"White House Seeking Gonzales Replacements"

By: Mike Allen

March 19, 2007 07:24 PM EST

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.

Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend.

Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect.

So is former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, but sources were unsure whether he would want the job.

Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly.

Officials were debating whether Gonzales and McNulty should depart at the same time or whether McNulty should go a day or two after Gonzales.

Still known as "The Judge" for his service on the Texas Supreme Court, Gonzales is one of the few remaining original Texans who came to Washington with President Bush.

In a sign of Republican despair, GOP political strategists on Capitol Hill said that it is too late for Gonzales' departure to head off a full-scale Democratic investigation into the motives and timing behind the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

"Democrats smell blood in the water, and (Gonzales') resignation won't stop them," said a well-connected Republican Senate aide.

"And on our side, no one's going to defend him."

"All we can do is warn Democrats against overreaching."

A main reason Gonzales is finding few friends even among Republicans is that he has long been regarded with suspicion by conservatives who have questioned his ideological purity.

In the past, these conservatives warned the White House against nominating him for the Supreme Court.

Now they're using the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors to take out their pent-up frustrations with how he has handled his leadership at Justice and how the White House has treated Congress.

Complaints range from his handling of immigration cases to his alleged ceding of power in the department to career officials instead of movement conservatives.

Without embracing Gonzales, Republicans pointed out that presidents are free to replace U.S. attorneys at will.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) noted on MSNBC that some of those who were replaced "haven't whined or complained about it" and added, "I think that there's a lot of politics, but I don't think it's just on one side."

But officials on Capitol Hill said that after the Justice Department failed to turn over a batch of e-mails about the prosecutors on Friday as expected, Republican senators became less likely to defend Gonzales or the White House.

They feared the delay signaled more damaging information was in the pipeline.

"We have a crisis where there doesn't need to be one, and now Democrats have an issue where they can open up the subpoena floodgates," said an exasperated Republican aide.

"Once these investigations start, there always ends up being a lot of messy collateral damage."

Now the White House is girding for a confirmation battle at the same time it is coping with Democrats' threats to subpoena aides to Bush, including senior adviser Karl Rove.

Among the contenders to replace Gonzales, Chertoff is a former U.S. circuit judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia.

Before that, he was confirmed by the Senate in 2003 as assistant attorney general for the criminal division.

Under this scenario, Chertoff's successor at the Department of Homeland Security might be Townsend, who now works in the White House as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Townsend held senior Justice Department posts under Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration and is also a potential nominee for attorney general.

Republican sources said other widely respected Republican lawyers have been considered for attorney general, although some of them may not be interested in taking the job.

These names include:

--Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the "Law & Order" star who is now considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

--Olson, who was Bush's first solicitor general and now is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington.

--Larry Thompson, who has been general counsel of PepsiCo Inc. since leaving his first-term job as deputy to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

--Retired federal judge Laurence H. Silberman, who was named by Bush to be co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

--George J. Terwilliger III, a former deputy attorney general and acting attorney general who was a leader of Bush's legal team during the Florida election recount.

Asked if Gonzales will stay, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said Monday:

"We hope so."

"He has the confidence of the president."

But Snow also revealed that the president had not talked to Gonzales since a conversation the two had when Bush was in Mexico last week.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3202.html

"Romney camp catches flak for Hitler ad"

By COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:53 p.m., Tuesday, March 20, 2007

DETROIT -- The co-chair of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's finance committee contributed to a group that used the money for a newspaper ad comparing Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to Adolph Hitler.

John Rakolta said he and other Republicans unwittingly paid for the ad with contributions to Voice the Vote, a Detroit-based political action committee.

The full-page ad last summer featured a photo of Hitler and urged black voters to reject Granholm's 2006 re-election bid.

The ad included a swastika and photo of Granholm, who defeated Republican businessman Dick DeVos in November.

The ad appeared in the Michigan Chronicle, the state's largest black newspaper.

The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday took issue with Rakolta's role in the presidential campaign and called on Romney to disavow attack ads.

Rakolta, in an interview with The Associated Press, criticized the DNC.

"All the Democrats are trying to do is embarrass Mitt Romney," John Rakolta said by telephone Tuesday.

"I'm not going to let one or two people, or the Democratic National Committee stop me from fundraising for Mitt Romney."

The Detroit Free Press reported last week that Rakolta and his wife each donated $5,000 to Voice the Vote, as did Detroit developer Peter Cummings and his wife.

Grosse Pointe, Mich., businessman Robert Liggett donated $1,000.

Of the $29,000 raised by Voice the Vote, $21,000 came from the Rakoltas, the Cummings and Liggett, according to the Free Press.

"I was approached by a group of people who said the purpose of the PAC was to increase voter turnout in the African-American community," Rakolta said.

Damien LaVera, spokesman for the DNC, said Rakolta's position on Romney's finance committee raises questions about the type of presidential campaign the Republican candidate plans on running.

"It's incumbent on Mitt Romney to say whether or not he supports those campaign tactics or those ads," LaVera said Tuesday.

"Does Romney stand by these types of ads and tactics or not?"

Rakolta said he has withdrawn "100 percent" of his support from Voice the Vote.

"This is not going to cause me to shy away from the City of Detroit and continuing to improve racial harmony," he said.

"One of my tenets is to see people of color and minorities well-represented in government."

"Bush warns Dems to take offer in firings"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:05 p.m., Tuesday, March 20, 2007

WASHINGTON -- A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

Democrats' response to his proposal was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.

"Testimony should be on the record and under oath."

"That's the formula for true accountability," said Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, said, "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants."

"... I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse."

He added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural to consider replacing them.

"There is no indication that anybody did anything improper," the president said.

Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, a boost during an early morning call and ended the day with a public statement repeating it.

"He's got support with me," Bush said.

The Senate, meanwhile, voted to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority.

Several Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barrack Obama, Joe Biden and John Edwards, have called for Gonzales' ouster or resignation.

So have a handful of Republican lawmakers.

"What happened in this case sends a signal really through intimidation by purge: 'Don't quarrel with us any longer,'" said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former U.S. attorney who spent much of Monday evening paging through 3,000 documents released by the Justice Department.

Bush said his White House counsel, Fred Fielding, told lawmakers they could interview presidential counselor Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and their deputies -- but only on the president's terms: in private, "without the need for an oath" and without a transcript.

The president cast the offer as virtually unprecedented and a reasonable way for Congress to get all the information it needs about the matter.

"If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed," Bush said.

"If scoring political points is the desire, then the rejection of this reasonable proposal will really be evident for the American people to see."

Bush said he would aggressively fight in court any attempt to subpoena White House aides.

"If the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the president would not receive candid advice and the American people would be ill-served," he said.

"I'm sorry the situation has gotten to where it's got, but that's Washington, D.C., for you."

"You know there's a lot of politics in this town."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is leading the Senate probe into the firings, spoke dismissively of the deal offered by the White House:

"It's sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them, but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here."

Even without oaths, Bush aides would be legally required to tell the truth to Congress.

But without a transcript of their comments, "it would be almost meaningless to say that they would be under some kind of legal sanction," Schumer complained.

Fielding's meeting on Capitol Hill came a few hours after Bush spoke with Gonzales in an early morning phone call -- their first conversation since the president had acknowledged mistakes by his longtime friend and lawmakers of both parties had called for Gonzales' ouster.

The White House offered to arrange interviews with Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to White House political director Sara Taylor, who works for Rove.

"Such interviews would be private and conducted without the need for an oath, transcript, subsequent testimony or the subsequent issuance of subpoenas," Fielding said in a letter to the Senate and House Judiciary committees and their ranking Republicans.

He said documents released by the Justice Department "do not reflect that any U.S. attorney was replaced to interfere with a pending or future criminal investigation or for any other improper reason."

------

Associated Press writer Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

end quotes

Bush said he would aggressively fight in court any attempt to subpoena White House aides.

"If the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the president would not receive candid advice and the American people would be ill-served," he said.

Here, George W. Bush is full of crap, and he knows it, as does every American who has read the book Without Precedent by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton of the 9-11 Commission ...

Where Fred Fielding was one of the Commissioners, and the 9-11 Commission in fact did discuss subpoenas of White House staff with "THE JUDGE", Alberto Gonzales, and where "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice did in fact appear before the 9-11 Commission under oath to discuss internal White House deliberations concerning 9-11 ...

And so ...

"Bush aides facing subpoenas over firings"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:53 a.m., Wednesday, March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Flexing their political muscle against the White House, Democrats in the House and Senate are insisting that President Bush's top aides describe their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors on the record and under oath.

A House committee was to vote Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for political director Karl Rove and other administration officials despite Bush's declaration a day earlier that Democrats must accept his offer to allow the officials to talk privately to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but not under oath and not on the record.

Would he fight Democrats in court to protect his aides against congressional subpoenas?

"Absolutely," Bush declared Tuesday in televised remarks from the White House.

Democrats promptly rejected the offer and announced that they would start authorizing subpoenas within 24 hours.

"Testimony should be on the record and under oath."

"That's the formula for true accountability," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush said he worried that allowing testimony under oath would set a precedent on the separation of powers that would harm the presidency as an institution.

If neither side blinks, the dispute could end in court -- ultimately the Supreme Court -- in a politically messy development that would prolong what Bush called the "public spectacle" of the Justice Department's firings, and public trashings, of the eight U.S. attorneys.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Senate panel's former chairman, appealed for pragmatism.

"It is more important to get the information promptly than to have months or years of litigation," Specter said.

Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, decried any attempts by Democrats to engage in "a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants."

"It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available," the president said.

Bush defended Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against demands from congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans that Gonzales resign over his handling of the U.S. attorneys' firings over the past year.

"He's got support with me," Bush said.

"I support the attorney general."

Democrats say the prosecutors' dismissals were politically motivated.

Gonzales initially had asserted the firings were performance-related, not based on political considerations.

But e-mails released earlier this month between the Justice Department and the White House contradicted that assertion and led to a public apology from Gonzales over the handling of the matter.

The e-mails showed that Rove, as early as Jan. 6, 2005, questioned whether the U.S. attorneys should all be replaced at the start of Bush's second term, and to some degree worked with former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson to get some prosecutors dismissed.

In his remarks Tuesday, Bush emphasized that he appoints federal prosecutors and it is natural to consider replacing them.

While saying he disapproved of how the decisions were explained to Congress, he insisted "there is no indication that anybody did anything improper."

Nonetheless, the Senate on Tuesday voted 94-2 to strip Gonzales of his authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

Democrats contend the Justice Department and White House purged the eight federal prosecutors, some of whom were leading political corruption investigations, after a change in the USA Patriot Act gave Gonzales the new authority.

"What happened in this case sends a signal really through intimidation by purge: 'Don't quarrel with us any longer,'" said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former U.S. attorney.

The White House had signaled last week that it would not oppose the legislation if it also passed the House and reached Bush's desk.

Bush said his White House counsel, Fred Fielding, told lawmakers Tuesday that they could interview Rove, Miers, deputy White House counsel William Kelley and J. Scott Jennings, a deputy to political director Sara Taylor -- who in turn works for Rove.

Any such discussions would occur on the president's terms, Fielding said, in private, "without the need for an oath" and without a transcript.

The president cast the offer as virtually unprecedented and a reasonable way for Congress to get all the information it needs about the matter.

"If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed," Bush said.

"If scoring political points is the desire, then the rejection of this reasonable proposal will really be evident for the American people to see."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate probe into the firings, dismissed the White House offer.

"It's sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them, but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here," Schumer said.

In his statement Tuesday, Bush said:

"I also want to say something to the U.S. attorneys who have resigned."

"I appreciate your service to the country."

"And while I strongly support the attorney general's decision, and am confident he acted appropriately, I regret that these resignations turned into such a public spectacle."

The president did not refer to any of the prosecutors by name or elaborate further.

In an op-ed in Wednesday's editions, one of the eight, David Iglesias of New Mexico, wrote:

"I appreciate (President Bush's) gratitude for my service -- this marks the first time I have been thanked."

"But only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me."

end quotes

Bush said he worried that allowing testimony under oath would set a precedent on the separation of powers that would harm the presidency as an institution .....

GEORGE, YOU ARE CHOCK FULL OF CRAP ....

These very same issues were addressed back in the days of the Hamilton-Kean 9-11 Commission ....

And they were resolved IN FAVOR OF the American people ...

TO WHOM, GEORGE, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE ....

And there is nothing different now, except of course, George is trying to keep SECRET from us once again exactly how CORRUPT his REGIME really is, especially that part of it that is connected to Karl Rove, the ARCHITECT of the massive losses that REPUBLICANS suffered in this last round of elections, and rightfully so ....

Boy, this George W. Bush and ALL of his continued BULL **** turns my stomach ....

Makes me nauseous ....

This Bush is just incredible ....

One must wonder at his upbringing ....

That has produced such a LOSER as he ....

And so ...

"Showdown looms in attorney firings probe"

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress careened closer to a full-blown legal showdown over the firing of federal prosecutors Wednesday as a House subcommittee voted subpoenas for top administration officials in defiance of the White House.

"After two months of stonewalling, shifting stories and misleading testimony, it is clear that we are still not getting the truth about the decision to fire these prosecutors and its cover-up," said Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.

In response, an unyielding White House threatened to rescind its day-old proposal for top strategist Karl Rove and other officials to answer lawmakers' questions away from the glare of television lights and not under oath.

"If they issue subpoenas, yes, the offer is withdrawn," said presidential spokesman Tony Snow.

Democrats "will have rejected the offer," he said.

Despite the rhetoric, Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly suggested there was room for negotiations in a confrontation that has threatened Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hold on his job and forced his chief of staff to resign.

"What we're voting on today is merely a backup," said the Michigan Democrat.

Still, it seemed likely the next act would be a separate vote Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve a second set of subpoenas for Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and William Kelley, who was Miers' deputy.

Senate Democrats, in particular, have been insistent on gaining testimony under oath, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed the idea that Rove would be allowed to answer questions on the White House's terms.

"Anyone who would take that deal isn't playing with a full deck," he said.

Republicans forced a delay in a vote on Senate subpoenas a week ago, and it was not clear whether any of the GOP members of the panel were now prepared to support them.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is the senior Republican on the panel, and Democrats were hoping he would side with them.

The clash comes less than 100 days after the new Democratic-controlled Congress took power and pledged to confront Bush aggressively.

Both houses are to vote in the next few days on legislation requiring the beginning of a troop withdrawal from Iraq after four years of war.

And a House committee provided a stage last week for testimony by Valerie Plame, a one-time covert CIA official whose exposure figured in the recent trial and conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of obstruction of justice.

The furor that has engulfed Gonzales stems from the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors last winter and a shifting series of explanations that followed.

Initially, the Justice Department said most if not all were dismissed because of poor job performance.

Then David Iglesias, who had been removed as U.S. attorney in New Mexico, disclosed he had received calls close to last fall's elections from two Republican lawmakers, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson.

The two inquired about the pace of a corruption investigation, he said, adding that he interpreted the calls as pressure to rush indictments that might harm Democrats politically.

Wilson was in a hotly contested race at the time.

Both she and Domenici have denied any wrongdoing.

Officials also insisted that the White House had played a limited role in the decision to fire the eight.

Then Snow told reporters Miers had first raised the prospect of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys shortly after Bush's re-election in 2004.

Snow soon had to recant that claim.

"I don't want to try to vouch for origination," he said last Friday as e-mails surfaced shedding new light on Rove's role.

"At this juncture, people have hazy memories."

In the days since, Gonzales has been buffeted by calls for his resignation by Democrats and even a few Republicans, particularly in light of separate disclosures that FBI practices had resulted in the illegal collection of personal data on Americans and foreigners.

Despite expressions of support from Bush, one member of the House GOP leadership said Wednesday that Gonzales "has to evaluate how effectively he can continue to serve as our attorney general."

"I am stopping short of calling for his resignation," added Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida.

Concern was evident among Republicans at the House subcommittee hearing, although GOP lawmakers repeatedly pressed Democrats to hold off on approval of the subpoenas.

Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., told Democrats he would support subpoenas in the future "if some evidence of misconduct comes up."

Democrats were unmoved.

"The White House has offered a proposal that allows limited access to witnesses, no access to key documents and no testimony under oath," said Sanchez.

"We have worked toward voluntary cooperation on this investigation, but we must prepare for the possibility that the Justice Department and the White House will continue to hide the truth."

"Soldier pleads guilty to role in murders"

By KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press Writer

40 minutes ago

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - A Fort Campbell soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to being an accessory to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family.

Pfc. Bryan Howard, 20, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice by lying to his superior officers about the attack last year in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

It was one of the most shocking atrocities committed by U.S. troops in the Iraq war.

Howard could get up to 15 years in prison at a sentencing hearing that began Wednesday afternoon.

Five soldiers were charged in the rape of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killings of her, her parents and her younger sister.

Two of the soldiers previously pleaded guilty and said Howard's role was minimal.

Howard told the judge Wednesday he was left behind at a checkpoint while four other soldiers went to rape the girl.

Howard said he overheard the four planning the attack.

Howard said he only started to realize that someone had been killed after the soldiers returned about 10 minutes later.

He said the four soldiers were in a "hectic state and hyper."

Howard said he saw blood on one of the soldier's uniforms, but he didn't remember which one.

"I was slowly starting to believe what they had done, that they had committed the crimes, the rape and the murder," Howard said.

Spc. James P. Barker and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, who have pleaded guilty to rape and murder, have said they took turns raping the girl while Pfc. Steven D. Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister.

Green then shot Abeer in the head, they said.

Green, who is accused of being the ringleader but was discharged from the military before being charged, will be prosecuted in a federal court in Kentucky.

He pleaded not guilty to charges including murder and sexual assault in the March 12, 2006, attack.

Barker said Howard and another soldier charged, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, did not participate in the rape and killings, but he said they were at the house when the assault occurred and had come knowing what the others intended to do.

Howard, of Huffman, Texas, was initially described as a lookout for the crime and other soldiers from the 101st Airborne have said he was not directly involved.

During Wednesday's hearing, Howard said Cortez and Green bragged about what they had done after they returned.

Howard said he knew Green shot at least one person, but he didn't know how many.

Howard said he learned how many people had been killed when the battalion commander started to ask him about the attack.

Howard said he told investigators that he didn't believe the soldiers were involved, but "I told them Green was probably crazy enough to do it."

Howard said he implicated Green to draw the investigators' attention away from Barker, Cortez and Spielman.

