealab shareholders will vote on a plan, already
unanimously approved by the board, to pay off his $50-million loan
By Sallie Hofmeister.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN5y0ED

More Katrina Fatalities Could Be Found

NEW ORLEANS - The discovery of two bodies in the wreckage of a
neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina seven months ago has
served as an unsettling omen to families still searching for
missing relatives. By Ann M. Simmons.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN530E2

Justices Signal Court Testimony's Primacy

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court justices, with the exception of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sounded Monday as if they were likely to bar
prosecutors from using in court the words of alleged crime victims
who speak to authorities but later refuse to testify. By David G.
Savage.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN540E3

Bush Points to Signs of Success in Iraq

CLEVELAND - Three years after the United States launched the
invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, President Bush said the
overhauled American strategy of clearing insurgents from
individual cities and then using Iraqi and U.S. forces to rebuild
was succeeding. By James Gerstenzang.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ezj...Io30G2B0HN550E4

March 21, 2006
Minuteman Project Plans New Border Patrol
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:33 a.m. ET

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- A controversial civilian border patrol group is planning a return to Arizona in two weeks to again confront the problem of illegal immigration.

Some say the original Minuteman Project conducted in April 2005 in Cochise County and a subsequent patrol in October brought increased national attention to the Arizona stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.

''I think we've clearly been the catalyst that has sparked the national debate,'' said Minuteman president Chris Simcox. ''That's been our goal, to bring national attention to the fact that the government has failed miserably to bring control to the southern border.''

However many Hispanic groups and advocates for immigrant rights still call the Minuteman group racist or vigilantes.

''The thing we objected to here is it brought out a lot of nativist sentiment and that's not America at its best,'' said the Rev. Robin Hoover, president of Tucson-based Humane Borders.

Simcox said his group will continue to plan monthlong patrols every six months until the federal government gains control of the border.

''If the Senate does not pass a border security bill soon, you are going to see our numbers double probably by the end of the summer,'' he said. ''People are frustrated and I think this political process of coming to the border and setting up a lawn chair and saying, `We have the will to do it,' sends a strong message to Washington, D.C.''

Simcox said he is expecting about 1,000 Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers in Arizona for the next patrol, expected to start April 1 and last for one month.

He said the group counts 6,500 volunteers in 31 chapters, although the number is unsubstantiated.

Each volunteer passes a criminal background check, interview and training, according to Simcox.

He said the group chose to patrol the Altar Valley this time because it is the most heavily trafficked corridor this fiscal year.

The group will also conduct patrols in New Mexico, Texas and California on the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Washington state, New York and Vermont on the U.S.-Canada border, Simcox added.

Border Patrol spokesman Johnny Bernal said Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers have not broken laws or violated civil rights in their past patrols. President George W. Bush has expressed opposition to what he called border ''vigilantes.''

Simcox called the claims that his group represents a threat to illegal immigrants ''outrageous'' and said none of the group's members has attacked anyone.

But Hoover said the group's patrols are unrealistic and ineffective. He would like to see them set up camp in remote areas rather than close to highways and towns.

''We have 300 miles (480 kilometers) of border down here and they are playing around on five miles (eight kilometers),'' Hoover said.



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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1142924581...t_glance_health

CDC Reports H5N1 Has Split
Into Two Different Forms

Pakistan Reports First Cases of H5N1
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
March 21, 2006 9:46 a.m.

The H5N1 virus responsible for the global bird-flu outbreak has evolved into two genetically different strains, U.S. scientists reported, raising concerns of an increased risk to humans.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported their findings at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases being held in Atlanta.

CDC FINDINGS


Read the CDC news release and read more about the ICEID conference."As the virus continues its geographic expansion, it is also undergoing genetic diversity expansion," Rebecca Garten, a researcher on the study, said in a news release.

Up until now, there was only one form of H5N1, and scientists feared that could pose a risk to humans. But now that it has split into two genetically distinct forms, scientists are even more concerned that it will evolve into a form easily transmissible between humans, which could spark a pandemic. So far, the only human cases have been from direct contact with infected poultry, and most have been poultry farmers, worked in the industry or lived in close proximity to poultry.

The CDC researchers studied over 300 H5N1 virus samples taken from both avian and human sources from 2003 through the summer of 2005. The scientists found that, in 2005, a second strain of H5N1 was affecting humans in Indonesia. They concluded that the strain belonged to different subgroup of the virus that was previously not known to cause the disease in humans. The strains are similar, but different enough that the scientists likened the two strains to cousins.

H5N1 Detected in Chickens in Pakistan

Pakistan reported its first cases of H5N1 -- in chickens. The H5 type of avian influenza was detected in chickens at two farms in northwestern Pakistan last month. Tests conducted in Britain confirmed the subtype to be H5N1.

Pakistan's Agriculture Ministry said it had taken all necessary measures to stop it spreading further in the country but urged farmers to vigilant. "We are continuously watching to see whether there is another outbreak elsewhere" in Pakistan, ministry spokesman Mohammed Afzal told Geo television.


Neighboring India, Iran and mostly recently, Afghanistan, have already reported H5N1 outbreaks, but officials confirmed this was the first case in Pakistan.

Pakistan's two cases were detected at a commercial farm in Charsadda, near Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, and at a small breeder farm in the hill-resort city of Abbottabad. The ministry said the farms were quarantined, thousands of chickens slaughtered and farm workers given medical checkups and found to be free of infection.

"So far no new farm or bird has been found to be affected with the disease anywhere in the country," a ministry statement said. It urged all poultry farmers to increase the level of "bio-security" at their farms and immediately report any abnormal or high mortality among poultry.

In 2003, between three million and four million chickens were killed in Pakistan after an outbreak of the less dangerous H7N3 strain of bird flu.

U.S. Completes New Surveillance System

On Monday, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Secretary of Interior Gale Norton announced the completion of a new early warning system to detect highly pathogenic avian flu in wild migratory birds in the U.S. The interagency plan outlines five specific strategies for early detection, including: investigating disease-outbreak events in wild birds; expanding monitoring of live wild birds; monitoring hunter-killed birds; use of sentinel animals, such as backyard poultry flocks; and environmental sampling of water and bird feces.

"By intensifying our monitoring of migratory-bird populations, we increase the likelihood of early detection, which is key to controlling the spread of the virus, particularly in our domestic poultry," Mr. Johanns said in a release.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed or forced the slaughter of tens of millions of chickens and ducks across Asia since 2003, and recently spread to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Bush administration officials have increasingly warned that H5N1 could turn up in the U.S. by the end of this year.

Write to the Online Journal's editors at newseditors@wsj.com.

March 21, 2006
Bush Warns of More Tough Fighting in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:42 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Tuesday there will be ''more tough fighting ahead'' in Iraq, but denied claims that the nation is in the grips of a civil war.

''The Iraqis had a chance to fall apart and they didn't,'' he said at a news conference.

