"30 Afghans killed, wounded in airstrikes"

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 32 minutes ago

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in southern Afghanistan left at least 30 people, including women and children, killed or wounded, an official said Saturday.

Taliban fighters tried to ambush a joint U.S.-Afghan military convoy in Helmand province's Gereshk district late Friday before fleeing into a nearby village for cover, said Mohammad Hussein, the provincial police chief.

Airstrikes targeted the militants in the village of Hyderabad, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Gereshk.

Shah said 30 to 35 people were killed or wounded but he could not provide an exact breakdown.

Villagers reported casualty tolls far higher than 30 but those figures were not immediately corroborated by officials.

Six houses also were destroyed during the clash, he said.

"Right now we do not know the number of Taliban casualties," Shah said.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said there are ongoing NATO operations in the region and that there has been several engagements with Taliban fighters.

"We're investigating further to see what other casualties there might have been there," he said.

Civilians deaths caused by U.S. and NATO-led troops have infuriated Afghans and prompted President Hamid Karzai to publicly condemn foreign forces for carelessness and viewing Afghan lives as "cheap."

He urged restraint and better coordination of military operations with the Afghan government, while also blaming Taliban for using civilians as human shields.

Violence has soared in Afghanistan with more than 2,800 people, mostly militants, killed in fighting this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western military and Afghan officials.

A count by the United Nations and an umbrella organization of Afghan and international aid groups shows the number of civilians killed by international forces was slightly greater than the number killed by insurgents in the first half of the year.

An AP count based on figures from Afghan and international officials found that militants killed 178 civilians in attacks through June 23 and that Western forces killed 203.

The U.S. and NATO say they don't have civilian casualty figures.

In the southern Helmand province's Sangin district, NATO-led and Afghan troops clashed with Taliban fighters on Friday, leaving 15 militants dead, said Ezatullah Khan, a district chief.

There were no casualties among NATO and Afghan troops, Khan said.

Also in the south, two suspected Taliban were killed while trying to place a homemade bomb on the side of a road in Zhari district of Kandahar province on Friday, said Ghulam Rasool, the district's police chief.

Three children were also killed Friday and another wounded when an old rocket they were playing with exploded in Zabul province in the south, said Gen. Yaqoub Khan, the provincial police chief.

"U.S. raids Baghdad slum; 26 Iraqis die"

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press

Last updated: 2:52 p.m., Saturday, June 30, 2007

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned a U.S. raid Saturday in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City slum -- a politically sensitive district for him -- in which American troops searching for Iranian-linked militants sparked a firefight that left 26 Iraqis dead.

The U.S. military said all those killed in the fighting were gunmen, some of them firing from behind civilian cars.

But residents said eight civilians were killed in their homes and angrily accused American troops of firing wildly during the pre-dawn assault.

Sadr City is the Iraqi capital's largest Shiite neighborhood -- home to some 2.5 million people -- making U.S. raids there potentially embarrassing for al-Maliki's Shiite-led government.

The district is also the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who was once al-Maliki's ally.

"The Iraqi government totally rejects U.S. military operations ... conducted without prior approval from the Iraqi military command," al-Maliki said in a statement concerning the Sadr City raid.

"Anyone who breaches the military command orders will face investigation."

Al-Maliki last year banned military operations in Sadr City without his approval after complaints from his Shiite political allies.

The ban frustrated U.S. commanders pushing for a crackdown on the Mahdi Army, blamed for sectarian killings.

Al-Maliki later agreed that no area of the capital was off-limits, after President Bush ordered reinforcements to Iraq as part of the Baghdad security operation.

Also Saturday, the military announced that two American soldiers were charged with the premeditated murder of three Iraqis and with planting weapons on the bodies to cover up the slayings, which took place between April and June near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley from Candler, N.C., was jailed Thursday in Kuwait, facing three counts each of premeditated murder, obstructing justice and wrongfully placing the weapons.

Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, arrested at his home in Laredo, Texas, faces one count each of premeditated murder and planting a weapon, the military said.

In Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of the capital, police said a suicide bomber blew himself up near a crowd of police recruits, killing at least 23 people and wounding 17.

The U.S. military also said a U.S. soldier was killed and three others were wounded Friday when a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb hit their combat patrol in southern Baghdad.

U.S. troops have discovered a mass grave with as many as 40 bodies near Fallujah in western Iraq, the U.S. military said Saturday.

Between 35 and 40 bodies -- with gunshot wounds and bound limbs -- were discovered at site, the statement said.

U.S. military officials are investigating, it said, without elaborating, and it was unclear who the victims were.

The U.S. military said it conducted two pre-dawn raids in Sadr City, killing 26 "terrorists" who attacked U.S. troops with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs.

But Iraqi officials said all the dead were civilians.

An American military spokesman insisted all of those killed were combatants.

"Everyone who got shot was shooting at U.S. troops at the time," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver.

"It was an intense firefight."

U.S. troops detained 17 men suspected of helping Iranian terror networks fund operations in Iraq, a military statement said.

There were no U.S. casualties.

Witnesses said U.S. forces rolled into their neighborhood before dawn and opened fire without warning.

"At about 4 a.m., a big American convoy with tanks came and began to open fire on houses -- bombing them," said Basheer Ahmed, who lives in Sadr City's Habibiya district.

"What did we do?"

"We didn't even retaliate -- there was no resistance."

According to Iraqi officials, the dead included three members of one family -- a father, mother and son. Several women and children, along with two policemen, were among the wounded, they said.

Houses, a bakery and some other shops were damaged by U.S. tank fire during the assault, Iraqi officials said.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Sheik Salah al-Obaidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr condemned Saturday's raids: "The bombing hurt only innocent civilians."

A policeman wounded in the raid, Montadhar Kareem, said he was on night duty in the Habibiya area when U.S. troops moved in and "began bombing houses in the area."

"The bombing became more intense, and I was injured by shrapnel in both my legs and in my left shoulder," Kareem said from a gurney at Al Sadr General Hospital.

Hours afterward, a funeral procession snaked through the streets of Sadr City's Orfali district.

Three coffins were hoisted atop cars.

One resident who goes by the nickname of Um Ahmed, or "mother of Ahmed," stood outside her home as mourners passed by.

"We are being hit while we are peacefully sleeping in our houses."

"Is that fair?" she cried.

The woman gave only her nickname, fearing reprisal.

The U.S. military statement said American troops opened fire on four civilian cars during the assault -- one that failed to stop at a checkpoint, and three others that insurgents were using for cover as they fired on U.S. soldiers.

"Every structure and vehicle that the troops on the ground engaged were being used for hostile intent," Garver said.

Some of the 26 dead were in civilian cars, some had been hiding behind cars and others had fired on U.S. troops from nearby buildings, he said.

"Analysis: Only Iraqis can win the war"

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

1 hour, 17 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The harder President Bush has pushed to win in Iraq, the closer he has come to losing.

question no longer is whether the U.S. military can fully stabilize Iraq.

It cannot.

That was a possibility four years ago, immediately after Saddam Hussein's government fell.

Before the insurgency took hold.

Before U.S. occupation authorities lost any chance to avoid the sectarian strife of today's Iraq.

Now only the Iraqis can save Iraq.

They need the U.S. military's help, no doubt.

But the Bush administration has made no secret of the fact that the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad is simply buying time for the Iraqis to sort out their differences, create a government of national unity and show they can defend themselves.

So it is not whether the U.S. can win the war.

It is whether the Iraqis can, which is in great doubt.

With limited sign of progress in Baghdad, U.S. officials are asking themselves how long it makes sense to tolerate an escalating rate of U.S. casualties — at least 3,576 dead since the war began in March 2003 — while the Iraqis debate and delay.

In a speech Thursday, Bush struck a notably optimistic tone about his strategy and gave no indication he was ready to give up or change approach.

Yet he lowered the bar on expectations and cited Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq: a functioning democracy that nonetheless absorbs terrorist attacks.

Among the questions central to the debate in Washington over winding up the conflict without widening it are:

_How much worse might things get if U.S. troops left and the sectarian killing escalated?

_Would Turkey, Iran or other neighboring states intervene militarily?

_Would the al-Qaida terrorist organization inside Iraq secure a lasting haven from which it could launch attacks across the region?

"Lighting the Middle East on fire," is how one Pentagon insider sees that outcome.

While there is no clear way out, there remains a reasonable basis for hope of escaping a collapse of the war effort.

It still is possible that the troop buildup, under way since January, will reduce sectarian violence in Baghdad enough to create the maneuvering room that Iraqi leaders need to make critical political progress.

According to Frederick Kagan, an American Enterprise Institute analyst who recently visited Baghdad and is a leading supporter of the current strategy, the truly decisive phase of the current campaign will begin in late July or early August.

He predicts that phase will bring much lower levels of violence by year's end.

The trends so far, however, are not encouraging and the political tides are not favorable, either in Washington or Baghdad.

Just this past week a leading Republican voice on foreign affairs, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, broke ranks with Bush.

Lugar said he had reached the conclusion that sticking with the current strategy will not serve U.S. security interests.

He also said it is almost impossible to establish a stable government in Baghdad in a reasonable time.

Other prominent Republicans, such as Sen. John Warner of Virginia, have indicated their patience is running out.

Time, indeed, seems to be working against Bush — in the political arena and on the battlefield.

The longer that U.S. forces fight, the more creative and deadly the insurgents become, the farther U.S. public support erodes and the more remote seem the chances that when troops finally leave, the outcome will look like victory.

The risk is that it may resemble defeat.

One more worry is the wear and tear on the Army and Marine Corps.

The services were straining to keep up a staggering pace of troop rotations even before Bush decided to send thousands more into and around Baghdad and before the Pentagon decided that rotations would be extended from 12 months — already viewed by many as too long — to 15 months.

That is why, if Bush concludes in the months ahead that his strategy for securing Baghdad is not working fast enough, he may feel compelled to find a different approach, perhaps reducing the U.S. combat role without abandoning Iraq.

He has hinted at such a transition possibly coming next year.

That could explain why Bush and other administration officials recently have cited South Korea as a possible model for the long-term U.S. military role in Iraq.

The idea would be to work out an agreement with the Iraqi government to keep at least a tripwire U.S. force there to train with Iraqi troops and to act as a deterrent.

The point is that instead of completely abandoning Iraq, as the U.S. did in Vietnam in the 1970s, the U.S. would maintain a presence large enough to protect its broader interests in the Persian Gulf region.
___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Robert Burns has been covering military and national security affairs for The Associated Press since 1990.

"Afghans: 62 Taliban, 45 civilians killed"

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

27 minutes ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An investigation into airstrikes that slammed into Afghan homes where Taliban fighters sought shelter found that 62 insurgents and 45 civilians were killed, two Afghan officials said Sunday.

An investigating team was sent to Helmand province's Gereshk district, where fighting took place between insurgents and Western forces late Friday, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Helmand province's Gereshk district, and Mohammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force has acknowledged some civilians were killed in the southern battle but has said the death toll was nowhere near as high as Afghan officials have claimed.

Because of the battle site's remote location, it was impossible to independently verify the casualty claims.

Afghan officials said fighter jets and ground forces were still patrolling the region and that the fighting continued into Saturday.

Meanwhile, a suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near a convoy of British forces in Gereshk district on Sunday, wounding several Afghans, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

The battle on Friday began when Taliban fighters tried to ambush a joint U.S.-Afghan military convoy, then fled to Hyderabad village for cover, said Helmand provincial Police Chief Mohammad Hussein.

Airstrikes then targeted the militants in the village.

Shah said late Saturday that 50 to 60 civilians and 35 Taliban fighters had been killed but changed his casualty figures on Sunday, citing the investigation.

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said the military had no information "to corroborate numbers that large."

He said NATO would not fire on positions if it knew civilians were nearby.

"It's the enemy fighters who willingly fire when civilians are standing right next to them," he said.

Civilian deaths have infuriated Afghans.

President Hamid Karzai has condemned the forces for carelessness and viewing Afghan lives as "cheap."

He also has blamed the Taliban for using civilians as human shields.

The U.S.-led coalition said the airstrikes were in response to attacks on a joint Afghan-coalition patrol.

"It appears that ANA (Afghan National Army) and coalition forces fired at clearly identified firing positions," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman.

"Remains of some people who apparently were civilians were found among insurgent fighters who were killed in firing positions in a trench line."

Belcher accused militants of hiding among civilians.

Hyderabad resident Mohammad Khan said the airstrikes killed seven members of his family, including his brother and five of his brother's children.

Villagers were burying a "lot of dead bodies" Saturday, he said by telephone.

"Saudi religious police face backlash"

By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press

Last updated: 2:02 p.m., Sunday, July 1, 2007

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- As the car stopped outside a Riyadh amusement park, two bearded men dragged the driver from the wheel and took the three women on a wild ride of more than an hour, bouncing over sidewalks and finally abandoning them on a darkened street.

The women at first thought they had been kidnapped by terrorists.

The two men however, said they were religious police.

It might have gone down as just one more excess of zealousness by the forces charged with upholding Islamic modesty, except that Umm Faisal, the senior of three women, did something that is believed unprecedented in Saudi Arabia: She went to court.

On Monday, four years after the incident, the latest chapter of the legal battle being waged by this 50-year-old mother of five reopens before Riyadh's Grievances Court, which handles damages suits for abuses by government and public figures.

The unusual publicity surrounding Umm Faisal's story comes on top of two cases involving the death in religious police custody of two Saudi men -- one arrested for allegedly consuming alcohol, another for being alone with a woman not of his family.

A trial opened Monday against three religious police officers and a fourth man in the death of Ahmed al-Bulaiwi, the man detained for being alone with a woman.

Relatives demanded the death penalty against the defendants.

Taken together, the cases threaten to undermine the authority of the force's employer, the powerful, independent body called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Since the commission's creation more than six decades ago, there has been no known public legal action taken against its members despite complaints they occasionally overstep their boundaries.

The public view has tended to be that whatever their faults, they are acting in Islam's name to defend morality.

But things may be changing.

The National Society for Human Rights, a nongovernment body, has issued a report which, according to the daily Arab News, levels a string of allegations at the religious police: abusive language, unsubstantiated accusations, humiliation of people during interrogation, beatings, unnecessary body searches, forced entry into private homes and coerced confessions.

The report, as well as the extensive coverage the cases have received and editorials calling for the commission's reform, suggest the government may act to regulate the force.

Another setback for the commission came in the appointed Consultative Council, the nearest thing to a parliament in Saudi Arabia.

It rejected proposals to build more commission centers and give its members a 20 percent salary raise.

While the council's actions are not binding, they reflect a general desire to curb the religious police's power.

"Society has developed and the relationship of other governmental bodies with the people has developed and become more human," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi journalist.

"Yet the commission has not changed."

"Society in principle doesn't reject the commission," he added.

"But the commission's problem is that it doesn't have a proper job description."

Several media outlets have conducted informal surveys asking Saudis whether the commission should be dissolved.

Some have said yes.

While the polls may be unscientific, simply asking the question is significant.

Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the commission's head, dismissed the polls, saying the commission is "one of the oldest governmental agencies ... and not a cooperative that can be eliminated because of individual mistakes," according to the Al-Jazira newspaper.

The Saudi government is reluctant to tamper with its religious establishments for fear of angering conservatives and weakening its credentials as custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines.

The conservative impulse has lately been illustrated by a request from 14 faculty members of King Saud University's medical school to ban male students from treating women and vice versa, on the grounds that handling bodies of the other sex is un-Islamic.

But there are signs the commission is acting to limit the damage to the religious police's reputation.

It now has a spokesman and a legal department to guide its members.

Umm Faisal -- her full name is withheld in reports on the case -- says she, her 21-year-old daughter and her Indonesian maid went to pick up her two teenage sons from the amusement park in the family's new Chevrolet Caprice.

"I kept asking the men, 'Are you terrorists?'"

"They finally said they were members of the commission," she said.

"When I asked what they wanted, they called me names, including adulteress."

Umm Faisal said the men drove so fast and badly that smoke came out of the car.

The men stopped the car, called their friends and asked them to pick them up.

The women, who don't know how to drive (and can't anyway, under Saudi law), were left to the mercies of passers-by.

Umm Faisal headed to the police to lodge a complaint.

"When questioned, the commission members claimed we were indecently covered," because her daughter's veil didn't cover her eyes, she said.

In early 2004 she filed suit at Riyadh's General Court, but says several judges pressed her to drop it and late last year the case was dismissed.

She then turned to the Grievances Court, which fined one official $540 for mistreating the women and acquitted the other.

Umm Faisal isn't satisfied, and her appeal opens before the court on Monday.

And talk about HOGS coming to the political trough up here in the State of New York ....

And talk about state-sponsored RIP-OFFS ...

We have ...

"Paying for tickets can be hair-raising - Scalpers flourish under new law, but some music fans are singing the blues"

By GREG HAYMES, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, July 1, 2007

Back in May, Live Nation -- producer of the pop and rock concert series at Saratoga Performing Arts Center -- announced that the Aug. 14 concert by the Dave Matthews Band was officially sold out.

"No tickets will be released," the announcement read.

"Nonticket holders are asked not to come to the venue."

Of course, if you really want to attend the concert, you can still buy tickets.

But it's going to cost you -- big-time.

All you have to do is log onto any number of online secondary ticket sales Web sites and open your wallet very, very wide.

At StubHub.com, for example, ticket resellers -- a friendly corporate term for merchants known more commonly as scalpers -- are offering general admission lawn tickets to the Dave Matthews show for anywhere from $134 to $219 apiece.

These same lawn tickets went on sale to the general public for $40.

Or, if you want to make the SPAC concert a truly unforgettable experience, you could spring for reserved seats in the amphitheater's orchestra pit -- so close to the stage that Dave might actually sweat on you.

Those tickets were originally sold at the box office for $65 each.

At StubHub.com, however, the resale prices for those same seats have escalated to $1,150 to $1,471.

That's right: an astronomical markup of 2,263 percent above the ticket's face value.

"Oh, my god!"

"A thousand dollars for one ticket?," said music fan Chris Grigsby of Schenectady, reeling from the sticker shock.

"I don't understand that."

The 18-year-old Grigsby has never paid more than about $70 for a concert ticket, and he can't think of any musical act that could possibly persuade him to part with $1,000.

"Well, maybe I'd spend $1,000 to hang out with someone like Donald Fagen for a year," he finally admits, "but not for a concert ticket."

Just a few weeks ago, charging $1,000 (or even $150) for a Dave Matthews ticket would have been illegal, according to the New York state anti-scalping law.

Although it's been modified and updated every few years, there's been an anti-scalping law on the books in New York for more than 80 years.

Under the previous law signed by Gov. George Pataki two years ago, the resale price of a ticket was limited to a 45 percent markup for venues with a capacity of more than 6,000, which would include performance venues such as SPAC and Albany's Times Union Center, as well as sports facilities such as Yankee Stadium.

The legal markup was restricted to 20 percent for smaller venues like the Palace Theatre, Proctor's Theatre and Broadway theaters.

But this spring, the Democratic-led state Assembly passed a bill rolling back restrictions on ticket resales, and the Republican-controlled Senate followed suit.

On June 1, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed the bill.

"Scalping laws did not make sense," he said after the signing.

"This will be good for the venues, good for consumers and good for the artists."

Assemblyman Joseph Morrelle, a Rochester Democrat who sponsored the new bill, says it "allows ticket resellers and consumers to interact freely while maintaining the necessary safeguards against unsavory and unethical conduct."

"It strikes the right balance between free market practices and consumer protection."

Some resale restrictions still apply, including the ban on flesh-and-blood scalpers selling tickets within 1,500 feet of the larger arenas and within 500 feet of smaller venues.

And high-volume ticket brokers like TicketsNow.com are now required to register with the state.

But other than those few minor restrictions, scalpers are now free to resell tickets for any price they choose.

And it's all perfectly legal.

Music fans like Grigsby aren't the only ones up in arms over the new law.

"This is a bum deal for consumers," said Russ Haven, legislative counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"Since the early 1920s, the anti-scalping law has been on the books, and the goal was to protect people of modest means and insure that they could get access to popular sporting and entertainment events."