Barker was sentenced to 90 years in prison and Cortez received 100.

Lawyers for Spielman have said he was not involved in the planning of the murders and rape.

His court-martial is scheduled for April 2.

"The endless war"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, March 20, 2007

So which is worse, the cocky President Bush, declaring mission accomplished just a few months into the Iraq war, or the more candid and subdued one?

It was the latter face of Mr. Bush that the nation saw on TV Monday morning, so desperately trying to retain what little public confidence he now inspires as the war enters its fifth year.

There's something surreal about a president appealing for his country's patience at this point in such a long and costly war.

Where was Mr. Bush's patience in the early days of 2003?

Weapons inspectors could have, in time, told him that Saddam Hussein didn't have the chemical and biological arsenal that the President used as justification to start the war that and he and his advisers were so determined to fight.

The President's scorn for the determination of the more sensible contingent of Democrats in Congress to withdraw from Iraq by September 2008, more than 17 months from now, underscores the futility of a mission that didn't need to be undertaken.

If Iraqis are indeed making progress and honoring commitments, why does Mr. Bush need more troops for a war where any possibility of success is months away?

"There will be good days and bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds," Mr. Bush says of his vision for order replacing chaos in Baghdad and Anbar Province.

To expect the American people to have any stomach for more bad days after several years of them is to engage in delusion.

Bad days mean, more than anything else, additional American casualties.

The President might have asked himself just what it was for which more than 3,200 Americans have given their lives.

That he cites the Iraqi constitution, an irrelevant document in an ungovernable land, as justification for this war is pathetic.

Nor is the deposition and death of Saddam, mass murderer that he was, a compelling argument in favor of a war that has no peace.

There's a second front in this war, and it's the Bush administration's clash with reality.

The closest Mr. Bush or his advisers will come to acknowledging error is to agree that more troops should have been deployed to Iraq following the U.S. invasion in order to stop the insurgency.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that much on Monday.

Such admission doesn't mean very much, however, when she and the other members of the administration defend a war fought under such misleading circumstances.

"Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won," says Mr. Bush.

"It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through."

It's frightening, yet all too easy, to imagine Mr. Bush saying much the same thing 12 months from now, when the war is entering its sixth year.

True courage would be to accept that the absence of so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq isn't a valid reason for a military mission that's lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in World War II.

Genuine resolve would be a commitment to finding a way out.

end quotes

George W. Bush has gone around a bend and is firmly over there in La-La Land with Dick Cheney if he thinks that "courage" and "resolve" on OUR part is going to salvage this embarassing debacle of his and Dick Cheney's ....

ESPECIALLY WHEN WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE "COURAGE AND "RESOLVE" FOR IS THE CONTINUED KILLING AND MAIMING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN BY GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY, ALONG WITH GOD-ONLY-KNOWS-WHAT KINDS OF PERVERSIONS AND TORTURES GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY HAVE GOING ON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS IN PLACES THAT THEY WON'T TELL US ABOUT, SUCH AS ABU GHRAIB WAS, OR ANY OF THE NUMEROUS DETENTION CENTER SET UP BY SUCH THUGS IN UNIFORM AS RAY ODIERNO, WHERE AMERICAN SOLDIERS COULD BEAT IRAQIS WITH BASEBALL BATS AND SUCH, TO GET RID OF SOME TENSION .....

George W. Bush is the most odious world leader that I have encountered in my studies of human history, and this depraved monster Bush will get no courage or resolve from me in signing on to any of his endeavors ....

And true courage and resolve on the part of the United States Congress would be to haul this miserable excuse for much of anything at all before them to impeach his *** right out of office, and in a hurry ....

And then, true resolve on the part of the US Congress would be to get into that WHITE HOUSE with gallons of Lysol to completely disinfect that place ....

To cleanse it completely of the malodorous miasma that has suffused that place since his presence there ....

And so ...

"Let them testify"

Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Today is the deadline for Fred Fielding, the White House counsel, to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee whether top Bush administration will testify in public, under oath, in the ongoing investigation into the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

If Mr. Fielding cares at all about serving the cause of justice, not to mention the reputation of his boss, his answer will be yes.

But it could well be no.

Dan Bartlett, counselor to President Bush, has told The New York Times that it is "highly unlikely" that Mr. Bush will waive executive privilege to allow such testimony.

And another source told the Times that the best the committee can expect is an informal meeting, not sworn testimony.

That won't do.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has already told Congress several different stories about the firings.

Sworn testimony is necessary to get at the truth.

The longer President Bush tries to hide behind executive privilege to shield such aides as Karl Rove, his top political strategist, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, the more he will evoke memories of Richard Nixon, who tried to keep Congress from gaining access to the White House tapes in a clear attempt to evade accountability for Watergate.

What's at stake now is not a political witch hunt, as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has suggested.

Instead it is a legitimate inquiry into whether White House aides may have played a role in the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons, rather than their performance on the job.

And political favoritism is an issue not just for the attorneys who lost their jobs, but at least one of their possible replacements.

The Seattle Times has reported that one of the candidates who might succeed the fired U.S. attorney in western Washington state is not even licensed to practice in that state.

Today's showdown between the White House and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who says he is "sick and tired of getting half truths on this," comes in the wake of the trial of I. Lewis "'Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's top aide, who was found guilty of lying to federal investigators.

Testimony at the Libby trial showed how the White House operated behind the scenes in an attempt to discredit the husband of a CIA agent who had criticized the war in Iraq.

That raises an obvious question: Were the same sort of behind-the-scenes tactics used to oust the eight federal prosecutors?

The public has a right to know the answer to that question -- not half truths.

"Iraqi VP warns of chaos if U.S. withdrawal premature"

Thu Mar 22, 5:56 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi warned on Thursday that his country could be thrown into chaos if U.S.-led coalition forces withdrew before his national troops were ready to handle security on their own.

"We need the coalition forces to stay in Iraq until our national troops are qualified enough to look after security," Hashemi told a think tank seminar in Tokyo, where he is on a four-day official visit.

"They are, at the time being, not."

His comments come as U.S. Democratic leaders predicted that the House of Representatives would pass a war-funding bill that sets a strict timetable for withdrawing American combat troops from Iraq.

Under the House Democrats' bill, U.S. combat troops would have to be out of Iraq by September 1, 2008.

The White House has warned that President George W. Bush would veto any bill with deadlines for withdrawal, but Democrats are anticipating that and are already eyeing other bills to which they could attach similar language, while building pressure for an end to the war.

Hashemi, speaking in English, welcomed a timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. forces but said it needed to be coupled with a clear reform plan of Iraqi national forces.

"If we say that we need one year, one and a half years or even two years to go into a detailed, comprehensive reform for MOD (Ministry of Defense) and MOI (Ministry of Interior) units, we need the coalition forces to stay until this job has been fulfilled," he said.

"If the American troops pull out, withdraw, before we complete this plan, there is a possibility that the country might slide into chaos and the chaos could lead to a civil war," he said, adding that it could also lead to regional unrest.

Hashemi, who is set to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday, also said he wanted Tokyo's air force to expand its activities in supporting the coalition forces in Iraq, although he did not elaborate.

Abe said earlier this week that Tokyo planned to extend for another two years a law allowing its air force to fly support missions to Iraq.

Japan withdrew its 600 ground troops last year after a non-combat mission lasting more than two years, but about 200 air force personnel remain in Kuwait, where they airlift supplies to the U.S. military in Iraq.

"Subpoenas force talks for testimony deal"

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:42 a.m., Friday, March 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Democrats are pressing President Bush to allow his political guru Karl Rove and other top aides to answer questions under oath about the firing of federal prosecutors.

The brokering has already begun.

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania floated a compromise with Bush's counsel Fred Fielding, even as both sides publicly ratcheted up the standoff.

The White House said Fielding would pass the proposal to Bush.

A Senate panel joined the House on Thursday in authorizing subpoenas for the aides, and the White House insisted it would fight attempts to compel Rove and others to appear on camera, testifying under oath.

It was the latest chapter in an unfolding drama pitting Democrats, who have promised to use their congressional majority to end the Iraq war and scrutinize the Bush administration, against a president who is battling to protect his prerogatives and exert his influence.

A compromise could avert a full-blown legal confrontation and prolonged court battle.

Specter, the former Judiciary chairman, reached out to the White House on Thursday afternoon with his proposal to allow the aides to be questioned publicly by just a limited number of lawmakers without putting them under oath.

Fielding "listened attentively and said that he had no authority to negotiate, but that he would take my suggestions to the president," Specter said.

Neither Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont nor Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the Democratic chairmen of the judiciary panels, appeared in any rush to issue the subpoenas.

"I'll issue them when we're ready," Leahy said Thursday night, adding that he wants to see more documents and await the outcome of a hearing on the matter next week.

Democrats said their action gave them a bargaining chip in negotiations with Bush.

The White House has said the aides would provide only limited interviews with select lawmakers behind closed doors, without a transcript and not under oath.

"We all would like them to get off their mountain and come down and negotiate," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

A court clash with the executive branch over subpoenas could produce months and even years of legal wrangling, possibly delaying an opportunity for lawmakers to question Bush's top aides until after he leaves office.

In letters to Fielding on Thursday, House and Senate Judiciary Democrats said they couldn't accept Bush's conditions.

"Unfortunately, these letters show they aren't as interested in ascertaining the facts than going on a political fishing expedition," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, fighting for his job amid the furor over the fired prosecutors, promised to cooperate with Congress in the inquiry.

"I'm not going to resign," he told reporters Thursday after an event in St. Louis.

Rep. Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio, said Gonzales has become a "lightning rod" for criticism and joined GOP lawmakers who want him out.

"It would be better for the president and the department if the attorney general were to step down," Gillmor said.

Bush is standing by Gonzales and insists that the firings were appropriate.

Democrats argue they were politically motivated.

Members of both parties want to know why the Justice Department fired eight well-regarded U.S. attorneys over the winter; whether politicians pressured the prosecutors to rush corruption cases; and whether the firings were punishment for the prosecutors' balking at Bush administration priorities.

Prosecutors are appointed to four-year terms by the president and can be dismissed by him at any time.

The Senate panel voted to approve subpoenas for Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and her former deputy, William Kelley.

The House authorized similar subpoenas a day earlier.

Democrats object to Bush's offer, which Fielding relayed to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, in large part because there would be no transcript and the testimony would not be public.

"I've had a lot of those unstructured briefings and found that I was given, in many instances, not the whole truth, nothing near the whole truth," Leahy said.

Leahy and Specter have formally asked Gonzales' former top aide, Kyle Sampson, who resigned amid the furor, to testify voluntarily next week before the Judiciary panel.

The panel approved a subpoena for Sampson last week.

Bradford Berenson, Sampson's lawyer, on Thursday requested a delay until at least April 2 to give his client "more time to review the matter" and to allow Berenson to take a previously scheduled vacation with his family.

end quotes

A president seeking to EXERT his influence?

George W. Bush?

Somebody has to be kidding us here ....

George W. Bush DOES NOT HAVE any influence to exert .....

Not even over his own dog ....

And certainly not over me, as an American citizen ....

The only "influence" that George W. Bush might EXERT here in OUR America takes us further from freedom, from liberty, from national security, from rationality, from sanity itself ....

Over into a realm of chaos and darkness ....

And who in their right mind would want to follow George W. Bush any further in that direction is my thought in here this morning ...

And so ...

"House Dems more confident on Iraq vote"

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:53 a.m., Friday, March 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats are increasingly confident they have the votes to pass legislation designed to force an end to the war in Iraq next year.

Several party members dropped their opposition to the bill following days of wrangling within a deeply divided caucus.

The House planned to vote Friday on a $124 billion bill that would finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but require combat troops return home before September 2008.

The measure is unlikely to sail unchanged through the Senate, where many Democrats oppose a firm timetable on the war.

And President Bush has promised to veto the bill if it ever makes its way to his desk.

Still, Democratic supporters say passage would mark a major step toward ending the war.

The bill would be Congress' first binding challenge to the war since it started four years ago and cost the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.

"This is a good compromise bill that has the virtue of setting a date certain," said Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md.

Wynn and other party liberals were concerned the bill was insufficient to end the war immediately, while more conservative Democrats were uncomfortable with setting deadlines on military operations.

With Democrats holding 233 seats and Republicans with 201, Democrats can afford only 15 "no" votes within their own ranks.

The narrow margin prompted an aggressive whip operation aimed at getting enough Democrats in support of the bill before putting it up for a vote.

Four of the bill's most consistent critics said Thursday they had told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi they would help round up support despite their intention to vote against it.

"Despite my steadfast opposition, I have told the speaker that I will work with her to obtain the needed votes to pass the supplemental, but that in the end I must vote my conscience," said Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif.

More conservative Democrats said they remained opposed.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who represents a district with strong ties to the military, said he wants to give Bush's new strategy in Iraq a chance to work and shrugged off the pressure by his party's leaders.

"Remember, I'm here to represent southern Mississippi," he told reporters.

Republicans tried unsuccessfully to force a vote on a measure that would protect funding for troops and resorted to rhetoric to try to bring down the spending bill.

At least two Republicans -- Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina and Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland -- have indicated they will break ranks and support the bill because of their frustration with the war.

"Is there a strategic rationale for this date?" asked Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee and a presidential hopeful.

"Nothing that I have seen on the ground in Iraq -- and I was there just 10 days ago -- suggests that Congress should force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and tie the hands of American military commanders."

Across the Capitol, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed legislation that would take a slightly different tack.

Its $122 billion bill would require that Bush begin bringing home an unspecified number of troops within four months with the goal of getting all combat troops out by March 31, 2008.

Unlike the House bill's 2008 date, the Senate deadline is not a firm requirement.

Republicans said they would attempt to strip out the withdrawal provisions when the issue comes before the full Senate next week.

Senate Democrats fell short of a majority, 50-48, last week on a similar attempt to set a timeline for the war.

Since then, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and others have made changes in hopes of persuading Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas to support the withdrawal proposal.

The changes include a series of suggested goals for the Iraqi government to meet to provide for its own security, enhance democracy and distribute its oil wealth fairly.

The Senate panel adopted several amendments to its bill, including one intended to improve safety of commercial traffic along the Mexico-U.S. border and another that would protect state chemical security laws from being overridden by federal regulations.

"British leave, battle erupts over Basra"

By Sam Dagher, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Fri Mar 23, 4:00 AM ET

BAGHDAD - Just two days after British troops pulled out of downtown Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and center of the country's oil-rich south, fighting erupted between rival Shiite groups in street battles Thursday.

An eyewitness reported that masked gunmen swept through the center of the city carrying AK-47s and rocket launchers as members of Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Fadhila Party, which controls the province, apparently fought over a government building just vacated by British troops.

The turmoil in the capital of the southern province, home to a key port and most of the country's oil wealth, signals the beginning of the kind of battles that could erupt in Iraq as outside forces depart, say analysts.

"There will be a power vacuum in Basra," says Martin Navias, an analyst at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London.

"As the British begin to extricate themselves from Basra, there will be fighting among these groups."

Fadhila officials said that "neighboring" countries, in a veiled reference to Iran, were backing certain factions in Basra including an individual they named who has known links to Mr. Sadr.

"Iranian influence in southern Iraq is very strong and there are loads of Iranian personnel running around Basra, but which faction they are coming down for is unclear," says Mr. Navias.

"The British adopted a policy of live and let live."

"They never confronted the Shiite militias unless they were pushed in certain situations ...."

"This allowed the different factions to assume power in the governing council, police and other institutions."

The Iraqi eyewitness to the fighting, who identified himself as Abu Ali, a Shiite contacted by phone in Basra, says, "It was unreal, some [of the fighters] looked like they were 12 years old."

He didn't give his real name for fear the Mahdi Army will target him.

"They were shouting: Moqtada, Moqtada."

He escaped the fighting on a side street and heard heavy gunfire and explosions.

Shopkeepers began to close and run away too.

"It was horrible."

"I barely escaped alive," he says.

Hassan al-Shimmari, the head of Fadhila, told the Al Arabiya news channel from Amman, Jordan, that the situation was so bad that the provincial governor had to use a weapon during the clash to help defend the governorate building and his home that is nearby.

"Our initial information indicates that there is a person who goes by the name Abu Qader, who leads these operations ...."

"He is connected to a neighboring country."

"He received significant funds and weapons from this country to recruit fighters and undermine the security situation in the province of Basra," he said in reference to Iran, though he did not name it specifically.

Sources in Mr. Sadr's movement in Baghdad and Basra said that Abu Qader was in the Mahdi Army.

Reuters reported that hospital sources said seven people had been wounded in the clashes.

Shortly after midday Thursday intense gunfire dwindled to sporadic shooting.

A curfew was imposed for several hours as Iraqi police, soldiers, and British troops deployed in the area.

"We don't have a great deal of clarity on what happened but police asked us to deploy our forces in that part of the city."

"By the time we got there there wasn't much to see," said British military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Stratford-Wright.

Details of the fighting were sketchy but Ali al-Hamadi, the head of Basra's emergency security committee, blamed it on a "misunderstanding" between Fadhila and the Mahdi Army.

Officials of Mr. Sadr's movement and the Fadhila Party sought to play down the violence.

"Whatever is happening, there is no problem between us and the Sadrists."

"There is no way we would clash with them," said Nadim al-Jabiri, a senior official of Fadhila.

Salaam al-Maliki, a Sadrist and former transport minister, blamed the fighting on a personal dispute between the director general of the electricity directorate and an engineer.

"The picture is not clear."

"It seems the engineer has brought members of his tribe."

"It is a tribal thing, not political."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in February that Britain would begin withdrawing a quarter of its 7,000 troops stationed mainly in and around Basra.

While Basra has not experienced the levels of violence seen in the capital Baghdad, criminal gangs have taken root amid fighting between rival Shiite militias and political parties for control of its vast oil wealth.

Basra, whose oil accounts for almost all of Iraq's state revenues since northern export pipelines have been crippled by bombings, is a major prize for all parties.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was left shaken but unhurt Thursday on his first visit to the capital after a Katyusha rocket landed just meters from a building where he was giving a news conference.

Moments after telling journalists he might boost the UN's presence in Iraq because of improved security, a thunderous blast sent shockwaves through the conference venue, startling Ban and sending him ducking for cover behind a podium.

Security guards grabbed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who was standing next to Ban at the time and was dusted by small bits of debris that fell from the ceiling.

• Material from Reuters was used in this report.