The second-full blown news conference of the year marked a new push by Bush to confront doubts about his strategy in Iraq. A day earlier, he acknowledged to a sometimes skeptical audience that there was dwindling support for his Iraq policy and that he understood why people were disheartened.

''The terrorists haven't given up. They're tough-minded. They like to kill,'' he said Tuesday. ''There will be more tough fighting ahead.''

Bush said he agreed to U.S. talks with Iran to underscore his point that Tehran's attempts to spread sectarian violence or provide support to Iraqi insurgents was unacceptable to the United States.

His opening remarks were designed to steel Americans for more fighting in Iraq and put an optimistic spin on the state of the U.S. economy.

''Productivity is strong. Inflation is contained. Household net worth is at an all-time high,'' Bush said, crediting his administration's policies.

On Iraq, Bush bristled at a suggested that he wanted to wage war against that country since early in his presidency.

''I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong ... with all due respect,'' he told a reporter. ''No president wants war.'' To those who say otherwise, ''it's simply not true,'' Bush said.

He also stood by embattled Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

''I don't believe he should resign. He's done a fine job. Every war plan looks good on paper until you meet the enemy,'' he said.

More than 2,300 Americans have died in three years of war in Iraq. Polls show the public's support of the war and Bush himself have dramatically declined in recent months.

Asked about former supporters who now oppose him and the war, Bush said he's trying to win them over by ''talking realistically to people'' about the war and its importance to the nation.

''I can understand how Americans are worried about whether or not we can win,'' Bush said, adding that most Americans want victory ''but they're concerned about whether or not we can win.''

The president said he did not agree with former interim Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, who told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday, ''If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.''

Bush said others inside and outside Iraq think the nation has stopped short of civil war. ''There are other voices coming out of Iraq, by the way, other than Mr. Allawi, who I know by the way -- like. A good fellow.''

''We all recogized that there is violence, that there is sectarian violance. But the way I look at the situation is, the Iraqis looked and decided not to go into civil war,'' he said.

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

Bush said he's confident of victory in Iraq. ''I'm optimistic we'll suceed. If not, I'd pull our troops out,'' he said.

Bush scoffed at a question suggesting he should reshuffle or shake up his White House staff to help raise his sagging poll standings. But he did hint that he might bring in an experienced Washington insider to work with a disgruntled Congress.

''I'm not going to announce it right now,'' Bush said, adding that he's satisfied with the staff he's surrounded himself with.

Bush said specifically that he did not think that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should resign.

''I think he's done a fine job of not only conducting two battles -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- but also transforming our military,'' the president said.

Bush acknowledged some miscalculations in Iraq, however. ''There's no question that we've had to adjust our tactics on the ground,'' he said.



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SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2006, Issue No. 36
March 21, 2006

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

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


** US STRATEGIC STRIKE SKILLS ARE FADING, DSB WARNS
** IN CONGRESS
** IN THE NEWS
** SELECTED CRS REPORTS ON FOREIGN POLICY


US STRATEGIC STRIKE SKILLS ARE FADING, DSB WARNS

The U.S. military faces an erosion of the skills that it needs to
develop and maintain strategic nuclear and non-nuclear strike forces,
according to a new study by the Defense Science Board (DSB).

"It appears that a serious loss of certain critical strategic strike
skills may occur within the next decade" as senior design and
operations personnel retire, the DSB study said.

"The strategic strike area most at risk today is ballistic missiles:
Current skills may not be able to cope with unanticipated failures
requiring analysis, testing, and redesign."

"Design skills are rapidly disappearing, both for major redesigns of
current systems and for the design of new strategic systems."

"DoD and industry have difficulty attracting and retaining the best
and brightest students to the science and engineering disciplines
relevant to maintaining current and future strategic strike
capabilities," according to the DSB.

These findings are elaborated in the 89 page report with respect to
ballistic missiles, bombers and other strategic strike platforms and
systems.

See "Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Future
Strategic Strike Skills," March 2006 (1.9 MB PDF):

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/dsb/skills.pdf

This document was password-protected by DSB so as to prevent
copying or printing of the report.


IN CONGRESS

A House resolution to investigate the so-called Downing Street memo on
pre-war intelligence on Iraq was considered and rejected, along with
two other resolutions on Iraq and the Valerie Plame case, in a
September 14, 2005 markup by the House Committee on International
Relations. A report of that Committee markup has now been published
and is posted here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_rpt/downing091405.pdf

Sen. Arlen Specter introduced his "National Security Surveillance
Act" last week that would subject the Bush Administration's
warrantless surveillance program to the adjudication of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court. See his March 16 statement of
introduction here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s2453.html

Also on March 16, Senator Dewine and three Republican colleagues
introduced their "Terrorist Surveillance Act" which would nullify the
requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and
authorize warrantless surveillance for up to 45 days without any
judicial authorization. See:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s2455.html


IN THE NEWS

The Department of Defense withdrew from its web site a DoD inspector
general report that was critical of information security in the
Missile Defense Agency's ground-based missile defense system.
Federal Computer Week reported on the removal of the document and
posted the missing document on its own web site. See "DOD removes
missile defense system report from Web site" by Bob Brewin, Federal
Computer Week, March 20:

http://www.fcw.com/article92668-03-20-06-Web

Several critical assessments of the "sensitive but unclassified"
information control marking were discussed in "New Reports Raise
Questions About Secrecy Stamps" by Rebecca Carr, Cox News Service,
March 19:

http://tinyurl.com/q4tnz

The consequences of applying espionage statutes not only to leakers
but also to unauthorized recipients of classified information were
considered by Fred Kaplan in "Spies Like Us: Listening to leakers
could land you in jail," Slate, March 17:

http://www.slate.com/id/2138277/


SELECTED CRS REPORTS ON FOREIGN POLICY

Some notable new reports from the Congressional Research Service
include the following.

"The Middle East Peace Talks," updated March 16, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB91137.pdf

"Terrorism and National Security: Issues and Trends," updated March 9,
2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/IB10119.pdf

"North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program," updated February 21, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/IB91141.pdf

"Nepal: Background and U.S. Relations," updated February 2, 2006:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL31599.pdf


Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists

Perils of online dating prompt safety efforts Yahoo! NEWS
Josie Phyllis Brown never had a chance against her 6-foot-6-inch (2-meter) killer, although his stature was one of the few things she should have known from his Internet profile. John Christopher Gaumer, who confessed to the murder and led Baltimore County police to Brown's body on February 7, listed his height and other attributes in his quest for dates on MySpace.com, a free Internet social site owned by News Corp. where mostly young people connect for friendship and romance. Some personal profiles on the Web site are frighteningly revealing. People publish their birth dates, schools they attend, even clubs they will frequent on a given Saturday night, complete with a cellphone number for whomever might care to join them. "Think about, there are millions of people we're dealing with here and somehow people think they are all preachers," said Paul Falzone, chief executive of Together Dating service, a brick-and-mortar company that performs background checks on all members. Falzone says background checks result in 10 percent of applicants being rejected. For most of the 40 million people using Internet sites for dating and socializing each month, a disastrous 15 minutes over coffee at Starbucks is the worst they will suffer. But there is enough danger out there that some U.S. states are considering legislation to force Internet dating sites to police themselves, while companies that do background checks say business is booming.