"But increasingly, for these events, consumers end up competing against corporate expense accounts."

Under the new law, Haven said, "essentially all the seats will get diverted to the highest bidder -- and in most cases, that's either someone with a lot of disposable money or someone who can write it off as a business expense."

To explain what he means, Haven cites the report "Why Can't I Get Tickets?" a comprehensive review of ticket scalping released in 1999 by then-Attorney General Spitzer's office.

The report uncovered one incident in 1994 in which a Wall Street brokerage firm paid $360,000 to a scalper in New Jersey to buy tickets.

"That's essentially $1,000 a day that this one company was spending on tickets to wine and dine clients, reward staff members and attract new business."

"They were vacuuming up all the best seats to the hot shows, and then writing it all off as a business expense."

According to Haven, the new law allows scalpers to price shows out of the reach of average consumers.

"That's not a good thing, and it's not a fair thing," he said.

"It's not fair to the fans who buy the CDs and pay to download the music, but can't afford to pay a week's salary to go to see their favorite performer."

"It's also not fair because taxpayer money either built most of the facilities or continues to subsidize the venues."

"The Times Union Center is owned by Albany County."

"Madison Square Garden gets big tax breaks."

"The Nassau Coliseum, Jones Beach and SPAC are all publicly supported."

"So that gives the public a vested interest in a fair distribution system and a fair crack at getting decent seats."

Gary Adler, legal counsel for the National Association of Ticket Brokers, disagrees with Haven's assessment of the situation.

"I think that New York state's new law is great," Adler said.

"I think you'll find that more brokers will be coming into the state because of the law, and that will generate more revenue for the state through licensing.

"And I also think it's great for the consumers," he added.

"I know for a fact that there were a significant number of ticket brokers who wouldn't sell tickets to New York residents for New York events because of the previously existing New York state laws."

While that may mean more tickets will be available to New York ticket buyers on the secondary market, Adler doesn't think the removal of resale limits will necessarily lead to ticket price increases.

"The ticket resale market was opened up in Illinois, for example, within the past five years," he said, "and there's empirical data that shows that when that happened, it actually lowered the price of secondary market tickets to consumers."

Morrelle agrees with Adler on the price point.

"By allowing greater competition for the resale dollar," the assemblyman said, "we may actually see a decrease in secondary prices, which is ultimately best for the consumer."

Bob Belber, general manager of Albany's Times Union Center, takes the middle ground on the law's possible effect on ticket pricing.

"I don't think that this new law is going to make any difference as far as ticket prices are concerned," he said.

"I don't think that artists' managers are going to increase their ticket prices because this law exists."

"In fact, we've seen it go the other way."

"Live Nation, for example, has taken strong measures to try to reduce ticket prices."

"And Kelly Clarkson, for example."

"Although she ended up canceling her tour, all of the tickets were priced at $29.50."

Belber also downplays the number of tickets for events at the Times Union Center and other Capital Region venues that make their way into the hands of scalpers or ticket brokers.

"The percentage of people who go to the secondary market to purchase tickets -- online at eBay or whatever site, where they most often pay more than face value for the tickets -- for shows here in the Albany market is so small," Belber said.

"The vast majority of people buy their tickets at face value, and they attend the event.

"Those who go to the secondary market for tickets are probably only about 1 percent."

"And I think they often go to a ticket broker because they think the show is sold out, when in fact it might not be."

"Or they might want better seats than what is available through the box office."

The new ticket resale law will remain in effect for at least two years, and it's too early to tell what impact it's going to have on consumers.

"In the long run, I think this new law is probably bad for the whole live entertainment industry," Haven said.

"I grew up in a generation where seeing a live show was the greatest thing."

"But with all of the other entertainment options that kids have these days -- from the Internet to video gaming -- I think there's a strong possibility that this new law is sending the wrong message to the next generation of entertainment consumers."

"I think the risk is that they'll turn away from the live concert experience because it's simply beyond their financial reach.

"As a kid, I spent way too much time standing in line, sleeping out, camping out, waiting to buy tickets at the box office or the old Ticketron," Haven said.

"And when I got up to the window, they'd hand me my tickets and they'd be way up in the nosebleed sections."

"I used to wonder, 'How did that happen?'
"
Well, now I know -- and it's not pretty."

Ticket shock

Markups for Capital Region venues:

James Taylor at Tanglewood 8/24/07 StubHub.com $530 Face value $81 (section 7, row A)

Kenny Chesney at SPAC 7/25/07 StubHub.com $1335 Face value $77.50 (section 1, row G)

Josh Groban at Times Union Center7 /28/07 StubHub.com $618 Face value $96 (Section 3, row H)

American Idols Live at Times Union Center 8/30/07 StubHub.com $412 Face value $70 (Section 1, row F)

"Leahy ready to fight White House"

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he was ready to go to court if the White House resisted subpoenas for information on the firing of federal prosecutors.

"If they don't cooperate, yes I'll go that far," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

He was asked in a broadcast interview whether he would seek a congressional vote on contempt citations if President Bush did not comply.

That move would push the matter to court.

"They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation," Leahy said.

"The bottom line is in the U.S. attorney investigation, we have people manipulating law enforcement."

"Law enforcement can't be partisan."

At issue is whether the White House exerted undue political influence in the firing of prosecutors.

Leahy's hardening stance is pushing the Democratic-led investigation ever closer to a constitutional showdown over executive power and Congress' right to oversight.

The White House accused the committee of overreaching.

"After thousands of pages of documents, interviews and testimony by Justice Department officials, it's clear that there's simply no merit for this overreach," presidential spokesman Tony Fratto said.

He said Leahy "is seeking access to candid and confidential deliberations from the president's advisers — an intrusion he would never subject his own staff to."

"We have gone to great lengths to accommodate the committee in their oversight responsibilities."

Separately, the Senate has subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office for documents related to the administration's legal basis for conducting warrant-free eavesdropping on people in the United States.

Leahy and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who heads the House Judiciary Committee, have demanded a White House explanation by July 9 as to its basis for claiming executive privilege in refusing to turn over additional documents.

The two lawmakers have said that regardless of whether the White House meets the deadline, they would begin acting to enforce the subpoenas as appropriate under the law.

Legal experts have been somewhat divided over the scope of a president's power to shield information and ensure candid advice from top aides.

The dispute, if it does head to court, could take months and ultimately outlast the remaining term of Bush's presidency, which ends in January 2009.

Last week, White House counsel Fred Fielding said Bush was claiming executive privilege.

Bush also was invoking the privilege to prevent Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, the former political director, from testifying publicly under oath.

The White House has urged the House and Senate Judiciary committees to withdraw the subpoenas and accept Bush's offer to provide information in private briefings with lawmakers without a transcript.

Over the years, Congress and the White House have avoided a full-blown court test.

Under federal rules, lawmakers could vote to cite witnesses for contempt and refer the matter to the local U.S. attorney to bring before a grand jury.

Since 1975, 10 senior administration officials have been cited, but the disputes were all resolved before getting to court.

On Sunday, Leahy dismissed the White House's proposal for private briefings because, he said, it forecloses Congress' right to subpoena additional information should officials fail to provide meaningful information.

Leahy said he might be open to an offer in which White House officials were to agree to private briefings that were both sworn and committed to a transcript.

But ultimately, the public have a right to hear what's been done, he said.

Leahy's committee also has summoned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify this month on the eavesdropping program and an array of other matters that have cost a half-dozen top Justice Department officials their jobs.

"The president and vice president are not above the law anymore than you and I are," Leahy said.

Fratto, the White House spokesman, said the program was designed as an early-warning system to detect and prevent terrorist attacks by intercepting communications in or out of the U.S. by suspected al-Qaida terrorists.

He said intelligence committees in Congress have been consistently briefed on the programs.

"It was safe and effective and saved lives," Fratto said.

Leahy spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press."
___

Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann in Kennebunkport, Maine, contributed to this report.

"Greenland's ice meltdown quickens"

By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, July 1, 2007

Kangerlussuaq, Greenland -- A slab of pale blue ice the size of a semitrailer broke off the side of the Russell Glacier and splashed into a rushing stream of meltwater some 100 feet below.

The thunderous sound of splintering ice was frightening enough, especially after hearing a guide describe how a huge chunk of plummeting glacier killed several tourists and injured dozens near here with its icy shrapnel in the 1970s.

But the truly scary part was that we had witnessed another ominous reminder that the ice sheet of Greenland is melting twice as fast as it was just 10 years ago.

The vast ice cap is up to 2 miles thick and covers 80 percent of the world's largest island, which is three times the size of Texas.

"The glaciers are disappearing and a lot of people say they want to see the Greenland ice sheet before it's gone," said Kim Peterson, a Danish glacier tour guide based here.

He's watched the same section of the Russell Glacier at the end of the Sonde Stromfjord gradually melt over the past 22 years.

Peterson is keenly aware of a cruel irony: a recent spike in tourism may portend the beginning of the end for an ancient way of life among 56,000 Greenlandic people scattered across the treeless and harsh landscape.

Inuit hunters, who rely on cold ocean temperatures and extensive winter sea ice to stalk seals, whales and polar bears, may soon come up empty-handed.

The Greenland ice sheet, second only to Antarctica in the volume of water locked in its deep freeze, has been a barometer for researchers measuring the effect of the world's growing consumption of coal, oil and gas on heating up the planet.

What their instruments have confirmed is that the news out of Greenland is bad -- and getting worse.

The National Science Foundation is funding a record number of research projects in Greenland, with roughly 30 studies under way as part of NSF's $400 million annual budget for polar research.

Climate change and global warming caused in part by increased emissions from vehicles and industry are no longer open to debate, as it had been somewhat in 1985, the last time a Times Union team visited Greenland with the New York Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing.

"There is broad consensus now that global warming is very real and that it's accelerating," said Greg Huey, professor of atmospheric chemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology who completed two months of field work last week, his third trip to Greenland.

Huey is investigating high levels of NOx -- the same stew of nitrogen oxide gases found in urban smog from New York City to Los Angeles -- that form near the snow's surface on sunny days across the Greenland ice cap.

"We've measured much more NOx than anyone would have believed just a few years ago," Huey said.

"It's less than you'd find in rush-hour Atlanta traffic on a summer day, but it's still alarming."

It's important to put the rise in temperatures and rates of glacial melt in Greenland in context over millions of years of geologic time, said Simon Stephenson, director of NSF's office of polar programs.

The Earth is passing through an interglacial period, which has lasted for around 10,000 years, or since the last Ice Age, which lasted for roughly 90,000 years.

The effects of rising temperatures and increasing levels of greenhouse gases are as obvious to today's scientists as the shrinking Russell Glacier, which has receded dozens of yards and lost about 40 feet of height along its edge since 1985.

"The measurements of melting on the Greenland ice sheet in the past few years are shaking glaciologists to the core," said Charles Bentley, emeritus professor of geophysics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who's been studying glaciers in Greenland since 1954.

Using satellite radar measurements, scientists calculate that Greenland lost 54 cubic miles of ice in 2005, compared with 22 cubic miles in 1996.

"Some of the changes in the ice we've been seeing in Greenland have an irreversible character to them," said Eric Rignot, principal scientist at NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who has measured the Greenland ice sheet with satellites for the past 15 years.

"I'm not suggesting that this will cause mayhem anytime soon, but what we set into motion today is going to be very difficult to slow down or reverse," Rignot said.

A United Nations panel reported last month that at the current rate of melting, ocean levels could rise up to 2 feet by 2100.

Rignot and other researchers believe computer models used by the U.N. and others are too conservative and that sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet over the next century or two.

Either estimate would result in the flooding of wide swaths of Florida, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and other low-lying areas, displacing millions of people.

If the entire Greenland ice cap melted -- which is unlikely within the next several hundred years -- sea levels could rise by as much as 21 feet.

That would displace more than one billion people around the world and whip up powerful storm surges.

The immediate effects of global warming were evident last week as the Guard's LC-130 dipped low over the picturesque coastal village of Jakobshavn.

Small fishing boats plied the ice-clogged fjord, weaving between house-sized icebergs that calved off the glacier and bobbed in the bay.

The Jakobshavn glacier -- infamous as the likely source of the iceberg that sank the Titanic -- is the largest in Greenland and the fastest-moving glacier in the world, receding about 4 miles each year.

From the air, it looked like taffy being pulled at an oceanside candy shop.

The velocity of the glacial melt is increasing as rising temperatures allow meltwater to drip down crevasses in the ice.

That, in turn, lubricates the bottom layer where the glacier anchors to bedrock, reducing friction and speeding up the movement of the ice.

"Feedback" -- as glaciologists call the process -- is a domino effect that has them worried.

The Jakobshavn glacier has been described by scientists as "a glacier that's come uncorked" and "an icy Amazon."

It's currently moving about 120 feet a day, twice as fast as a decade ago, and once it begins melting, a confluence of factors quickens the pace.

Exposed dark rocks absorb more heat from the sun than snow, thus hastening the melting.

A related feedback effect is being studied by Stephen Warren, professor of atmospheric sciences and geophysics at the University of Washington in Seattle.

His Greenland research involves analyzing the composition of snow to determine how much sunlight and heat is being absorbed by black carbon soot from industrial pollution, and how much that soot might be contributing to melting the ice.

Warren is in the midst of a four-year, $1 million NSF project.

So far, he's analyzed about 200 snow samples taken last year from across Greenland and the Arctic.

Preliminary evidence shows that snow in the remote interior of Greenland is still quite clean, with only about 2 parts per billion of soot.

That's not enough yet to absorb heat and hasten melting, which occurs at about 10 parts per billion of soot.

By comparison, some locations with glaciers in the Arctic turned up 20 parts per billion to 30 parts per billion of soot and areas of glaciated Siberia were alarmingly high, above 100 parts per billion.

"Those high levels of soot are real cause for concern," Warren said.

"It's clear that industrial pollution from diesel engines and other sources are impacting the melting of glaciers."

Last Thursday, Bentley sat in the drafty, noisy cargo bay of the Guard's LC-130.

The ski-equipped plane had just lifted off a packed snow runway at the Summit research station, perched atop 10,000 feet of ice in the interior of Greenland.

Bentley was upbeat after his team's successful test of a deep ice sheet coring drill at Summit, which will be flown in pieces by the 109th to Antarctica later this year.

There, it will be used to bore nearly 11,000 feet of ice to bedrock to create an ancient climatic record.

Bentley, 77, is a leading glaciologist with more than 50 years of field work in polar regions, with a mountain and trench named after him in Antarctica.

His wizened, placid demeanor grew darkly serious when he pondered the consequences of global warming.

"Before too long, the whole human race is going to have to think differently about how we live on the Earth's surface," he said.

"Whatever steps we fail to take now will make the problems facing us that much worse in the future."

Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at pgrondahl@timesunion.com.

And since the liquid water created in the environment from 54 cubic miles of melted ice has to go somewhere, since 54 cubic miles of melted ice equals out to around 54 cubic miles of new liquid water on the face of the planet, we have ....

"Floods drive hundreds from Kansas homes"

By STEVE BRISENDINE, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:03 p.m., Sunday, July 1, 2007

OSAWATOMIE, Kan. -- Flooding worsened Sunday across parts of Kansas and Missouri, forcing more people from their homes, and meteorologists said it could be days before rivers return to normal following days of drenching rainfall on the Plains.

The Kansas National Guard was sent to help with a mandatory evacuation of Osawatomie, a town of 4,600, as the Pottawatomie Creek surged through a broken levee and workers struggled to reinforce a levee on the Marais des Cygne.

"They came and told us to leave at 6:30 this morning," said Shanda Dehay, 17.

"We weren't able to get anything out."

"These clothes I'm wearing are my aunt's."

Despite the order, residents in rowboats surveyed the damage, which included homes that were half underwater and nearly submerged vehicles.

The river was expected to reach 49 feet late Sunday, just shy of the record level of 50.3 feet, said Maren Stoflet, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pleasant Hill.

"It's going to be a few days before we get some of the higher rivers to come down," Stoflet said, adding that the Marais des Cygne at La Cygne and Osawatomie might not begin receding until late Wednesday or early Thursday.

Storms across the southern Plains have claimed 11 lives in Texas since more than a week ago, and two Texans were missing.

That state has gotten some of the worst of the lingering storm system, with the weather service measuring more than 11 inches of rain in June at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, about a half-inch shy of the 1928 record.

The town of Marble Falls collected about 18 inches in one night last week.

Kansas officials also were preparing for additional flooding at Independence and Coffeyville along the Verdigris River, which already had reached record levels, as the Army Corps of Engineers planned to open floodgates at the Elk City and Fall River Toronto Lake reservoirs upstream.

The Verdigris River at Independence rose to a record 52.4 feet Sunday morning, shattering the old mark of 47.6 feet and more than 20 feet above flood stage.

The Neosho River was expected to set a record late Sunday, cresting at 40.5 feet at Erie in Neosho County, where officials had already evacuated residents.

Flood stage is 29 feet.

"It's pretty unbelievable," said Robb Lawson, a weather service meteorologist in Wichita.

In Missouri, the Little Osage and Marmeton rivers were well above flood stage and still rising in some spots Sunday, said Jim Taggart, a weather service hydrologist in Springfield.

John Campbell, an operations manager for the State Emergency Management, said there have been some evacuations in Bates County.

Numerous roads were closed in southwest Missouri.

Highways across wide areas of Oklahoma also remained closed Sunday because of flood damage.

Amtrak's Heartland Flyer passenger rail system between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth was halted Sunday because of flooding in north Texas, and passengers were bussed instead, said Terry Angier, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

In north Texas, hundreds of residents near the overflowing Wichita and Brazos rivers remained evacuated from their homes Sunday, uncertain of when they could return.

Some residents had been allowed to return Saturday, but hours later authorities encouraged them to seek higher ground as water released from flood gates on upstream dams moved downstream, said Shawn Scott, Parker County emergency management coordinator.

The Brazos River was expected to crest early Monday before falling below flood stage during the day, Parker County spokesman Joel Kertok said.

Wichita Falls officials had urged residents of low-lying areas to leave Friday and weren't sure when they could return because of concerns about contaminants in the water, city spokesman Barry Levy said.

Wichita River levels were slowly dropping Sunday after leaving some areas under 6 feet of water, the National Weather Service said.

------

Associated Press writers Anabelle Garay in Dallas and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

end quotes

But the BUSHCOS want us to look on the bright side here .....

This is good for the American ecomomy ....

It's creating jobs and job opportunities ....

And so ...

"Flooding forces Kansas town's evacuation"

By STEVE BRISENDINE, Associated Press Writer

5 minutes ago

OSAWATOMIE, Kan. - Even after sunshine returned to southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri, rivers swollen by days of heavy rain inched dangerously upward across the Plains.

The Kansas National Guard was sent to help with a mandatory evacuation of Osawatomie, a small town in eastern Kansas and one of the hardest-hit communities in the region.

The levees and dikes held, after reinforcement work by volunteers with sandbags, but rainwater pooling in low-lying areas overwhelmed pumps and flooded neighborhoods.

Retired welder Claude Blackmon, 65, stood in a street in southeast Osawatomie and pointed out the mobile home where he had lived for the two years since his wife died.

It wasn't easy to spot.

Water covered all but the top 18 inches of the trailer.

Blackmon was able to save his riding lawnmower, his guns and some important papers.

Everything else — his new appliances, his family heirlooms — was inundated by the fast-rising water.

And none of it, Blackmon said, was insured.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," he said.

"I'm a little too old to start over now."

Storms have claimed 11 lives in North and Central Texas in the past two weeks.

Authorities were also still searching for two 20-year-old men from Leander whose Jeep Cherokee was found submerged in a creek Thursday.

President Bush declared Texas a major disaster area Friday, ordering federal aid for Cooke, Coryell, Denton, Grayson, Lampasas and Tarrant counties.

Gov. Rick Perry declared disaster areas in 37 counties across Texas.

Residents of those counties will have access to state assistance programs.