"Ex-Gonzales aide to testify to Senate"

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

49 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales agreed Friday to testify at a Senate inquiry next week into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

Kyle Sampson, who resigned last week amid the furor over the dismissals, will appear Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, his attorney said.

His appearance will mark the first congressional testimony by a Justice Department aide since the release of thousands of documents that show the firings were orchestrated, in part, by the White House.

Sampson "looks forward to answering the committee's questions," wrote his attorney, Brad Berenson, in a two-paragraph letter to Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

"We trust that his decision to do so will satisfy the need of the Congress to obtain information from him concerning the requested resignations of the United States attorneys," Berenson wrote.

E-mails between the White House and the Justice Department, dating back to the weeks immediately after the 2004 presidential election, show Sampson was heavily engaged in deciding how many prosecutors would be replaced, and which ones.

The Bush administration maintains the dismissals of the eight political appointees were proper.

Democrats, however, question whether the eight were selected because they were not seen as, in Sampson's words, "loyal Bushies."

"He was right at the center of things," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the inquiry into the firings, said of Sampson.

"He has said publicly that what others have said is not how it happened."

" ... He contradicts DOJ."

Schumer said he hoped Sampson would provide more detail about who initiated the firings and whether they were politically motivated.

Sampson's agreement to testify next week came a few hours after Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, summoned White House counsel Fred Fielding to Capitol Hill to discuss the dispute over whether and under what conditions Bush's top aides will tell their stories to Congress.

The two did not delve into specific proposals for Bush's aides, but Cornyn said he urged Fielding to release as much information related to the prosecutor firings as possible, warning that he wanted "no surprises" to emerge.

"I told him, 'Everything you can release, please release.'"

"'We need to know what the facts are,'" Cornyn said.

Also Friday, the Justice Department said it had found additional e-mails, calendar pages and other documents about the dismissals and were working to send them to the House and Senate panels that oversee the Justice Department.

It was unclear when those documents would be delivered.
___

Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

"Dinosaurs Dug Deep, Possibly to Survive Catastrophe"

Charles Q. Choi

Special to LiveScience

LiveScience.com

Fri Mar 23, 12:45 PM ET

An underground den of dinosaurs now reveals the first evidence that at least one species of "terrible lizards" could burrow.

The findings, detailed in the March 21 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest dinosaurs could have endured extremes of heat or cold by finding shelter within dens of their own making.

They also hint that such burrowing dinosaurs could have even survived the initial brunt of whatever eventually killed most of them off in the so-called K-T extinction some 65 million years ago.

The new dinosaur species is dubbed Oryctodromeus cubicularis, or "digging runner of the lair," explained researcher David Varricchio, a paleontologist at Montana State University.

The herbivore possessed a snout that could have shoveled away dirt, as well as large shoulder bones for powerful muscles and strong hips to support the body--all traits possibly evolved for digging.

This "bird-hipped" dino is a member of a large group called Ornithopids, which walked on their hind legs and left behind bird-like footprints showing spread out toes.

Paleontologists first caught hints of the new dinosaur in 2004 in fragments of bone on a hillside off the shoulder of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Montana.

In 2005, they excavated the scattered bones of what appears to be a family consisting of an adult and two juveniles.

They apparently dwelled in a den burrowed into mud and clay that later became filled with sand.

The adult was roughly six-and-a-half feet long and probably weighed 50 to 70 pounds.

It dwelled 95 million years ago in what were coastal floodplains between mountains and volcanoes to the west and an inland sea to the east that ran from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

The dinosaurs the researchers discovered seem to have died before they became entombed.

What killed them is a mystery.

Curiously, the dinosaur burrow had tinier burrows into its walls "maybe occupied by insects or mammals or other small organisms," Varricchio said.

"That gives us a neat window into the ecology back then."

"This is a stellar find," paleontologist David Fastovsky at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, who did not participate in this research, told LiveScience.

This newfound digging behavior could have aided dinosaurs "to inhabit more extreme environments," Varricchio told LiveScience.

"We've had examples of dinosaurs in the Cretaceous living at very high latitudes, close to the North Pole and South Pole."

"So maybe dinosaurs could burrow to last out the dark winter months."

Such burrows could have even helped dinosaurs sheltered in underground dens to survive the initial effects of the asteroid strike or volcanic eruptions that scientists currently suspect killed the dinosaurs.

However, once all the food ran out, "you're going to die," Fastovsky said.

Fastovsky noted that he and his colleagues had discovered a chicken-sized bipedal carnivorous dinosaur in Mongolia that they suspected might have dwelled in a burrow roughly a decade ago, but the team had not followed up on it.

"These new findings could help raise the consciousness of researchers to keep an eye out in their digs for such possibilities," he said.

These findings also suggest that bipedal dinosaurs, with their forelimbs freed up from walking, might have been capable of a number of surprising behaviors.

"We may not have resolved all that dinosaurs can do," Varricchio said.

And from the CORRUPT, "fast-and-loose" thug-infested, decaying, decrepit capital city of the CORRUPT EMPIRE of New York, we have ....

"Lawsuit claims trooper attack - Saratoga man sues Albany and State Police; cites face injuries after smashed against wall"

By BRENDAN J. LYONS, Senior writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, March 24, 2007

ALBANY -- A Saratoga County mortgage broker who alleges a state trooper smashed his face against a wall outside a downtown bar last December has filed claims against the city and State Police, who said they have no record of the incident even though the injured man was taken away in an ambulance.

Derek DeMeo, 25, of Rexford, suffered injuries to his head and face that include a damaged eye, broken teeth and lacerations, according to his claims.

It's unclear why the state trooper involved in the incident apparently did not file an incident report.

Albany police officers also were at the scene and their records indicate they called for an ambulance but also did not file an incident report.

No one was arrested.

Despite DeMeo being whisked to Albany Medical Center Hospital by ambulance, no police officers followed up or went to the hospital to interview him about his injuries.

If they had, the information would be reflected in a police report, officials said.

The trooper is not identified in court papers.

State Police sources said he may have been patrolling Albany's downtown bar district that night as part of Operation Impact -- a joint patrol effort by Albany and State Police -- or, because he is assigned to the Capitol.

The incident unfolded about 2 a.m. on Dec. 10 outside the Bayou Cafe bar on North Pearl Street.

DeMeo's friend apparently was handcuffed by police during an altercation when DeMeo was allegedly pulled aside by a uniformed trooper and thrown face first into a wall, according to his claim.

There are several surveillance cameras in that area of North Pearl Street, including some owned by the city.

DeMeo's attorney, Kevin Luibrand, sought to obtain copies of the tapes within days of the incident but was told by city attorneys that they had been erased, according to court records.

Luibrand declined comment and would not allow DeMeo to be interviewed for this report.

In a letter dated Jan. 24, State Police told Luibrand they had no reports on file about the case.

They also denied Luibrand's request for copies of the tapes of their police radio calls during the incident, saying it would "constitute an unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of those concerned," according to records filed in Albany County state Supreme Court.

Luibrand has appealed their denial.

Albany Police Chief James Tuffey on Friday said he had not known about the incident but was going to investigate what happened, including his officers' involvement.

A State Police spokesman said there are circumstances when troopers involved in this type of an incident may not file an incident report.

"It would all depend on a case-by-case basis," said Sgt. Kern Swoboda.

He could not comment directly on the Albany incident because of pending litigation.

The owner of a small shoe store next to where the incident took place said the sidewalk near his shop was still stained with a large pool of blood a few days after the incident.

Another business owner called the city, who sent a public works crew down to wash away the blood, the man said.

Hey, kids ....

Look ....

It's "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice ...

You know, the one who was George W. Bush's national security advisor ...

The one who helped him lie this country's way into war in IRAQINAM ....

Where they now have us stuck ....

"CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice and George W. Bush ....

Yeah, that "CON-JOB CONNIE" .....

Who we haven't heard much from lately .....

And so ....

"Egypt rips Rice's constitution comments"

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

29 minutes ago

ASWAN, Egypt - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was strongly criticized by the foreign minister Saturday for suggesting that proposed changes to Egypt's constitution may be less than democratic.

Rice is holding talks with Arab foreign ministers over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

She hopes to rally wider Arab support for the stalled effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians and to encourage flexibility from Arab nations that have not made peace with Israel.

But her visit also coincides with a political storm in Egypt over planned constitutional amendments that the Egyptian opposition has denounced as a blow to democracy in this close U.S. ally.

The government hastily scheduled a referendum on the amendments for Monday.

The opposition has said it will boycott.

Rice told reporters before she left Washington on Friday that she was "really concerned" about the referendum.

"The Egyptians set certain expectations themselves about what this referendum would achieve and the hope that this would be a process that gave voice to all Egyptians," Rice said.

"I think there's some danger that that hope is not going to be met."

She described Egypt as "one of the key countries" in the Middle East as the region "moves toward greater openness and greater pluralism and greater democratization."

"Egypt ought to be in the lead in that and it is disappointing that that has not happened."

Even before Rice's arrival in Aswan, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit leveled harsh criticism against the Bush administration's chief diplomat.

"Even if Egypt and the United States have a friendly, strategic relationship, Egypt can't accept interference in its affairs from any of its friends," Aboul Gheit said.

"It is unimaginable that someone would speak about and judge an Egyptian internal political process before it even starts," Aboul Gheit said.

Egypt's parliament — dominated by ruling party lawmakers — approved 34 amendments to the constitution.

These measures, according to President Hosni Mubarak, are intended to expand.

The opposition, however, says the amendments would restrict freedoms and cement Mubarak's hold on power.

Rice and her Egyptian counterpart planned to meet Saturday as part of a gathering of four key U.S. allies in the Arab world.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are part of what Rice calls a moderate bloc, although all have dynastic or authoritarian governments.

Besides foreign ministers from those nations, Rice set up a separate meeting with intelligence and security chiefs.

The aim is to blunt the effectiveness of Islamic Hamas militants who now share power in the Palestinian territories.

Before she left Washington, Rice said she hoped Arab states soon would recommit to an old offer for a broad peace with Israel and be willing to negotiate with the Jewish state.

Arab states have pushed the U.S. to do more to resolve the Palestinian issue, an effort Rice apparently has taken to heart.

At the same time, she has urged Arab allies to consider parallel overtures that could strengthen her hand.

"You need the energy and the help of moving forward on the Arab-Israeli side not at the end of the process but earlier," Rice told reporters.

Among Arab states, only Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel.

U.S. officials say other Arab states have too often seen their separate peace with Israel as a bonus that Israel might win only after accommodation with the Palestinians.

Rice's trip was timed in part so that she can see Arab leaders and diplomats ahead of an Arab summit later this month.

That meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is expected to revive a mothballed 2002 Arab proposal for blanket peace with Israel.

The top U.S. diplomat will shuttle between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem and the West Bank, but she tried to lower expectations for that part of her mission.

"It's almost at this point more important, given the upcoming Riyadh summit, to have the discussion with the Arabs about relaunching the Arab initiative," Rice said.

Although Rice denied reports from some Arab diplomats that she had asked for changes in the original proposal, she said it should be revived "in a way that leaves open the possibility for active diplomacy based on it, not just putting it in the middle of the table and leaving it at that."

The Arab plan offers Israel diplomatic recognition and peace in return for full withdrawal from the land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, plus the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

It also calls for allowing Palestinian refugees the right to return to homes in Israel.

Israel initially rejected the plan, and is particularly opposed to its granting the right of return to Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Now Rice is trying to nudge Arab leaders to regard the proposal as a starting point for talks.

"Rockefeller: Should CIA prisons stay?"

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is questioning whether the CIA's secret prison program — which he fears has become a black eye to the United States — should continue.

The review led by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., comes as the Bush administration deliberates an executive order, called for by Congress, that will establish new guidelines for the CIA's system for detaining and interrogating suspected terrorists.

It is the agency's most publicly controversial intelligence collection program.

Rockefeller says there is no doubt that intelligence from detainees has been valuable.

Yet he says he wonders whether the CIA needed to create a system outside of long-standing FBI and military interrogation programs.

Rockefeller's spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi, said he has not been convinced that the CIA prisons produce better intelligence than the FBI and military systems.

"The real question is whether the administration's decision to pursue an alternate system (at the CIA) was the right approach," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday.

President Bush said he emptied the CIA's secret prisons in September and sent its last 14 high-value detainees to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But he left open the possibility that the program could be used again.

As chairman, Rockefeller has promised to conduct more vigorous oversight of the spy agencies than did his Republican predecessor.

He is asking whether having a separate CIA detention and interrogation system is necessary and worth the toll on the U.S. image abroad.

"The widespread reports about secret prisons and torture, whether accurate or not, have damaged the United States' reputation around the world and hindered counterterrorism efforts with our allies," he said.

Human rights groups have argued for years that the CIA's detention and interrogation techniques amount to torture.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only independent watchdog to interview the 14 detainees who were held by the CIA.

In a confidential report that has not been publicly distributed, the Red Cross said the 14 prisoners described highly abusive interrogation methods, especially when techniques such sleep deprivation and forced standing were used in combination.

None of the detainees' accounts has been verified.

U.S. officials long have said the CIA program is for the most dangerous detainees and the CIA says its officers do not torture.

"The agency's terrorist interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt plots and save lives," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

As part of the Senate committee's work, members have visited the U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay; such fact-finding trips are expected to continue.

The committee held a private hearing last month on CIA renditions — the practice of grabbing suspected terrorists in one country and delivering them to another country.

A committee hearing planned for April 10 will focus on CIA detention.

The committee also is reviewing classified documents on the CIA's secret prisons.

One committee aide said that for some time the administration would not brief the full House and Senate intelligence committees on the program's most sensitive aspects and limited those briefings to just a few members.

More recently, the administration has begun giving more complete information to the full Senate committee.

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.

A former senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing internal administration policies, said the CIA had kept the committees informed as much as possible under the White House's rules.

The House committee, led by Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, has had private briefings with CIA Director Michael Hayden and expects more.

Reyes wants to see the Justice Department's legal memos justifying the CIA program.

"The chairman is not going to approve any intelligence activity until he has an opportunity to review the legal basis for it," said a House committee aide who was authorized to speak to reporters only if not identified.

The Justice Department, the CIA and the White House have worked for five months on an executive order that will provide more clarity on the administration's interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, possibly changing what is allowed during CIA interrogations.

The document will prove important to members of Congress who are evaluating the CIA program.

It also will be critical to CIA officers, who do not want to be involved in operations that could put them in legal jeopardy.

"At the end of the day, the director — any director — of the CIA must be confident that what he has asked an agency officer to do under this program is lawful," Hayden wrote in a September memo to employees.

A spokesman for Bush's National Security Council, Gordon Johndroe, said government officials have been discussing the executive order, which will take several weeks to complete.

"This process required additional time as new officials, including the defense secretary, director of national intelligence and White House counsel, were brought into the deliberations," Johndroe said.

The CIA's detention practices raised concerns almost from the day that the agency began questioning people with suspected terrorist links.

Early in the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, senior military officers took steps to ensure that military personnel were not in the room during CIA interrogations, a government official familiar with military and intelligence operations told The Associated Press last year.

Bush did not acknowledge the CIA's secret detention program until September, when he announced that the agency had just moved al-Qaida operational planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay.

"Terrorists in this program have painted a picture of al-Qaida's structure and financing, and communications and logistics," Bush said, as he made the case that the CIA's interrogation work was tough, lawful and invaluable.

Rockefeller said the goal must be to get intelligence in a legal, effective way — "in a manner that promotes the national security interests of the United States."

"Democrats: Bill reflects voters' demands"

Associated Press

Last updated: 2:03 p.m., Saturday, March 24, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Democrats' plan to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq next year responds to voters' demand for change, New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes said Saturday.

Hodes and other House Democrats on Friday pushed through a rebuke of President Bush and the war in Iraq.

Bush promised a veto of the spending bill, which demands combat operations end before September 2008 -- and perhaps earlier.

"With our vote this week, we're helping our troops, protecting our veterans, and fighting to end the waste, fraud and abuse," said Hodes, delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address.

"After four years of a failed policy, Democrats are insisting on a new direction in Iraq and a real plan that holds the Iraqi people accountable for their own country."

Hodes, elected in November, was part of the Democratic takeover of both chambers of Congress.

He has opposed the war and any efforts to escalate it.

"Last November, people in New Hampshire and across the country voted for change."

"They voted for a new Congress that would stop acting as a rubber stamp for this president and begin confronting the problems and challenges facing our nation," Hodes said.

On Saturday, he emphasized the Iraqis must meet the benchmarks Bush proposed in January.

"As we enter the fifth year of the war, Iraq remains in chaos and the Iraqi government has failed to stand up and take ownership of the country."

The Senate is expected to take up legislation as early as Monday.

"Cheney: House is undermining the troops"

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:33 a.m., Sunday, March 25, 2007

MANALAPAN, Fla. -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday accused the Democrat-led House of not supporting troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face danger.

"They're not supporting the troops."

"They're undermining them," Cheney told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition at the oceanside Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, Fla., about 60 miles north of Miami.

On Friday, the House voted to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year.

The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 -- or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements.

Cheney called it a myth that "one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements they need to carry out their mission."

President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation.

Cheney said Bush will not withdraw troops before there is stability in Iraq.

"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after the passage.

A message seeking comment was left with Pelosi's office Saturday.

end quotes

As someone who was actually a "TROOP", there, Dick, unlike you .....

I would say that it was a BIG MYTH that you and witless George are supporting OUR troops .....

By handing them a mission that they cannot carry out .....

REGARDLESS OF THE "TOOLS" AND REINFORCEMENTS THAT CONGRESS MIGHT GIVE THEM ....

Because combat troops are meant for combat, there, Dick ....

Not for bringing peace ....

Nor stability ....

To anything .....

IF YOU KNEW ANYTHING AT ALL, DICK, BESIDES HOW TO CADGE AND WHEEDLE MONEY OUT OF THESE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS THAT YOU ARE ALWAYS OUT THERE PANDERING TO ....

YOU WOULD KNOW THAT THE MIGHTIEST INVASION FORCE THE WORLD HAD SEEN UP TO THAT TIME ...

WAS TOTALLY UNABLE TO CARRY OUT ITS MISSION ....

OF SUBDUING OUR AMERICA .....

WHEN IT DECIDED TO CAST OFF THE YOKE OF BRITISH OPPRESSION ....

REGARDLESS OF WHAT TOOLS AND REINFORCEMENTS THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT VOTED TO SEND IT ...

And so, Dick .....