SCREENING DATES
Only a small percentage of "intimate partner violence" -- nearly 700,000 such incidents were reported to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001 -- originate from Internet dating, according to Mark Brooks, editor of Online Personals, which monitors the dating industry. For upstart online service True.com, even one assault is too much. The site performs background checks on every member, ferreting out sex offenders, felons and married people. About 11 percent of those who apply are rejected. "To think a felon could find a victim, especially for a heinous crime, gives me the heebie-jeebies. I do all I can do to prevent that," said Herb Vest, chief executive of True.com. Nevertheless, Robert Wells, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, passed the True.com screening and posted a profile on that site. The company is suing him, claiming he committed wire fraud. The small competitor is pressing for legislation to force big Web sites like Match.com and Yahoo! to perform background checks, or clearly state they don't. So far, California, Florida, Texas and Michigan have considered legislation. Yahoo! and Match.com, the industry leaders with 6 million and 15 million monthly visitors respectively, continually stress dating safety. Match.com forces the 60,000 people who sign up for the service each month to review its safety policies before they subscribe. On both sites, every profile is reviewed and approved by human eyes to screen out excess information or obscenity. Around 15 percent of postings are rejected, according to Kristin Kelly, spokesperson for Match.com. That is not enough for some.

DARK SIDE OF THE 'NET
"The Internet has its dark side and they are not doing everything they can to keep sexual predators and gold diggers off these sites. If you don't police yourselves, the government will come in and police you," said Michigan state Sen. Alan Cropsey. Cropsey has sponsored a bill that would force Web sites to do background checks, and it proposes posting a warning label on sites, much like those on cigarette packs. Cropsey's legislation met vigorous resistance from the online industry. "There are other ways to get to who that person is, rather than have the government ram a business model down your throat," said Abraham Smilowicz, chief executive of Webdate Inc. Webdate uses real-time video as a safety measure, allowing prospective dates to chat and get a look at each other via webcams. Daters themselves are also stepping forward to create their own safeguards. Companies like Safedate and Honestyonline are springing up to run background checks for individuals and grant their stamp of approval. Honestyonline will even come to a home, weigh prospective daters, take a picture and leave with bodily fluids to confirm disease-free status. William Bollinger, executive vice president of National Background Data, said his business had grown 600 percent in the past two years. Even a background check would not have saved Lori Leonard. The boyfriend she met via the Internet was convicted of her murder on January 27 in Hudson Falls, N.Y. His record showed only misdemeanors from assaults on former girlfriends, not the sort of information churned up in basic background checks. Leonard endured two assaults before her death. According to Dr. John Gray, author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," education is the solution. "The warning signs often come out right away. Beware of someone who can solve all your problems or who comes on really strong," said Gray.
By Verna Gates

America's Most Polluted Cities Forbes
Pollution
U.S. cities continue to pollute at a great rate. Still, to put this in perspective, they are all better than Chinese cities that hold the title of the world's worst. The Chinese wrested that title from Mexico City--since all ten in China are more polluted than Mexico's capital. China's dilemma is that it is caught between its response to outsourcing needs by Western nations (and their own industrial expansion) and its inability to contain the harmful emissions all this activity generates--from smokestacks to trucks, buses, construction equipment and, now, an increasing number of automobiles. There is no way to disassociate the state of air quality and the efficiency of transportation and its infrastructure. Trucks, buses and most particularly off-road vehicles contribute a large portion of the harmful pollutants. Their diesel emissions are a major source of both ozone and particle pollution. By 2010, in the U.S. these vehicles must by Environmental Protection Agency standards produce 95% less pollution than they do today. Smog reduces visibility and adds significantly to driving hazards and delay. Logistics costs as a measure against GDP are more than three times higher in China than in the U.S. Nor is there any sensible way to disassociate air pollution from health risks and death rates. In the U.S., the EPA has put out a series of timed regulations designed to improve air quality here. According to the EPA, an average person breathes in 3,400 gallons of air per day. Some 25% of Americans, according to the American Lung Association (ALA), are breathing air that is hazardous to their health. The EPA and other monitoring organizations have two major categories of emissions: particle pollution and ozone pollution. Particle pollution (traditionally known as soot in the air) is a mixture of solids and liquid droplets suspended in air. The solids are made up of nitric acid and sulfuric acid accompanied by traces of metals, dirt and organic chemicals. Ground-level ozone (often referred to as smog) is produced when sunlight combines with hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide. It is most apparent on sunny days near busy highways and in cities, and appears as a dirty yellow haze from a distance. For the EPA, the next big round involving the Clean Air Act is slated for 2007, and it calls for more stringent emissions reduction (basically sulfur emissions). For U.S. truckers, this will require specifically reducing sulfur emissions from the use of new diesel fuel down to 15 parts per million from levels typically as high as 500 parts per million. The ALA sees the need for action and cooperation around the EPA mandate. It cites dreadful life-threatening and life-taking consequences from the levels of pollution in U.S. cities. Heart attacks and asthma attacks lead the list. The ALA states that 152 million U.S. citizens, or 52% of the population, are at risk from ozone and particle pollutants. Children, the elderly and people with asthma, diabetes, chronic bronchitis or emphysema (16.9 million) are severely at risk. Others with heart conditions are also at risk. "The emissions from cars and trucks have been a big problem for the past 40 years," says Janice Nolen, ALA director of national policy. Some communities, according to Nolen, have thought that building more roads to reduce congestion would be a prime way to solve the problem, but in fact that hasn't solved anything. Some experts are now looking at alternatives to how communities themselves are built so that commutes and distances traveled by vehicles are shorter, making roads less congested. Polluting emissions are also generated from vehicles moving or idling on highways and city streets while engines and exhaust systems are operating at less than optimum levels. The ATA makes a point of singling out off-road vehicles as very heavy polluters. Their fuel is among the dirtiest. Diesel locomotives with inadequately designed engines generate pollutants as well. Of course, factories produce pollution along with electrical generation plants (often coal driven), and known carcinogenic emissions are even created by dry cleaners. Nolen notes one positive development: She sees an increase in the use of electrical plugs in facilities at truck rest stops. This maintains refrigeration for the load and air conditioning for the trucker while reducing idling time. The trucking world today is a mix of good business and difficulties that are not always within the control of a particular trucking company. The downside of more stringent regulations includes higher diesel-fuel costs, a lack of trained truckers, a continuing loss of experienced drivers and more complex security processes and costs. The 2007 EPA rules are another large hurdle. Glen Casey, spokesman for American Trucking Association, has a different set of concerns than the ALA does. He sees two sides that have to be considered: first, taking the sulfur out of the diesel fuel and, second, factors governing engine emissions that have required redesign of truck engines, exhaust systems and subsequent costs. "Will there be an adequate supply of the new ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel across the country in all locations?" he asks. "There may be contamination along the pipeline, and some fuel may not meet the 15 parts per million goal." There does not seem to be any clear idea as to how much this diesel fuel will increase in price. It will be significantly higher than the 1999 EPA prediction of 4 to 5 cents per gallon. The second side is the question of engines designed to meet the EPA standards. New engines are rolling out slowly into the fleets of trucks. The ATA had wanted two years' worth of testing and creation of data from fleets with, and fleets without, the new engines. There has been very limited testing to date of the fleets (around 250 trucks). Economic choices, of course, would best be made from reliable data about truck performance in a wide variety of conditions. The ATA does not feel this has been accomplished. More thorough testing would give an indication as to how many trucks to purchase and when, according to the ATA. Right now, many fleets are pre-buying 2006 trucks to avoid the 2007 EPA mandate. Some see increased time for testing as a delaying game, while others might agree with the ATA and see it as a prudent measure. Regardless of being pro-EPA mandate or not, many cities stand condemned, and they can take no comfort in being better than China. The list indicates that California and Texas have a great deal of work to do.