The weather service measured more than 11 inches of rain in June at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, about a half-inch shy of the 1928 record.

The storms resulted in 152 flight cancellations and 56 diversions Sunday at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, airport spokesman David Magana said.

Other travelers experienced flight delays of about one hour, he said.

At least 200 people were still displaced from their homes near the Brazos River in Texas' Parker County.

Some houses sustained minimal damage while up to 4 feet of water had seeped into others.

Some of the worst flooding Sunday in Oklahoma was near Bartlesville, where the Caney River was more than 3 feet above flood stage.

Amtrak's Heartland Flyer passenger rail system between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth was halted Sunday because of flooding in north Texas, and passengers were bussed instead, said Terry Angier, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

In north Texas, hundreds of residents near the overflowing Wichita and Brazos rivers remained evacuated from their homes Sunday, uncertain of when they could return.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Sunday added six more counties to her declaration of a state of emergency, including Allen, Cherokee, Elk, Franklin, Greenwood and Miami and said she planned to survey the damage Monday.

In Osawatomie, which evacuated 40 percent of its 4,600 residents when areas near two rivers flooded, Mayor Philip Dudley kept an eye on Pottawatomie Creek on the town's south flank and the Marais des Cygnes on the north.

"It's going to be a few days before we get some of the higher rivers to come down," said Maren Stoflet, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pleasant Hill, Mo.

In Independence and Coffeyville, officials were preparing for additional flooding along the Verdigris River, which already has set record levels, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planned to open floodgates at the Elk City and Fall River Toronto Lake reservoirs farther upstream to alleviate pressure.

The Verdigris River at Independence set a new record of 52.4 feet Sunday morning, shattering the old mark of 47.6 feet and more than 20 feet above flood stage.

In Coffeyville, the old record of 26.6 feet fell Saturday night as the river surged past 29 feet, more than 10 feet above flood stage.

"Releasing the water may not cause the river to crest higher, but it may cause the crest to remain for a longer period of time," said Robb Lawson, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wichita.
___

Associated Press writers David Twiddy in Kansas City, Marcus Kabel in Springfield, and Anabelle Garay in Dallas contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov

And leaving the "NEW NORMAL" for those folks out there in the midwest who are being presented with all sorts of new business opportunities by climate-change, which George W. Bush says will be the greatest thing since chopped meat for the American economy ....

We wing our way over to George's BOTCH-JOB in the deserts of IRAQINAM ....

Where we have ....

"U.S.: Iranian force carried out attack"

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

12 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Iran's elite Quds force helped militants carry out a January attack in Karbala that killed five Americans, a U.S. general said Monday.

U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner also accused Tehran of using the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah as a "proxy" to arm Shiite militants in Iraq.

The claims were an escalation in U.S. accusations that Iran is fueling Iraq's violence, which Tehran has denied, and were the first time the U.S. military has said Hezbollah has a direct role.

A senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq, Bergner said.

Dakdouk served for 24 years in Hezbollah and was "working in Iraq as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds Force," Bergner said.

The general also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between the Iranians and a breakaway Shiite group led by Qais al-Kazaali, a former spokesman for cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Bergner said al-Kazaali's group carried out the January attack against a provincial government building in Karbala and that the Iranians assisted in preparations.

Al-Khazaali and his brother Ali al-Khazaali were captured with Dakdouk.

Dakdouk told U.S. interrogators that the Karbala attackers "could not have conducted this complex operation without the support and direction of the Quds force," Bergner said.

Documents captured with al-Khazaali showed that the Quds Force had developed detailed information on the U.S. position at the government building, "regarding our soldiers' activities, shift changes and defenses, and this information was shared with the attackers," Bergner said.

The Karbala attack was one of the boldest and most sophisticated against U.S. forces in four years of fighting in Iraq, and U.S. officials at the time suggested Iran may have had a role in it.

In the assault, up to a dozen gunmen posed as an American security team, with U.S. military combat fatigues, allowing them to pass checkpoints into the government compound, where they launched the attack.

One U.S. soldier was killed in the initial assault, and the militants abducted four others who were later found shot to death.

On Monday, the U.S. military reported the deaths of five U.S. servicemembers killed in fighting a day earlier, including two soldiers killed in attacks in Baghdad and two soldiers and a Marine who died in fighting in western Anbar province.

The deaths brought to 3,582 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.

The new accusations against Iran raise tensions between the two countries as Iraq is trying to organize a second round of direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Baghdad.

The U.S.-backed, Shiite-led Iraqi government, which has close ties to Iran, is pushing the two to ease their disputes to help reduce Iraq's turmoil, but a February meeting between the two sides made little headway.

The U.S. military in the past has accused the Quds Force — the external arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards — of arming and financing Iraqi extremists to carry out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Tehran has denied the U.S. accusations.

Bergner said Iraqi extremists were taken to Iran in groups of 20 to 60 for training in three camps "not too far from Tehran."

When they returned to Iraq, they formed units called "special groups" to carry out attacks, bombings and kidnappings.

"Our intelligence reveals that the senior leadership in Iran is aware of this activity," he said.

Asked if Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be unaware of the activity, Bergner said, "That would be hard to imagine."

Hezbollah spokesmen in Lebanon said they were checking into the claims Dakdouk was a member of the group and would not comment.

The group has in the past denied any activities in Iraq.

In late 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said his government suspected that Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah might be supplying technology and explosives to Shiite Muslim militant groups operating in Iraq, but he provided no proof.

Dakdouk was "tasked to organize the special groups in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon," the general said.

Dakdouk was ordered by Hezbollah's leadership to work with the Quds Force and went to Iran in May 2006 to meet with Quds Force commanders, Bergner said.

He then made four trips to Iraq over the next year.

Hezbollah, he said, helps the Iranians as a "proxy ... to do things they didn't want to have to do themselves in terms of interacting with special groups," Bergner said.

He added that Hezbollah did not appear to have an extensive network in Iraq, saying Dakdouk was "being used specifically as a proxy by the Quds Force.

Dakdouk was captured with documents instructing the special groups on techniques, including how to attack a convoy, and a with a personal diary detailing meetings with Iraqi militants.

Al-Khazaali also had documents with details on 11 separate attacks on U.S. force, Bergner said.

A total of 18 "higher-level operatives" from the Iranian-backed special groups have been arrested and three others killed since February, Bergner said.

"5 U.S. troops killed in attacks in Iraq"

Associated Press

Last updated: 6:23 a.m., Monday, July 2, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Four U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed in attacks in Baghdad and Iraq's western Anbar province, the military said Monday.

The five deaths took place in separate attacks Sunday, the military said in a statement.

In Baghdad, a U.S.-Iraqi patrol was hit by a roadside bomb in a western district of the capital, then gunmen opened fire, killing one American soldier and wounding two Iraqi policemen.

A second soldier was killed when gunmen attacked his patrol in southern Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

Two soldiers and one Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West were killed while conducting combat operations in Anbar, the military said, without providing further details.

The servicemembers' names were not released pending notification of their families.

The deaths brought to 3,582 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes seven military civilians.

At least 2,939 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

And while we are on the subject of the "Peckerwood President" of America, we have ....

"Differences cool Bush-Putin relationship"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 53 minutes ago

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - U.S. relations with Russia are on simmer, so President Bush's meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be judged on how respectfully the two leaders agree to disagree.

They have different views on democracy and missile defense, NATO expansion into Russia's backyard and independence for Kosovo.

They both want to stymie Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, but they don't see eye-to-eye on whether Iranian missiles currently pose a threat.

It was all handshakes, smiles and kisses when Putin arrived at the Bush family estate that overlooks the rocky Atlantic seacoast.

Putin gave pecks on the cheeks to first lady Laura Bush and the president's mother, Barbara Bush, and handed them bouquets of flowers.

Before disappearing from public view, Putin was seen aboard former President George H.W. Bush's speedboat, zooming along the coastline, grinning and waving to photographers.

There was "family style dialogue" about coming elections in both countries as they dined on lobster and marinated swordfish, but the two leaders didn't have in-depth talks about policy differences, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday night.

He denied any tense discussions.

"Definitely not," Peskov said.

"We could not have predicted the warmness and hospitality from President Bush."

"The Russian president was very much satisfied with that."

But for all the pleasantries and talk about patching up the Bush-Putin friendship and forging fresh relations with Russia as it transitions from its communist past, the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin of late seems mired in the Cold War.

Buoyed by a strong economy, Putin has become more assertive on the international stage.

At home, he's stoked nationalism, encouraging Russians who want their country to be viewed with respect — as a powerful player, not a world power wannabe.

In short, Putin feels he's gotten the brush-off from Bush.

"It's vital that this relationship be doctored a bit," said Sarah Mendelson, Russia policy expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In February, Putin blasted the United States, saying it had "overstepped its national borders" in every way.

And Putin has taken a tough stance against a U.S. missile system planned for Europe, even threatening to reposition Russian rockets in retaliation for an American-engineered missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Last month, Putin surprised Bush in Germany by proposing the shared use of a Russia-rented early warning radar in Azerbaijan as a substitute for radar and interceptors the United States wants to place in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the United States will not embrace the facility in Azerbaijan as a substitute, but Peskov says Putin wants to hear that from Bush himself at Kennebunkport.

Putin has repeatedly rejected U.S. assurances that the planned missile defense installations pose no danger to Russia and are meant to counter a potential threat from other nations, such as Iran.

"We know that Iran is not a threat," Peskov said.

"If radar will not have any missiles to track from the Iranian parts, then the job of radar will be inevitably to work against Russian military infrastructure."

"And this is a problem for us."

"This is a threat for our security."

While both sides downplayed expectations for the meeting, the two leaders were expected to call their missile defense experts to a joint meeting so they can learn about the installations the United States is proposing and the capabilities of the Azerbaijan system.

They might also come to a closer understanding about getting a third, tougher round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran because of its refusal to stop enriching uranium.

The U.S., Russia and their fellow permanent U.N. Security Council members have told Iran they will hold off on new sanctions if it stops expanding its enrichment activities while they seek to restart talks about the program with Tehran.

Diplomats say the Iranian government has not yet responded to the proposal.

This tiny seacoast town has welcomed the Russian delegation, but an estimated 1,700 demonstrators interrupted a peaceful Sunday afternoon.

They called for the impeachment of Bush and an end to the war in Iraq.

"We have a job to do and that job is to hold this administration accountable and take this country back," said John Kaminski of Maine Lawyers for Democracy, a group of 80 attorneys pushing for impeachment proceedings.

Other demonstrators targeted Putin, who is accused of suppressing mostly Muslim, separatist rebels in the breakaway region of Chechnya.

Victoria Poupko, who moved from Moscow to Boston 17 years ago, said Bush and Putin are "both criminals" for torture, war crimes and abuse of power, among other things.

She carried a sign that said: "Stop imperialism."

"Bush out of Iraq."

"Putin out of Chechnya."

Bush, who feels Putin has tried to muzzle free speech, would have approved of a chant led by one demonstrator.

"Tell me what democracy sounds like," she yelled to her followers.

"This is what democracy sounds like," they screamed.
___

Associated Press Writer David Sharp in Kennebunkport contributed to this report.

Washington on the Tiber
Suzanne Fields
July 2, 2007

The sparklers, snakes, rockets and Roman candles will make a grand display at barbecues, fish fries and picnics this week, but between the second hot dog and the third brewski we ought to think about what the Fourth of July actually means. New Year's Day offers a time for personal appraisals of what we like about ourselves and what we'd like to change, and Independence Day offers that same pause for reflection — for the nation and for each of us.

Santayana famously observed that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and the celebration of the events in Philadelphia in the long, hot summer of 1776 shouldn't obscure the opportunity to choose again what we could repeat — or not. In his book, "Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America," Cullen Murphy doesn't exactly answer his question but he draws enough parallels to give us a pause that refreshes. Perhaps it was only one of the cautionary coincidences that history is so fond of that Edward Gibbon published the first volume of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" in 1776 when the British empire was at its zenith. (Benjamin Franklin is said to have told Gibbon that the colonies could furnish the material for a next book about the decline and fall of the British Empire.) It's certainly no coincidence that the city of Washington self-consciously resembles Rome in its array of grand government buildings. The Jefferson Memorial is a replica of the Pantheon. The Washington Monument shares a likeness to those obelisks taken to Rome after the conquest of Egypt. Capitol Hill was named after a Capitoline Hill in Rome, and a lot of Washingtonians see themselves as Romans at the center of the universe, only writ larger.
Parson Weems, George Washington's early biographer, compared the first president to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a fifth-century B.C. Roman farmer who left his farm when called upon to lead a defense of Rome that was under siege by neighboring tribes. He returned to the plow and its furrow after he proved his mettle as a leader. An early marble sculpture of Washington, now at the Smithsonian, depicts him as a Roman in a toga, exposing a bare chest, but Cullen Murphy observes wryly that visitors probably think it's merely of a man in a sauna, asking for a towel.

Both Rome and Washington are defined more by hubris than humility and it's the blindness that accompanies self-importance that threatens American decline. When Rome inherited great classical sculptures from Greece, the Romans lopped off the heads and substituted those of powerful Romans. Think now (if you can) the noble heads of, say, Joe Biden and Newt Gingrich atop such statuary.
The Roman code of virtus included discipline, obligation and duty, all grounded in the minds of our Founding Fathers, but such virtus have become touchstones only of nostalgia in modern Washington, as they did in ancient Rome. Washington, as Rome, has become swollen with bureaucracy and titled powers-that-wannabe. Only 29 persons in the Kennedy administration held the title of "assistant," "deputy assistant," or "special assistant" to the president; when Bill Clinton left office, 141 pretenders claimed these titles. The United States, like Rome, began with citizen-soldiers drawn from all ranks of Roman society, and its military legions were a unifying force for nationhood.

Now we separate the cultures between the military and the professional class, as Rome eventually did. The universal military draft was once the equalizer that an all-volunteer army can never be. Of 750 graduates of Princeton in 1956 at least 450 took on the nation's colors. Only 8 of 1,100 graduates in 2004 would wear the uniform. Like that of Rome, our military struggles to find recruits.
Analogies often bite more with wit than insight and it's amusing — and no doubt instructive — to compare the garbage draining from Washington via the Internet into the blogosphere to the engineering wonder that was the Roman sewerage system. Like Rome, Washington doesn't create many of the things a consumer-citizen actually needs. In Washington we manufacture rhetoric, and that requires huge entourages of administration critics and flatterers eager to make a name for themselves.

There aren't nearly as many books about the comparisons between the Roman Empire and the United States as there should be, although hundreds of authors have written about how Rome endured for 12 centuries. We're still a work in progress in our third. "Americans would glare in disbelief at Rome's self-satisfaction," writes Cullen Murphy. "Striving to make life 'better than this' for ourselves and for others, for people living now and for those to come, is part of our social compact." Here's a hope that it will always be so. Happy Fourth of July.

Well done, Snuf, and very timely ....

Thank you ....

And so ....

I think I will take this over to my "Thoughts of a veteran" thread, as well ....

And so ....

And while we are on the subject of rivers ....

"Flooded Kansas river carries oil slick"

By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 48 minutes ago

COFFEYVILLE, Kan. - The flood is bad enough, engulfing homes to the rooftops and turning neighborhoods into floating junkyards of children's toys and family heirlooms.

But the floodwaters here also carry some of the 42,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled from the Coffeyville Resources refinery on Sunday, coating everything they touch with a slimy, smelly layer of goo.

"My question is how are they going to get all that oil out of the environment," said Mary Burge, a heart surgery patient who was forced to breathe from her portable oxygen tank because the petroleum odor Monday was so strong it could be detected by helicopters passing overhead.

The oil spill, caused by a malfunction while the refinery was shutting down in advance of the flooding, has concerned federal and state officials as they monitor the slick's progress down the Verdigris River toward drinking water sources and recreation areas in Oklahoma.

It also presents another hurdle to Coffeyville leaders as they map out long-term flood recovery efforts that now must deal with the toxic sludge.

Jim Miller, Montgomery County emergency manager, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had teams on the scene and was monitoring the oil as it snaked through town, leaving greasy stains where it receded from lawns and buildings.

Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas adjutant general, said the EPA and state officials would work with officials at the refinery to measure the amount of contamination and help the refinery in cleaning up.

In the meantime, however, Watson said, "We're asking everyone to avoid the floodwaters."

That wasn't an option for Fire Department Capt. Mike Mansfield, who rescued eight dogs from water-logged homes Monday.

He said all the dogs found outside were covered in oil.

The oil was floating downriver toward Oklahoma and that state's Oologah Lake, about 30 miles northeast of Tulsa, said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the Kansas state adjutant.

Oklahoma officials were optimistic the spill would dissipate before it reached the lake, which provides flood control, drinking water and recreation.

"There are nine public water supplies along the Verdigris and the Oologah Lake, and none of them are currently affected," said Skylar McElhaney, a spokeswoman for Oklahoma's Department of Environmental Quality.

Tulsa is among the cities that get water from Oologah.

The oil spill just added to the misery caused by widespread flooding for thousands of evacuees in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Eleven deaths have been blamed on the storms and flooding in Texas, where two men are missing.

In North Little Rock, Ark., about 30 homes were evacuated Monday after a faulty drainage system caused flooding up to six feet deep in some spots.

The full extent of the economic costs may not be known for some time.

Weeks of heavy rains have dampened recreational activities across the Plains, slowing business at parks and tourist destinations and leaving campsites and hiking trails waterlogged.

A year ago many Texas officials were warning boaters about lakes that were too low and banning fireworks because the ground was too dry.

Now some popular lakes might be closed for the Fourth of July because they're too full, and fireworks shows are threatened by a continuing forecast of rain.

Rob McCorkle, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said recent torrential rain already has forced three state parks to close temporarily, some through Independence Day, one of the busiest times of the year.

"Obviously it's going to impact numbers," he said.

"People don't want to go camping when it's pouring down rain."

McCorkle said the department has closed Lake Whitney State Park an hour south of Fort Worth as well as Mother Neff and South Llano River state parks in Central Texas.

Several reservations at Lake Brownwood State Park in West Texas had to be canceled and some of the campsites were flooded, he said.

"If this kind of rain continues and keeps these parks shut down, it will definitely have an impact of the revenue flow for the state park system," McCorkle said.

But for swimmers who need to get their fix, water parks are always an option — and they need the business.

Jeffrey Siebert, a spokesman for Schlitterbahn Waterpark in New Braunfels, said attendance has taken a hit and even a threat of showers is enough to keep customers away.

"We've been very disappointed with the beginning of our season," he said.

"No rain this week would be ideal."

"No rain and no prediction of rain would be great."
___

Associated Press writer Thomas Peipert in Cedar Hill, Texas, contributed to this report.

And since we are on the subject of oil ...

If the IRAQINAMI politicians approve giving George W. Bush and Dick Cheney control of IRAQINAM's oil resources, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney might let them live ....

And so ....

"Iraq Cabinet approves draft of oil law"

6 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet has approved a draft of a key oil law, and the Iraqi parliament was expected to begin debate on the measure Wednesday, an official said.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the parliament would open debate on the law, which the U.S. is pressing Iraq to pass to boost reconciliation between the country's Sunnis and Shiites.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet approved the draft law after amendments prompted by comments from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front and other blocs in his coalition, Dabbagh said.

He did not say when the Cabinet approved the measure.

"The parliament is expected to begin discussing the law as of tomorrow," he said.

On June 25, a government official and acting Parliament Speaker Khaled al-Attiya told The Associated Press that the Cabinet had approved the draft oil law and referred it to the "State Shura (legislative) Council."

He was referring to the body that was to quickly revise the drafts then send them to parliament for discussion.

The United States has pressed al-Maliki's government to pass the oil law, which will define distribution of Iraq's oil revenues, a top concern of Sunni Arabs, who populate regions of Iraq that are largely without oil resources.

The bill is one of several pieces of benchmark legislation the U.S. seeks to promote reconciliation among Iraq's sectarian and ethnic groups.