WHEN PEOPLE WANT FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION, DICK, THEY ARE GOING TO GET IT, REGARDLESS ....

AND WHEN YOU AND WITLESS GEORGE ARE THE OPPRESSORS ....

Well, hey, Dick, you're good with the math, there ....

So why don't you figure it out for yourself ...

And so ....

What an absolute JOKE this Dick Cheney is, right on across the board .....

He has to be one of the worst excuses for a Vice-President since Spiro "SPIGGY" Agnew, who ended up getting tossed out of office, for being unfit, as I recall it, to be OUR vice-president ....

And with respect to giving combat troops what they need to fulfill a mission, the mission opf combat troops is to SUPPRESS THE ENEMY ....

And one suppresses the enemy by suppressing the enemies' fire .....

And one suppresses the enemies' fire, by clearing his front, attacking into that which is attacking you ....

A simple life, really, and a simple, easy-to-understand mission ...

And when the enemy has been subdued .....

The mission of the combat soldier is over .....

Except for George W. "LOSER" Bush and "MOUTHRUNNER" Cheney ...

The mission is not over, since those two fools took it upon themselves to invade a foreign country, and now, like a pair of BUFFOON Hitlers, or a pair of BUFFOON Napoleans, they are stuck without a way back out ....

And everybody in the world knows it, especially those IRAQIS who are fighting back against the invading, occupying army of the TWIN FOOLS Bush and Cheney ....

And the Congress and the American people are now caught in the wringer with the TWIN FOOLS, or TWO STOOGES, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush ....

Precisely because George and Dick cannot get those troops back out now ....

They are stuck there, where they can be slowly hunted down and eliminated, as the Viet Minh did to the French in Viet Nam in 1953 and 1954 ....

Until the French were decimated and beaten, and forced to have to withdraw, leaving many of their troops over there to die out in the jungle, all alone, without hope of support, just like the TWO STOOGES, Dick and George, may well end up leaving some of our military forces behind in IRAQINAM ....

If and when the hope runs out, along with the money to keep them re-supplied ....

And so ....

"Unions struggle with auto industry cuts"

By JAMES HANNAH, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 12 minutes ago

ANDERSON, Ind. - Fastened to the wall of a florist shop a block from where thousands of autoworkers once toiled is a black foil balloon splashed with musical notes and the words "Good Luck."

This central Indiana city — once pulsing with 22,000 auto jobs and a dozen auto plants — is hoping for some.

The last auto manufacturing job will disappear in July, ending a love affair between the city and the auto industry after nearly 100 years.

Recruiting new businesses and diversifying the economy represent Anderson's future.

"It's going to be long and slow on the recovery here," said Troy Davis, owner of the Flower Hut.

"It's better than it was."

"Five years ago, everybody was hemorrhaging."

Struggles of the U.S. auto industry have accelerated a drop in American union membership that is helping transform communities such as Anderson across the Midwest.

As foreign automakers eat away at the market share of their U.S. counterparts, unionized plants run by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG and their former parts operations have closed or downsized and some jobs have moved overseas.

Union membership in manufacturing has fallen 1.3 percentage points to 11.7 percent, the first time statistics have shown it at a lower rate than among the national work force.

Membership in the UAW fell below 600,000 in 2005, from a peak of 1.5 million in the late 1970s.

"The auto market is getting beat up," said Jim Clark, president of the International Union of Electronics Workers/Communications Workers of America.

The union represents most workers at auto-parts supplier Delphi Corp., which is reorganizing under bankruptcy protection.

"It's the loss of jobs that creates the loss (of members)."

Alice Sanders, 50, took a buyout from Delphi in October after 10 years and received $140,000 in separation pay.

She had no pension or health benefits, and eventually got a union job at Behr Thermal Products in Dayton at $10.90 an hour.

"It's going to be a lot harder," Sanders said.

"The unions aren't what they — they can't do what they used to do."

"If you're a regular worker with union backing, I don't feel it's any different (than being nonunion)."

Clark said he believes the future will be better for unions.

Among the trends — more cooperative union-management relations.

"They recognize that if either one of them kicks a hole in the bottom of the boat, everybody drowns," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

UAW leaders in Toledo agreed three years ago to allow auto parts suppliers to take over work once done by union workers who built Jeep Wranglers.

The deal saved about 800 jobs.

"Those were jobs that would have gone to Mexico," said UAW Ohio President Lloyd Mahaffey.

"We have to work together to save the pie."

Ford spokesman Marcy Evans said the UAW has worked closely with the company over the past 18 months and helped forge agreements on buyouts, health care and plant efficiencies that have saved the company money.

GM spokesman Dan Flores said the unions have been working hard with management to make GM more competitive, but more needs to be done to structure the company for long-term profitability.

"Despite all we've done together, we're still not generating positive cash flow in our North American auto business," he said.

Communities have tried to change with the auto industry.

Kenosha, Wis., was rocked in 1988 when Chrysler closed a plant there, snuffing out 5,000 jobs.

City officials scrambled to diversify, luring smaller companies with the promise of low-cost power, reasonable land prices and proximity to Chicago.

About 10,000 jobs have been added since the plant closed.

In the Flint, Mich., area, GM employed 82,000 workers in the late 1970s.

Today, there are about 12,000 GM and Delphi jobs.

The city is focusing on repairing roads, reducing crime and eliminating blight in hopes of attracting new business.

In the past four years, the city's budget has gone from a $28 million deficit to an $8.9 million surplus.

"We are on the rebound," said Mayor Donald Williamson.

In Anderson, there are bleak stretches of vacant land where bustling factories once stood.

But shopping centers and restaurants crowd each other on the city's east side, and businesses proudly hang blue-and-white banners trumpeting the Super Bowl football champion Indianapolis Colts.

Officials have been working to replace the lost auto jobs — conducting overseas trade missions, upgrading roads, creating a new business park and installing a fiber-optic system that can be used by data-intensive companies.

Mayor Kevin Smith points to 300 new jobs that will come with a Nestle plant to open next year.

And he notes that from May 2005 to May 2006, 500 more jobs were created in the community than were lost, the first time job gains have outstripped losses in 10 years.

When times were booming in the auto industry, workers packed the Lemon Drop Restaurant, a diner that features a courtesy basket of lemon-drop candies next to the cash register and a model train that circles overhead on a track affixed to the wall.

Today, the lunch crowd is much more modest, although still enough for the business to keep going with hopes of better times.

"I don't think there is going to be a quick fix," said owner Bill Pitts.

"But we're getting the groundwork laid for it."

Said Smith, the mayor: "You can't see the future by looking in the rearview mirror."
___

On the Net:

UAW: http://www.uaw.org/

IUE: http://www.iue-cwa.org/

"U.S. documentary shows everyday abuse of Abu Ghraib"

By Christine Kearney

Sun Mar 25, 8:36 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Abu Ghraib prison is notorious for images that surfaced in 2003 showing horrific abuses of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers, but a new documentary aims to highlight the plight facing many innocent Iraqis by depicting the humdrum misery there.

U.S. filmmaker Michael Tucker won critical acclaim for his documentary "Gunner Palace," about American soldiers taking up residence in Saddam Hussein's former palace.

Now his film "The Prisoner, or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair," made with his wife Petra Epperlein, tells the story of Yunis Khatayer Abbas, an Iraqi journalist captured by American soldiers in 2003.

In the film, Abbas recalls the humiliation of his interrogation, which led to him being told he was suspected of plotting to assassinate British Prime Minister Tony Blair, before being sent to Abu Ghraib.

But the film does not focus on any of the graphic images or depictions of abuses that made the prison an international scandal.

And that is exactly the point, Tucker told Reuters in an interview.

"People are so jaded with basic human suffering that unless it is sensational, they don't respond to it," he said.

'TREATED LIKE ANIMALS'

The interrogations innocent Iraqis like Abbas suffer every day deserve as much attention as the now infamous photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib, Tucker said.

"We can't forget these are civilian people being treated like animals," he said.

Benjamin Thompson, a former Army specialist also featured in the film after he befriended Abbas while stationed at Abu Ghraib, told Reuters that "the scandal basically diverted everyone's attention away from anything that wasn't in those photographs."

"It was like no matter what happened there as long as we didn't stack people and make pyramids (of them) we were doing a great job," said Thompson, who returned from Iraq to Ohio two years ago and went back to civilian life.

"In reality what was taking place was a dehumanizing policy of lack of care, medical attention, food and basic operational security," he said.

Tucker says his film aims to put human faces on Iraqis like Abbas, who he believes were misunderstood by Americans.

"I don't think that we have really ever had someone in film that the average person can connect with and really see the war in human terms," said Tucker, noting Abbas's sense of humor.

In one scene, the Iraqi recalled laughing when eventually being told by American interrogators he was being held captive over suspicions he plotted to attack Blair.

"What he was charged with was so absurd," said Tucker, who uses footage of Abbas being captured by soldiers after he accompanied them on the raid.

"It just shows how poorly the intelligence system works."

Tucker said he hoped politicians will come up with better solutions and security for Iraq and take a simple message from his film:

"They need to start caring about the human consequences of this war."

"Quake rocks Japan, kills 1, injures 170"

By SHIZUO KANBAYASHI, Associated Press Writer

34 minutes ago

KANAZAWA, Japan - A powerful earthquake struck central Japan on Sunday, killing at least one person and injuring 170 others as it toppled buildings, triggered landslides and generated a small tsunami along the coast.

The quake was followed throughout the day by aftershocks.

The magnitude-6.9 quake struck at 9:42 a.m. off the north coast of Ishikawa, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

The agency issued a tsunami warning urging people near the sea to move to higher land.

A small tsunami measuring 6 inches hit the shore 36 minutes later, the agency said.

The morning quake toppled buildings, triggered landslides, cut power, interfered with phone service, broke water mains and snarled public transportation.

At least one person was killed and 170 others were hurt along the country's Sea of Japan coast, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Television footage of the quake showed buildings shaking violently for about 30 seconds.

Other shots showed collapsed buildings and shops with shattered windows, streets cluttered with roof tiles and roads with cracked pavement.

"We felt violent shaking."

"My colleagues say the insides of their houses are a mess, with everything smashed on the floor," Wataru Matsumoto, deputy mayor of the town of Anamizu, near the epicenter, told NHK.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki confirmed the death of a 52-year-old woman.

NHK said she was crushed by a falling stone lantern.

"We are doing our best to rescue the victims," he said.

"We are also doing our best to assess the extent of the damage."

The quake knocked down at least 39 homes in Ishikawa and damaged another 143, the FDMA said.

Most of the injuries and damage were concentrated in the city of Wajima, it added, about 193 miles northwest of Tokyo.

Takeshi Hachimine, seismology and tsunami section chief at the Meteorological Agency, said the affected area was not considered earthquake-prone.

The last major quake to cause casualties there was in 1933, when three people died.

"After the powerful earthquake, aftershocks will continue," Hachimine said.

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.

The last major quake to hit the capital, Tokyo, killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital has a 90 percent chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years.

In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit northern Japan, killing 40 people and damaging more than 6,000 homes.

It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of Kobe.

Powerful quakes in 1703, 1782, 1812 and 1855 also caused vast damage in the capital.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicenter of Sunday's quake was 225 miles northwest of Tokyo.

The USGS measured its magnitude at 6.7.
___

Associated Press writers Hans Greimel, Carl Freire and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this story.

"GOP support for attorney general erodes"

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 30 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Republican support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales eroded Sunday as three key senators sharply questioned his truthfulness and a Democrat joined the list of lawmakers who want him to resign over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

"We have to have an attorney general who is candid and truthful."

"And if we find out he's not been candid and truthful, that's a very compelling reason for him not to stay on," said Sen. Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department.

Specter, R-Pa., said he would wait until Gonzales' scheduled April 17 testimony to the committee on the dismissals before deciding whether he could continue to support the attorney general.

He called it a "make or break" appearance.

To Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Gonzales "does have a credibility problem."

"... We govern with one currency, and that's trust."

"And that trust is all important."

"And when you lose or debase that currency, then you can't govern."

"And I think he's going to have some difficulties."

Hagel cited changing stories from the Justice Department about the circumstances for firing the eight U.S. attorneys.

"I don't know if he got bad advice or if he was not involved in the day-to-day management."

"I don't know what the problem is, but he's got a problem."

"You cannot have the nation's chief law enforcement officer with a cloud hanging over his credibility," Hagel said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Gonzales has been "wounded" by the firings.

"He has said some things that just don't add up," said Graham, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Additionally, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called for Gonzales to step down over his conflicting statements on how involved he was in the dismissals last fall.

Democrats contend the prosecutors' firings were politically motivated.

Feinstein, whose state lost two U.S. attorneys in the purge — in San Diego and San Francisco — joined a growing number of Democrats and Republicans in calling for Gonzales' ouster.

She said she now believes Gonzales has not told the truth about the firings.

"I believe he should step down," said Feinstein, also on the committee.

"And I don't like saying this."

"This is not my natural personality at all."

"But I think the nation is not well served by this."

"I think we need to get at the bottom of why these resignations were made, who ordered them, and what the strategy was."

Gonzales has said he participated in no discussions and saw no memos about plans to carry out the firings on Dec. 7 that Democrats contend were politically motivated.

His schedule, however, shows he attended at least one hourlong meeting, on Nov. 27, where he approved a detailed plan to execute the prosecutors' firings.

The White House has stood by Gonzales, saying the documents do not conflict with Gonzales' earlier statements.

"The president continues to have confidence in the attorney general," a spokesman said Saturday.

Gonzales maintains the firings were proper, but also has said he relied heavily on his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to plan the prosecutors targeted for dismissal.

Sampson, who resigned under fire March 12, is scheduled to appear Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the dismissals.

The committee chairman, Sen. Sen. Patrick Leahy, said he is concerned the Bush administration is trying to make Sampson "the fall guy."

"And yet we find so many e-mails that contradict what the attorney general has said, contradict what the deputy attorney general has said, contradict what the White House has said."

"Mr. Sampson's right in the middle of it," said Leahy, D-Vt.

"We're going to ask him under oath."

"... I want him to say exactly what happened."

Leahy's committee also has authorized subpoenas for presidential political adviser Karl Rove and other top White House staff linked to the firings in more than 3,000 e-mails, calendar pages, memos and other documents the Justice Department has released.

President Bush has offered to grant a limited number of lawmakers private interviews with the aides with no transcript and without swearing them in — which senators from both parties have rejected.

A House Judiciary subcommittee also has authorized subpoenas in the matter.

Specter appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," Feinstein spoke on "Fox News Sunday," Hagel was on "This Week" on ABC while Leahy and Graham appeared on "Face the Nation" on CBS.

"5 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq bombings"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:23 p.m., Sunday, March 25, 2007

BAGHDAD -- With U.S. attack helicopters buzzing overhead, gunmen and Iraqi security forces clashed Sunday in a Sunni area in central Baghdad, and police said at least two people were killed in fighting in the neighborhood's narrow streets and alleys.

Roadside bombings, meanwhile, killed five U.S. soldiers, including four in a single strike in a volatile province northeast of the capital.

The fighting in Baghdad started about 1:30 p.m. when gunmen attacked Iraqi army positions in the Fadhil neighborhood, on the east side of the Tigris River, police said.

The U.S. military said it had no immediate reports about the fighting in Baghdad, but later Sunday announced that four Americans had been killed when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in Diyala province.

A roadside bomb also killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others during a route clearance mission in northwestern Baghdad.

An Iraqi army colonel from the brigade in charge of the Baghdad neighborhood where the fighting took place said the gunmen were firing at army checkpoints and patrols from rooftops and the soldiers returned fire, calling for U.S. assistance when the fighting became fierce.

He said the situation had calmed by late afternoon but sporadic clashes continued.

"The soldiers raided some houses believed to be used by the gunmen today."

"Several suspects were arrested and they are being interrogated," the colonel said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The military sealed off all roads leading to the area, causing traffic jams, according to witnesses and police.

Stores closed their doors as the streets emptied of people fleeing the fighting.

"The gunmen were shooting at every moving object."

"The streets were deserted and all shops closed," said Ghaith Jassim, the 37-year-old owner of a textile store in the area.

"These frequent clashes have affected our work."

"We cannot earn our living."

"People and traders are afraid of coming to our area."

Jassim said the arrival of U.S. troops in the area briefly stopped the clashes but the fighting resumed when the Americans left.

Iraqi police said two civilians were killed and two policemen and two civilians were wounded.

Fadhil, one of Baghdad's oldest and poorest areas, is ridden with Sunni insurgents and common criminals and its narrow streets and alleys have been the site of frequent clashes.

A helicopter owned by the private security company Blackwater USA crashed in heavy gunfire in the area on Jan. 23, killing four civilian contractors.

A fifth contractor in a second helicopter died of gunshot wounds.

The clashes broke out a day after at least 74 people were killed or found dead in Iraq -- 47 in suicide bombings -- one of the deadliest days since a U.S.-Iraqi security sweep began in Baghdad on Feb. 14.

Suspected Shiite militants attacked a Sunni mosque on Sunday in apparent retaliation for one of those attacks -- a suicide truck bombing against a Shiite mosque that killed 11 people in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

The explosion on Sunday blew a hole in the roof of the mosque's minaret but caused no injuries.

On March 14, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William C. Caldwell expressed optimism about the Baghdad security plan, but urged patience and cautioned that "high-profile" car bombings, which rose to a high of 77 in February, could "start the whole cycle of violence again."

The number of execution-style killings in the capital has declined since the operation started on Feb. 14 -- a development officials say is due to an agreement keeping Shiite militias off the street, and Sunday's attack in Haswa highlighted concerns that militia factions are angry about being sidelined while the bombings continue.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State in Iraq, an insurgent umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, purportedly claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings Saturday near the Anbar province city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, saying in an Internet statement that 45 policemen were killed and 48 were wounded.

The statement could not be independently verified, and police said only six people had been killed, including five policemen, and 19 other people wounded.

One of the attackers hit a checkpoint, while another targeted a police station but was forced to detonate his explosives beforehand after guards opened fire on him, Col. Tariq Yousif al-Dulaimi said, adding that all the casualties were from those two explosions.

A third bombing also occurred about 100 yards away from an Iraqi-staffed checkpoint, but only the attacker was killed, he said.

The deadliest attack on Saturday destroyed a police station in Baghdad, killing 20 people -- half policemen and several others inmates at a jail in the two-story building.

The bomber bypassed tight security to get within 25 yards of the station by blending in with other trucks coming and going as part of a construction project, detonating his explosives after reaching the main gate, police said.