Ten Most Polluted U.S. Cities (Ozone Rated Only)
1. Los Angeles (Long Beach, Calif., Riverside, Calif.)
2. Bakersfield, Calif.
3. Fresno-Madera, Calif.
4. Visalia-Porterville, Calif.
5. Merced, Calif.
6. Houston (Baytown, Huntsville, Tex.)
7. Sacramento (Arden, Calif., Arcade, Calif., Truckee, Nev.)
8. Dallas/Forth Worth
9. New York (Newark, N.J., Bridgeport, Conn.)
10. Philadelphia (Camden, N.J., Vineland, N.J.)

Source: American Lung Association (for 2005)

Below are the most polluted cities in China (and the world), according to China’s Environmental Protection Administration. Most of these cities are west of Beijing in central China and in the mountainous regions of Shanxi Province. The dominant pollution source is coal burning and less than adequate emissions performance from trucks and other vehicles.

Most Polluted Cities In China (And The World)
1. Linfen, Shanxi Province
2. Yangquan, Shanxi Province
3. Datong, Shanxi Province
4. Shizuishan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
5. Sanmanxia, Henan Province
6. Jincheng, Gansu Province
7. Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province
8. Xianyang, Shanxi Province
9. Zhuzhou, Hunan Province
10. Luoyang, Henan Province
Robert Malone

Wad of Cash Found in New Orleans Home Yahoo! NEWS
Trista Wright was spending her spring break cleaning out hurricane-damaged homes when she discovered some unusual papers among the moldy plaster board and debris. "I started raking it out of the air conditioner vent. I thought it was garbage and I was going to shovel it up, but I bent down to pick it up, and it was a stack of $100 bills, and then more and more kept coming," the 19-year-old said Tuesday on CNN. By an unofficial count, it was more than $30,000. Wright and fellow students notified the organizers of their church mission, who told the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office. The woman who owned the house, who has asked that she not be identified, was as shocked as Wright. "She was speechless," said Wright, an Armstrong Atlantic State University student was among 175 Georgia college students spending their week off volunteering in the city's Arabi area. Deputy Gary Adams verified the identity of the woman who owned the home. Adams said it's not uncommon to find weapons or medications behind the walls of homes, but this was the biggest sum of hidden money he had heard of. "It's good to see someone find something like that and turn it over to proper authorities and the rightful owner," he said. The homeowner said she suspects the money belonged to her father, who was wary of banks. The home had been in the family for generations, she said. "I had my suspicions about the money at first, but once I met the family and talked to the woman, I have no doubt she's telling the truth," said Aaron Arledge, one of the organizers of the mission. "She said her father grew up during the Depression and must not have told anyone in the family about it before he died." The one-story house was flooded to the eaves by Katrina and, aside from the hidden money, none of its contents could be saved, church officials said. "To see that woman's face when we told her about the money, that's the kind of positive story that makes all the hard work worthwhile," said the Rev. Warren Jones Jr. of New Salem Baptist Church in the Ninth Ward, which has served as a base for church missions. "She said it was a miracle. And when you think about it, it was." Haley Barton, a fellow student who was in the house with Wright, said there was never a question of keeping the money. "I think that it's expected of us as young people, or people of any age this day, to go in and take it and not be faithful or trustworthy in turning it in, but that wasn't even an option for us," she said.

New Orleans Mayor Endorses Rebuilding Plan Yahoo! NEWS
Mayor Ray Nagin presented his plan for resuscitating this hurricane-battered city, saying residents should be allowed to rebuild anywhere — as long as they do so at their own risk. Nagin said the city will continue issuing building permits to all comers, but warned that low-lying neighborhoods like New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward could flood again if another hurricane hits. "I don't recommend you going in areas I'm not comfortable with," the mayor said Monday. "I'm confident that the citizens can decide intelligently for themselves." The report also recommended a host of other ideas, from revamping schools to consolidating some city offices. The wish-list of projects included new light-rail systems, more farmers' markets, new riverfront development, job-training sites and better flood protection. "We have worked tirelessly," Nagin told hundreds of residents Monday who attended a meeting to hear about the plan. "It has been controversial in some respects, but I am pleased by the results." The blueprint does not have the force of law, and many of its aims depend on federal funds that have not yet been allotted. A state agency, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also will have sway. The plan comes two months after the mayor's advisory commission, formed after Katrina struck Aug. 29, recommended that some flooded neighborhoods be replaced with parks and that the city take a go-slow attitude in rebuilding low-lying areas. But that suggestion was greeted with jeers and outrage at public meetings. Nagin, who is running for re-election April 22, distanced himself from that plan, which included a proposed moratorium on building permits in some areas. Residents lined up to speak against the latest proposal during a public-comment period. One of them, an activist named Chui Clark, called the commission "a rotten, racist committee," echoing criticism by many black residents who say they are being discouraged from returning. But the plan has been warmly received in many circles. Ron Forman, a strong mayoral candidate and prominent businessman, applauded the commission's work and the breadth of the report. But he said it is still short on specifics. "The only problem I see with the plan is that I don't see an implementation plan, an action plan, based on dates on when we can expect to be done," Forman said. The release of the report came hours after civil rights groups took aim at the state's plan for rebuilding, which includes spending billions of federal dollars to buy flood-damaged homes. Groups including the NAACP, the Advancement Project and the New Orleans-based People's Hurricane Relief Fund complained that the state plan gives short shrift to poor and low-income victims by focusing too much on bailing out homeowners and encouraging high-end development at the expense of low-income renters. In a letter to Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration, the groups cited government estimates showing that about 126,570 rental units without insurance were flooded last year. By contrast, they said, only about 25,180 uninsured homes were damaged, which is about 20 percent of all the ruined homes. "This is really like the opening salvo, if you will, of attempts to get a fair share of that money for low- and moderate-income people," said Bill Quigley, a lawyer and civil rights activist. The state plan still needs approval by the Legislature, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Louisiana Recovery Authority. On the Net: http://www.bringneworleansback.org
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer

Saddam's FM was on CIA payroll Tue Mar 21, 9:57 AM ET



Iraq's foreign minister under Saddam Hussein spied for the CIA before the US-led invasion in 2003 in return for a 100,000 dollar payment, a US television station reported.