"Report: Forces in Iraq torture detainees"

By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 10 minutes ago

IRBIL, Iraq - Security forces in northern Iraq's Kurdistan, the heartland of the Kurdish minority long tormented by Saddam Hussein, routinely torture detainees with beatings and electric shocks and hold hundreds of prisoners for long periods without charge, a human rights group said Tuesday.

The Human Rights Watch report — based on interviews conducted from April to October 2006 with more than 150 detainees — demanded a comprehensive overhaul of detention practices in the Kurdish region and urged an independent body to investigate torture claims.

"We are surprised that the Kurds are practicing such violations after they were victims of torture during the Saddam era," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, said, referring to the ousted Iraqi leader's oppression of the Kurds.

"We appreciate the efforts by Kurdistan government to combat terrorism and secure Kurdistan, but we see that such violations against prisoners are not a good thing," she told a press conference in the northern city of Irbil.

The Kurds, close allies of the United States, run an autonomous zone in northern Iraq, which under Iraq's post-Saddam constitution has its own security forces and administration.

The region has run its own affairs since breaking with Saddam's regime after the 1991 Gulf War, surviving with the protection of U.S. warplanes until Saddam's fall.

Brig. Gen. Seif-Eddine Ali, head of security for one of the two major Kurdish parties, said the report was "inaccurate" and the findings out-of-date.

"I call on the group to come and see the prisons and speak with the prisoners," Ali said.

"The Human Rights Watch report is old and there have been improvements on all sides."

But Mohammed Faraj, a lawmaker who heads the human rights committee in the Kurdistan region's parliament, said a parliament commission visited Kurdish prisons in April and found that "indeed there were violation."

"The Kurdistan government has a real and strong intention to work hard to solve this issue," he said, adding that the government released some 400 detainees held in security forces' prisons in June and that more were expected to be freed.

"Clinton criticizes Libby prison commute"

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer

19 minutes ago

KEOKUK, Iowa - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a distinction between President Bush's decision to commute the sentence of White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby — which she has harshly criticized — and her husband's 140 pardons in his closing hours in office.

"I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all presidents have exercised it," Clinton said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

"This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House."

"... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, had been sentenced to 30 months in prison as well as two years' probation and a $250,000 fine for perjury in connection with the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plane's name to reporters.

Just hours after a federal appeals court rejected Libby's appeal, Bush announced his decision to commute the prison term portion of the sentence, which he labeled excessive.

As she campaigns with her husband for Iowa's leadoff precinct caucuses, Clinton has joined other Democrats in ripping Bush's decision.

In the interview, she said it was "one more example" of the Bush administration thinking "it is above the rule of law."

Her husband's pardons, issued in the closing hours of his presidency, were simply routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none were aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy, she said.

"This particular action by the president is one more piece of evidence in their ongoing disregard for the rule of law that they think they don't have to answer to," she said.

Clinton opened her latest campaign swing — the first with her husband along — just hours after rival Barack Obama announced he had broken all fundraising records by bringing in $32.5 million in the most recent quarter, $10 million more than Clinton reported in primary money.

"I think his campaign did a terrific job," said Clinton.

"We're excited by the support we're getting."

"We're obviously going to have the resources we need to run the campaign."

She said she never considered the nomination inevitable.

"I know how complicated and uncertain political campaigns are," she said.

"Defiant Katsav says he's innocent victim"

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer

3 July 2007

JERUSALEM - Disgraced Israeli President Moshe Katsav, forced from office in a deal that spared him rape charges and a possible prison term, was unapologetic Tuesday in his first interview since signing the plea bargain — an attitude that will likely fuel public outrage and might even torpedo the agreement.

Interviewed by Channel 2 TV two days after his resignation took effect, Katsav insisted he was innocent, portraying himself as victim of a campaign of incitement and saying that with the plea bargain, "90 percent of the charges were thrown in the trash."

His wife, Gila, stood at his side during the interview.

Israeli Attorney General Meni Mazuz said in January that he planned to press rape, sexual assault and fraud charges against Katsav.

But suddenly last week, most of the charges evaporated in a deal that would have Katsav plead guilty to two counts of sexual harassment and resign his office just two weeks before his term was up.

Women's rights groups challenged the plea bargain before Israel's Supreme Court and so far have succeeded in holding up its implementation for a week.

Four women who worked for Katsav charged he repeatedly fondled them, kissed them, exposed himself to them and — in two cases — raped them while he served as president and earlier, as tourism minister.

The allegations roiled the country by portraying the man who was supposed to be Israel's moral compass as a predatory boss who forced sexual favors from female employees.

In the interview, recorded in front of his house in Kiryat Malachi, a town in Israel's south, Katsav was defiant.

"Ninety percent of the charges were thrown in the trash and that doesn't interest anybody," he said.

"This should show, more than anything else, how the charges against me were baseless."

Katsav said he would plead guilty to the remaining charges.

"I will honor the agreements that were made between the attorney general and my lawyers," he said, without elaborating.

As he has all along, Katsav insisted he was innocent.

He darkly hinted at a plot: "In a dictatorship they kill to bring down a president," he said.

"It turns out that in a democracy, too, they can shed one's blood."

The plea bargain outraged women's rights activists and led the main complainant to call a tearful news conference and describe in excruciating detail what she said Katsav had done to her.

Identified only as "A" under Israeli law, she said she was the director of his office.

Under the deal, her allegations were dropped from the charge sheet, and Mazuz hinted that he would have had trouble proving them in court.

Reacting to Katsav's remarks, Billi Moskona-Lerner of the Maariv daily said the women who brought the allegations are the victims, but "the decisions are made by powerful men."

The deal was almost unanimously excoriated in newspaper commentaries.

Later this week, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the state's response to the appeals to cancel the deal.

Though Supreme Court justices are not supposed to be influenced by events outside the courtroom, Katsav's declaration of innocence and lack of remorse and the public outcry might be a factor in their decision.

If the high court approves the deal, and Katsav pleads guilty, the lower court would have the power only to accept or reject the agreed punishment — a suspended sentence with no jail time.

The interview showed a calm, soft-spoken Katsav, a sharp contrast to his 50-minute televised tirade last January that followed the announcement that Mazuz intended to press rape charges.

"Besieged mosque leaders remain defiant"

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 12 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Leaders of a besieged radical mosque in the Pakistani capital remained defiant as a deadline calling for their immediate surrender passed Wednesday, a day after clashes there killed at least 10 people.

However, more than 500 of their followers surrendered as government troops with armored personnel carriers tightened their stranglehold on the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in the heart of Islamabad, said the capital's top security official Khalid Pervez.

More of the militants were emerging from the mosque, gathering in an open field and then boarding buses provided by authorities.

All women and children will be granted amnesty but males involved in killings and other crimes as well as the top leaders of the mosque would face legal action, said Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim.

"The deadline has expired but we are not going to start any action immediately."

"We do not want bloodshed."

"We are reasonably sure that better sense will prevail," Pervez said.

The violence was sparked by the standoff between the government and clerics at the fortress-like mosque who have challenged the government by sending students from the mosque's madrassas to kidnap alleged prostitutes and police in a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign.

As the deadline passed, the mosque's deputy leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi said he was prepared to talk with the government but added, "We will continue to defend ourselves."

Ghazi told a local television channel that he was not aware of any surrender deadline.

Those who surrendered came from the mosque and an adjacent seminary for women, Pervez said.

The events came after a day of bloody clashes in Islamabad at the mosque between security forces and militants living inside the sprawling mosque, which has been at loggerheads with the government.

The violence was sparked when male and female student followers of the mosque — some of them armed — rushed toward a police checkpoint.

The bloodshed added to a sense of crisis in Pakistan, where President Gen. Pervez Musharraf already faces emboldened militants near the Afghan border and a pro-democracy movement triggered by his botched attempt to fire the country's chief justice.

Police and paramilitary troops closed streets around the Red Mosque and in the nearby government district, posting armored vehicles in front of Parliament and mounting machine-guns on turrets.

Pakistani officials said nine people were killed in Tuesday's clash: four students, three civilians, one soldier and a journalist.

About 150 people were reported injured, most of them by tear gas fired by security forces.

Ghazi told the AP that 20 of his students had been killed by security forces, including two young men as they were climbing to the top of the mosque for morning prayers Wednesday.

A young woman was also shot and wounded on the roof of the adjacent women's seminary.

"She was shot by sniper fire."

"They are shooting directly at us," he said in a telephone interview.

Ghazi said there were no negotiations under way with the government to end the standoff.

After a meeting of top officials early Wednesday including Musharraf, Deputy Interior Minister Zafar Warriach said the government had imposed an immediate curfew on the area around the mosque.

Warriach said authorities had run out of patience after a six-month standoff.

"The government has decided that those people from the madrassa who are defaming Pakistan and Islam will face an operation," Warriach said.

Despite the curfew, sporadic gunfire rang out into the early hours of Wednesday near the mosque, which lies near a busy shopping area about 2.5 miles from the city's government district.

Some accuse intelligence agencies of encouraging the crisis to justify prolonging military rule — a conspiracy theory with considerable traction in Pakistan's intrigue-ridden politics.

Plans for Musharraf, a close U.S. ally who seized power in a 1999 coup, to ask lawmakers for a new five-year term this fall are in doubt because of rising opposition.

Yet the general's failure to crack down on the clerics has dented his credentials as a bulwark against extremism — diminishing his worth to Washington, his key international backer.
____

Associated Press reporters Munir Ahmad and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad contributed to this report

And while we are on the subject of the first, and hopefully, the last "peckerwood" president of America, we have ....

"Ratings for Bush, Congress sink lower"

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Like twin Jacques Cousteaus of the political world, President Bush and Congress are probing the depths of public opinion polling as voters exasperated over Iraq, immigration and other issues give them strikingly low grades.

In a remarkable span, the approval that people voice for the job Bush is doing has sunk to record lows for his presidency in the AP-Ipsos and other polls in recent weeks, dipping within sight of President Nixon's levels during Watergate.

Ominously for Republicans hoping to hold the White House and recapture Congress next year, Bush's support has plunged among core GOP groups like evangelicals, and pivotal independent swing voters.

Congress is doing about the same.

Like Bush, lawmakers are winning approval by roughly three in 10.

Such levels are significantly low for a president, and poor but less unusual for Congress.

"The big thing would be the war," said independent Richard MacDonald, 56, a retired printer from Redding, Calif.

"I don't think he knew what he got into when he got into it."

As for Congress, MacDonald said, "It's just the same old same old with me."

"A lot of promises they don't keep."

Bush was risking more unpopularity by commuting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term in the CIA leak case, and his refusal to rule out a full pardon.

Polls in March after the former White House aide's conviction showed two in three opposed to a pardon.

The public's dissatisfaction may be more serious for Republicans because even though Bush cannot run again, he is the face of the GOP.

He will remain that until his party picks its 2008 presidential nominee — and through the campaign if Democrats can keep him front and center.

"Everything about this race will be about George Bush and the mess he left," Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a member of the House Democratic leadership, said about 2008.

"He'll be on the ballot."

Congress' numbers could signal danger for majority Democrats, since they echo the low ratings just before the GOP 1994 takeover of the House and Senate, and the Democratic capture of both chambers last November.

But unlike the president, Congress usually has low approval ratings no matter which party is in control, and poor poll numbers have not always meant the majority party suffered on Election Day.

Voters usually show more disdain for Congress as an institution than for their own representative — whom they pick.

A majority in a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey in late June said Democratic control of Congress was good for the country.

Yet only 42 percent approved of what Democratic leaders have done this year — when Democrats failed to force Bush to change policy on Iraq.

Republican strategists hope the dim mood will help the GOP in congressional elections.

"The voters voted for change and they expected change, and they see an institution still incapable of getting anything done," said GOP pollster Linda DiVall.

The abysmal numbers are already affecting how Bush and Congress are governing and candidates' positioning for 2008.

Last Thursday's Senate collapse of Bush's immigration bill showed anew how lawmakers feel free to ignore his agenda.

Republican senators like Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio have joined increasingly bipartisan calls for an Iraq troop withdrawal.

This year's GOP presidential debates have seen former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and others criticize Bush or his administration for mishandling the war and other issues.

Some Republican congressional candidates have not hesitated to distance themselves from Bush.

"President Bush is my friend, and I don't always agree with my friends," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., facing a tough re-election fight next year.

"And on the issues of Iraq and immigration, I simply disagree with his approach."

Bush's doleful numbers speak for themselves.

In an early June AP-Ipsos poll, 32 percent approved of his work, tying his low in that survey.

Other June polls in which he set or tied his personal worst included 27 percent by CBS News, 31 percent by Fox News-Opinion Dynamics, 32 percent by CNN-Opinion Research Corp. and 26 percent by Newsweek.

The Gallup poll's lowest presidential approval rating was President Truman's 23 percent in 1951 and 1952 during the Korean war, compared with Nixon's 24 percent days before he resigned in August 1974.

Bush notched the best ever, 90 percent days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The AP's June survey showed that compared with an AP exit poll of voters in November 2004, Bush's approval was down among swing voters.

His support dropped from about half of independents to a fifth; from half to a third of Catholics; and from nearly half to a fifth of moderates.

Among usually loyal GOP voters, his approval was down from about eight in 10 to roughly half of both conservatives and white evangelicals.

Congress had a 35 percent approval rating in a May AP-Ipsos survey.

Polls in June found 27 percent approval by CBS News, 25 percent by Newsweek and 24 percent by Gallup-USA Today.

Congress' all-time Gallup low was 18 percent during a 1992 scandal over House post office transactions; its high was 84 percent just after Sept. 11.

In the AP poll, lawmakers won approval from only about three in 10 midwesterners, independents and married people with children — pivotal groups both parties court aggressively.
___

AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

On Independence day, America is not independent from fear .....

And so ...

"U.S. heightens security for 4th of July"

By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer

32 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Independence Day celebrations are planned Wednesday across the United States on a day that will include thousands of immigrants becoming citizens and heightened security following attempted car bombings in Britain.

In Washington, D.C., security was increased on the National Mall as organizers sought to reassure visitors.

Hundreds of emergency responders from about 20 law enforcement agencies were on duty, authorities said.

A police helicopter was to monitor crowds from above, and officers were urged to be on alert for vehicles that looked suspicious, for instance with protruding wires or an unusual smell.

As with past July 4 festivities since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the mall was fenced off and visitors will be required to pass through security checkpoints.

Independence Day festivities in Washington include a parade on Constitution Avenue, a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra on the West Lawn of the Capitol and a 20-minute fireworks show.

In New York, the Fourth of July fireworks display billed as the country's biggest introduces a pyrotechnic novelty: exploding shells aimed at the water, not the sky.

The so-called nautical shells are supposed to explode on the surface of the East River, remaining illuminated for a few seconds before fading out, said Robin Hall, executive producer of the Macy's Fourth of July display.

Dry weather conditions have curtailed the use of fireworks in several areas around the country, including parts of Colorado and Washington state.

Before the fireworks begin, thousands of immigrants are expected to be sworn in as new American citizens during special ceremonies across the country.

At Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, officials plan to pronounce citizenship on 1,000 people at a "Dreams Come True" ceremony near Cinderella's castle.

Singers Gloria Estefan and Lee Greenwood are expected to make appearances.

In Boston, some immigrants planned to take their oath on the USS Constitution, the Navy's oldest commissioned warship.

Although July 4th citizenship ceremonies are an annual event, officials have seen a surge in applications this year as the naturalization process has been streamlined and applicants race to beat fee increases, said Marie Sebrechts, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman.

There were more than 110,000 naturalization applications filed in April, nearly double the 66,039 applications filed in April 2006, according to federal statistics.

More than 4,000 people in all are expected to take their citizenship oaths this week, the government said.
___

Associated Press writer Moises Mendoza in Phoenix contributed to this report.

And on Independence Day, America is not independent of war ....

"6 NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan"

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

54 minutes ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb tore through a NATO vehicle on Wednesday, killing six soldiers and their Afghan interpreter in a southern Afghan region that has recently seen heavy fighting, a NATO statement said.

NATO did not release the soldiers' nationalities or the location of the attack, but Afghan police said it happened in Kandahar province's Zhari district.

The majority of the troops in Kandahar are Canadian.

Canadian Defense Department spokeswoman Sarah Kavanagh said had no information on the incident.

The attack was the deadliest against foreign troops in Afghanistan since May 13, when seven troops were killed — five Americans, a Canadian and a Briton — when the Chinook helicopter they were riding in crashed in Helmand province.

Officials at the time said it appeared a rocket-propelled grenade might have brought the aircraft down.

Afghan and NATO forces clashed with Taliban militants in Zhari, leaving 33 suspected insurgents dead on Tuesday, according to the provincial governor.

Seven Afghan police died in a roadside bomb explosion in Zhari on Monday.

The region was the site of one of NATO's largest-ever operations last fall, and remains highly volatile.

Southern Afghanistan has seen fierce fighting in the past several weeks.

More than 2,900 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press tally of numbers provided by Western and Afghan officials.

Wednesday's attack brings to at least 102 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, including at least 46 Americans, 18 Britons and 16 Canadians.

Also in the south, militants battled Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops in three separate clashes, leaving 20 militants and one policemen dead, officials said Wednesday.

Militants attacked at least three police checkpoints in Ghazni province Tuesday, and ensuing gunbattles left 13 militants and one officer dead, said. Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

In Zabul province, Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces clashed with suspected Taliban militants Tuesday in Shahjoy district, leaving seven militants dead and six others wounded, said Ali Kheil, a spokesman for the province's governor.
_____

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Kabul.

And on Independence Day, America is led by a fool ....

"Bush defends military buildup in Iraq"

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press

Last updated: 10:22 a.m., Wednesday, July 4, 2007

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- President Bush on Wednesday defended the U.S. military buildup in Iraq in a patriotic Fourth of July speech, saying victory will require "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice."

"However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it," Bush said, telling members of the West Virginia Air National Guard that he admires the valor of America's fighting men and women but that now is no time to leave.

"We must succeed for our own sake."

"For the security of our citizens we must support our troops."

"We must support the Iraqi government and we must defeat al-Qaida in Iraq."

He defended the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq to a friendly audience that cheered the toppling of Saddam Hussein as well as Bush's decision in January to send 28,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq to try to tamp down on the violence and encourage the Iraqis to reach political agreements among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

The offensive in Baghdad and areas to the north and south has boosted American casualties, although the number of bombings and shootings has fallen in the city in recent days.

"It's a tough fight, but I wouldn't have asked those troops to go into harm's way if the fight was not essential to the security of the United States of America," Bush said of the more than 4-year-old war that has claimed the lives of over 3,580 men and women of the U.S. military.

In Baghdad, the administration was highlighting a ceremony where more than 500 troops, who have fought in Iraq, re-enlisted in the U.S. armed forces and a hundred of their comrades raised their right hands to recite an oath making them citizens of the United States.

Difficulties remain, however; Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds said Wednesday that they have not been able to agree to a draft bill to regulate the country's oil industry -- something U.S. officials hope will rally Sunni support for the government and reduce backing for insurgents.

The oil bill is a top concern of Iraq's Sunni minority, which is centered in regions of the country with little proven reserves and fears that Shiites and Kurds in the oil-rich south and north will monopolize profits from the industry.

Bush thanked the servicemen and women serving abroad and their families, including children at the event who recited the Pledge of Allegiance with him.

He read from a 1777 newspaper article about an Independence Day celebration in Philadelphia where people fired artillery, toasted democracy and watched fireworks that illuminated the sky.

"We're still celebrating, and rightly so," Bush said.

About 2,000 people, including members of the 167th Airlift Wing and their families were invited to the event.

On the other side of the state, West Virginia Patriots for Peace, who are critical of the Bush administration and its handling of the war, scheduled a protest against the president's invitation-only appearance at the 167th Airlift Wing.

"The Fourth is not going to go by with this guy coming in here and no voices coming back at him," said the Rev. Jim Lewis, a member of the group and a veteran activist.

Bush singled out Master Sgt. Richard Howland of the 167th who has deployed abroad seven times since the Sept. 11 attacks and has volunteered to go to Baghdad for an eighth deployment.