A suicide bomber also killed 10 people in a market area in Tal Afar, northwest of Baghdad.

The bombings came on the heels of other high-profile attacks last week, including a suicide bombing on Friday that wounded Iraq's Sunni deputy prime minister and killed nine other people and a rocket strike that landed near a news conference being held by the U.N. secretary-general in Baghdad.

An aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the deputy prime minister, Salam al-Zubaie, had been wounded by shrapnel in his face, stomach and chest but his condition was improving.

The Islamic State in Iraq also claimed responsibility for that attack.

"The doctors say that his situation will improve within the two coming days to the degree that he will be able to speak," the aide said, declining to be identified because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the situation.

The aide also said al-Zubaie was being kept under tight security in the U.S.-run hospital in the heavily fortified Green Zone, and "even his relatives are not allowed to enter the hospital."

The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced that troops had found 470 anti-tank mines Saturday in the Shiite militia Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City after getting a tip from an Iraqi citizen.

Another large weapons cache with roadside bomb-making material was found and 31 suspected insurgents were detained Friday in Diyarah 30 miles south of Baghdad, the military said in a separate statement.

------

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.

"Analysis: Envoy leaves a struggling Iraq"

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:13 p.m., Saturday, March 24, 2007

BAGHDAD -- On his first day as U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad said al-Qaida in Iraq and Sunni insurgents wanted to start a civil war.

He leaves his post after 21 months as U.S. and Iraqi forces fight to keep that fear from becoming reality in Baghdad.

The Afghan-born Khalilzad -- a Sunni and therefore suspect among many of the Shiites who dominate Iraq's post-Saddam power structure -- shouldered his mission here on June 21, 2005, saying he was "horrified by the daily suffering of the Iraqi people."

"The terrorists attack ordinary people, teachers, doctors, newly trained police and others who are assisting the people of Iraq."

On a farewell swing late last week -- he chose Iraq's largely peaceful and increasingly prosperous Kurdish region -- Khalilzad said he regretted leaving an Iraq mired in violence.

"I have been very saddened and concerned that the level of violence has been as high, sectarian violence in particular has been a grave threat," said the 56-year-old envoy, who has been nominated by President Bush as the next U.S. envoy to the United Nations.

Khalilzad's heritage, his early days in the cauldron of Afghanistan, sharpened his skills as a Middle East dealmaker.

But even he found the complexities of post-Saddam Iraq an occasionally impenetrable maze and deeply hostile to policies he was charged with implementing.

When Khalilzad arrived in Baghdad from his native Afghanistan, where he had been the top U.S. diplomat, the U.S. military death toll in Iraq stood at 1,324.

The figure has since risen to at least 3,234.

Iraqi deaths in the same period are a matter of debate, but since al-Qaida bombed one of the most important Shiite shrines in Iraq 13 months ago, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and whole neighborhoods have undergone sectarian cleansing.

The bombing caused the once-relatively quiescent Shiite community to rise up in a campaign of revenge.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq said 34,452 Iraqis died last year alone.

In the meantime, the U.S. military, with the promise from Bush of about 30,000 more American troops by June, is engaged with Iraqi security forces in a third attempt in less than a year to extinguish the sectarian war in Baghdad and the center of the country.

U.S. military and sectarian deaths have fallen since the crackdown began Feb. 14, though the number of Iraqis killed in the capital is gradually creeping upward again.

Khalilzad's diplomacy was a moving force in that decline, in the short term, by persuading Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Mailiki to pressure one of his key political backers into pulling Shiite militia fighters, the Mahdi Army, off the streets of the capital.

Sunni and al-Qaida fighters have pulled off several spectacular bombings.

The numbers are down slightly from pre-crackdown days, but the insurgents are still pulling off high-profile attacks.

On Thursday, a Katyusha rocket slammed into the Green Zone about 50 yards from where U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a press conference with al-Maliki.

There were no serious casualties but videotape of Ban, ducking and looking frightened by the explosion, dominated television screens.

A day later, an insurgent suicide bomber got within feet of one of Iraq's two deputy prime ministers, Salam al-Zubaie, wounding the top Sunni official seriously and killing nine others during Friday prayers at the private mosque attached to his home.

While Khalilzad was able to persuade al-Maliki to give American forces a free hand in the security operation and to keep the Mahdi Army largely out of sight, the U.S. envoy has had a difficult relationship with the Iraqi leader.

At one point last year, al-Maliki declared that while he was a friend of the United States, "I am not America's man in Iraq."

Al-Maliki also has promised his government will ensure passage of an oil law, a measure with overriding importance for the Bush administration; take action to ensure national reconciliation; set a date for local elections, and make progress on constitutional amendments.

So far all those measures have languished.

Al-Maliki aides have said the prime minister has been notified by "people in the U.S. Embassy" that the United States would withdraw backing for his government if the benchmarks are not met by June 30.

The Bush administration says there has been no threat, but if a tough message was delivered, it most certainly came from Khalilzad.

Khalilzad's mission was a true high-wire act, certainly one of the most challenging for a U.S. diplomat in recent history.

And reflecting those difficulties, Iraqis gave him mixed marks.

For example, Ali al-Alaq, a senior lawmaker from al-Maliki's Dawa Party, said Khalilzad was biased in favor of fellow Sunnis:

"We hope the new ambassador will be more evenhanded with all Iraq's sects."

But Barham Salah, one of two deputy prime ministers and a Kurd, whose people have benefited greatly from the American presence, saw it otherwise:

"At times, he seemed to care for the success of the new Iraq more than some Iraqi leaders did and he leaves with the admiration of Iraqis, even those he disagreed with."

------

Hurst is AP bureau chief in Iraq and has reported on the war since 2003.

"GI killed by roadside bomb in Iraq"

Associated Press

Last updated: 5:52 a.m., Saturday, March 24, 2007

BAGHDAD -- A U.S. soldier on a foot patrol was killed by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, the military said Saturday.

The Multinational Division -- Baghdad soldier died after the blast, which occurred Friday while the soldier was conducting a dismounted combat patrol in support of a joint U.S.-Iraqi security operation aimed at quelling sectarian violence in the capital, according to a statement.

The soldier's identity was not released pending notification of relatives.

The military did not provide more details about the attack but said members of the soldier's unit have detained 16 suspected insurgents in the past week.

At least 3,233 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Shades of the Viet Nam war times, all over again ....

"NYPD defends monitoring - Records reveal vastness of intelligence gathering before GOP convention"

By JIM DWYER, New York Times

First published: Sunday, March 25, 2007

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department's Intelligence Division.

Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department's "RNC Intelligence Squad," the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files.

In hundreds of reports stamped "NYPD Secret," the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and anti-war organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies.

Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities.

Police records indicate that in addition to sharing information with other police departments, New York undercover officers were active themselves in at least 15 places outside New York -- including California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montreal, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C. -- and in Europe.

The operation was mounted in 2003 after the Police Department, invoking the fresh horrors of the World Trade Center attack and the prospect of future terrorism, won greater authority from a federal judge to investigate political organizations for criminal activity.

Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, confirmed that the operation had been wide-ranging, and said it had been an essential part of the preparations for the huge crowds that came to the city during the convention.

Under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, undercover surveillance of political groups is generally legal, but the police in New York -- like those in many other big cities -- have operated under special limits as a result of class-action lawsuits filed over police monitoring of civil rights and anti-war groups during the 1960s.

The limits in New York are known as the Handschu guidelines, after the lead plaintiff, Barbara Handschu.

"All our activities were legal and were subject in advance to Handschu review," Browne said.

The police must have "some indication of unlawful activity on the part of the individual or organization to be investigated," U.S. District Court Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. said in a ruling last month.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents seven of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention, said the Police Department stepped beyond the law in its covert surveillance program.

"The police have no authority to spy on lawful political activity, and this wide-ranging NYPD program was wrong and illegal," Dunn said.

FROM THE WEB-EDITION OF THE HEARST CORPORATION-OWNED ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION, CONCERNING THE TIMES UNION BLOG SITE, IN ALBANY, NEW YORK ....

Comment by LuLu — March 24, 2007 @ 8:52 am:

First, point of fact on “free speech” - there is no “right to free speech” on a privately owned and run blog.

Comment by John Galt — March 24, 2007 @ 3:44 pm:

JOHN GALT REPLIES: We country folks find it interesting, revealing and perhaps slightly Freudian that someone, anyone for that matter, would come into “here”, in what is a very public setting, open to the “public at large”, without a membership fee being charged, in CYBERSPACE, which is certainly not “owned” by the Hearst Corporation, despite any illusions of grandeur it might have just because it owns a fancy office building down in NYC, to inform us that we do not have “freedom of speech” in here, because this BLOG is “privately owned and run” ….

To which we come back and say, “BY WHOM?”

WHO REALLY DOES “RUN” THIS BLOG?

And for what purposes, if it is in fact, “PRIVATELY OWNED” ….

Is this really another FBI “sting” going on in here, perhaps, along the lines of Chairman Mao’s very successful “LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM, LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS CONTEND” campaign that was used so successfully to locate and identify “subversive dissident elements” in Chinese society at that time, so that they could be eliminated?

Invite people to come into what is in reality a “PRIVATELY OWNED AND RUN” BLOG, and further invite them to open up their hearts and minds as to how they really feel about things, and then, those that are disloyal to George W. Bush can be identified and eliminated by one pack of thugs and goons in the name of “national security”, while a second group disloyal to “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer and the NYS Business Council can be similarly identified, and then removed from society for good, by having them incarcerated in NYS Business Council member Northeast Health’s secure mental facility right over there across Hudson’s River, in Republican-controlled Troy, New York …

Is that the point that we are supposed to take away here by this comment that in here, we do not really have “freedom of speech”?

What a statement that really does make about this TU newspaper BLOG, if it is indeed true ….

WHAT IT PROCLAIMS TO ALL THE CANDID WORLD IS THAT THIS BLOG IS NOT REALLY FAIR, NOR BALANCED, NOR HONEST, BY DESIGN …

Is that really the point?

Because if it is, then the candid world should know about it ….

So that nobody out there is at all misled about what is really going on in here, whatever that may be, in a BLOG that is not public, but instead, is “privately owned and run” …

And so …

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=4157#comments

"Giuliani's closet full of skeletons - Episodes from the past could be revived to haunt presidential campaign"

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press

First published: Sunday, March 25, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Plenty of people and politicians have skeletons in their closets.

In the case of presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, that closet is a walk-in.

The former Republican mayor of New York City won widespread praise for his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it is largely that collective memory that accounts for his current popularity in polls and makes him the early front-runner for his party's nomination.

Yet as most New Yorkers could tell you, there are plenty of episodes in Giuliani's past that could come back to haunt him -- scenes that played like a booming, angry opera.

"Rudy is a tough guy."

"Nobody has ever said he was Mr. Congeniality."

"It's not always pretty to look at, but he got the job done," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who backed Sen. John McCain in 2000 but now supports Giuliani.

So far, most of the major players in Giuliani's past public sagas have stayed silent, and that silence may be worth far more to him than any endorsement.

Skeleton No. 1 is his last police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, once nominated by President Bush to head the Homeland Security Department.

Kerik's close association with Giuliani became radioactive when Kerik pleaded guilty last June to a misdemeanor of accepting a gift from a company seeking city work.

Kerik acknowledged accepting $165,000 in renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to land city contracts.

But he never explicitly admitted that his efforts on behalf of the company were tied to the work on his home.

Kerik is still under investigation, and any further criminal matter surrounding him will only draw more attention to the relationship with the former mayor.

Skeleton No. 2 is Giuliani's first police commissioner, William Bratton, now the police chief in Los Angeles.

Working for Giuliani, Bratton began the police reforms in New York that led to historic crime reductions and helped turn tawdry Times Square into a Disney-certified tourist destination.

Bratton's forced departure from New York in 1996 began a debate that goes on even now: Does the credit Giuliani that claims for the crime reduction really belong to Bratton?

Skeleton No. 3 is Giuliani's first wife, Regina Peruggi.

They married in 1968; Giuliani had the marriage annulled in 1982, on the grounds they were second cousins once removed.

Skeleton No. 4 is Donna Hanover, his second wife.

Their painfully public separation at the end of Giuliani's time as mayor seriously damaged his image, but has become overshadowed by his performance in the last months of 2001.

Each of the four, through their aides, declined to comment.

Giuliani's son, a college student, recently acknowledged that he is essentially estranged from his father and has "a little problem" with his father's current wife -- his stepmother.

Judith Giuliani also revealed that contrary to years of published reports, Giuliani is her third, not her second husband.

And as the MOUTHRUNNER CHENEY castigates the American Congress for setting deadlines for troop removal from IRAQINAM, it looks like the BUSHCOS are doing the exact same thing, but HYPOCRISY is the COIN OF THE REALM with the FABULOUS, FLYING BUSHCOS ....

And so ....

"Khalilzad: U.S. patience 'running out'"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:03 a.m., Monday, March 26, 2007

BAGHDAD -- The departing U.S. ambassador said on Monday that he believes Iraq is heading in the right direction but cautioned that Iraqi leaders must understand that U.S. voters are increasingly impatient with the war.

Zalmay Khalilzad, who is leaving his post after 21 months that had seen a massive increase in violence in Baghdad overall, declared in a news conference that insurgent and militia attacks had decreased by 25 percent in the six weeks since the start of U.S.-Iraqi security plan on Feb. 14.

"I know that we are an impatient people, and I constantly signal to the Iraqi leaders that our patience, or the patience of the American people, is running out," said the Afghan-born Khalilzad, who has been nominated by President Bush as American ambassador to the United Nations.

Khalilzad's cautiously optimistic assessment on security coincided with the eruption of sectarian violence in a string of mixed Sunni-Shiite towns south of the capital Monday and over the weekend.

In Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, authorities slapped an indefinite curfew after two people were killed and two others were wounded in sectarian clashes sparked by an attack Monday on a Sunni mosque by suspected Shiite militants, police said.

Iraqi and U.S. forces sealed off the area where the mosque is located, but clashes erupted elsewhere in the town.

The mosque was slightly damaged by rocket-propelled grenades fired by the assailants.

In Mahaweel, a mainly Shiite town 35 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb planted near a Sunni mosque went off Monday morning, damaging the building but causing no casualties, police said.

The targeting of the mosques came one day after suspected Shiite militants attacked a Sunni mosque in Haswa, a town near both Iskandariyah and Mahaweel.

The attack was in apparent retaliation for a suicide truck bombing against a Shiite mosque that killed 11 people on Saturday, also in Haswa.

Aides to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have said that Washington has signaled that he must make progress on a series of benchmark legislative and political measures by June 30 or face a withdrawal of American support for his government.

The United States has denied making the threat but Khalilzad was clear Monday that al-Maliki was under heavy U.S. pressure to move rapidly on several issues, especially a law that would provide a fair distribution of Iraqi oil wealth among all ethnic and sectarian groups, a measure that is especially important to the White House.

He also said the Iraqis need to act on political and sectarian reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites, and on amending the constitution to make it more palatable to the Sunnis.

Despite repeated promises of quick action from the Iraqis and heavy pressure from the Americans, those measures still await action in parliament.

Khalilzad also said U.S. contacts with Sunni insurgents were ongoing and he noted progress in splitting some Sunni tribes away from the insurgency and from al-Qaida in Iraq in particular.

"There is a lot more that needs to be done," Khalilzad told the news conference.

In scattered violence Monday across Iraq, gunmen in two cars fatally shot an off-duty police officer walking near his home in the northern city of Mosul, according to Brig. Mohammed al-Wagaa, director of police operations in Ninveh province of which Mosul is the capital.

In Baghdad, one person was killed and three were wounded when three mortar shells hit a neighborhood in the mainly Sunni Dora district, according to police.

In the southeastern district of Zafaraniyah, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol went off at 10:55 am, killing a police officer and wounding three, including a police captain, police said.

Two civilians also were injured.

VOTE YES FOR IMPEACHMENT ....

TOSS THAT TEXAN OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, RIGHT ON HIS EAR .....

AND SEND HIM BACK "TO THE RANCH", IN DISGRACE ....

AND GOOD RIDDANCE ....

And it seems that this REPUBLICAN Trent Lott does not read the news ....

Probably it is too much hard work for him to do ....

And IGNORANCE of what is going on in the world never seems to be a bar to holding high office here in OUR America ....

After all, look where it got George W. Bush ....

And so ....

"Senator: Some see impeachment as option"

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press

Last updated: 11:02 p.m., Sunday, March 25, 2007

WASHINGTON -- With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush's own party said Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Senate's No. 2 Republican leader harshly criticized House Democrats for setting an "artificial date" for withdrawing troops from Iraq and said he believes Republicans have enough votes to prevent passage of a similar bill in the Senate.

"We need to put that kind of decision in the hands of our commanders who are there on the ground with the men and women," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

"For Congress to impose an artificial date of any kind is totally irresponsible."

GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the war, stopped short of calling for Bush's impeachment.

But he made clear that some lawmakers viewed that as an option should Bush choose to push ahead despite public sentiment against the war.

"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed -- if a president really believes that, then there are -- what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that," said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.

The Senate planned to begin debate Monday on a war spending bill that would set a nonbinding goal of March 31, 2008, for the removal of combat troops.

That comes after the House narrowly passed a bill Friday that would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 -- or earlier if the Iraqi government did not meet certain requirements.

On Sunday, Hagel said he was bothered by Bush's apparent disregard of congressional sentiment on Iraq, such as his decision to send additional troops.

He said lawmakers now stood ready to stand up to the president when necessary.

In the April edition of Esquire magazine, Hagel described Bush as someone who doesn't believe he's accountable to anyone.

"He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true."

"You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment."

"I don't know."

"It depends on how this goes," Hagel told the magazine.

In his weekly address Saturday, Bush accused Democrats of partisanship in the House vote and said it would cut the number of troops below a level that U.S. military commanders say they need.

Vice President Dick Cheney also accused Democrats of undermining U.S. troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face of danger.

"We clearly a situation where the president has lost the confidence of the American people in his war effort," Hagel said.

"It is now time, going into the fifth year of that effort, for the Congress to step forward and be part of setting some boundaries and some conditions as to our involvement."

"This is not a monarchy," he added, referring to the possibility that some lawmakers may seek impeachment.

"There are ways to deal with it."

"And I would hope the president understands that."

Lott said setting withdrawal dates is a futile and potentially dangerous exercise because Bush has made clear he will veto any such legislation.