In September 2002, Iraq's top diplomat Naji Sabri traded information on Hussein's alleged weapons program for cash in a French-sponsored New York City hotel room meeting, NBC reported, citing intelligence sources.

US intelligence agents believe Sabri was fully aware he was selling information to the CIA, it said.

During the cloak-and-dagger meeting, Sabri told the CIA's middleman that Saddam possessed chemical weapons and wanted a nuclear bomb but needed much more time to build one than the CIA estimate of several months to a year.

He also denied Saddam had any biological weapons.

Sabri's tips were thought to be more accurate than the CIA's own guesses on Saddam's arsenal, NBC said.

However, the foreign minister broke off his contacts weeks later after he repeatedly resisted CIA pressures to defect to the United States and publicly renounce Saddam, the sources told NBC.

After the US invasion of March 2003, Sabri was not arrested or included in the notorious "deck of cards" of the US military's most wanted Iraqi suspects.

Sabri, who now teaches journalism in Qatar, has turned down repeated requests for comments, NBC said.

Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs were revealed to be non-existent after the war.

A new US military study, based on interviews with jailed members of Saddam's regime, revealed that Saddam had tricked even his inner circle to believe he had weapons of mass destruction until shortly before the US-led invasion.

Sabri, fluent in English, was one of Iraq's public faces in the West.

The former English literature professor at Baghdad university was recalled from Iraq's London embassy in 1980 after two of his brothers were arrested for plotting against the regime. One of them later died in prison.

For the next decade, Sabri edited an English language newspaper and translated English books into Arabic, including a biography of George Bernard Shaw.

He returned to prominence ahead of the 1991 Gulf War as Iraq's deputy information minister. He was later appointed Iraq's ambassador to Austria in 1998 before being named foreign minister in 2001.




Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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Saddam's FM gave CIA information on WMD Tue Mar 21, 8:34 AM ET



Months before the Iraq war, Iraq's foreign minister gave the CIA more accurate information about Saddam Hussein's alleged unconventional weapons program than the US agency had, for which he was paid more than 100,000 dollars, a news report said.

Naji Sabri, for a short time beginning with a UN General Assembly in September 2002, was the highest-ranking Iraqi informant on the CIA's payroll. He communicated with CIA officials through an intermediary at a New York hotel room, intelligence sources said to NBC News.

In exchange for 100,000 dollars in "good-faith money," Sabri relayed information about Saddam's actual capabilities that was far more accurate than the proclamations he made at the United Nations and closer to reality than the CIA's estimates.

According to the sources, all of whom requested anonymity, Sabri said Saddam had no significant biological weapons program, wanted a nuclear bomb but needed much more time to build one than the several months the CIA had estimated, and had poison gas left over from the Gulf War.

On the biological and nuclear weapons program, Sabri was more accurate than CIA, but on chemical weapons he was as wrong as the US agency, since none were found after the US invasion, NBC News said quoting its sources.

Sabri broke off his contacts weeks after he repeatedly resisted CIA pressures to defect to the United States and publicly renounce Saddam, the sources said.

After the US invasion three years ago, Sabri was not arrested or included in the notorious "deck of cards" of the US military's most wanted Iraqi suspects.

He now resides in an undisclosed location in the Middle East and has turned down repeated requests for comments on the report, much the same as the CIA, NBC News said.




Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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- Al-Qaida's Nuclear Option
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Commentary...ear_Option.html

Washington (UPI) Mar 22, 2006 - President Bush says frequently "we are fighting them over there so they won't come over here." "Them" are transnational terrorists and "over there" is Iraq. The insurgency in Iraq has much to do with al-Qaida's plans for a WMD act of terrorism in the United States, but not the way the White House believes.

- Homeland Security Network Gets An F
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Homeland_S..._Gets_An_F.html

- Using 'Minutiae' To Match Fingerprints Can Be Accurate
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Using_Minu...e_Accurate.html

Deranged, Disconnected, and Dangerous

By Paul Craig Roberts

Not since Abraham Lincoln have American civil liberties been so threatened as by the Bush regime. America even has an Attorney General, a Vice President, and a Secretary of Defense who believe in torture. How do they differ from officials in the Third Reich or Stalin’s KGB? Anyone who believes in torture is not an American.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12432.htm

===
Must Watch Interview

Colonel Larry Wilkerson Condemns US ‘Ineptitude’

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Within 24 months, we're going to have to withdraw from Iraq, whether the situation there, politically, economically and so forth, is adequate or not because we've stretched our ground forces to the point of breaking. We have officers who are leaving the Army and the Marine Corps now because they don't want to do a third and possibly a fourth tour in Afghanistan or Iraq.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12433.htm

===
Former GOP Strategist Kevin Phillips on American Theocracy

The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

The Bush electorate is probably 50 to 55% people who believe in Armageddon and probably more or less the same numbers who believe that the Antichrist is already on earth.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12430.htm

===
The Iraq War: Three Years On - The march of folly, that has led to a bloodbath

By Robert Fisk

Things have been far worse than we have been told. Our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows ... We are today not far from a disaster." This is the most concise and accurate account I have yet read of our present folly.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12426.htm

March 22, 2006
Bush Concedes Iraq War Erodes Political Status
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON, March 21 — President Bush said Tuesday that the war in Iraq was eroding his political capital, his starkest admission yet about the costs of the conflict to his presidency, and suggested that American forces would remain in the country until at least 2009.

In a quick remark at a White House news conference about the reserves of political strength he earned in his 2004 re-election victory — "I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war" — Mr. Bush in effect acknowledged that until he could convince increasingly skeptical Americans that the United States was winning the war, Iraq would overshadow everything he did. [Excerpts, Page A10.]

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

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

Mr. Bush asserted that Iraq was not in a civil war, and took issue with Ayad Allawi, a former Iraqi prime minister and White House ally, who said Sunday that it was. The president also said repeatedly that he was convinced that the United States would succeed in Iraq and that he would continue to deliver that message across the country.

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

The president's news conference was part of a White House campaign to convince Americans that there is good news in Iraq, not only the daily bloodshed they see on television. The session with reporters was sandwiched in between a series of presidential Iraq speeches — Washington last Tuesday, Cleveland this last Monday and Wheeling, W. Va., scheduled for Wednesday — and like them, projected a tone of qualified optimism.

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

"I've heard people say, 'Oh, he's just kind of optimistic for the sake of optimism,' " he told reporters. "Well, look, I believe we're going to succeed. And I understand how tough it is. Don't get me wrong. I mean, you make it abundantly clear how tough it is. I hear it from our troops. I read the reports every night. But I believe the Iraqis — this is a moment where the Iraqis had a chance to fall apart, and they didn't. And that's a positive development."