He also mentioned Staff Sgts. Brad Runkles and Derek Brown, childhood friends in Martinsburg who both earned Purple Hearts.

"In 2004, they were driving together in the lead gun truck of a convoy in Iraq when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb," Bush said.

"Brad and Derek made it out, but they suffered burns on their hands and faces."

"They recovered from their wounds, and in May of last year, they both re-enlisted."

After the speech, Bush returned to the White House to watch fireworks and celebrate his 61st birthday on Friday with friends and members of his family, including his twin daughters and his parents, former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush.

------

Associated Press Writers Dena Potter in Martinsburg, W.Va. and Lawrence Messina in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.

"Private equity's heyday fades - Investors look for safer ways to invest their money amid concerns over subprime mortgage defaults"

By JOE BEL BRUNO, Associated Press

First published: Monday, July 2, 2007

NEW YORK -- Buyout king Henry Kravis calls it "the golden age" of private equity, a period where opportunistic Wall Street bankers snagged iconic names like Toys R Us, Chrysler and Neiman Marcus in multibillion-dollar deals.

Leveraged buyouts are on track to surpass $1 trillion this year, a reflection of private equity's growing influence on the world's business culture.

Private equity has helped make very rich men out of dealmakers like Kravis and Blackstone Group's Stephen Schwarzman, who earlier this year threw himself a $3 million birthday bash with Rod Stewart as the entertainment.

There are growing signs that the buyout party might be ending.

After nearly two years of record acquisitions, private equity is facing challenges at almost every turn -- from lawmakers questioning tax structures to investors reluctant to buy into bloated financing plans.

"For years, private equity has had a walk in the park," said billionaire financier Carl Icahn, a takeover specialist known for his runs at RJR Nabisco and TWA.

"It's peaked."

"But I don't mean these guys won't make money."

Icahn, speaking at a conference in New York last week, private-equity firms have enjoyed easy access to financing, and struggling companies actively hunted for buyers.

Private-equity shops acquire companies, ostensibly to turn them around as private entities and then cash in by selling or taking them public.

At first glance, the industry still seems to be doing well.

General Motors Corp. a few days ago agreed to sell its transmission unit to private-equity firm Carlyle Group and Canadian investment firm Onex Corp.

But the market has resisted a string of recent debt offerings, in part because fallout from subprime mortgage defaults has caused some investors to chase safer bets.

An estimated $3 billion of debt sales were pulled last week, according to Thomson Financial.

On Friday, Blackstone and Lion Capital LLP were said to be having problems unloading $259 million of loans to acquire soft-drink maker Orangina.

Dutch supermarket group Royal Ahold had difficulties on Tuesday selling $650 million of bonds as part of the sale of its U.S. Food Service unit to a group of buyout firms led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Meanwhile, reluctance about credit and debt spilled into the U.S. junk bond market.

Canada's Catalyst Paper abandoned a $200 million high-yield bond offering because of a more skeptical market.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said at an investor conference on Wednesday that the investment bank "remains at a high state of nervousness."

The biggest anxiety is that the debt markets will tumble, causing borrowing costs to grow.

"The biggest risk we face is a crisis in the credit markets," he said.

"When you think of the wealth created over the past five years in different sectors, much of it was driven or helped by the low level of interest rates and the tightness of credit spreads."

Investor uncertainty about borrowing costs, considering supreme difficulties, has led to tremors on Wall Street.

Bear Stearns Cos. has been the most high-profile casualty after it was forced to rescue one of its hedge funds that lost value because of wrong bets on the mortgage market.

Private-equity firms might be a little worried about their ability to raise money in the equity markets after Blackstone's recent initial public offering.

The New York-based firm raised $4.1 billion after floating its management partnership.

Though shares surged 13 percent on its first day of trading, it has since dropped to below the $31 offering price.

"White House reacts to Clintons' comments"

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The White House on Thursday made fun of former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for criticizing President Bush's decision to erase the prison sentence of former aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.

In his commutation decision, Bush left a $250,000 fine.

Libby paid the fine on Thursday.

Libby's friends and supporters have raised more than $5 million to cover legal fees and were continuing to raise money but Libby paid the fine himself, according to someone close to the fund who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the account are private.

The cashiers check filed with the court was issued in Libby's name.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has scheduled hearings Wednesday on Bush's commutation of Libby's 2 1/2-year sentence.

"Well, fine, knock himself out," Snow said of Conyers.

"I mean, perfectly happy."

"And while he's at it, why doesn't he look at January 20th, 2001?"

In the closing hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich.

The former president tried to draw a distinction between the pardons he granted, and Bush's decision to commute Libby's 30-month sentence in the CIA leak case.

"I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday.

"You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."

Sen. Clinton, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said the Libby decision "was clearly an effort to protect the White House."

"... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

Former Vice President Al Gore said he found the Bush decision "disappointing" and said he did not think it was comparable to Clinton's pardons.

"It's different because in this case the person involved is charged with activities that involved knowledge of what his superiors in the White House did," Gore said on NBC's "Today" show Thursday.

Scott Stanzel, a White House deputy press secretary, said that, "When you think about the previous administration and the 11th-hour, fire-sale pardons ... it's really startling that they have the gall to criticize what we believe is a very considered, a very deliberate approach to a very unique case."

Snow also tried to clear up confusion about Libby's probation.

While commuting Libby's sentence in terms of prison time, Bush left in place his two years of supervised release.

But supervised release — a form of probation — is only available to people who have served prison time.

Without prison, it's unclear what happens next.

Snow said the White House view was this: "You treat it as if he has already served the 30 months, and probation kicks in."

"Obviously, the sentencing judge will figure out precisely how that works."

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, earlier this week, said the law "does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first completing a term of incarceration."

He gave Libby's attorneys and Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald until Monday to respond.

"Pakistani militants snub surrender call"

By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer

5 July 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gunfire and explosions rocked a besieged radical mosque in Pakistan's capital Thursday as Islamic militants holed up in the complex snubbed a plea from their captured leader to surrender.

The leader of the holdouts said they would consider leaving but only if authorities promised not to arrest anyone and met other demands.

The government answered that the militants must surrender without conditions, and outbursts of gunfire erupted periodically during the night.

The army seemed to be holding back from a large-scale assault.

The government was keen to avoid a bloodbath that would further damage President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's embattled administration and said troops would not storm the mosque while women and children were inside.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said soldiers were trying to blast holes in the walls of the fortress-like compound of the mosque and an adjoining seminary for girls, seeking to wear down the defenders' resolve and force a surrender without a bloody battle.

It wasn't clear how many people were holed up in the compound.

The Interior Ministry said about 30 die-hard extremists were inside, while intelligence officials said there could be as many as 100.

The military said several hundred students also might be in the compound.

Soldiers backed by armored vehicles and helicopters surrounded the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, before dawn Wednesday, a day after the start of clashes between security forces and radical followers of the mosque that have killed at least 19 people.

The violence brought to a head a six-month standoff between Pakistan's U.S.-backed government and its top cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who challenged Musharraf with a drive to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in Islamabad.

Journalists were barred from the area around the mosque, but several explosions were heard during a period of intense gunfire before dusk Thursday, sending a plume of black smoke into the sky.

A leader inside the mosque accused troops of firing several mortar rounds that killed 27 female students.

"A large section of the mosque is damaged and fires have broken out in the Jamia Hafsa (seminary)," Abdul Qayyum told The Associated Press by telephone, coughing repeatedly.

"It's total chaos here."

"There is smoke everywhere and a fire in the room where we were keeping dead bodies" from earlier skirmishes.

Sherpao insisted no mortars were fired and said the alleged casualties were "just their claims."

The shooting later eased and the smoke cleared.

Officials said they were using helicopters and explosions in hopes of breaking the nerve of the mosque defenders and inducing a surrender.

"We are using restraint on instructions from the president so that people surrender voluntarily," Sherpao said.

Aziz, who was captured Wednesday evening as he tried to slip through the army cordon disguised in a woman's burqa and high heels, said on state television that as many as 700 women and about 250 men remained inside the complex, armed with more than a dozen AK-47 assault rifles.

"If they can get out quietly they should go, or they can surrender if they want to," Aziz said.

"I saw after coming out that the siege is very intense."

"... Our companions will not be able to stay for long."

His comments raised the prospect of a swift resolution and a victory for Musharraf, who is under growing pressure at home and abroad over spreading religious extremism and his botched attempt to fire Pakistan's chief justice.

But the cleric's brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, remained inside the mosque with their die-hard followers and rejected the government's call for an unconditional surrender.

Speaking by phone to Pakistan's Geo news channel, Ghazi demanded a guarantee they would not be arrested and said authorities must let him move his mother and sister-in-law out of the complex to safety.

He denied claims by officials that he was using young students as human shields.

"The charges against me are forged and fabricated," he said.

"The government has been reduced to callousness."

Qayyum, Ghazi's aide, declined to comment on the statement from Aziz or to describe living conditions in the compound, where power and water had been cut off for days.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim said earlier that some of the 1,100 supporters who had fled the mosque and seminary told officials that Ghazi retreated to a cellar along with 20 female "hostages" and that the holdouts had "large quantities of automatic weapons."

Officials said the militants also had hand grenades, explosives and homemade gasoline bombs.

Azim said there would be no more negotiations.

"Enough time has already been wasted."

"It has to be total, unconditional surrender," he said, but added: "As long as there are women and children inside, I don't think that we will go in."

On Thursday, seven men jumped over the mosque wall and tried to escape through a storm drain, but were caught by troops, said Col. Mohammed Ali, a military spokesman.

He said the seven were "part of the hard core," but provided no other details.

Since January, the clerics have defied the government by sending students to occupy a library, intimidate shopkeepers selling Western music and films and kidnap alleged prostitutes and police officers as part of a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign.

In his TV interview, the gray-bearded Aziz, still dressed in a burqa, said that his mosque has "a relationship of love and affection with all jihadist organizations" but that it maintains no actual links with such groups.

"We have no militants; we only had students."

"If somebody came from outside, I have no information on that," he said.

He denied responsibility for calls Tuesday from the mosque's loudspeakers for suicide attacks.

Officials said Aziz and Ghazi would be put on trial on more than 25 charges including kidnapping, incitement to murder and arms offenses, while women, children and males not involved in crimes were being granted amnesty.

Students emerging from the mosque Thursday said the morale of those who remained was good, and many stressed that they left only at the insistence of worried parents.

"They are in high spirits," Mehboob Waly said after exiting to meet his waiting father.

Mohammed Naveed, a teenager who responded to his mother's pleas for him to leave, said: "I came out with a heavy heart."

"I was scared to be inside, but I was also scared to come out."

Like many of the mosque's students, both are from northwestern Pakistan, an impoverished region where radical Islam is strong.
___

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan, Munir Ahmad and Sadaqat Jan contributed to this report.

"Iraq's acting speaker urges end to party boycotts"

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

Thu Jul 5, 9:36 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's acting parliamentary speaker urged political blocs on Thursday to end their boycott of the legislature to help push through vital laws designed to ease sectarian tension between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs.

"They should end their pointless boycott and voice their opinion here loudly to relay us the voice of their constituents," Khaled al-Attiya told lawmakers in an appeal to the main Sunni Arab bloc and a Shi'ite political party.

Washington, facing domestic unease over the war in Iraq, is pressing Iraqi leaders to pass a key oil law and other political benchmarks that it hopes will help reconcile majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Iraq's oil lies mainly in the Kurdish north and Shi'ite south.

Sunnis, who live mainly in the centre the country around Baghdad, fear missing out on any windfalls.

A draft oil law was approved on Tuesday by the cabinet of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and now must be debated in parliament.

But a number of legislators from both sides of the Arab sectarian divide have halted their attendance.

The Sunni Accordance Front, with 44 seats in the 275-seat chamber, suspended its participation after their speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was ousted last month.

It said in a statement later on Thursday that it would return to parliament only if Mashhadani got his old job back.

But it also announced the bloc had a new leader, naming moderate Ayad al-Samarrae in place of hardliner Adnan al-Duleimi, in a sign that it might be prepared to take a less combative stance in the negotiations that lie ahead.

Politicians loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, representing a bloc of 30 seats, pulled out in protest against the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine's minarets in the Sunni city of Samarra on June 13.

Attiya urged lawmakers to attend in sufficient numbers to achieve a quorum and suggested running six sessions every week instead of the current three.

Parliament has already cut its two-month summer break and will sit until the end of July to tackle urgent business.

Besides the oil law, Washington wants Iraqi politicians to agree to fresh provincial elections this year, as well as new rules allowing some members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to join the military or the government.

"Heat wave scorches western states"

By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press Writer

2 minutes ago

BOISE, Idaho - Californians who have been taking cover from scorching heat could expect a little relief Friday, although triple-digit temperatures were forecast to set records in other parts of the West.

Forecasters predicted a high of 107 in Boise — six degrees higher than the 101 record for that date set in 1985.

The city reached 104 degrees Thursday afternoon, leading Rick Overton to arrange a trip for his co-workers to float down the Boise River on inner tubes instead of sitting at stuffy desks.

"Once it gets that high — 105, 107, 109 — it just feels hot," said Overton, a copywriter for the digital marketing firm Wirestone.

"I'm going to keep a tube under my desk for the whole summer and whenever it gets this hot I'm going to escape."

Temperatures climbed so high Thursday that authorities warned residents of southern Nevada, southeastern California and northwestern Arizona that outdoor activities could be dangerous except during the cooler early morning hours.

Phoenix reached 115 degrees; Baker, Calif., reached 125 degrees.

At the Big Boy Restaurant in Baker, which has a 134-foot-tall thermometer outside, there was a run on cold shakes, general manager Enrique Munoz said.

"We had actually had to hire an extra shaker just to make shakes" in anticipation of a hot summer, he said.

Temperatures were expected to cool a bit Friday, meteorologist Jamie Meier said.

"The high-pressure system that has been stubbornly parked over Southern California is on a weakening trend, allowing temperatures to cool down to seasonable temperatures," Meier said.

The rest of the West wasn't as lucky.

Even Stanley, Idaho, which at more than 6,000 feet elevation is routinely the coldest place in the lower 48 states, was seeing record highs, the National Weather Service said.

The remote town in the Sawtooth Mountains reached 92 degrees Thursday, and was expected to hit 93 degrees Friday.

Hardly anyone in the tiny town has air conditioning, said Nancy Anderson, Stanley deputy city clerk.

"They're all going to the lakes and the rivers and trying to find the shade," she said.

At least 150,000 people were expected to flock to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada and Arizona in hopes of cooling off in the water this weekend, said Roxanne Dey, recreation area spokeswoman.

St. George, Utah, hit 115 degrees by 5 p.m. Thursday, a day after a nearby weather sensor recorded an unofficial reading of 118, which would top the state's all-time record of 117 set in St. George in 1985.

Summer temperatures across Utah are running 10 to 15 degrees above normal, meteorologist Brandon Smith said.

"To be honest, as far as temperatures, for as far out as we can see there's no relief," he said.

A 1-year-old boy was found dead Wednesday evening in a locked car in temperatures approaching 100 degrees in Orofino, Idaho.

He was locked in the car for about five hours when passers-by noticed him, and the boy's stepgrandmother was charged in his death, authorities said Thursday.

Around Las Vegas — where temperatures reached 116 degrees Thursday afternoon — transformers overheated and caused electrical pole fires because of all the people switching on their air conditioners, said Scott Allison with the Clark County Fire Department.

In Montana, farmers anxiously watched their crops and thermometers.

High temperatures for a handful of days can harm crop yield.

"Prolonged heat is devastating."

"Four or five days of it is going to be hard," said wheat farmer Lynn Nordwick near Poplar, Mont.

In Phoenix, 42-year-old laborer Russ Waldrip wiped sweat from his face as he unloaded large windows from the back of a truck.

"When it gets this hot I pour water over my head all day," Waldrip said.

"Sometimes I can't wait to jump in the pool, but I don't even have the energy to do that."

In Spokane, Wash., the temperature reached 101 degrees, surpassing the record 100 degrees.

Northeastern Oregon residents experienced what was expected to be the hottest day of the year Thursday, with temperatures reaching 108 in Pendleton and 107 in Hermiston.

The heat and a dry spring raised concern among firefighters.

"We're really primed to burn right now," said Dennis Winkler, an assistant fire management officer for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

"We're well above average in terms of fire danger for this time of year."

The heat wave began last week after a large high-pressure center developed over Arizona, said National Weather Service forecaster Paul Flatt in Boise.

A weather pattern was pushing that high-pressure center north into Canada, Flatt said, but most of the West is expected to experience high temperatures into next week.
___

Associated Press writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, John K. Wiley in Spokane, Wash., Tim Fought in Portland, Ore., Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City, Moises D. Mendoza in Phoenix and Susan Gallagher in Helena, Mont., contributed to this report.

"Senior GOP senator abandons Iraq policy"

2 hours, 17 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - In another setback to President Bush's increasingly unpopular war strategy, GOP stalwart Sen. Pete Domenici said he wants to see an end to combat operations and U.S. troops heading home from Iraq by spring.

The longtime New Mexico senator is the latest of several party loyalists and former war supporters to abandon Bush on Iraq in the past 10 days.

They have urged a change sooner rather than later and further isolated the GOP president in his attempt to defend the unpopular war.

Last week, Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said the U.S. should significantly reduce its military presence in Iraq while bolstering diplomatic efforts.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., this month is expected to propose a new approach.

"I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops," Domenici said.

"But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."

With Congress on its July Fourth break, Domenici made his views known Thursday at a press conference in Albuquerque, N.M., though he said he has not talked to the administration about wanting a strategy shift.

"I have carefully studied the Iraq situation and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward," he said.

Domenici was elected in 1972 and is a senior member of a panel that oversees defense spending.

He said at the news conference that parents of those killed in Iraq previously told him the United States should stay in Iraq as long as it takes.

Now, he said, some parents have asked him to do more to bring the troops home sooner.

The senator said the situation in Iraq is getting worse.

He said he now supports a bipartisan bill that embraces the findings of the independent Iraq Study Group.

In December, the group said the primary mission of U.S. troops should evolve to supporting Iraqi security forces.

The report also said the U.S. should reduce political, military or economic support for Iraq if the Baghdad government cannot make substantial progress.

The group said combat troops could be out by March 2008 if specific steps were taken.

The bill would make most of the group's findings official U.S. policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it's time Republicans back up their words with action and vote to bring troops home.

A spokesman for the White House, Tony Fratto, said the troop buildup had only recently reached full strength and said Bush's plan should be given more time to work.

"33 Taliban killed in south Afghanistan"

By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 58 minutes ago

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops, using artillery and airstrikes, killed 33 Taliban fighters after the insurgents attacked a police checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, while a clash in the northeast also killed dozens of militants, officials said Friday.

The militants in the south attacked two police vehicles with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Coalition and Afghan forces responded in what the coalition described as a "sparsely populated area" in Uruzgan province.

Gen. Zahir Azimi said 33 Taliban fighters were killed.

The coalition reported there were no indications of civilian casualties from the fighting and said no coalition or Afghan forces were killed or wounded.

In northeastern Kunar province, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said militants ambushed its soldiers, who called in airstrikes on "positively identified enemy firing positions" in a remote area.

Kunar Gov. Shalizai Dedar said that Afghan army commanders told him that dozens of militants were killed.

He added that there were reports of civilian deaths, although he said those reports were not confirmed.

"There were some number of insurgents that were killed."

"We have no reason to believe that any civilians were killed at this time," said Maj. John Thomas, a NATO spokesman.

Violence has spiked in Afghanistan in the last several weeks.

More than 3,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year — including more than 2,000 militants, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Western and Afghan officials.

More than 1,000 people were killed in June alone.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber attacked a NATO convoy east of the capital, leaving two soldiers with minor wounds, Afghan officials said.

The bomber damaged both vehicles in the two-vehicle convoy in the Dah Sabuz district of Kabul province, said Zemrai Bashary, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

NATO confirmed the blast, and said that two of its troops were wounded, without disclosing their nationalities.