"There are members in the Senate in both parties that are not comfortable with how things have gone in Iraq," Lott said.

"But they understand that artificial timetables, even as goals, are a problem."

"...We will try to take out the arbitrary dates."

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the Senate bill seeks to heed the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group by setting a goal of withdrawing some troops while leaving others behind to train the Iraqi army for border patrol and other missions.

"That, combined with a very aggressive, diplomatic effort in the region is what we're going to need to have," he said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she believed that setting a timetable was appropriate but declined to predict whether it would garner enough Senate votes to pass.

"People of this country have spoken overwhelmingly."

"It's been constant now," Feinstein said.

"They want us out."

"It is time for the Senate to weigh in."

"I hope we will have the votes."

Hagel spoke on ABC's "This Week," Feinstein and Lott appeared on "Fox News Sunday," and Nelson was on CNN's "Late Edition."

FROM THE WEB-EDITION OF THE ALBANY, NEW YORK TIMES UNION ....

Comment by topo gigio — March 25, 2007 @ 10:23 pm:

On another matter…lying seems to be the modus operandi for the Bush administration.

Libby lied (and got convicted), Gonzales lied (and hopefully will soon be fired), the administration lied about Tillman to get some mileage out of the football connection, they lied about WMD’s, Rice lied about a lot of things IMHO, Cheney has been lying since the day he was born, Rumsfeld was so arrogant that he even believed his own lies, Bush is either lying or most likely is incredibly stupid as he tells us to just give it a little more time in Iraq for things to “work”.

Actually, lying to the American people has been the way of our government for quite a while now (Nixon lied, Clinton lied though about non-governmental stuff, Ollie North lied).

It certainly is a sad state of affairs that this is what the U.S. has come to represent — a pack of liars.

Cheery, huh?

Comment by John Galt — March 26, 2007 @ 8:51 am:

topo gigio, if one goes back and reads Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen, an authoritive little work about the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention, one actually finds your sentiments echoed in there, by the delegates to the federal Constitutional Convention, many of whom were classically-educated, and so, had extensive knowledge of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, and the Greek states which existed before Rome ...

And there was much argument, or debate, among those delegates, as to how to “get around” exactly what you are talking about, and their conclusion was that there really is no solution to what is in reality, HUMAN NATURE, or perhaps, human impulses, when people are confronted by POWER, and GREED ....

And in his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emporer, also discusses this topic of lying among people in positions of power, at length ....

And it still comes back to CHOICE, FREE WILL, and the inner strength of character of the individual ...

Which is why freedom of speech and freedom of the press was deemed to be so important here in the “UNITED STATES” of America ....

This America that we are the inheriters of rose out of flames, death and destruction, and as any rational combat veteran, if that is not an oxymoron, can tell you, there just has to be a better way ....

And what came out of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, as an alternative, was OPPROBRIUM ....

POINT THE FINGER AT THEM, PULL DOWN THEIR PANTS IN PUBLIC, EMBARRASS THE BE-JAYSUS OUT OF THEM ....

And that is about it, which really brings us right into this present moment, and why an OPEN, UNCENSORED BLOG like this is so important to us common citizens out here in the countryside, where, because of isolation, our voices are never heard ....

America was created as an experiment, NOT A GUARANTEE, if one recalls Ben Franklin’s words on the subject, anyway, and that experiment fails when we all don’t give a damn, anymore, because everybody is lying, in the media, in the government, everywhere ...

Yes, indeed, it can be, AND IS, for us older folks, anyway, VERY DEPRESSING ....

But then, it always has been, and our own history right here in this area tells us that it has been worse, much worse, and yet, we still have prevailed to get through those times, which many of us lived through, and still recall, JE ME SOUVIENS, as the Quebecquois might say ....

And so ....

Us older countryfolks out here were taught way back when that OUR Declaration of Independence was really an OPEN LETTER TO THE CANDID WORLD, telling that CANDID WORLD that this is where we are right now, and this is why it is unsatisfactory to a “civilized people”, so this is where we are going, and that was back in 1776 .....

And this is now 2007, and to us, this BLOG, and others, still serve as OPEN LETTERS TO THE CANDID WORLD, in the same spirit that the original Declaration of Independence was .....

And we older folks out here are using that opportunity to tell the CANDID WORLD where it is that we have gotten to, in the intervening period of time, WHICH IS ALWAYS A MATTER OF PERCEPTION AND OPINION, and what is perceived to be good about it, as well as what is perceived to be wrong, or just plain bad ...

And so ....

Does that type of “venting” to the CANDID WORLD really solve anything?

Whoever does really know, topo gigio, but at least back in 1776, it did get a ball rolling, sort of, anyway,and here we still are, today ....

And so .....

As combat veterans, we were taught to attack right into the heart of that which was attacking you, and by God, or god, some of us got to be pretty good at that .......

And the sharpest weapons that there ever will be, sharper than the finest sword, ARE WORDS, topo gigio .....

And we are not at all afraid to use them in that fashion, if need be .....

Nor are you, from what I can see, anyway .....

And in an intelligent manner, which is an example to all of us, out here in the countrysside, anyway, since us older folks are into “intelligence” and “candor” as a more sure way to survive life than lying is, since lying to yourself in the fall that you have enough firewood to last a long, cold winter is not going to get you far, if in fact, all you have is a little pile of kindling wood ....

And so .....

http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=4164#comments

"Gonzales aide to invoke Fifth Amendment"

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

36 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Monica Goodling, a senior Justice Department official involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings, citing Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said Monday.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," said the lawyer, John Dowd.

"One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby," he said, a reference to the recent conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak case.

The White House, meanwhile, continued to stand by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales despite new calls over the weekend for his resignation and documents that indicate he may have been more involved in the dismissals than he has previously acknowledged.

Democrats have accused the Justice Department and the White House of purging the prosecutors for political reasons.

The Bush administration maintains the firings were not improper because U.S. attorneys are political appointees.

Goodling was Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison until she took a leave of absence earlier this month.

She was subpoenaed last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee along with several of Gonzales' other top aides.

There have been questions about whether Goodling and others misinformed Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty about the firings just before he testified before the Senate committee in February.

Dowd said that since then a senior Justice Department official had privately told a member of the Senate committee that he was misled by Goodling and others before testifying.

Gonzales' truthfulness about the firings of seven prosecutors on Dec. 7 and another one months earlier also have been questioned.

On March 13 at a news conference, Gonzales denied that he participated in discussions or saw any documents about the firings, despite documents that show he attended a Nov. 27 meeting with senior aides on the topic, where he approved a detailed plan to carry out the dismissals.

Goodling was one of five senior Justice Department aides who met with Gonzales for that Nov. 27 discussion.

Department documents released Friday to Capitol Hill show she attended multiple meetings about the dismissals for months.

She also was among aides who on Feb. 5 helped Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty prepare his testimony for a Senate hearing the next day — during which he may have given Congress incomplete or otherwise misleading information about the circumstances of the firings.

Additionally, Goodling was involved in an April 6, 2006, phone call between the Justice Department and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who had complained to the Bush administration and the president about David Iglesias, then the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque.

Domenici wanted Iglesias to push more aggressively on a corruption probe against Democrats before the 2006 elections.

The Justice Department appeared surprised Monday to hear of Goodling's decision on testifying.

Earlier Monday, addressing rumors that department aides would refuse to testify, Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said:

"That is incorrect."

Addressing the anticipated testimony of McNulty and Associate Deputy Attorney General Will Moschella — the two who recently appeared, respectively, in Senate and House hearings — Scolinos said the two men "are voluntarily making themselves available to the Hill and plan to fully answer all questions posed to them."

Scolinos had no immediate comment about Goodling's testimony.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that Gonzales "might be accused of being imprecise in what he was saying," but maintained that the attorney general was not closely involved in the firings.

"I understand the concern."

"I understand that people might think that there are inconsistencies," Perino said.

"But as I read it, I think that he has been consistent."

The White House is placing the onus on Gonzales to explain his actions to lawmakers, but he is not scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee until April 17 — three weeks away.

Speaking to reporters in Orlando, Fla., Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said whether or not Gonzales was fully engaged, "he has lost all credibility with me."

Nelson on Sunday joined the ranks of lawmakers in both parties calling for Gonzales to resign.

"Unless he has a good explanation for not only what he knew and when he knew it but also for the ineptitude of the department ... he is a goner," Nelson said of Gonzales.

"I think there might be enough Republicans who are calling for his resignation, even before he takes the witness stand."

The Senate committee's senior Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, on Sunday said documents including a Nov. 27 calendar entry that placed the attorney general at a Justice Department meeting to discuss the dismissals "appear to contradict" Gonzales' earlier statements.

But his Nov. 27 schedule, included in a batch of memos sent to Capitol Hill late Friday, showed he attended an hour-long meeting at which, aides said, he approved a detailed plan for executing the purge.

Since the release of that calendar entry on Friday, Justice aides have said Gonzales meant he was not involved in selecting the prosecutors when he said he didn't participate in discussions about their firings.
___

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this report.

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

March 26, 2007, 5:30 pm

"Blogtalk: Under Surveillance"

By The Empire Zone

This report from Jim Dwyer over the weekend has stirred up the blogosphere:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion...amp;oref=slogin

City Councilman Oliver Koppell, a former state attorney general:

“It is necessary, unfortunately, for us to know what people are doing who engage in vigorous advocacy, let’s put it that way, because vigorous advocacy can turn into violent acts.” [The Politcker]

March 27th, 2007 6:27 am:

“Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let a Hundred Schools Contend” was Chairman Mao’s method of rooting out those in Chinese society who did not like him, or agree with his policies, and everytime I enter a BLOG such as this to express an opinion, well, anymore, I must wonder ….

Could this be another “sting”?

And for the record, “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer has already received approval from the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in NYC in December of 2005 to use INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC COMMITMENT as a weapon against those in NYS who would challenge his “policies”, so the police state is among us already, folks …

That approval stems from an incident in Joe Bruno’s Rensselaer County on 8-22-01 where a licensed professional engineer investigating professional misconduct and fraudulent submittals to the local health department ended up being BRANDED as, and incarcerated as an alleged dangerous mental patient in the secure mental facility of the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany based upon commitment paperwork signed off on by a political doctor in Troy, NY who had never even laid eyes on this engineer before ordering him committed …

Needless to say, that engineer is now gone, and for “STEAMROLLER” Spitzer, “peace”, of a sorts, anyway, now reigns in his land, since with the snap of his well-manicured fingers, he can now make the dissident of his choice simply disappear, as that engineer did, with no fuss being made about it by anyone, and especially the courts, which has had a very chilling effect on those of us up here who consider voicing our opinions in public, especially when those opinions are backed up by solid evidence, as was the case with this engineer who disappeared, lest we too go that route ….

And so ….

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0.../#comment-59831

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

#6. March 27th, 2007 2:50 pm

problem - police ’spied’

solution - do a better job with secrecy

— Posted by dougk

#7. March 27th, 2007 6:27 pm

A point which seems to be getting completely overlooked here is the fact that within the State of New York, our right to freedom of speech is guaranteed to us, not by the United States Constitution, but by section 8 of the BILL OF RIGHTS of OUR NYS Constitution, wherein is stated:

“We The People of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our Freedom, in order to secure its blessings, DO ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION.

§ 8. Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.”

Now, it appears that what the NYPD has done in the case of this secret spying on us is to have made a unilateral decision on its own that WE, THE PEOPLE of the State of New York cannot actually “freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects” ….

To the contrary, and this is buttressed by these following comments of this G. Ollie Koppel, there are “certain unknowable to us” areas where we are really prohibited to speak, or write, or publish, because:

“It is necessary, unfortunately, for us to know what people are doing who engage in vigorous advocacy, let’s put it that way, because vigorous advocacy can turn into violent acts.”

Now, in the light of § 9(1) of the BILL OF RIGHTS of OUR NYS Constitution, which follows, this is interesting language, indeed:

9(1) No law shall be passed abridging the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government, or any department thereof ….

Now, as any lawyer will tell you, when petitioning the government or any department thereof for redress of grievance, one is expected to zealously advocate for one’s position, and in fact, lawyers are required to zealously defend their client’s rights ….

And so ….

This G. Ollie Koppel and the NYPD seem to be taking a set of garden shears to OUR BILL OF RIGHTS of OUR NYS Constitution for reasons known only to them, as OUR “BIG BROTHER”, or “OVERLORD” ….

Which would seem to be taking them afoul of section 1 of OUR BILL OF RIGHTS, which states in clear and unequivocal language that a hot-shot lawyer like G. Ollie Koppel should be able to understand, since it was written for the common person in NYS:

Section 1. No member of this state shall be disfranchised, or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land, or the judgment of his or her peers ….

And this is not all some mumbo-jumbo that I am reciting here, as can be readily determined from these words from our own NYS Court of Appeals in 1996, in Ricky Brown et al. v. State of New York, 89 NY2d 172:

“Constitutions assign rights to individuals and impose duties on the government to regulate the government’s actions to protect them.”

“It is the failure to fulfill a stated constitutional duty which may support a claim for damages in a constitutional tort action.”

“The underlying rationale for the decision, in simplest terms, is that constitutional guarantees are worthy of protection on their own terms without being linked to some common-law or statutory tort, and that the courts have the obligation to enforce these rights by ensuring that each individual receives an adequate remedy for violation of a constitutional duty.”

“If the remedy is not forthcoming from the political branches of government, then the courts must provide it by recognizing a damage remedy against the violators much the same as the courts earlier recognized and developed equitable remedies to enjoin unconstitutional actions.”

“Implicit in this reasoning is the premise that the Constitution is a source of positive law, not merely a set of limitations on government.”

“The damage remedy has been recognized historically as the appropriate remedy for the invasion of personal interests in liberty, indeed, damage remedies already exist for similar violations of the Federal Constitution.”

“Those created by Congress and the Supreme Court, however, fail to reach State action though it is on the local level that most law enforcement functions are performed and the greatest danger of official misconduct exists.”

“By recognizing a narrow remedy for violations of sections 11 and 12 of article I of the State Constitution, we provide appropriate protection against official misconduct at the State level.”

Indeed, as this case with G. Ollie Koppel and the NYPD and this secret spying is clearly demonstrating to the candid world, it is on the local level in the State of New York, specifically in NYC, thanks to this G. Ollie Koppel and the NYPD, that the greatest danger of official misconduct exists with respect to OUR Constitutional rights in NYS as defined by the BILL OF RIGHTS of OUR NYS Constitution ….

And so ….

It is interesting that anyone would actually come out in public and advocate for those who would so willingly toss the BILL OF RIGHTS of OUR NY Constitution right in the trash barrel, but we have it in writing just above here, in comment #6 …

And so …

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0.../#comment-59831

"Strong hurricanes to hit U.S. Gulf in 07: AccuWeather"

By Janet McGurty

Tue Mar 27, 1:24 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Gulf Coast, which is still rebuilding almost two years after Hurricane Katrina, faces a renewed threat of powerful storms this year, private forecaster AccuWeather said on Tuesday.

After a quiet hurricane season last year, Florida and other Gulf Coast states likely will be hit with fewer storms than during the active 2005 season, which spawned the massive hurricanes Katrina and Rita, AccuWeather said.

But the storms forecast for the region will pack a punch.

"We will not get anywhere near the amount of storms that we did in 2005, but the intensity of the storms we do get will be of major concern," Joe Bastardi, chief hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather.com, said in a statement.

British forecasting group Tropical Storm Risk this month also predicted an active storm season.

It forecast four "intense" hurricanes during the 2007 season, which runs from June through November.

The predictions spell trouble for areas still recuperating from a chain of hurricanes that slammed the Gulf Coast in 2005.

"The entire region -- including New Orleans and other areas that are still rebuilding after Katrina -- is susceptible to storms," Bastardi said.

Katrina killed about 1,500 people along the Gulf Coast in 2005, displaced tens of thousands more and caused billions of dollars in damage.

Bastardi also said that storms forecast to hit this year could once again disrupt oil and natural gas operations along the Gulf Coast, driving up energy prices for consumers.

"This year's stronger storms are likely to be the kind of disruption that will be felt in wallets and pocketbooks," he said.

U.S. gasoline prices reached a record high of $3.057 per gallon after Katrina, which caused oil refineries to shut down and companies to evacuate workers from oil and gas producing rigs in the Gulf.

After Hurricane Rita hit the region a month after Katrina, as much as 14 percent of U.S. refinery capacity was shut and about 80 percent of crude oil and 66 percent of natural gas production were down for months.

Bastardi also predicted the U.S. Northeast would likely be a target for strong storms for the next 10 years.

"Last year, the Northeast may have dodged a bullet but, unfortunately, you can only be lucky for so long."

"We are in a pattern similar to that of the late 1930s through the 1940s, when the Northeast was hit by two major storms," he said.

The relative calm of last year's hurricane season, which forecasters had mistakenly predicted would be busy, came on the heels of a record 28 storms and 15 hurricanes in 2005 and only a slightly less furious season in 2004.

Bastardi said that, despite the milder 2006 season, the trend was toward strong hurricanes and tropical storms.

"We are living in a time of climatic hardship," Bastardi said.

"We're in a cycle where weather extremes are more the norm and not the exception."

"Attacks throughout Iraq kill at least 65"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

51 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Two nearly simultaneous truck bombs — including one detonated by remote control — ripped through markets in Tal Afar on Tuesday, killing at least 48 people and wounding dozens, police said, as violence surged outside the Iraqi capital.

A mortar attack in the Sunni-dominated Dora neighborhood of Baghdad killed four people, including two children, a woman and a man — the second deadly mortar attack on the enclave in three days.

A suicide car bomber exploded his payload near Ramadi, killing 10 people, and two other attackers detonated explosives-laden cars in Baqouba, killing three policemen.

The attacks in Tal Afar, the second in four days, occurred about five minutes apart at popular markets in the northern and central parts of the city, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

At least 48 people were killed and 103 wounded, police Brig. Abdul Karim al-Jubouri said.

One of the trucks was detonated by remote control while people gathered to buy the flour it was carrying in the central Shiite neighborhood of Muhyou, a local policeman said.

The other truck was loaded with vegetables and parked near a wholesale market, not far from a primary school that was closed for the day.

Jaafar Akram, a teacher who saw that explosion, said he helped the police and other civilians carry the wounded to vehicles taking them to the hospital.

"I instantly saw smoke then I heard the blast," Akram said, adding that body parts were thrown on the ground and the walls and vegetables were scattered in pools of blood.