The speech tactic worked in late 2005 when another series of Iraq addresses helped to stabilize the president's poll numbers temporarily. But analysts said that with his message now familiar to the nation, it was not clear whether people were listening.

"The problem with the speeches is they get gradually more realistic, but they are still exercises in spin," said Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "They don't outline the risks. They don't create a climate where people trust what's being said."

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

"This particular series confuses me about what it is trying to accomplish," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military specialist at the Brookings Institution. "It's been a bad winter in Iraq, but I also don't think he has enough new to say, and it's too soon after the fall speeches."

The war in Iraq bled into most questions at the news conference. Mr. Bush once again strongly endorsed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in response to a question about whether he should step down, as some members of Congress are demanding.

"No, I don't believe he should resign," Mr. Bush said. "I think he's done a fine job of not only conducting two battles, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also transforming our military, which has been a very difficult job inside the Pentagon."

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

Mr. Bush's mood at the news conference alternated between relaxed and testy, although he appeared to be trying hard not to show his irritation at some reporters. In one exchange, Helen Thomas, the longtime White House correspondent and Hearst newspaper columnist, asked Mr. Bush why he really wanted to go to war with Iraq. He curtly replied that "to assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect."

At another point, he took on a peevish tone when asked about Democratic measures in Congress to censure him for his secret surveillance program. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans support the program as long as they believe it is intended to protect them from terrorism.

"I did notice that nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program," Mr. Bush said. He added, in a formulation similar to his campaign speeches portraying Democrats as soft on terrorism, that "they ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used."

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

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

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

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, responded that Mr. Bush's remarks were "part of his standard talking points, but the reality is that Senator Reid strongly supported the bill that was signed into law by the president." Mr. Reid also issued a statement on Tuesday with the headline, "We see no end to Bush's dangerous incompetence."

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

"These are good, hard-working, decent people," he said. "And we've dealt with a lot." He added that there was natural Congressional anxiety in an election year.

"I can remember '02 before the elections, there were a certain nervousness," he said. "There was a lot of people in Congress who weren't sure I was going to make it in '04, and whether or not I'd drag the ticket down. So there's a certain unease as you head into an election year. I understand that."

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



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Spring Snow Storm Buries Ohio Valley Yahoo! NEWS
The spring snow storm that buried parts of Nebraska under more than 2 feet of snow swept through the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, shutting down schools and making travel tough for voters headed for the polls for the Illinois' primary election. As much as two inches of snow an hour fell in some areas of Illinois and Indiana, and wind gusted to 40 mph, weather officials said. "Our weather's terrible. The highways are terrible. It's not the highway department's fault, they just can't keep up with it," said Morgan County, Ill., Sheriff's Deputy Trevor Lahey. He answered more than 50 calls Tuesday morning about cars in ditches west of Springfield. In Colorado, Interstate 70 reopened early Tuesday after its eastbound lanes between Denver and the Kansas line were shut down for nearly 18 hours because of heavy snow. Interstate 80 remained closed across central Nebraska but was expected to reopen during the day. The storm dumped as much as 28 inches of snow on central Nebraska on Monday, 20 inches in parts of South Dakota and half a foot in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Wind piled the snow into drifts 7 feet high in parts of South Dakota and Nebraska. Farther south, heavy rain caused flooding in the Dallas area. By midmorning Tuesday, more than 7 inches of snow had fallen on parts of western Indiana, and wind up to 25 mph created whiteout conditions in some areas, the National Weather Service said. Indiana State Police reported dozens of accidents. School districts across central Illinois and western and central Indiana closed for the day. The weather was expected to contribute to low voter turnout for Illinois' primary election, which includes gubernatorial and congressional races. It hit after an unseasonably warm winter in which snowfall was 30 percent to 50 percent below normal in Indiana. Through mid-March, Indianapolis had used only about two-thirds of its $4.6 million snow-removal budget, officials said. Indiana state climatologist Dev Niyogi said the erratic weather will likely continue, in part because of the impact of La Nina, the mild cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that often coincides with stronger and more frequent hurricanes, a wetter Pacific Northwest and a drier South. "I think the important feature of the upcoming season is not just going to be a really cold or really warm season ahead, but the swings we are going have," he said. "Some days will really feel like winter again and some days we'll start thinking that maybe that summer is already here." Schools also remained closed for a second day Tuesday in parts of the Plains states. The Nebraska Legislature canceled its Tuesday meeting, and the South Dakota Legislature rescheduled Monday's meetings. At least five deaths were blamed on the storm in Colorado, Nebraska and Texas.
By ASHLEY M. HEHER, Associated Press Writer

March 22, 2006
No Breach Seen in Work in Iraq on Propaganda
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON, March 21 — An inquiry has found that an American public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles, military officials said Tuesday. The finding leaves to the Defense Department the decision on whether new rules are needed to govern such activities.

The inquiry, which has not yet been made public, was ordered by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, after it was disclosed in November that the military had used the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, to plant articles written by American troops in Iraqi newspapers while hiding the source of the articles.

The final report was described by officials in Washington and Iraq who have read or been briefed on it and were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Pentagon officials said Tuesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was considering new policies for regional commanders to clarify existing doctrine and rules on military communications and information operations.

Officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq said the Lincoln Group's contract remained fully in effect. The group's work, under a contract estimated at several million dollars, has included paying friendly Iraqi journalists stipends for favorable treatment.

Commanders in Iraq have said the group's efforts may continue unless a new policy to restrict or halt the practice is issued in Iraq or from the Pentagon. Those officials said the review acknowledged the "gray area" in which military communications and information operations are conducted in the battle zone, but found that no legal violations had been committed by the Lincoln Group in planting the stories.

The results of the investigation have been awaited with apprehension across the military and within the Bush administration, where officials have been struggling to find a way to improve the American image around the globe in the face of particular hostility in the Muslim world.

The findings are narrow in focus, and conclude that the Lincoln Group committed no legal violations because its actions in paying to place American-written articles without attribution were not expressly prohibited by its contract or military rules.

Officials who have read or been briefed on the review said the delay in its public release reflected discomfort in the Pentagon about the actions by the Lincoln Group and about the lack of clarity in broader Defense Department policy.

After disclosure of the secret effort to plant articles, angry members of Congress summoned Pentagon officials to a closed-door session to explain the program, saying it was not in keeping with democratic principles, and even White House officials voiced deep concern.

Mr. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's civilian and military leaders were able to deflect direct criticism at the time because the contract had been signed by the military command in Baghdad. But the inquiry now leaves them to address whether new guidelines are needed to balance American values of a free press against the needs of commanders in the fight against insurgents in Iraq.

Paige Craig, a Lincoln Group executive vice president, said by telephone on Tuesday that his organization had not been informed of the review's findings. He cited client confidentiality in declining to discuss the organization's contract with the military, its work and its payments.