Mohammad Sardar, an Afghan soldier at the site, said the wounded were British.

The attack took place a day after another bomber in the south blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing 10 police and wounding 11, while a roadside bomb and clashes in the east left three NATO soldiers dead, authorities said.

The alliance did not release the soldiers' nationalities.

Most foreign troops in the east are American.

The latest NATO casualties raised the number of foreign soldiers killed this year to at least 105.

"Ex-worker seeks whistleblower protection"

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:32 a.m., Saturday, July 7, 2007

UNITED NATIONS -- The former operations officer for the U.N. anti-poverty agency in North Korea is seeking whistleblower protection from the United Nations, saying he lost his job for raising serious allegations about its financial transactions in the reclusive communist nation.

The U.N. Development Fund on Friday, however, disputed Artjon Shkurtaj's allegations that he was subject to retaliation.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Shkurtaj said he went to the former U.N. management chief and the U.S. government after his bosses at the U.N. Development Fund failed to act on his allegations.

When he asked what to do with counterfeit U.S. dollars he found in the office safe on his first day in Pyongyang in November 2004, Shkurtaj said he never got a response.

And he said when he complained that paying all North Korean salaries and program expenses in hard currency instead of local currency was against U.N. rules, he said he was told "not to rock the boat."

UNDP spokesman David Morrison said Friday that the agency "has looked into this claim and based on available information found it to be without basis."

"UNDP has invited the individual to submit all relevant information to the UNDP office charged with undertaking internal inquiries, but he has so far declined to do so," Morrison told a news conference.

Two U.S. lawmakers -- Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, have sent letters to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to intervene and ensure that Shkurtaj is not punished for raising concerns about U.N. operations in North Korea.

U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said the U.N. Ethics Office was considering a request by the former UNDP employee seeking whistleblower protection.

The whistleblower issue comes on the heels of U.S. allegations that UNDP had funneled millions of dollars in hard currency to North Korea with little assurance that Kim Jong Il used the money to help his people instead of diverting it to "illicit purposes," including developing nuclear weapons.

Shkurtaj, who is Albanian, said after he went to the U.S. government in July 2006, U.S. officials asked UNDP two questions: Was there counterfeit money in the safe in Pyongyang and was UNDP operating in hard currency?

In late March, UNDP announced that U.N. and U.S. authorities were investigating how $3,500 in suspected counterfeit $100 bills ended up sitting in a safe in the UNDP office in North Korea for 12 years.

An initial U.N. audit ordered by the secretary-general in response to the U.S. allegations reported in June that U.N. agencies paid North Korean staff and suppliers in hard currency -- euros -- without approval and hired only government-approved staff in violation of U.N. procedures.

After the U.S. raised new allegations, Ban said he would ask U.N. budget officials to approve a further probe by the auditors, who were unable to visit Pyongyang.

Morrison said the former UNDP worker -- whom he did not name -- was interviewed by the external auditors and met with UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis.

"A lot of what he says, frankly, we're not going to be able to settle on until auditors or independent authorities have access to the documentation which remains in Pyongyang," Morrison said.

He said if the audit doesn't continue, UNDP will bring the records out of Pyongyang "to settle these questions once and for all."

Shkurtaj said the UNDP records from Pyongyang should be brought back and opened to anyone to examine to see where every penny was spent -- and he said they should have been returned months ago.

Morrison said the former UNDP employee was not "a 13-year veteran" as Ros-Lehtinen claimed, but worked on short-term contracts for UNDP dating back to the 1990s, including in North Korea in 2005-2006.

He said the whistleblower's latest three-month consultancy expired in March 2007.

Shkurtaj countered that he was ordered to return to New York on Sept. 26, 2006, in the middle of his contract, because "I rocked the boat too much and it was better for my health and future career."

But after continuing to pursue answers to the questions he raised in Pyongyang, he said, UNDP officials told him in March that there were no further jobs for him.

"My case is very important," Shkurtaj said.

"If my case fails, everybody else in the U.N. will get the message, don't talk to the U.S. or any other member state if you want to keep your job."

"73 die in Iraq suicide bombing attacks"

By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer

8 minutes ago

TUZ KHORMATO, Iraq - A string of suicide bombings killed at least 73 people and wounded dozens in Shiite villages north of Baghdad, including a large truck bombing Saturday that ripped through an outdoor market and buried victims in rubble, officials said.

The quick succession of blasts within hours of each other suggested that Sunni militants are regrouping to launch their deadliest form of attack — suicide explosions, often against Shiites — in regions further away from Baghdad, beyond the edges of a three-week old U.S. offensive on the capital's northern flank.

The U.S. military on Saturday also reported that six American service members were killed in fighting in Baghdad and western Anbar province over two days, reflecting the increased U.S. death toll that has come with the new offensives.

Saturday's blast, at around 8:30 a.m., destroyed several mud homes in the village of Armili, and victims had to be transported in farmers' pickup trucks to the nearest health facility, in Tuz Khormato, 27 miles to the north, said Capt. Soran Ali of the Tuz Khormato police.

Police said one man fled the truck before it detonated with another man still inside.

Saleh Ali, a medic at Tuz Khormato hospital, said 25 dead and 100 wounded were brought to the facility.

Residents of the village said more victims remained trapped under destroyed houses and shops, and doctors said many of the wounded were in critical condition, meaning the toll could rise.

"Some are still under the rubble with no one to help them."

"There are no ambulances to evacuate the victims," said Haitham Hadad, a resident who evacuated his wounded cousin in his car to Tuz Khormato hospital.
D
ozens of weeping relatives of victims crowded the hospital, searching for loved ones.

"I saw destruction everywhere, dozens of cars destroyed, about 15 shops and many houses, even some more than 700 meters (yards) away," said Haitham Yalman, whose daughter and sister were wounded.

The village, 100 miles north of Baghdad is mainly made up of Shiite Turkomen, an ethnic minority that is spread across north-central Iraq, though most of its members are Sunni Muslim.

The night before, a suicide bomber detonated a boobytrapped car at around 9:30 pm outside a cafe near a market stocking Iranian goods in the Shiite Kurdish village of Ahmad Marif, killing 26 and wounding 33, said an official at the joint security coordination committee of Diyala province, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The village — 85 miles northeast of Baghdad in a remote corner of Diyala province — is home to about 30 Kurdish families who had been expelled under Saddam Hussein's rule and returned after his fall.

Many Kurds in the area are Shiite Muslims.

A half hour after that blast, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt in a funeral tent in another Shiite Kurdish village, Zargosh, west of Ahmad Marif.

The blast killed 22 people and wounded 17 others, said the head of Diyala provincial council, Ibrahim Bajilan, and a police official in the provincial capital of Baqouba, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Since mid-June, U.S. forces have been waging an offensive in and around Baqouba, part of a stepped-up U.S. crackdown seeking to bring calm to the capital.

It aims to uproot al-Qaida fighters and other Sunni insurgents who use the Baqouba region — and another part of Diyala province on Baghdad's southestern edges — as a staging ground for attacks in the capital.

American commanders acknowledge many insurgent leaders fled Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, just ahead of the U.S. assault there.

The new back-to-back bombings could mean the militants have moved a step away from the capital, but still are able to unleash attacks in a region where Iraqi and American security forces are far lighter.

"Because of the recent American military operations, terrorists found a good hideout in Salahuddin province, especially in the outskirts areas in which there isn't enough number of military forces there," said Ahmed al-Jubouri, an aide of the province's governor.

Armili, the village hit Saturday morning, is on the edge of Salahuddin province, near the border with Diyala.

The U.S. military on Saturday announced the deaths of six U.S. service members in combat, most in the Baghdad area.

Two soldiers died Friday when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in east Baghdad, the military said.

A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were killed Friday when an explosively formed penetrator exploded near their patrol in southeastern Baghdad.

Explosively formed penetrators are high-tech bombs that the U.S. believes are provided by Iran, a charge denied by Tehran.

On Thursday, two Marines were killed in western Anbar province and a soldier died in Baghdad, the latest military statement said.

Another soldier died Friday of a non-battle-related cause and his death is under investigation, the military said without giving further details.

The deaths bring to 3,599 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

While violence has continued elsewhere, attacks on civilians — particularly car bombings — appear to have eased somewhat in Baghdad in recent weeks, and residents in some districts have felt safe enough to keep shops open later.

By midafternoon Saturday, there had been no police reports of civilian deaths in the city.

In the far south of Iraq, British troops came under heavy attack by militants in Basra, killing one soldier and wounding three, the British military said Saturday.

The troops were hit by bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms during an arrest operation in the city before dawn, the military said in a statement.

Coalition aircraft destroyed roadside bombs as the British soldiers were extracted from the city, it said.

Britain has withdrawn hundreds of troops from Iraq, leaving a force of around 5,500 based mainly on the fringes of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

British bases come under frequent mortar attacks from Shiite militias.

The U.S. currently has about 155,000 troops in Iraq.

"Blast hurts 4 NATO troops in Afghanistan"

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

7 July 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A roadside blast struck a NATO convoy in southern Afghanistan and wounded four alliance soldiers Saturday, while fighting in three separate regions of the country left more than 100 militants dead, officials said.

Violence is rising rapidly in Afghanistan five years into the U.S.-led effort to defeat the Taliban.

The NATO convoy was attacked west of Kandahar city, and the four wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby military hospital, said Maj. John Thomas, a NATO spokesman.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, said a suicide bomber had attacked the convoy.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the wounded soldiers were Canadian, but that could not be immediately confirmed.

The attack happened a day after officials said fierce fighting in three separate regions of Afghanistan killed more than 100 militants.

Shalizai Dedar, governor of northeastern Kunar province, said villagers accused foreign troops of killing dozens of civilians in airstrikes Friday.

He said about 60 militants died in the battle but he could not confirm the reports of civilian deaths.

U.S.-led coalition and NATO spokesmen on Friday emphasized that ground commanders had evaluated the terrain in Kunar province to prevent civilian casualties, but Dedar said villagers had reported that an initial airstrike killed 10 civilians — and that a second killed about 30 people who were trying to bury the dead.

Abdul Sabur Allayar, the provincial deputy police chief, said Saturday that 25 civilians and 20 militants were killed in clashes over three days.

The fighting — in the south, west and northeast — follows a trend of sharply rising bloodshed over the past five weeks, among the deadliest periods since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Insurgency-related violence in June alone killed more than 1,000 people, including 200 civilians, according to an AP count based on information from Western and Afghan officials.

More than 3,100 people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, according to the AP tally.

About 4,000 people died in the violence in all of last year.

U.S. and NATO officials have said Taliban militants threaten villagers into claiming that attacks killed civilians.

"There were some number of insurgents that were killed."

"We have no reason to believe that any civilians were killed at this time," NATO's Thomas said.

He said soldiers called in airstrikes on "positively identified enemy firing positions" in a remote area.

Civilian deaths have been a growing problem for international forces in Afghanistan, threatening to derail support for the Western mission.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly implored forces to try preventing such deaths.

Both a U.N. and the AP count of civilian deaths this year show that U.S. and NATO forces have caused more civilian deaths this year than Taliban fighters have.

In the south, militants attacked two police vehicles with gunfire and rocket propelled grenades overnight Thursday, and U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces responded with artillery fire and airstrikes in what the coalition described as a "sparsely populated area" in Uruzgan province.

Gen. Zahir Azimi said 33Taliban fighters were killed.

The coalition reported "no indications" of civilian casualties, and said no coalition or Afghan forces were killed or wounded.

In Farah, a western province bordering Iran that has seen little violence until this year, insurgents attacked an Afghan security patrol from fortified positions and wounded five Afghan soldiers, the coalition said.

Afghan and coalition forces, using gunfire and airstrikes, killed "over 30" insurgents, it said.

The coalition also said a ground commander "carefully evaluated risk of collateral damage" before firing.

The latest NATO casualties have raised the number of foreign soldiers killed this year to at least 105.

"More heat ahead for sweltering West"

By MATT GOURAS, Associated Press Writer

7 July 2007

HELENA, Mont. - An oppressive heat wave eased a bit in some parts of the West, but forecasters predicted little relief in the days ahead for a region where many cities have baked in triple-digit temperatures.

Extreme heat plagued much of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Washington state again on Friday.

In Montana, where cattle outnumber residents by more than 2 to 1, livestock and people sought the shade and drought-weary farmers watched for damage to grain.

"We are trying to get our hay up before it disintegrates," said cattle rancher Sharon McDonald near Melville.

"It just gets crispy and just falls apart."

Air conditioners — and even swamp coolers — were predictably hot sellers at the hardware store.

"I'm telling you, it has been nuts," said Dennis VanDyke, a manager at Power Townsend in Helena.

"The only thing I am getting calls for is air conditioners."

VanDyke said some people prefer swamp coolers, which use a fan and the condensation of water to cool the air, over the more power-hungry air conditioning units.

"They are being bought faster than we can put them on the shelves," he said.

In Montana, temperatures above 100 degrees are usually not seen until August.

The normal July high in Helena is 83 degrees — not the high 90s seen Friday.

Triple-digit records were set or tied in Great Falls and Billings at 104 degrees each.

The mercury reached 105 in the north-central Montana town of Havre, 106 at the Gallatin Field Airport near Bozeman and 107 in Missoula.

In Utah, high school teacher Lois Wolking said she was escaping the summer heat by heading indoors.

Temperatures were down a few degrees in Salt Lake City on Friday, but still hovered around 100.

"A swamp cooler, Netflix and reading is how we're surviving," the 58-year-old East High teacher said.

But the heat will hover over most of the far West through at least the end of next week, said Kelly Redmond, a regional climatologist for the National Weather Service.

He said it could migrate farther inland and cover more of the West, including Colorado, as the week goes on.

"It looks like it is going to stay place for a good long while," he said.

Boise hit 105 degrees Friday after a high temperature of 104 on Thursday.

Lewiston reported a high of 101 on Friday and Pocatello hit 102.

Idaho Power, the state's largest utility, set a record Friday for electricity consumption for the second consecutive day, as triple-digit temperatures continued across much of Idaho.

The company's peak load reached 3,142 megawatts at 4 p.m., topping the previous record set Wednesday of 3,120 megawatts.

The old record, 3,084 megawatts, was set in 2006.

Anne Alenskis, a spokeswoman for Idaho Power, said the company has kept records for at least 90 years.

Temperatures were expected to ease slightly in Southern California.

Phoenix saw a modest drop, a somewhat cooler 112 degrees compared to 115 on Thursday.

With the approach of Arizona's summer rainy season, humidity levels have started climbing along with power demand.

Heat remained an issue along the border.

The bodies of six suspected illegal immigrants have been found since Monday in southern Arizona deserts, all likely victims of heat illness while trying to walk into the U.S. from Mexico.

The toll, while high, is not unusual during hot spells in the region.

In eastern Oregon, which set 15 record highs on Thursday, temperatures largely dropped to the high 90s.

In the center part of the state, population growth and a burgeoning demand for air conditioning meant a rise in electricity demand.

The Bonneville Power Administration said it was worried fires could damage transmission lines and cause outages.

In California, heat was mostly confined to inland regions, with triple-digit readings in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.

The mercury topped 100 in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley and in the high desert cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, while out east by the Colorado River, the little city of Needles sweltered in 115-degree heat.

But temperatures in most of Los Angeles and the populous Southern California coastal zone were in the 70s and low 80s, while San Francisco and Monterey Bay cities were even cooler.

The National Forest Service reported at least 16 fires over 500 acres in size burning throughout the West, including three new ones that sparked Thursday.

The agency said fire danger was most extreme in Arizona, California, Oregon and Utah — although a "red flag" warning was posted for much of the West.
___

Associated Press writers Tim Fought in Portland, Ore.; Arthur H. Rotstein in Tucson, Ariz.; and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.

Boy, this Musharaff dude over there in George W. Bush's puppet state of Pakistan sounds just like George W. Bush ...

Two real tough guys, the pair of those bozos are ....

Twin sons of different mothers ...

And so ...

"Pakistani forces tighten noose around siege mosque"

By Zeeshan Haider

7 July 2007

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces tightened their noose around a besieged mosque in Islamabad on Sunday after President Pervez Musharraf told militants barricaded inside to surrender or die.

Hundreds of troops were surrounding the fortified compound housing the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and a girls' madrasa (seminary) in the Pakistani capital, where clashes between armed students and security forces began on Tuesday after months of tension.

Security forces have not launched a full-scale assault because of fears for the safety of hundreds of women and children inside who the government says are being held as human shields.

Instead, troops have blown holes in the perimeter wall in the hope of letting those inside escape.

Gunfire broke out shortly after 1 a.m. (4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday) as paramilitary forces provided cover for commandos to move forward, said an intelligence official who declined to be identified.

Three big blasts sounded across the city about 20 minutes later, apparently as the commandos blew up more of the compound wall.

"Our strategy is to bring down the walls or make holes in them to make escape routes for the women and children being held hostage," said another security official.

"We hope it works."

The death toll rose to at least 20 on Saturday when a paramilitary soldier was killed.

The cleric leading the Lal Masjid's Taliban-style movement, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said up to 80 people had been killed inside his compound.

The government dismissed that.

Fifty to 60 hardcore militants were believed to be leading the fighting, officials said.

"SURRENDER OR DIE"

Musharraf, in his first public comment on the confrontation, said the militants had no option but to surrender.

"If they don't surrender, I'm saying it here, they will be killed," Musharraf told reporters on Saturday.

"We've shown great patience because we don't want people to be killed."

The Lal Masjid has been a hotbed of militancy for years, known for its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and opposition to Musharraf's backing for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

Water, gas and power to the mosque were cut and food was said to running short.

Security forces occupied another city madrasa linked to the Lal Masjid.

Ghazi has defied orders to surrender, saying he would prefer "martyrdom."

He rejected government accusations that he was holding women and children as human shields.

Ghazi said he and his followers would lay down their weapons but would never accept arrest.

"If compromise means bowing down, it's unacceptable to my boys, my girls and me," Ghazi told ARY Television on Sunday.

About 1,200 students left the mosque after the clashes began but only about 20 came out on Friday.

On Saturday, just one gave himself up.

Officials said they did not know how many people remained inside but there could be up to 2,000.

(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider)

And while we are on the subject of REPUBLICANS ....

"Fred Thompson aided Nixon on Watergate"

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer

7 July 2007

WASHINGTON - Fred Thompson gained an image as a tough-minded investigative counsel for the Senate Watergate committee.

Yet President Nixon and his top aides viewed the fellow Republican as a willing, if not too bright, ally, according to White House tapes.

Thompson, now preparing a bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, won fame in 1973 for asking a committee witness the bombshell question that revealed Nixon had installed hidden listening devices and taping equipment in the Oval Office.

Those tapes show Thompson played a behind-the-scenes role that was very different from his public image three decades ago.

He comes across as a partisan willing to cooperate with the Nixon White House's effort to discredit the committee's star witness.

It was Thompson who tipped off the White House that the Senate committee knew about the tapes.

They eventually cinched Nixon's downfall in the scandal resulting from the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington and the subsequent White House cover-up.

Thompson, then 30, was appointed counsel by his political mentor, Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker, the top Republican on the Senate investigative committee.

Thompson had been an assistant U.S. attorney in Nashville, Tenn., and had managed Baker's re-election campaign.

Thompson later was a senator himself.

Nixon was disappointed with the selection of Thompson, whom he called "dumb as hell."

The president did not think Thompson was skilled enough to interrogate unfriendly witnesses and would be outsmarted by the committee's Democratic counsel.

This assessment comes from audio tapes of White House conversations recently reviewed by The Associated Press at the National Archives in College Park, Md., and transcripts of those discussions that are published in "Abuse of Power: The New Watergate Tapes," by historian Stanley Kutler.

"Oh s---, that kid," Nixon said when told by his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, of Thompson's appointment on Feb. 22, 1973.

"Well, we're stuck with him," Haldeman said.

In a meeting later that day in the Old Executive Office Building, Baker assured Nixon that Thompson was up to the task.

"He's tough."

"He's six feet five inches, a big mean fella," the senator told Nixon.