"Thanks be to God the blast didn't occur during rush hour at the school," he said.

"That reduced the disaster."

On Saturday, a man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up outside a pastry shop in the central market area in the predominantly Shiite Turkomen city, killing at least 10 people and wounding three.

Tal Afar, about 90 miles east of the Syrian border, is a mainly Turkomen city with about 60 percent of its residents adhering to Shiite Islam and 40 percent Sunnis.

It has suffered frequent insurgent attacks despite a March 20, 2006, declaration by President Bush that the city was an example of Iraq's improving security.

Among the largest attacks were a suicide car bombing on Oct. 7, 2006, that targeted a police checkpoint and killed 14 people, and a Sept. 18, 2006, suicide bombing that killed 20 and wounded 17.

A car bomb also obliterated a tent crowded with mourners for the funeral of a Kurdish official on May 1, 2005, killing 25 people, and 30 were killed when a suicide attacker set off explosives hidden beneath his clothing outside an army recruiting center on Oct. 11, 2005.

Tal Afar was an insurgent stronghold until U.S. and Iraqi troops drove them out in a September 2006 operation and constructed huge sand barriers around the city to limit access.

Bush cited that operation, in which insurgents melted away into the countryside rather than fight, as an example that gave him "confidence in our strategy."

Tuesday's vehicle bombings and an eruption of sectarian clashes south of Baghdad underscored concerns that militants have fled the capital in response to a U.S.-led security crackdown, bringing violence with them to the hinterlands.

The suicide car bomber near Ramadi struck a district northeast of the provincial capital that was not patrolled by the military, police Col. Tarik Yousif said.

Another suicide car bomber struck a police patrol in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding four other people, police said.

Police also opened fire on a suicide car bomber as he drove toward a checkpoint near a cemetery in the center of the capital at about 5:40 p.m., but he was able to detonate his explosives killing one policeman and seriously wounding three other people, police said.

The U.S. military said a Marine was killed Saturday during combat in Anbar province west of Baghdad but gave no details.

Separately, Kirkuk police 1st. Lt. Marewan Salih said two elderly Chaldean Catholic nuns were stabbed multiple times by intruders who raided their home Monday night near Kirkuk's Cathedral of the Virgin in Kirkuk.

They lived alone and there was no sign of a robbery, Salih said.

Margaret Naoum, 79, was stabbed seven times as she stood in the garden just outside the sisters' home.

The attackers then found Fawzeiyah Naoum, 85, lying on the sofa inside, recovering from eye surgery last week.

She was stabbed three times.

Chaldean Catholics are an ancient Eastern rite now united with Roman Catholicism.

Adherents live mainly in Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq and most speak a dialect of Turkish.

In politics, a plan by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani to introduce legislation to allow former members of Saddam Hussein's ruling party — including those in the feared security and paramilitary forces — resume jobs in the government or receive pensions met with criticism.

The commission currently carrying out the government's so-called "de-Baathfication" policy said the draft law ignored victims of the former regime in a highly critical statement, indicating the draft law could face trouble in parliament.

"This draft turns a blind eye to the feelings of millions of the victims of Baath Party and pays no heed to their emotions and rights."

"This will not lead to reconciliation," the statement said.

Long demanded by the U.S. to appease Iraq's once-dominant Sunni Arab minority, the measure would set a three-month challenge period after which ex-Baath party loyalists would be immune from legal punishment for their actions during Saddam's reign.

The draft law, which excludes former regime members already charged with or sought for crimes, also would grant state pensions to many Baathists, even if they were denied posts in the government or military.

The reconciliation measure is seen as an effort to short-circuit expected criticism of Iraq's government at an Arab League summit this week.

Al-Maliki is said to fear rising support among U.S.-allied Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan for an Iraqi national unity government led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a favorite of Washington.

"Mueller defends need for expanded powers"

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller struggled Tuesday to convince skeptical senators that — despite recent abuses — the FBI should retain Patriot Act authority to gather telephone, e-mail and financial records without a judge's approval.

"The statute did not cause the errors."

"The FBI's implementation did," the FBI chief told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., served notice:

"We're going to be re-examining the broad authorities we granted the FBI in the Patriot Act."

House Judiciary committee members delivered a similar message last week.

The Senate panel's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, went further: "The question arises as to whether any director can handle this job and whether the bureau itself can handle the job."

Grim-faced and sometimes even looking pained, Mueller testified at the panel's second hearing into a Justice Department inspector general's report this month that revealed abuses in the FBI's use of documents called national security letters to gather data.

Reviewing headquarters files and four of 56 FBI field offices, Inspector General Glenn Fine found 48 violations of law or presidential directives during 2003-2005.

He estimates there may be up to 3,000 unidentified or unreported violations throughout the FBI.

Mueller said he had instituted procedures for issuing these letters.

"What I did not do and should have done is put in a compliance program to be sure those procedures were followed," he added.

He is now devising a compliance program and has ordered an audit to determine the extent of the problem and to see if any agents should be disciplined.

"We are committed to demonstrating to the committee, the Congress and the American people that we will correct the deficiencies," Mueller said.

"I still have very serious qualms," Leahy replied.

Mueller called the letters "an indispensable tool for our conduct of terrorism investigations" and began listing cases in which the letters were useful, including a plot against the Brooklyn Bridge.

Interrupting, Leahy said the panel could discuss individual plots later, including "how serious a plot it was to take down the Brooklyn Bridge."

Government court documents acknowledged that defendant Iyman Faris, now serving 20 years in the case, advised al-Qaida the plot would be futile.

Citing the national security letters and recent inspector general criticism of FBI reporting of terrorist cases and of weapons and laptops lost, Specter said, "Every time we turn around there is another enormous failure by the bureau."

Specter said the committee should seriously consider establishing a separate domestic intelligence agency like Britain's MI-5.

"There's another headline virtually on a daily basis," Specter said, citing a Washington Post report Tuesday that agents submitted inaccurate data to a court that issues warrants for foreign intelligence surveillance.

Mueller said he had reduced such inaccuracies since learning of the problem in 2005 but noted that warrant applications are long and contain thousands of facts.

"I'm not impressed with your assertion that there are thousands of facts," Specter said.

"That's your job."

"You asked for these powers; we gave you them."

"If these applications are wrong, you're subjecting people to an invasion of privacy that ought not to be issued."

Mueller argued against some committee Democrats' suggestions to inject judicial approval into the national security letter process or to limit how far agents can roam beyond actual suspects in seeking records.

But under questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Mueller indicated he might trade the letters for administrative subpoenas, like those used in some drug and tax cases without prior approval of a judge.

Mueller said it would be simpler to train agents to use administrative subpoenas than national security letters, which are governed by six different laws.

He added that administrative subpoenas can be challenged in court by the recipient and — unlike national security letters — enforced in court by the government.

Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Orrin Hatch of Utah opposed altering the law to curb FBI authority.

"You've acknowledged the problems and pledged to fix them," Hatch said.

"That's what Congress and the American people need."

The committee plans to hear April 17 from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, now struggling to keep his job amid criticism of the FBI abuses and the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

National security letters, first authorized in 1986, can be used to acquire e-mail, telephone and travel records and financial information, like credit and bank transactions.

In 2001, the Patriot Act eliminated any requirement that the records belong to someone under suspicion.

Now an innocent person's records can be obtained if FBI field agents consider them relevant to an ongoing terrorism or spying investigation.
___

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

8. March 27th, 2007 11:50 pm

speak freely, openly and loudly; just don’t get your nose bent out of shape when people, including the NYPD listen, if you don’t want folks to listen, whisper behind closed doors.

— Posted by dougk

10. March 28th, 2007 6:44 am

“If you don’t want folks to listen, whisper behind closed doors ….”

There it is, America …

THE SLOGAN FOR OUR TIMES, which should be posted on large billboards from one end of this state to the other …

And you read it first in the pages of the NY TIMES, although not as a policy the NY TIMES endorses, which has the editors of NY POST bent so far out of shape, the wags up here say they now look like fancy pretzels!

And it is true, this SLOGAN FOR OUR TIMES …

As was the case in Communist China when the madman Mao ruled, and also in Russia when Beria’s goons were everywhere, “LISTENING IN” on what people were saying to determine who next to “remove from society” to keep a dictator in power, people in upstate NY DO WHISPER BEHIND CLOSED DOORS in fear when they are talking about CORRUPT GOVERNMENT up here, because of what happened to that engineer, where before, when there was law, and contitutional rights in NYS, these same people would have been putting their words in writing in the form of an Article 78 lawsuit against these same CORRUPT public officials, and then pursuant to section 6 of the BILL OF RIGHTS of the NYS Constitution, these same citizens who are now in hiding, whispering in fear behind closed doors, would have been bringing the results of these Article 78’s before a grand jury for further action ….

And with that said, it is worth taking a look at that specific constitutional language in the BILL OF RIGHTS of OUR NYS Constitution:

§ 6. No person shall be subject to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; nor shall he or she be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself or herself, providing, that any public officer who, upon being called before a grand jury to testify concerning the conduct of his or her present office or of any public office held by him or her within five years prior to such grand jury call to testify, or the performance of his or her official duties in any such present or prior offices, refuses to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent criminal prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, shall by virtue of such refusal, be disqualified from holding any other public office or public employment for a period of five years from the date of such refusal to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, and shall be removed from his or her present office by the appropriate authority or shall forfeit his or her present office at the suit of the attorney-general.

The power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law.

THE POWER OF GRAND JURIES IN NYS TO INQUIRE INTO THE WILFUL MISCONDUCT IN OFFICE OF PUBLIC OFFICERS IN NYS SHALL NEVER BE SUSPENDED ...

EXCEPT …

IT HAS BEEN ….

THROUGH FEAR …

BY “STEAMROLLER” SPITZER and the NYS POLICE STATE ….

Because where there are no witnesses, well, hey, you do the math ….

And at least one person is cheering for that right here in the pages of the NY TIMES ….

And his cheers are being echoed by a whole host of corrupt public officials in NYS who never need fear being hauled before a grand jury themselves, BECAUSE RETALIATION AGAINST POTENTIAL WITNESSES AGAINST THEM IS THEIR WEAPON, against us, as this case with the engineer is evidence of, and so long as the maws of the GULAGS beckon, to us, if we dare speak above a whisper, down in our basements, as if we were Russians, or Chinese, or ordinary Germans in the time of Hitler, these corrupt politicians will be safe ….

Which is what POLICE STATES generally exist for, to protect POWER, and not people …

And so …

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...lance/#comments

"KEEPING NYERS SAFE - WHAT THE NYPD'S CRITICS FORGET"

By MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG

Bloomberg: Learned from Seattle's failures.

March 28, 2007 -- EDITOR'S NOTE: Below are remarks the mayor prepared for delivery to the media yesterday.

THE 2004 Republican National Convention was the largest event the city had held since 9/11.

We were very concerned that we would be a target for potential terrorists or others intent on causing disruptions.

The eyes of the world would be on us, and that would make us an even more inviting target than usual.

We wanted to show the world how far we had come since 9/11 - and there's no doubt others wanted to bring us another dark day.

Plus, with the president in town, along with many members of Congress, and for other reasons, the Department of Homeland Security declared it a national-security special event.

We had a fundamental responsibility to learn whether groups might include any potential terrorists or anarchists planning to cause or take advantage of any disruptions.

We saw what happened in Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization conference, when the police were caught off guard by those intent on destroying property and endangering the public.

That is why the NYPD, in accordance with court-approved guidelines, monitored those who said they intended to use vandalism or worse to disrupt the city, including shutting down Wall Street and trashing targeted businesses.

In a few instances, we kept track of groups or individuals who planned to come to New York for the convention and who might have been planning violent acts.

The NYPD's work was essential for planning purposes, because it allowed the NYPD to put the proper resources in place during the week of the convention.

As a result of this work, and the professionalism of our officers, the week was a huge success and it came off safely.

The protest by United Peace and Justice, one of the biggest protests in the history of American political conventions - 800,000 people strong - came off practically without a hitch.

In fact, most of the arrests took place on one day during the week of the convention - which had been promoted as a Day of Disruption by certain people intent on taking advantage of the situation.

And it was because of the work the police had done that we knew that day was coming and were prepared for it.

It's easy now to forget the nervousness and unease that many New Yorkers felt about the convention.

The fear of major disruptions and violence . . . or worse.

Those concerns were real - and justified.

Not holding the convention would have been giving in to the terrorists - and there was no way we would allow that.

But holding the convention required us to take steps that were reasonable to identify potential violent threats and put the resources in place to thwart them.

And let's not forget - it was exactly these intelligence activities that led the NYPD to stop a plot to detonate an explosive device at the Herald Square Subway Station, one block away from Madison Square Garden.

Not every intelligence mission turns up a terrorist or violent anarchist.

But the fact is, we don't have the luxury of hindsight.

We have to think ahead - to imagine every possible scenario.

We have some of the best minds in the intelligence community working for the NYPD for exactly this reason - and they have been extraordinarily successful, though each day is another challenge.

Finally, let me just underscore the obvious: We were not keeping track of political activities.

We have no interest in doing that.

We had one goal and one goal only: keeping New Yorkers safe.

And that continues to be the only goal of our intelligence unit.

We continue to pursue that goal aggressively, and always within the bounds of the law.

If there is a terrorism lesson for this country in 9/11, it's that we can't sit around unprepared and wait for a calamity to happen.

The first line of defense is active, long-term, comprehensive prevention measures, and second, simultaneously, devoting the resources, personnel, equipment and training so we are able to respond without waiting for other levels of government.

Whether it's a thousand police officers devoted to intelligence and counterterrorism or detectives in foreign cities, Hercules Teams or Critical-Response Teams, our counterterrorism efforts are meant to protect our freedoms - protect free speech, not stifle it.

I wish we lived in a Norman Rockwell world, but we don't. And we will continue to do whatever we can to protect this great city.

Michael R. Bloomberg is mayor of New York City.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03282007/posto...__bloomberg.htm

NY TIMES

Breaking News 7:59 AM ET:

"Britain Freezing All Ties With Iran, British Foreign Secretary Says - Mayor Defends Spying by Police Before G.O.P. Convention"

By DIANE CARDWELL

Published: March 28, 2007

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday defended police spying on potential protesters in advance of the 2004 Republican National Convention, saying that it was necessary for security during an uneasy time.

“We had a fundamental responsibility to learn whether groups might include any potential terrorists or anarchists planning to cause or take advantage of any disruptions,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters at a news conference.

Toward that end, he said, the Police Department monitored those who said they intended vandalism or disruptions and, he added, “in a few instances, we did keep track of groups or individuals who did plan to come to New York for the R.N.C. convention and who might have been planning violent acts.”

The administration has come under sharp criticism for its tactics with protesters before and during the convention, which included denying permission to rally in much of Central Park, sending undercover officers to infiltrate protests, making mass arrests of demonstrators and detaining many of them for days at a Hudson River pier.

But the scope of the preconvention operations, in which officers traveled widely, is just emerging from records in federal lawsuits brought as a result of the mass arrests as well as from still secret reports reviewed by The New York Times.

In defending the program, Mr. Bloomberg said that everything had been in accordance with court guidelines and was aimed at protecting the city and showing its recovery at a time when the presence of President Bush and members of Congress made it an even more inviting terror target.

“We were not keeping track of political activities,” he said.

“We have no interest in doing that.”

But the records show that the police did covertly monitor political activity.

Virtually every intelligence report, even those about expressly peaceful groups, described the political viewpoints of the organizations.

For example, a Feb. 6, 2004, police report said that Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, an antiwar organization, would speak at a conference later that month at City University Graduate Center.

Her presence, a headline in the report said, “indicates a reinforcement of ties between organizers and expanding activist youth movement.”

Stu Loeser, Mr. Bloomberg’s chief spokesman said:

“We weren’t seeking political information."

"We were seeking security information."

"It wasn’t because of the political views expressed."

"The only concern was what security ramifications came from the activities of those groups.”

Jim Dwyer contributed reporting

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/nyregion/28mayor.html

NY TIMES EMPIRE ZONE

March 28th, 2007 7:29 am

Paranoia strikes deep ….

Into your heart it will creep …

Starts when you are always afraid ….

Step out of line, the “STEAMROLLER” and G. Ollie Koppel and Dougk and the NYPD will come and haul you away ....

LONG LIVE PUBLIC CORRUPTION IN NYS!

— Posted by Livyjr

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/0...lance/#comments

"Officials: Policemen go on killing spree"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

34 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there on Wednesday, killing at least 45 men execution-style, police and hospital officials said.

The policemen began roaming the town's Sunni neighborhoods on foot early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes.

A senior hospital official in Tal Afar said at least 45 men between the ages of 15 and 60 were killed with a shot to the back of the head and four others were wounded.

He spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

Police said dozens of Sunnis were killed or wounded, but they had no precise figures.

The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

Tal Afar, located 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, is in the province of Ninevah, of which Mosul is the capital.

"The situation is under control now," said al-Hamdani.

"The local Tal Afar police have been confined to their bases and policemen from Mosul are moving there to replace them."

Al-Jibouri said he was heading to Tal Afar to take charge of the situation.

Two truck bombs hit markets in Tal Afar Tuesday, killing at least 63 and wounding 150.

end quotes

Well ....

IRAQINAM and OUR America seem to becoming more and more alike ....

AT LEAST WITH RESPECT TO BEING FEARFUL OF SPEAKING OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC ....

Rather than in muted whispers down in the deepest corners of our basements ....

LEST THE "OVERLORDS" DOWN THERE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ...

OR NEW YORK CITY ....

OR ALBANY, NEW YORK ...

OVERHEAR US ....

AND MAKE US DISAPPEAR ....

And so ....

"Lawmakers mull crackdown on cruise crime"

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

Tue Mar 27, 5:16 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress, hearing horror stories Tuesday about crime aboard cruise ships, said legislation might be needed to guard against lawlessness on the open seas.

Opening a hearing by the House Transportation maritime subcommittee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said many Americans do not understand the potential legal complexities that can surface in connection with crimes that are committed on cruise ships traveling outside U.S. territorial limits.

Cruise ship operators announced at the hearing a voluntary new agreement with the FBI and the Coast Guard to improve and standardize crime reporting.

According to the FBI, cruise ships don't have to report violations of U.S. law outside U.S. waters, 12 miles offshore, but under the new agreement they would do so immediately.