Officials familiar with the review said it did not deal deeply with how the Lincoln Group had received the contract, or with whether the organization had established sufficient expertise or experience to carry out the contract effectively.

General Casey has given no timetable for release of the official findings, and last commented on the investigation on March 3, when he said at a news conference, "By and large, it found that we were operating within our authorities and responsibilities." He said then that he had not ordered any halt to the practices because findings of the review, conducted by Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk, were still being evaluated.

Lawrence Di Rita, co-director of a Pentagon panel studying communications questions for the Quadrennial Defense Review, which was released last month, said Mr. Rumsfeld and other senior officials were now considering new policies for regional combat commanders.

He declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation but acknowledged that the issues arising from the Lincoln controversy — and the more sweeping question of how the Defense Department should communicate about its actions and policies overseas — demanded more analysis inside the Pentagon.

"The big issue in our world is whether our doctrine and our policy are up to date," said Mr. Di Rita, a senior adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld. "We owe more thinking to the combatant commanders. What are the things that should be balanced when you look at information and communications issues?"

Across the Bush administration, officials are wrestling with how to counter radical anti-American messages that resonate throughout huge parts of the world. With the pace of technology, and against the backdrop of American counterterrorism efforts around the world, the role of information has been given greater prominence in Pentagon planning.

The question for the Pentagon is its proper role in shaping perceptions abroad. Particularly in a modern world connected by satellite television and the Internet, misleading information and lies could easily migrate into American news outlets, as could the perception that false information is being spread by the Pentagon.



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Charges Dropped in Fla. Student Sex Case Yahoo! NEWS
Prosecutors in one Florida county decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former Tampa teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student. The decision, announced hours after a judge rejected a plea deal for Debra Lafave, means the victim won't have to testify. Lafave's sentence in another county for having sex with the same boy still stands. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had urged the judge to accept the deal for the sake of the boy involved. A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge at a previous hearing that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case and does not want to testify. Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court," and he rejected it. Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway, in explaining the decision to drop the charges, said: "The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not." Lafave, 25, was already sentenced to three years of house arrest and seven years' probation in Hillsborough County, where she was charged with having sex with the same boy in a classroom and her home. She pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery under a plea deal there. In Marion County, she was accused of having sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle. Lafave said at a news conference later Tuesday that she was getting treatment for bipolar disorder. "I have a lot of things in my past that have unfortunately become public," Lafave said. "I pray with all my heart that the young man and his family will be able to move on with their lives," she said. "Again, I offer my deepest apologies." Hillsborough County prosecutor Mike Sinacore has said that the victim's family had anticipated a trial, but that the media attention prompted the boy's mother to push for a plea deal. "There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself," the boy's mother wrote in an e-mail to the Ocala Star-Banner over the weekend. But she said the welfare of her son was more important.
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer

March 22, 2006
Army Dog Handler Convicted of Abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, March 21 — An Army dog handler was found guilty Tuesday of tormenting detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with his snarling Belgian shepherd for his own amusement.

The soldier, Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, was found guilty on 6 of 13 counts, including maltreatment, dereliction of duty and conspiring with another Army dog handler to frighten detainees into urinating and defecating on themselves. Sergeant Smith could face more than eight years in prison, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. Had he been convicted of all counts, he would have been subject to more than 24 years in prison.

A hearing to determine the sentence began Tuesday and will continue Wednesday. Several witnesses, including the sergeant himself, testified on his behalf.

The case of Sergeant Smith, who is from Boynton Beach, Fla., is the latest in a long series arising from abuses committed by members of the United States military at Abu Ghraib. Although Pentagon officials have insisted that only a tiny fraction of American soldiers behaved badly, there is wide agreement that their conduct damaged the standing of the United States in the Arab world.

In addition to Sergeant Smith, nine other low-ranking soldiers have been convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib. Among them, Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. received the stiffest sentence, 10 years in prison and demotion to private.

A jury of four officers and three enlisted soldiers rejected Sergeant Smith's defense that he was simply following orders and using a barking dog to keep prisoners in line. The prosecution asserted that Sergeant Smith treated inmates at Abu Ghraib inhumanely in late 2003 and early 2004, a period during which photographs depicted prisoners naked and stacked in human pyramids, or leashed and crawling like dogs, with soldiers posing alongside them. One of the most notorious images was of Sergeant Smith holding his growling dog straining on its leash just inches from the face of a cowering orange-clad prisoner.

The jury also found him guilty of indecent acts for ordering his dog, Marco, to lick peanut butter off the genitals of an American male soldier and the breasts of an American female soldier while a third soldier videotaped the episode.

At issue in the dog-handler trial was a familiar refrain from similar courts-martial: was the misconduct unsanctioned abuse by a rogue soldier or part of a pattern of harsh interrogation techniques approved by military commanders in Baghdad and senior government officials in Washington?

Sergeant Smith's weeklong trial at Fort Meade, Md., failed to resolve this debate. One of the witnesses, the former military intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, had been considered a possible link between the abusive tactics used at the prison and his superiors in Baghdad and Washington.

Colonel Pappas said during testimony last week that he had learned that military working dogs were an effective interrogation tool from a team of intelligence officials visiting Iraq in September 2003 from the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He said he had discussed with Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the team leader and commander at Guantánamo Bay, the "Arab fear of dogs" as a reason to "set the conditions" for interrogations.

But Colonel Pappas, testifying for the defense under a grant of immunity, said the Army lacked clear rules for using dogs in interrogations at Abu Ghraib, and he took personal responsibility for failing to ensure that military police and intelligence officers were properly trained in using dogs.

Colonel Pappas acknowledged that he had approved a one-time use of muzzled dogs inside interrogation booths but only later learned that he could not give such an order without the approval of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top commander in Iraq. Colonel Pappas also said he was unaware that military intelligence soldiers were using unmuzzled dogs outside the booths.

"In hindsight, clearly we probably needed to establish some definitive rules and put out some clear guidance to everybody concerned," Colonel Pappas said in his first public statements about the scandal. He is currently assigned to a planning job at Fort Knox, Ky.

Two months ago, General Miller took the unusual step of invoking his right not to give testimony that might incriminate him, and said he would not answer questions in the court-martial proceedings against Sergeant Smith and another dog handler, Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, who is to stand trial in May.

A military lawyer for General Miller said he had already fully answered all questions put to him on the issue by Congressional committees, Army investigators and other court proceedings. General Miller has said he only advised using working dogs to keep order.

General Miller had been expected to retire from the Army soon, but the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month told the Army to delay that until the dog handlers' cases were resolved.

The panel's chairman, Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday from Baghdad that he would summon Colonel Pappas and General Miller to testify again after the court proceedings involving them were complete.

Avi Cover, a lawyer with Human Rights First in Manhattan who monitored the trial, said, "The testimony in these proceedings revealed an appalling level of confusion and implicated the chain of command, certainly Pappas, for blame in authorizing these techniques in some instances."