Publicly, Baker and Thompson presented themselves as dedicated to uncovering the truth.

But Baker had secret meetings and conversations with Nixon and his top aides, while Thompson worked cooperatively with the White House and accepted coaching from Nixon's lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt, the tapes and transcripts show.

"We've got a pretty good rapport with Fred Thompson," Buzhardt told Nixon in an Oval Office meeting on June 6, 1973.

The meeting included a discussion of former White House counsel John Dean's upcoming testimony before the committee.

Dean, the committee's star witness, had agreed to tell what he knew about the break-in and cover-up if he was granted immunity against anything incriminating he might say.

Nixon expressed concern Thompson was not "very smart."

"Not extremely so," Buzhardt agreed.

"But he's friendly," Nixon said.

"But he's friendly," Buzhardt agreed.

"We are hoping, though, to work with Thompson and prepare him, if Dean does appear next week, to do a very thorough cross-examination."

Five days later, Buzhardt reported to Nixon that he had primed Thompson for the Dean cross-examination.

"I found Thompson most cooperative, feeling more Republican every day," Buzhardt said.

"Uh, perfectly prepared to assist in really doing a cross-examination."

Later in the same conversation, Buzhardt said Thompson was "willing to go, you know, pretty much the distance now."

"And he said he realized his responsibility was going to have be as a Republican increasingly."

Thompson, who declined comment for this story, described himself in his book, "At That Point in Time," published in 1975, as a Nixon administration "loyalist" who struggled with his role as minority counsel.

"I would try to walk a fine line between a good-faith pursuit of the investigation and a good-faith attempt to insure balance and fairness," Thompson wrote.

When Dean began testifying on June 25, he implicated Nixon in the break-in and cover-up.

But his testimony had little legal impact because it was his word against the president's.

During Dean's testimony, Baker asked the question that became the embodiment of the Watergate scandal: "What did the president know and when did he know it?"

Thompson is sometimes credited with supplying the question to Baker.

The question was widely perceived at the time as an example of Baker's willingness to press for truth at the expense of his party's leader.

Historian Kutler, however, said he believes that in the context of Dean's testimony, the question was Baker's attempt to point out that the evidence hinged on one witness's word.

It was not until three weeks later — after the disclosure of the existence of tape recordings that might either corroborate or disprove Dean's testimony — that Baker's question took on new meaning, Kutler said.

At a hearing on July 16, Thompson asked former White House aide Alexander Butterfield: "Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"

Butterfield's confirmation of the recordings set off a cascade of events that led to Nixon's resignation 13 months later.

The question made Thompson instantly famous.

His political Web site — http://www.imwithfred.com — prominently notes: "Friends in Tennessee still recall seeing the boy they'd grown up with on TV, sitting at the Senate hearing-room dais."

"He gained national attention for leading the line of inquiry that revealed the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office."

What rarely is mentioned is that Thompson knew the answer to the question before he asked it.

Investigators for the committee had gotten the information out of Butterfield during hours of behind-the-scenes questioning three days earlier, on July 13.

Thompson was not present, but a Republican investigator immediately tracked him down at the Carroll Arms Hotel bar where he was meeting with a reporter.

Thompson called Buzhardt over the weekend to tip off the White House that the committee knew about the tapes.

"Legalisms aside, it was inconceivable to me that the White House could withhold the tapes once their existence was made known."

"I believed it would be in everyone's interest if the White House realized, before making any public statements, the probable position of both the majority and the minority of the Watergate committee," Thompson wrote in his book.

Scott Armstrong, a Democratic investigator for the committee who was part of the Butterfield questioning, said he was outraged by Thompson's tip-off.

"When the prosecutor discovers the smoking the gun, he's going to be shocked to find that the deputy prosecutor called the defendant and said, 'You'd better get rid of that gun,'" Armstrong said in an interview.

The committee chairman, Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., had agreed to allow Thompson to question Butterfield first at the July 16 hearing as a show of bipartisanship because a GOP investigator had elicited the initial information from Butterfield.

"Fred (Thompson) and Baker carried water for the White House, but I have to give them credit — they were watching out for their interests, too," Kutler said.

"They weren't going to mindlessly go down the tubes for this guy."
___

On the Net: Nixon presidential materials: http://tinyurl.com/2bqg9a

"Lawmaker linked to two bribery scandals - Rep. John Doolittle new focus of Justice Department investigation"

Updated: 4:41 p.m. ET July 6, 2007

WASHINGTON - Rep. John Doolittle's associations with some notorious scoundrels have him uniquely tied to both congressional bribery scandals that have sent other Republican lawmakers to jail.

Justice Department investigators are focusing on the California Republican's dealings with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including $5,000 monthly checks from Abramoff to Doolittle's wife.

Then there's $37 million in federal funds Doolittle secured for a defense contractor accused of bribing now imprisoned ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Brent Wilkes, a benefactor of both Cunningham and Doolittle, is awaiting trial in San Diego on charges of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

'The truth vindicates us'

There's no indication prosecutors are investigating Doolittle in connection with Wilkes or Former Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.

Cunningham, and the nine-term lawmaker may be guilty of nothing more than a poor choice of friends.

But his favors for and from Abramoff leave him the only sitting member of Congress still under investigation in a scandal that netted a dozen convictions, including a guilty plea from now imprisoned former Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.

"I'm the only one of the congressmen mentioned that hasn't retired or left and therefore the focus seems to be on me," Doolittle, 56, said recently on a talk radio show in Sacramento.

"If you really want to get a congressman, I'm the one that's left."

In April the FBI raided the Doolittles' Oakton, Va., house with a search warrant for Julie Doolittle's home bookkeeping and fundraising business, which had done work for Abramoff.

The congressman denied wrongdoing and blamed his woes on Justice Department leaks and politics.

But he was forced to relinquish his seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, where Cunningham was once one of his colleagues and where both did favors for Wilkes.

After The Associated Press reported last week that his former chief of staff had complied with a document subpoena and another former aide planned to talk voluntarily to prosecutors, Doolittle said he welcomed a widening of the probe.

"To have this dragged out for over three years is ridiculous."

"They've had three years to get to the bottom of this."

"At least they've started," he said.

"I've always believed that the truth vindicates us," Doolittle said.

"I am glad they are going to delve more into it."

Abramoff is cooperating with the government's continuing investigation after admitting to taking millions of dollars from Indian tribe clients he derided as "morons" and "troglodytes."

This was the man who charmed Doolittle as "funny, engaging, creative ... a hard-charging conservative Republican" when the two met after Republicans retook the House majority in 1994.

Doolittle himself had arrived on Capitol Hill as a brash young conservative several years before, joining the "Gang of Seven" freshman Republicans who broke open a House banking scandal.

He ran for a second term in 1992 on the slogan "Taking on Congress," and complained that "the system ... has lulled people into unethical conduct."

Even some one-time allies wonder now if that's the effect it's had on him.

"Unfortunately, with him being in elected office for so long, he's bound to have gotten away from his district and what started out as his core principles," said Glenn Buberl, Doolittle's legislative director during his first years in Washington.

After narrowly winning re-election last November in one of California's most conservative districts, Doolittle started paying more attention to folks back home and holding town hall meetings more frequently.

Abramoff connection

Doolittle says he doesn't recall Abramoff ever asking him to do anything, but he involved himself repeatedly in issues that helped Abramoff's clients and had nothing to do with his Northern California district.

Kevin Ring, a former Doolittle aide who later became Abramoff's lobbying associate, often was the intermediary.

Doolittle interceded with the Interior Department on behalf of Indian tribes Abramoff represented, helped Abramoff get a lobbying contract to represent the Northern Mariana Islands by endorsing a friendly commonwealth politician, then opposed Democratic moves to impose wage and labor laws there.

Meanwhile Doolittle accepted $14,000 in campaign donations from Abramoff and tens of thousands more from his clients.

While other politicians rushed to get rid of Abramoff's money once the lobbyist came under suspicion, Doolittle never did, arguing he'd done nothing wrong in taking it.

Julie Doolittle also benefited.

Although Ring discussed finding work for her in a 2000 e-mail to Abramoff, the Doolittles say she never expected to sign up Abramoff as a client.

John Doolittle has said his wife approached the lobbyist five years ago because his was the first name on an alphabetical list she'd drawn up of people she could network with.

Instead of suggesting possible clients, Abramoff offered her work himself, Doolittle said.

Abramoff's lobbying firm paid Julie Doolittle a near-monthly retainer beginning in September 2002, mostly to work on a fundraiser.

The event was canceled in March 2003, but the payments, usually $5,000 a month, continued through February 2004 and ultimately totaled $66,690.

Doolittle's aides have said her work wasn't limited to the fundraiser and there was more bookkeeping and some work for a restaurant Abramoff owned.

Julie Doolittle also did much of her husband's campaign fundraising before he canceled the arrangement at the beginning of this year amid criticism.

He paid her 15 percent of every donation she brought in, instead of the industry practice of paying fundraisers a flat fee.

Federal records show that she was paid more than $100,000 raising money for his 2006 re-election campaign.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19636772

"Environmentalist cuts deal in Abramoff probe - Federici served as a go-between for lobbyist and deputy interior secretary"

By Joel Seidman, Producer, NBC News

Updated: 11:48 a.m. ET June 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - The woman who allegedly acted as liaison between the deputy secretary of the Interior and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff - who sought favors for his American Indian tribal clients from the Interior Department official - has been criminally charged with tax evasion and obstruction of a Senate investigation.

Italia Federici, who prosecutors said former Interior Department official Steven Griles had a ''personal, and at times, romantic relationship'' with, introduced Griles to Abramoff, from 1998 to 2003.

Federici runs a Republican advocacy group.

Griles pleaded guilty in March to a single felony charge of obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee.

The former No. 2 official in the Interior Department admitted in federal court that he lied to Senate investigators about his relationship with Abramoff.

Under the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to propose no more than a 10-month prison sentence for Griles -- the minimum they could ask for under sentencing guidelines.

Griles sentencing is set for June 26.

The Justice Department notified Federici in January that she was the target of a federal probe and could face five charges in relation to her dealings with Abramoff.

Today, the Justice Department in a criminal information charged her with two counts.

They allege she evaded paying taxes by failing to maintain proper financial books and records bank and business accounts of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy ("CREA") the group which she founded.

According to the charges, Abramoff, personally and through his clients, became a substantial contributor to CREA.

Prosecutors allege, "from in or about March 2001, through in or about May 2003, Abramoff and his clients donated approximately $500,000 to CREA."

Prosecutor also write, that during much of Griles' tenure as the Interior Department's Deputy Secretary, "defendant Federici served as a conduit for information between Abramoff and Griles in order to foster Abramoff's and his client's interests."

In such a role they add, "the defendant would communicate in-depth with Abramoff about his clients and the issues and concerns applicable to them, and then communicate in-depth with Griles about these issues and/or forward to Griles white papers and other information and documents Abramoff supplied."

Prosecutor also state, "the defendant also met with Abramoff and Griles in order to speak substantively and directly about these issues."

She is also charged with obstructing the Senate Indian Affairs Committee's investigation of Abramoff's dealings with Indian Tribes.

The obstruction charge states that Federici, "did knowingly and corruptly influence, obstruct, and impede, and endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which an investigation and review was being had by the United States Senate and a Committee of the United States Senate."

The Justice Department alleges that Federici, "knowingly and intentionally made a series of materially false and fictitious declarations to, and withheld material information from, Senators and Senate investigators in response to questions about the extent to which she, Abramoff, and Griles communicated about issues pending before DOI that directly affected Abramoff's clients while Griles served as DOT Deputy Secretary."

Abramoff is currently serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence for his conviction in the Florida based SunCruz Casinos gambling boat fraud case.

So far, the federal investigation has amassed nine guilty pleas and one conviction after trial as part of the Justice Department's influence-peddling probe of Abramoff's conduct as a Washington lobbyist.

In addition to Abramoff and former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, and Griles, the list of convictions includes; Ney's former chief of staff, Will Heaton; and one-time Abramoff associates Michael Scanlon, Tony Rudy, Neil Volz, and Adam Kidan.

David Safavian, the former top procurement officer at the Office of Management and Budget, was convicted on four charges of making false statements and obstructing justice stemming from his dealings with Abramoff.

Abramoff has yet to be sentenced in the Washington lobbying scandal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19094271/

"String of attacks kill 26 in Baghdad"

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer

34 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - A flurry of bombings in Baghdad killed 26 people Sunday, and officials said the death toll from a giant suicide truck blast that devastated the market of a Shiite town north of the capital a day earlier could be more than 130.

Officials earlier had said Saturday's bombing in the town of Armili killed 115 people, one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq in months.

The blast suggested Sunni insurgents are moving further north to strike in less protected regions beyond the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad and on the capital's northern doorstep.

The string of attacks Sunday morning in Baghdad made clear that extremists can still unleash organized strikes in the capital despite a relative lull in violence there in past weeks amid the U.S. offensives.

Two car bombs detonated nearly simultaneously in Baghdad's mostly Shiite Karrada district, killing eight people.

The first hit at 10:30 a.m., near a closed restaurant, destroying stalls and soft drink stands.

Two passers-by were killed and eight wounded, a police official said.

The area is near the offices of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the biggest Shiite party in parliament, and is believed to be among the most protected parts of the city.

About five minutes later, the second car exploded about a mile away, hitting shops selling leather jackets and shoes.

Six people were killed and seven wounded, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

On Baghdad's southwestern outskirts, a bomb hit a truckload of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers being brought into the capital to join the crackdown, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 20, a police official at the nearest police station said, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Also, a bomb hidden under a car went off at the entrance of Shorja market — a central Baghdad market that has been hit repeatedly by insurgents — killing three civilians and wounding five, police said.

The U.S. military announced that an American soldier was killed in combat a day earlier in Salahuddin province.

It did not provide details.

Armili residents on Sunday buried about 70 of the dead from the truck bombing the previous morning.

Mourners flowed into mosques and funeral tents set up in the town's main street, where black banners were hung on the walls with names of the dead.

Iraqi army and police forces were out in increased numbers in the streets and closed off entrances to the town to prevent attacks on the funerals — a frequent target of Sunni insurgents, said Brig. Abbas Mohammed Amin, chief of police in the nearby city of Tuz Khurmato.

The toll from the attack in the farming town of 26,000 — mostly Shiites from Iraq's ethnic Turkoman minority — was still not clear.

Abdullah Jabara, deputy governor of Salahuddin province where the town is located, said Saturday the toll from the blast was 115 dead — nearly three-quarters of them women, children and elderly.

On Sunday, Amin put the toll at 150 dead, while Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite Turkoman lawmaker, told reporters 130 had been killed.

The count was difficult because of the town's remote location and because many of the dead initially had been buried under rubble that took hours to clear.

Saturday's blast ripped through the town market during crowded morning shopping, destroying dozens of old mud-brick homes and shops.

Al-Bayati sharply criticized the security situation in the town, saying its police force had only 30 members and that the Interior Ministry had finally responded to requests for more two days before the attack.

He said authorities should help residents "arm themselves" to protect them if the security forces cannot.

He said an Iraqi army battalion was moved out of the Armili region to Baghdad earlier this year to help in the crackdown in the capital.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari denied that, saying the army's 4th Division was in the area.

Armili residents say regions like theirs are being left exposed and vulnerable.

Tensions are constantly high between the town's Shiite Turkoman population and the Sunni Arabs who dominate the surrounding villages.

Iraqi security presence is scant in the remote region, far from Salahuddin's administrative center and the eye of officials.

"The number of Iraqi police and army in this area is too low."

"This is a farming area with a lot of empty areas, so it's neglected."

"There's not even much presence of government officials," said Haytham Khalaf, 37, an Amirli resident whose niece was injured.

He accused local Sunnis of helping al-Qaida set up a presence there.

U.S. forces are waging an offensive in the city of Baqouba, just north of Baghdad, to uproot al-Qaida militants and Sunni insurgents using the region to launch attacks in the capital.

But American commanders acknowledged that many extremists fled Baqouba before the sweep began in mid-June.

Al-Bayati said Sunni insurgents had fled to the Himrin region, a swathe of mountains southeast of Armili, between it and Baqouba.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told The Associated Press on Saturday he expected Sunni extremists to try to "pull off a variety of sensational attacks and grab the headlines to create a 'mini-Tet.'"

He was referring to the 1968 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Tet offensive that undermined public support for the Vietnam War in the United States.

The U.S. military may be forced to tolerate attacks further north as they focus on pacifying Baghdad and its surroundings, hoping that calm in the capital will give the government time to take key political steps.

Washington is pressing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to pass measures to encourage Sunni Arabs to turn away from support of the insurgency to back the government.

Efforts to pass the measures, however, continue to be tied down in political feuding between Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish parties in al-Maliki's fragile coalition.

"Blair wanted to resign before Iraq war: former press chief"

Sat Jul 7, 5:55 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Tony Blair wanted to resign as British prime minister without fighting a third general election, his former communications director Alastair Campbell told a Sunday newspaper.

Campbell, whose long-awaited diaries are published Monday, told the Sunday Times that Blair wanted to announce his decision in mid-2002, nine months before the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

But Campbell said he warned Blair that he would become a "lame duck" prime minister, even if he reasoned it would allow him to make unpopular decisions without worrying that he would be voted out at the ballot box.

"We had been going through a lot of crap," he explained, adding the idea was abandoned because of the pressure of events and the impending military action in the Gulf.

Blair eventually announced in September 2004 that he would not contest a fourth general election as leader of the governing Labour Party but said he would serve a full third term of office.

Many political commentators have said that this "pre-announcement" to resign did make him a "lame duck" after the 2005 general election as the media focused increasingly on when he would step down, as he did not specify a date.

In September last year amid heightened disquiet over the war in Iraq, British foreign policy and Labour's future direction, supporters of Blair's finance minister Gordon Brown forced Blair into saying he would be gone within 12 months.

He finally named the date on May 10 and handed over the Labour leadership to Brown on June 24 and the premiership three days later.

Campbell told the Sunday Times that his diaries, which he kept from mid-1994 when Blair became Labour leader to 2003 when he quit as press chief, chart Blair's increasing imperviousness to criticism.

"What you get as the book goes on is Tony caring less about what people say about him," he added.

Blair was well aware of the personal consequences of his stance on Iraq, and accusations that he could be viewed as US President George W. Bush's "poodle," he said.

"He was just prepared to live with that," he added.

Campbell's diaries also go into his row with the BBC in 2004 after it reported that the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- the basis for war -- had been exaggerated.

He said he felt "absolutely sick" and wanted to resign on hearing that British government scientist and weapons expert David Kelly -- outed as one of the BBC's sources for the story -- had gone missing and was later found dead.

The diaries, which are not being serialised, are also said to contain details about how Blair wanted to make princess Diana an ambassador for Britain and that the pair met secretly to discuss plans.

"Iraqi village mourns devastating blast"

by Marwan Ibrahim

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

ERMELI, Iraq (AFP) - The darkness of grief gripped the Iraqi village of Ermeli on Sunday as black mourning banners, armbands, bloodstains and soot bore grim testament to a truck bomb attack that left 140 dead.

The rural community was the latest victim of a week of intense violence and political intrigue in an Iraq mired in bloody civil conflict, and one day after the attack the population was divided between shock and bitter anger.

Policemen guarding the entrance to the town wore black armbands and stony expressions, determined to face down the extremists behind the attack in which a truck packed with four tonnes of explosives detonated in a crowded market.

"I lost my uncle and his son in the explosion," policeman Imad Abdul Hussein told an AFP reporter, adding that the village was without running water after the suicide bombing destroyed pipes and brought down electricity cables.

"I am at work today to retaliate against the criminals, and to send them a message that we are alive and we are on our homeland and we will fight Al-Qaeda until the last drop of our blood," he said.

"We will either kill them or they will annihilate us," Hussein added, before launching into a slogan that underlined how the violence of Al-Qaeda's Sunni extremists has driven a wedge between Iraq's rival communities.

"Triumph to Ali's Shiites!" he shouted, referring to the first revered imam of the Shiite Muslim tradition and the hero of Iraq's majority community.