"The industry has an enviable record when it comes to safety and security," said Terry Dale, president and chief executive of the Cruise Lines International Association.

"The industry has a zero tolerance for crime."

Several lawmakers suggested the crime-data reporting needs to be mandatory, not voluntary.

FBI and Coast Guard officials praised the new steps but described complex jurisdictional problems because the vast majority of cruise ships fly under foreign flags and therefore aren't under U.S. jurisdiction once they leave U.S. waters.

U.S. authorities can't often board them without permission.

"The jurisdiction issue is very tricky and a tangled web," said Salvador Hernandez, a deputy assistant director at the FBI.

A briefing memo prepared by Transportation Committee staff described current record-keeping on cruise ship crime as spotty, noting the FBI does not keep data on the total number of alleged crimes reported on cruise lines but only on cases for which it opens files — 50 to 60 per year.

The FBI said that under its new agreement with cruise lines it will keep track of all crime reports.

Cummings said he'd give the cruise industry and federal law enforcement agencies six months to see what the voluntary agreement produces, then hold another hearing.

Laurie Dishman, 36, of Sacramento, Calif., wept as she told the panel that she was raped last year aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise to the Mexican Riviera, by a cruise ship employee.

"The terror of that experience still overwhelms me," said Dishman, but what happened next was almost as bad.

She said the cruise line did little to respond and gave her a garbage bag, telling her to collect evidence from the scene herself.

"The feeling was like nobody was helping me," she said.

"Everything was slow-motion and they were trying to figure out how to protect themselves."

Gary Bald, senior vice president of global security for Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., acknowledged problems in the cruise line's response to Dishman and said the company has improved security and has taken steps to ensure that in the future, victims are given better information and support and crime scenes are secured.

The cruise line determined that the employee who allegedly committed the assault had violated policies about fraternizing with guests and drinking on duty, and he was fired.

"It was our intention and desire to assist her in every way we could," Bald said.

"I feel we accomplished that in some respects but in others I feel we came up short."

After the ship docked in Los Angeles, the FBI presented Dishman's case to the U.S. attorney who chose not to prosecute for lack of evidence.

Dishman has sued Royal Caribbean, and Bald said he was reluctant to discuss the case because of the litigation.

Prior to the hearing, cruise industry lobbyists asked Cummings not to allow Dishman's testimony, according to Democratic aides.

Lawmakers also contended that cruise lines have been misleading in disclosing crime data.

Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., who is Dishman's representative, said that cruise industry executives testified to Congress last year that Royal Caribbean reported 66 cases of sexual assault between 2003 and 2005.

Documents released in connection with a civil lawsuit show that number was much higher, over 250, Matsui said.

Bald contended that Royal Caribbean has not provided inaccurate crime statistics.

"DOJ aides key to Gonzales' credibility"

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Two senior Justice Department aides who orchestrated the firings of eight U.S. attorneys could hold the key to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' credibility with Congress as a growing number of lawmakers call for his ouster.

One of the aides, former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson, is scheduled to testify Thursday in front of a Senate panel investigating whether the dismissals were politically motivated.

The other, Monica Goodling, has refused to testify and will take the Fifth Amendment to protect against incriminating herself while testifying under oath.

Both are fiercely loyal to Gonzales.

And both could clarify how involved Gonzales was in planning the dismissals — a sore point for lawmakers who say they feel deceived by conflicting Justice Department statements about the purge.

"We were misled, apparently, by some ... Department of Justice officials, and we have a right as a Congress to find out exactly what happened," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said last weekend on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"We need to have the most important players before the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, with a transcript, telling the whole truth," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also on the Senate panel, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Justice Department e-mails sent to Congress show Sampson and Goodling were both closely involved for at least a year by attending meetings, sitting in on conference calls and corresponding with White House officials in drawing up the plans to fire the prosecutors with as little political fallout as possible.

The documents show Sampson first addressed the issue in e-mails with the White House shortly after the 2004 presidential election.

Attorneys for both Sampson and Goodling declined to comment Tuesday.

Gonzales has largely blamed Sampson, who resigned March 12, for the botched way the firings were handled and incompletely described to Congress by top Justice officials under oath in two hearings.

The attorney general says he had little direct involvement in the dismissals and relied on Sampson to help select the targeted prosecutors and plan for their departures.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he fears Sampson has become the administration's "fall guy."

"And yet we find so many e-mails that contradict what the attorney general has said, contradict what the deputy attorney general has said, contradict what the White House has said," Leahy said.

"Mr. Sampson is right in middle of it," Leahy said.

"We're going to ask him under oath."

"... I want them to say exactly what happened."

Sampson has made clear he has no intention of being a scapegoat.

"The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject since the election was well-known to a number of other senior officials at the department, including others who were involved in preparing the department's testimony to Congress," Sampson's attorney, Brad Berenson, said in a March 16 statement.

If Congress was given misleading information, "it was not because any of these individuals deliberately withheld it from them, but rather because no one focused on it at the time," Berenson said.

Yet people who know Sampson doubt he will say anything Thursday to hurt Gonzales, for whom he worked at the White House counsel's office during President Bush's first term.

"I believe, knowing Kyle, that he believes the truth will be helpful to Gonzales," said David Leitch, who worked with Sampson when Gonzales was White House counsel.

E-mails between Leitch and Sampson, in January 2005, are among the earliest documents to surface in the prosecutor purge.

Leitch, in an interview, said he does not know the extent of Gonzales' role in the firings.

He is now general counsel at Ford Motor Co.

Congress may never hear Goodling's version of how the firings unfolded.

Her decision to take the Fifth Amendment is highly unusual for a current administration official — and puts Gonzales in the awkward position of being unable to fulfill his pledge to make Justice Department employees available for questioning under oath.

In Chicago on Tuesday, Gonzales said he would not comment "on the decision by an employee of the department to exercise her constitutional rights."

Goodling's attorney, John Dowd, said her refusal to testify was partly the result of a remarks by an unnamed senior Justice official who told an unnamed senator on the Judiciary Committee that "our client and others did not inform him of certain pertinent facts."

Dowd called the congressional investigation a perjury trap.

Goodling is on a voluntary leave of absence from the Justice Department as a result of the controversy.

As the department's liaison to the White House, her testimony could reveal the extent politics played in the firings.

Her mother, Cindy Fitt of Osceola Mills, Pa., said Goodling isn't talking even to her family about her role.

"She hasn't really done anything," Fitt said Tuesday.

"But she is not talking to me about it, needless to say."

Lawrence Barcella, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington in the 1970s and 1980s, said the evidence to so far surface in the firings shows "that everybody has lousy and conflicting recollections."

"The best it ends up at the end of the day is that this attorney general and his Justice Department will look bad," said Barcella, now a white-collar crime defense attorney.

And the worst?

"That someone's testimony is taken to be so incredible that there's a referral for a criminal investigation," Barcella said.
___

Associated Press writer Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.

"U.S. loses top spot in global tech study"

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press

Last updated: 11:43 a.m., Wednesday, March 28, 2007

GENEVA -- European countries and Singapore have surpassed the United States in their ability to exploit information and communication technology, according to a new survey.

The United States, which topped the World Economic Forum's "networked readiness index" in 2006, slipped to seventh.

The study, out Wednesday, largely blamed increased political and corporate interference in the judicial system.

The index, which measures the range of factors that affect a country's ability to harness information technologies for economic competitiveness and development, also cited the United States' low rate of mobile telephone usage, a lack of government leadership in information technology and the low quality of math and science education.

But Thierry Geiger, one of the Forum's economists responsible for the 361-page report, said the U.S. market environment remains the best in the world in terms of how easy it is to set up a business, get loans and have access to market capital.

Nordic countries -- traditionally strong in all surveys conducted by the Geneva-based Forum -- dominated the top of the rankings.

Denmark edged Sweden for the top spot, while Finland was behind in fourth.

Singapore, which topped the poll in 2005, was the top Asian nation in third.

Rounding out the top 10 were Switzerland, fifth; Netherlands, sixth; Iceland, eighth; Britain, ninth; and Norway, 10th.

The report covered 122 countries, with Chad, Burundi, Angola, Ethiopia and Bangladesh at the bottom.

"Study: Dinosaur demise didn't spur species"

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer

1 hour, 37 minutes ago

NEW YORK - The big dinosaur extinction of 65 million years ago didn't produce a flurry of new species in the ancestry of modern mammals after all, says a huge study that challenges a long-standing theory.

Scientists who constructed a massive evolutionary family tree for mammals found no sign of such a burst of new species at that time among the ancestors of present-day animals.

Only mammals with no modern-day descendants showed that effect.

"I was flabbergasted," said study co-author Ross MacPhee, curator of vertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

At the time of the dinosaur demise, mammals were small, ranging in size between shrews and cats.

The long-held view has been that once the dinosaurs were gone, mammals were suddenly free to exploit new food sources and habitats, and as a result they produced a burst of new species.

The new study says that happened to some extent, but that the new species led to evolutionary dead ends.

In contrast, no such burst was found for the ancestors of modern-day mammals like rodents, cats, horses, elephants and people.

Instead, they showed an initial burst between 100 million about 85 million years ago, with another between about 55 million and 35 million year ago, researchers report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The timing of that first period of evolutionary development generally agrees with the conclusions of some previous studies of mammal DNA, which argue for a much earlier origin of some mammal lineages than the fossil record does.

The second burst had shown up in the fossil record, MacPhee said.

But he said the new study explains why scientists have been unable to find relatively modern-looking ancestors of the creatures known from that time: without any evolutionary boost from the dinosaur demise, those ancestors were still relatively primitive.

Some experts praised the large scale of the new evolutionary tree, which used a controversial "supertree" method to combine data covering the vast majority of mammal species.

It challenges paleontologists to find new fossils that can shed light on mammal history, said Greg Wilson, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

William J. Murphy of Texas A&M University, who is working on a similar project, said no previous analysis had included so many mammal species.

But, "I don't think this is the final word," he said.

The study's approach for assigning dates was relatively crude, he said, and some dates it produced for particular lineages disagree with those obtained by more updated methods.

So as for its interpretation of what happened when the dinosaurs died off, "I'm not sure that conclusion is well-founded," Murphy said.

John Gittleman, a study co-author and director of the University of Georgia Institute of Ecology, said the researchers considered a range of previously reported dates for when various lineages split.

They found the overall conclusions of the study were not significantly affected by which dates they chose, he said.

Researchers should now look at such things as the rise of flowering plants and a cooling of the worldwide climate to explain why ancestors of present-day mammals took off before the dinosaurs died out, Gittleman said.

The cause of the later boom is also a mystery, he said.

The study's family tree includes 4,510 species, more than 99 percent of mammal species covered by an authoritative listing published in 1993.

(Nearly 300 species have since been added to the listing, but the researchers said that doesn't affect their study's conclusions.)

To construct it, the researchers combined previously published work that relied on analysis of DNA, fossils, anatomy and other information.

S. Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University, said the new work "pushes the envelope in the methods and data, and that's really important."

He said the demise of the dinosaurs may have affected mammal evolution by influencing characteristics like body size rather than boosting the number of new species created.

Such changes wouldn't be picked up by the new study, he noted.
___

On the Net:

Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature

"Bush demands war bill with no strings"

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress lurched toward a veto showdown over Iraq on Wednesday, the commander in chief demanding a replenishment of war funding with no strings and Speaker Nancy Pelosi counseling him, "Calm down, take a breath."

Bush said imposition of a"specific and random date of withdrawal would be disastrous" for U.S. troops in Iraq and he predicted that lawmakers would take the blame if the money ran short.

"The clock is ticking for our troops in the field," he said.

"If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible."

Bush spoke as the Senate moved toward passage of legislation that would require the beginning of a troop withdrawal within 120 days, and would set a goal of March 31, 2008, for its completion.

The House approved a more sweeping measure last week, including a mandatory withdrawal deadline for nearly all combat troops of Sept. 1, 2008.

Both bills would provide more than $90 billion to sustain military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After passage, the next step would be a House-Senate compromise measure almost certain to include conditions that Bush has said he finds objectionable, and the president's remarks seemed designed to lay the political groundwork for a veto showdown with the new Democratic majority later this spring.

Confidently predicting his veto would be sustained in Congress, he said, "Funding for our forces in Iraq will begin to run out in mid-April."

"Members of Congress need to stop making political statements, and start providing vital funds for our troops."

"They need to get that bill to my desk so I can sign it into law."

One key Democrat with longtime ties to the Pentagon, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said Bush was exaggerating, and he estimated the real deadline for a fresh infusion of funds was June 1.

Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration official specializing in defense issues, said the Pentagon has authority to transfer existing funds between accounts.

"So into June, while it's painful, it's possible" for the military to maintain operations, he said.

Democratic leaders, determined to force Bush to change course in Iraq, also disputed his contention that Congress would be to blame for any funding difficulties in a war they have vowed to end.

"Why doesn't he get real with what's going on with the world?" said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"We're not holding up funding in Iraq and he knows that."

"Why doesn't he deal with the real issues facing the American people?"

Pelosi responded to Bush with a blend of conciliation and challenge.

"On this very important matter, I would extend a hand of friendship to the president, just to say to him, 'Calm down, take a breath," she said.

"There's new Congress in town."

"We accept your constitutional role."

"We want you to accept ours."

Democrats took control of Congress in January after elections framed by voter dissatisfaction over a war that has now claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops and cost more than $350 billion.

"This war must end."

"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of the war."

"Let's see how we can work together," added Pelosi, D-Calif.

Whatever the outcome, the confrontation bore similarities to a veto fight of a dozen years ago.

At the time, a new, Republican-controlled Congress promised steep spending cutbacks to balance the budget, and a politically weakened president of the other party refused to go along.

A pair of government shutdowns ensued — including one that lasted 21 days — and Republicans bore the brunt of the public's unhappiness.

In the end, the new GOP majority surrendered, and Bill Clinton exploited the episode to help rehabilitate his standing with the voters.

Apart from the Iraq provisions, the Senate legislation includes about $20 billion in domestic spending that Bush did not ask for.

Republicans readied an attempt to strip out much of it, and Bush listed it as among the bill's objectionable features.

"Here's the bottom line: The House and Senate bills have too much pork," he said.

He got a laugh at lawmakers' expense when he said $3.5 million was included "for visitors to tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works."

The funds are for a new underground Capitol visitor center, over-budget and still incomplete years after its initial target date.

Congress seemed to have little appetite for curbing spending, though.

A few hours after the president spoke, the Senate voted 75-22 in favor of a proposal by Ron Wyden, D-Ore. to extend payments that rural counties receive to make up for the loss of revenue from federal lands.

The cost was about $5 billion, to be financed by increased penalties for taxpayers who provide false information to the IRS.

The Senate bill also contains previously passed legislation to raise the minimum wage by $2.10 in three steps, along with $12 billion in tax cuts.

That was well above the $8.3 billion in tax cuts that cleared the Senate earlier this year — a level that Pelosi and House Democrats have deemed excessive.

end quotes

"The clock is ticking for our troops in the field," he said ....

And boy, is that ever a true statement ....

And the one that I hold responsible for that .....

Is George W. Bush ....

He is the one that got them there, on a whim, without any kind of plan as to how to get them back out ....

And now, as George W. Bush himself acknowledges .....

The clock is running out for them .....

Just as it did for Custer ....

And his men ....

At the Little Big Horn ....

When they too went in without a plan ....

And so ...

"Police gun down dozens over Iraq blasts"

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:42 p.m., Wednesday, March 28, 2007

BAGHDAD -- Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents in the northwestern town Wednesday, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

The gunmen roamed Sunni neighborhoods in the city through the night, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician.

Witnesses said relatives of the Shiite victims in the truck bombings broke into the Sunni homes and killed the men inside or dragged them out and shot them in the streets.

Ali al-Talafari, a Sunni member of the local Turkomen Front Party, said the Iraqi army had arrested 18 policemen accused of being involved after they were identified by the Sunni families targeted.

But he said the attackers included Shiite militiamen.

He said more than 60 Sunnis had been killed, but a senior hospital official in Tal Afar put the death toll at 45, with four wounded.

The hospital official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said the victims were men between the ages of 15 and 60, and they were killed with a shot to the back of the head.

Police said earlier dozens of Sunnis were killed or wounded, but they had no precise figures, and communications problems made it difficult to reach them for an update.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

"The situation is under control now," said al-Hamdani.

"The local Tal Afar police have been confined to their bases and policemen from Mosul are moving there to replace them."

Tal Afar, located 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, is in the province of Ninevah, of which Mosul is the capital.

It is a mainly Turkomen city with some 60 percent of its residents adhering to Shiite Islam and the rest mostly Sunnis.

The violence came a day after two truck bombs shattered markets in the city, killing at least 63 people and wounding dozens in the second assault in four days.

After Tuesday's bombings, suspected Sunni insurgents tried to ambush ambulances carrying the injured out of the northwestern city but were driven off by police gunfire, Iraqi authorities said.

The carnage was the worst bloodshed in a surge of violence across Iraq as militants on both sides of the sectarian divide apparently have fled to other parts of the country to avoid a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown, raising tensions outside the capital.

The city was an insurgent stronghold until an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi troops in September 2005, when rebel fighters fled into the countryside without a battle.

Last March, President Bush cited the operation as an example that gave him "confidence in our strategy."

But even though U.S. and Iraqi forces put up sand barriers around Tal Afar to limit access, the city has suffered frequent insurgent attacks.

The hard-line Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said 50 people were killed in the rampage and said it was evidence "of the clear plot and coordination between the militias and the governmental forces of interior and defense."

Meanwhile, suicide bombers detonated explosives on trucks carrying highly toxic chlorine in Fallujah, wounding about 15 U.S. and Iraqi security forces, the American military said.

The military said the attackers were blocked by Iraqi army soldiers and police from setting off the bombs at the Fallujah government center.

The chlorine gas attack was the eighth launched since Jan. 28, when a suicide bomber driving a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank struck a quick-reaction force and Iraqi police in Ramadi, killing 16 people.

A parked car bomb struck a market in the predominantly Shiite city of Mahaweel, 35 miles south of Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding 16.

Elsewhere, hundreds of Iraqis detained in the U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad are being held in two detention centers designed to hold at most a few dozen people, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing an Iraqi monitoring group.

The report said 705 people were packed into an area built for 75 at one of the detention centers, in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad.

The other center, on Muthana Air Base, held 272 people, including two women and four boys, in a space designed to hold about 50.

Officials from the monitoring group said they did not know the sectarian composition of the detainee populations.