The Pentagon last fall approved a policy directive governing interrogations as part of an effort to tighten controls over questioning of terror suspects and other prisoners by American soldiers. It also reaffirmed that military working dogs could not be used in interrogations and that military police could assist interrogators by providing information about detainees' behavior but could not participate in the interrogations themselves.

In addition to Corporal Graner in cases related to abuse at Abu Ghraib, Private Lynndie R. England was sentenced Sept. 27 to three years in prison and a dishonorable discharge at a second court-martial after an earlier one at which she entered a guilty plea ended in a mistrial. The highest-ranking officer to be punished was Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, who was demoted to colonel and lost command of her military police unit.



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March 22, 2006
Iraqi Official, Paid by C.I.A., Gave Account of Weapons
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, March 21 — Saddam Hussein's foreign minister was paid for information he supplied to the Central Intelligence Agency, through the French intelligence agency, that raised questions about the scale of Iraq's weapons programs, former intelligence officials said Tuesday.

The role of Naji Sabri, Iraq's foreign minister from 2001 until the America-led invasion began in 2003, was first described publicly in a 2004 speech by George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, but Mr. Tenet did not give the Iraqi's name.

NBC News reported on Monday night that Mr. Sabri had been the man Mr. Tenet described as "a source who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle," and two former intelligence officials confirmed the identification.

Mr. Sabri did not meet directly with C.I.A. officers, but spoke with intermediaries in meetings arranged by the French intelligence agency, which passed the information on, the officials said.

One official said Mr. Sabri may not have known for certain that his information was going to the United States government or that the money he received — reported by NBC as more than $100,000 — came from the C.I.A.

The officials were granted anonymity because of the importance of the secret intelligence relationship they had described. Mr. Sabri, who is teaching at a university in the Middle East outside Iraq, declined to discuss the report, NBC reported. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment Tuesday.

According to Mr. Tenet's account, which is generally in accord with that of NBC and the former intelligence officials, the source now identified as Mr. Sabri gave a mixed account of Iraq's weapons programs when he spoke with French intelligence officers in the fall of 2002.

Mr. Tenet said in his speech, at Georgetown University in February 2004, that a source who had direct access to Mr. Hussein had said that Iraq had no nuclear weapons but was "aggressively and covertly" seeking to develop them. Mr. Tenet said the source had also reported that the Hussein government was "dabbling" with biological weapons but had no "real weapons program."

By comparison, an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, representing the views of American intelligence agencies, said Iraq had "reconstituted its nuclear weapons program" and it had an active biological weapons program that had produced some germ weapons.

On chemical arms, Mr. Sabri's information seems to be closer to the American estimate, which had said Iraq was producing and stockpiling chemical weapons. Mr. Sabri told French intelligence officers that Iraq had stockpiled chemical weapons and might use them against invading troops or Israel, according to Mr. Tenet.

Extensive searches by American troops and weapons specialists after the fall of Mr. Hussein found no unconventional weapons of any kind.

A worldly diplomat and former editor of an English-language Iraqi newspaper, Mr. Sabri was recalled from the Iraqi Embassy in London in 1980 after his two brothers were arrested by Mr. Hussein's agents and jailed on conspiracy charges. They were tortured, and one died in prison, while the other was freed after six years, according to a biography of Mr. Sabri compiled by the BBC.

Mr. Sabri lived quietly as an editor and literary translator for a decade before being given a new government post at the time of the Persian Gulf war in 1991. He worked at the Ministry of Information, as an adviser to Mr. Hussein and as ambassador to Austria before becoming foreign minister in April 2001.

In September 2002, in a speech to the United Nations, Mr. Sabri declared that "Iraq is free of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."

The Bush administration has been accused by some former officials and members of Congress of deliberately skewing prewar intelligence to make the case for war.

Last month, Paul R. Pillar, a former C.I.A. official who oversaw intelligence assessments on the Middle East before the war, charged in an article in Foreign Affairs that "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions that had already been made."



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March 22, 2006
Superior Says He Didn't See Agent's Report on Moussaoui
By NEIL A. LEWIS
ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 21 — The F.B.I.'s top counterterrorism official at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks told a jury on Tuesday that he did not know that a bureau agent had filed a report three weeks earlier detailing his suspicions that Zacarias Moussaoui was involved in an imminent airline hijacking plot.

The official, Michael Rolince, who was the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's international terrorism section until his retirement, testified that he had little knowledge of Mr. Moussaoui before the attacks.

Mr. Rolince said he was unaware that the agent, Harry Samit, who was working in Minneapolis, had filed a long report asking for a complete investigation of Mr. Moussaoui, whom he described as a radical Islamic fundamentalist who hated the United States and was learning to fly jetliners.

When Mr. Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., asked Mr. Rolince if he knew that when Mr. Moussaoui was arrested he was under suspicion of planning a hijacking, he replied, "No." Then, after a moment, he asked sharply, "Can I ask what document that's coming from?"

Mr. MacMahon offered a quick reply. "That's Mr. Samit's communication to your office," he said. "Aug. 18, 2001."

Mr. Rolince said Mr. Samit's "suppositions, hunches and suspicions were one thing, and what we knew" was a different matter.

Despite his efforts to recover, Mr. Rolince became the second witness for the prosecution in two consecutive days at the sentencing trial for Mr. Moussaoui to give testimony that appeared to provide clear benefits to the defense.

Mr. Samit, who was cross-examined by Mr. MacMahon on Monday, testified, albeit reluctantly, that he had told investigators after the attacks that he believed that his superiors at the bureau in Washington were guilty of "criminal negligence" and had ignored his increasingly dire requests to obtain a search warrant in order to protect their careers.

He said that they had taken a gamble that Mr. Moussaoui was not going to have any valuable information and that they had lost a wager that proved to be a national tragedy.

The government has argued that Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to go to trial in the United States in connection with the deaths of Sept. 11, should be executed because when he was arrested three weeks earlier on immigration charges, he lied to investigators about his knowledge of plans by Al Qaeda to fly planes into buildings.

Because Mr. Moussaoui has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, the sole question before the jury is whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Mr. Samit and Mr. Rolince were called as witnesses by the government to press the argument that had Mr. Moussaoui told Mr. Samit and other investigators what he knew, the F.B.I. could have taken steps to foil the plot. Mr. Rolince testified as to how the government disrupted a plan to blow up Los Angeles International Airport when another man, Ahmed Ressam, was arrested at the Canadian border in 1999 and agreed to cooperate with the authorities.

But he seemed to unwittingly reinforce the defense's counterargument that Mr. Moussaoui's silence was not as important as the inability of law enforcement authorities to react to leads like those given by Mr. Samit.

Mr. Rolince also testified that he had a "hallway" conversation, lasting about 20 seconds, with one of the supervisors at headquarters whom Mr. Samit has identified as blocking his efforts. He said the supervisor, David Frasca, briefed him on an alternate plan to have Mr. Moussaoui's belongings searched by extraditing him to France and having French authorities do the search.

That plan, Mr. Samit has testified, was to go into effect on Sept. 11, 2001.



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