The mayor of nearby Tuz Khurmatu said Al-Qaeda had struck because Ermeli had been a peaceful village of Sunnis and Shiites from Iraq's Turkmen minority surrounded by smaller hamlets of Sunni Arabs.

"Al-Qaeda hit Ermeli because it is a safe and stable town."

"They target safe places to paralyse and confuse the government," said Mayor Mohammed Rashed, saying the truck was a 10-tonne Hino which came from the Sunni west.

"They want to send a message to the world that they are capable of targeting anything, to show by their explosions that the police are failing," he said.

"But they contribute, by these explosions, to build our awareness and unity in fighting the terrorists," he insisted.

Police chief Lieutenant Colonel Khalaf al-Bayati rattled off a litany of destruction.

"Almost every household in Emerli has lost a loved one," he said.

"We have around 1,200 mud-brick houses in the town."

"Fifty houses are totally demolished, 20 houses are partially demolished and 45 shops and more than 35 cars were wrecked," he said.

"We have registered a total number of 140 killed but there are also 20 missing and 270 injured," he added, accusing Al-Qaeda of carrying out the attack in revenge for recent successes against the group by his men.

The Emerli bomb blast came after a bloody and dangerous week even by the standards of Iraq's four-year descent into civil war.

Over the course of the week, US military confirmed the deaths of 22 soldiers and marines, and the British army in Basra lost two troops during what was described as one of its biggest operations of the war so far.

Shiite militias clashed with Iraqi security forces in the southern town of Diwaniyah, and suspected Sunni insurgents detonated bombs in Baghdad -- six more civilians were killed in a double car bombing on Sunday.

Against this backdrop, political support for US President George W. Bush and his Iraqi ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was slipping.

Bush saw two more US senators from his Republican Party speaking out against the open-ended use of American forces to prop up Maliki's government, despite calls from US commanders for more time to build on recent successes.

Maliki, meanwhile, engaged in a war of words with his former supporters in Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, calling on it to lay down its weapons after its Mahdi Army militia clashed with police and US-led troops.

Sadr's aides in turn accused Maliki of pandering to the US "occupier" and warned that he might not last much longer in office, amid reports that some Sunni and Shiite MPs may unite to force a confidence vote in parliament.

In Ermeli, however, the mourners had no stomach for politics on Sunday.

Many refused even to greet a government delegation sent to inspect the rescue effort.

And then ....

There is this ....

What I'm hearing is that George W. Bush is thinking about going over there with our military to give these Egyptians some "what-for" for being so arrogant ....

Denying that George W. Bush's ranch down in Texas is a "WONDER OF THE WORLD" ...

And so ...

"Egypt says pyramids still 'only wonder of the world'"

Sun Jul 8, 7:14 AM ET

CAIRO, July 8, 2007 (AFP) - Egypt said Sunday that the pyramids of Giza remained the only wonder of the world, snubbing a contest in which seven "new" wonders were selected by Internet and telephone voters as having "no value."

Seven new wonders of the world, including the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal in India, were selected at a star-studded event in Lisbon Saturday after nearly 100 million voters made their choice out of a list of 21 sites.

"This contest will not detract from the value of the pyramids, which is the only real wonder of the world," Egypt's antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass told AFP.

He said the competition "has no value," because "the masses do not write history."

Egypt was enraged when it was initially included in the competition, describing as "ridiculous" the fact that the only surviving wonder of the ancient world be put to a vote.

In April, competition organisers removed the pyramids of Giza from the list and granted it the title of "Honorary New 7 Wonders."

A private Swiss foundation launched the contest in January, allowing voters to choose between 21 sites short-listed from 77 selected by a jury.

It said it had gathered nearly 100 million votes by the end of polling at midnight Friday.

But Hawass said the new wonders would simply fade in people's memories once the media hype was over.

"After several months, ask anyone to name the (new) choices, they won't be able to remember them," he said.

"But if you ask any primary school pupil, they could still list the ancient wonders of the world."

"China's stockmarket at a turning point, analysts say"

by Benjamin Morgan

Sun Jul 8, 1:24 AM ET

SHANGHAI (AFP) - China's government may have finally won its fight to cool investor enthusiasm for stocks, after months of speculative frenzy set regulators on edge over a potential crash, analyst said Sunday.

Since January investors had ignored repeated government warnings about the run-up in Chinese share prices, but after another volatile week investors' appetite for investing appears to be diminishing, they said.

"The liquidity boom in China is finally seeing signs of a substantial change," said Jerry Lou, an economist at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong.

Share prices are still up nearly 40 percent from January after climbing 130 percent last year, but trade volumes are down sharply.

Daily turnover has declined by more than half from May's highs of more than 40 billion dollars, while the number of new stock accounts being opened slipped to between 70,000 and 80,000 a day.

In May when the key Shanghai composite index hit a series of records to put the index above 4,300 points, new retail trading accounts were being opened at a rate of 300,000 a day.

Although the market closed the week only about 1.5 percent lower after recouping 4.5 percent on Friday, since mid-June prices have slipped more than 13 percent, with sentiment dogged by a spate of new policies.

Those anxieties came into focus when the Shanghai index tumbled 5.25 percent Thursday, after falling more than two percent Wednesday, on fears over the impact of a special 1.55 trillion yuan (204 billion dollar) treasury bond issue.

"The market's continuous correction in the past week since the Ministry of Finance's plan to issue special treasury bonds to finance (its forex investment agency) was approved, appears to represent a turning point of the market sentiment on liquidity." Lou said.

Investors have been unsettled over government intentions since the special bond plan was approved a week ago and on news that the finance ministry would issue the first tranche of 500 billion yuan soon.

Adding to nervousness were reports that the government will expand its Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) programme, which aims to allow domestics funds to invest overseas, especially in Hong Kong.

Investors worry that this programme could also threaten domestic liquidity as strict restrictions on capital outflows for major insurers and investment firms are loosened.

The moves were part of what are concerted efforts to cool stock markets amid fears that overheating could result in punters losing everything if the speculative bubble were to pop.

Early this month China's parliament approved adjustments to a tax on interest earned by bank accounts, a move aimed at making deposits more attractive so as to steer some liquidity away from the stock markets.

Regulators have also actively promoted Chinese majors listed on Hong Kong stock exchanges to list on home bourses, with the flood of new share issues expected to squeeze liquidity even more.

Wu Zuyao, chief strategist with Galaxy Securities based in Beijing, said that investors were bothered by the uncertainty over how these new policies would play out.

"The uncertainty in these policies has accelerated the market corrections," said Wu.

"How will the 1.55 trillion yuan issue impact the financial market and how will it impact the property and stock market -- this will take time to observe."

Investors have been in a cautious mood since the government tripled the transactions stamp tax on May 30, outraging punters.

The move, announced in the middle of the night, prompted a rout over the next few trading days to June 4, when the index slumped to 3,670.40, from a high 4,334.92 on May 29.

Qiu Yanying, chief strategist with Tianxiang Consulting based in Beijing, said the government action may have not intended to cause such sharp falls, but nevertheless came at a time when investment fever was reaching fever pitch.

"It was at the right time because the market was in need of a correction," said Qiu.

"Pakistan gives besieged rebel cleric new ultimatum"

By Kamran Haider

2 hours, 14 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities issued a "last warning" on Sunday to a rebel Islamist cleric and his fighters holed up in an Islamabad mosque, as speculation mounted security forces would launch a full-scale assault.

Troops have surrounded the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad since Tuesday when clashes between armed student radicals and government forces erupted after months of tension.

The death toll from the conflict rose to at least 21 on Sunday when an officer was killed as he led commandos in a raid to blow up the walls of a girls' religious school, or madrasa, in the mosque compound, to help women and children get out.

"This is the last warning for you to surrender," authorities said over loudspeakers outside the mosque, a resident who heard the announcement said.

President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday gave the militants a "surrender-or-die" ultimatum.

He met top security officials on Sunday evening.

"The final round has begun."

"There's a possibility," a government official said when asked if an assault was imminent.

Rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi has refused to surrender, saying he and his followers prefer "martyrdom."

In a statement carried by Sunday newspapers the cleric said he and his followers hoped their deaths would spark a revolution.

"We have firm belief in God that our blood will lead to a revolution," wrote Ghazi.

Government and military officials say the cleric has 50 to 60 hard-core militants -- some from groups linked to al Qaeda -- leading the fighting, and hundreds of women and children he is using as human shields.

Ghazi denies anyone is being used as a human shield.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said militants shot and wounded three students trying to get away on Sunday.

Occasional gunfire rang out during the day.

Ghazi's Taliban-style movement reflects the militancy seeping into cities from tribal areas on the Afghan border.

Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq told a news conference Lal Masjid's defenders included militants wanted both in Pakistan and abroad.

Some foreign militants were suspected of being inside, he said.

Ghazi says he has nearly 2,000 followers, but no militants, with him.

The minister put the number at 200 to 500.

Lal Masjid has been a hotbed of militancy for years, known for its support for Afghanistan's Taliban and opposition to Musharraf's backing for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

FEAR OF BACKLASH

Security forces say they have refrained from mounting a full-scale assault because of fears for the women and children inside.

Instead, troops have been blasting holes in the walls to provide escape routes for the women and children.

About 1,200 students left the mosque after the clashes began but the number leaving has slowed to a trickle.

Interior Minister Sherpao said five children got away on Sunday.

Many Pakistanis support the action against the hardliners whose behavior, including a vigilante campaign against perceived vice, has raised concern about the spread of militant Islam.

The action against the mosque has raised fears of a backlash by its militant allies.

A policeman was killed in a blast in the northwest on Sunday.

It was the fourth blast since the fighting at the mosque began.

Nineteen people have been killed.

Three Chinese workers were killed in what the government described as a terrorist attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Police said it was too early to say if the attack was linked to Lal Masjid.

(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz, Zeeshan Haider, Augustine Anthony)

"Leahy expects ex-Bush aide to testify"

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, Associated Press Writer

12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he expects a former Bush aide to testify before Congress this week about the firings of federal prosecutors despite White House objections.

Sen. Patrick Leahy's committee has subpoenaed Sara Taylor, a former White House political director, as part of its investigation into whether the Bush administration improperly ordered the U.S. attorneys dismissed.

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Taylor's lawyer said she is willing to talk but does not want to defy President Bush, who has rejected subpoenas for documents from Taylor and for her testimony.

Lawyer W. Neil Eggleston said Taylor expects a letter from White House lawyer Fred Fielding directing her not to comply on the basis of executive privilege.

"In our view, it is unfair to Ms. Taylor that this constitutional struggle might be played out with her as the object of an unseemly tug of war," Eggleston wrote House and Senate Judiciary committee leaders and Fielding over the weekend.

He added, "Absent the direction from the White House, Ms. Taylor would testify without hesitation before the Senate Judiciary Committee."

"She has committed no wrongdoing."

Leahy noted that lawmakers recently learned Taylor was among several White House aides who used an e-mail account at the Republican National Committee for political communications.

Leahy said some e-mails relate to the investigation into the fired prosecutors.

"There's certainly no executive privilege with something like that," Leahy said.

"We'll ask Miss Taylor when she does come before the committee this week just where she feels on this."

"I haven't heard anything from Mr. Fielding or anybody else at the White House that would justify a claim of executive privilege," Leahy said.

President Bush last month asserted executive privilege in rejecting subpoenas for documents from Taylor and his former counsel, Harriet Miers.

Fielding argued that complying with such a request would damage the confidential nature of advice given the president.

The White House also made clear — citing the same rationale — that Taylor and Miers would not testify before Congress as directed by the subpoenas.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto reiterated that stand on Sunday, despite Leahy's belief that Taylor would testify before his committee.

Bush has offered to make Miers, Taylor, political strategist Karl Rove and their aides available to be interviewed in private by the House and Senate committees, without transcripts and not under oath.

Leahy and Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the House committee chairman, have said the offer is insufficient.

Fratto urged them to reconsider and accused them of seeking confrontation and headlines.

"The president remains ready and willing to share facts with the committees, but not under the threat of subpoenas and a media spectacle," he said.

The Senate committee's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, recommended accepting the White House offer as a first step and issuing subpoenas later if needed.

That led to an unusually candid exchange on live television in which Specter and Leahy negotiated how far they would bend in dealing with the Bush administration.

"One thing we haven't done is asked for a meeting with the president," Specter told Leahy.

"Why don't you and John Conyers and I ask for a meeting with the president?"

"We may be a little tired of dealing with his lawyer."

"Why don't you and I chat about this tomorrow when we're on the (Senate) floor," Leahy responded.

Lawmakers have given the White House until Monday morning to explain why the White House claimed executive privilege on subpoenaed documents related to the congressional investigation.

Lawmakers also want an accounting of documents being withheld.

"I think it's time for the stonewalling to stop," Leahy said.

As Monday's deadline neared, Fratto said the White House will respond "in a manner consistent with the principle of the separation of powers."

He declined to be more specific.

The Washington Post, citing unidentified sources, reported Sunday that Fielding was expected to tell lawmakers that he already has provided the legal basis for the executive privilege claims and does not intend to hand over the documentation sought.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on Leahy's committee, defended the White House.

"There comes a point where the White House has to say, 'Hey, look there are certain confidential things in the White House that we're not going to share with Congress just like there are certain confidential things in Congress that we're not going to share with the White House,'" said Hatch, R-Utah.

The fight involves the investigation by Democratic lawmakers into the firings of several U.S. attorneys.

The lawmakers want to know whether the White House improperly ordered the dismissals.

The investigation has expanded to include scrutiny of the administration's warrantless wiretapping program and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department.

Without an agreement on the subpoenaed documents, the dispute appears to be heading toward contempt citations and, possibly, a constitutional showdown in federal court.

Asked in a broadcast interview if the defiance would mean holding the White House in contempt of Congress, Conyers said, "Well, yes."

"It means moving forward in the process that would require him to comply with the subpoenas like most other people."

Conyers said he would not hold Taylor in contempt and he hoped negotiations with the White House might break the impasse.

"We keep getting stalled."

"They keep pressing us."

"We're seeking cooperation."

"This is not partisan in any way whatsoever."

"I would have the same attitude if it were a Democratic president," he said.

Conyers appeared on "This Week" on ABC, Hatch was on "Face the Nation" on CBS and Leahy and Specter spoke on "Late Edition" on CNN.

And as PRESIDENT OF ALL THE WORLD FOR LIFE George W. Bush continues with his attempts to light the rest of the world on fire ...

"Wildfires blaze across parched western U.S"

By Jim Christie

1 hour, 54 minutes ago

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wildfires raged on Sunday across the western United States as firefighters scrambled to prevent flames from spreading across rugged terrain thick with tinder turned bone-dry by scorching hot weather.

Some of the intense blazes forced hasty evacuations of rural homes and recreational areas and officials temporarily shut highways and railways in some fire zones.

California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana each reported wildfires of varying severity amid a heat wave blanketing the western United States.

Fanned by high winds, a fire in Utah had grown into a massive blaze of more than 160,000 acres and in neighboring Nevada a fire burning 30 miles southwest of the town of Winnemucca had consumed an estimated 152,000 acres.

The two fires forced temporary closures of major interstate highways.

Neighborhoods in Winnemucca were temporarily evacuated on Saturday as a separate fire that had burned an estimated 25,000 acres of brush neared.

"People are back in their homes now but we're keeping a very close eye on this fire," Jamie Thompson, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"There is a potential for extreme fire conditions today as well."

Lightning on Friday triggered both blazes near Winnemucca and fire crews are on alert for more strikes.

"Isolated cells were moving through the area."

"They had very little moisture but plenty of lightning," Thompson said.

"There is still the potential for isolated thunder storms with lightning of course this afternoon," he added.

In California, lightning-sparked fires in the Inyo National Forest forced the evacuations of numerous campgrounds.

The blazes had scorched an estimated 34,000 acres since breaking out on Friday, according to the Forest Service.

The Forest Service had imposed fire restrictions a week earlier in all Inyo National Forest lands and neighboring Bureau of Land Management lands, expecting increased fire danger from hot, dry weather.

Fire officials across the western United States have been bracing for a busy fire season after scant rainfall this past winter.

"Violent weekend in Iraq kills over 220"

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

9 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died Sunday in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad.

The calls reflect growing frustration with the inability of Iraqi security forces to prevent extremist attacks.

The weekend deaths included two American soldiers — one killed Sunday in a suicide bombing on the western outskirts of Baghdad and another who died in combat Saturday in Salahuddin province north of the capital, the U.S. command said.

Three soldiers were wounded in the Sunday blast.

Sunday's deadliest attack occurred when a bomb struck a truckload of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing 15 and wounding 20, a police official at the nearest police station said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Also Sunday, two car bombs exploded near simultaneously in Baghdad's mostly Shiite Karradah district, killing eight people.

The first detonated at 10:30 a.m. near a closed restaurant, destroying stalls and soft drink stands.

Two passers-by were killed and eight wounded, a police official said.

About five minutes later, the second car exploded about a mile away near shops selling leather jackets and shoes.

Six people were killed and seven wounded, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The Karradah area includes the offices of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the biggest Shiite party in parliament, and is considered among the safest parts of the capital.

Elsewhere, a bomb hidden under a car detonated Sunday at the entrance of Shorja market — a mostly Shiite area of central Baghdad that has been hit repeatedly by insurgents — killing three civilians and wounding five, police said.

Police also reported they found the bodies of 29 men Sunday scattered across Baghdad — presumed victims of sectarian death squads.

Four other people were killed Sunday in separate shootings in Baghdad, police said on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.

The string of attacks in the Iraqi capital showed that extremists can still unleash strikes in the city despite a relative lull in violence here in recent weeks amid the U.S. offensives in and around Baghdad.

But the bloodshed in the Baghdad area paled in comparison to the carnage Saturday when a truck bomb devastated the public market in Armili, a town north of the capital whose inhabitants are mostly Shiites from the Turkoman ethnic minority.

There was still confusion over the death toll.

Two police officers — Col. Sherzad Abdullah and Col. Abbas Mohammed Amin — said 150 people were killed.

Other officials out the death toll at 115.

Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite Turkoman lawmaker, told reporters in Baghdad that 130 had died.

Regardless of the precise figure, the attack was clearly among the deadliest in Iraq in months.

It reinforced suspicions that al-Qaida extremists were moving north to less protected regions beyond the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad and on the capital's northern doorstep.

In a joint statement, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said the attack against the Turkoman Shiites was "another sad example of the nature of the enemy and their use of indiscriminate violence to kill innocent citizens."

Turkish military air ambulances evacuated 21 people wounded in the attack for treatment in Turkish hospitals, the country's Foreign Ministry said.

Turkey feels special responsibility for its ethnic brethren, the Turkoman, who speak a Turkic language.

During a news conference Sunday in Baghdad, al-Bayati criticized the security situation in Armili, saying its police force had only 30 members and that the Interior Ministry had finally responded to requests for reinforcements only two days before the attack.

In the absence of enough security forces, al-Bayati said authorities should help residents "arm themselves" for their own protection.

The call for civilians to take up arms in their own defense was echoed Sunday by the country's Sunni Arab vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, who said all Iraqis must "pay the price" for terrorism.

"People have a right to expect from the government and security agencies protection for their lives, land, honor and property," al-Hashemi said in a statement.

"But in the case of (their) inability, the people have no choice but to take up their own defense."

He said the government should provide communities with money, weapons and training and "regulate their use by rules of behavior."

Another prominent Sunni lawmaker, Adnan al-Dulaimi, said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had failed to provide services and security but he stopped short of saying his followers would seek to topple the Shiite-led government.

"The situation has become terribly bad," al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

"All options are open for us."

"We are going to study the situation thoroughly, and we are going to look into the possible measures which go with the interests of the Iraqi people."

"We will also consider whether to keep on with the government or not."

But Iraq's national security adviser, a Shiite, insisted that the government still enjoyed broad support and he warned against any effort to replace al-Maliki.

"I can tell you one thing that after Maliki, there is going to be the hurricane in Iraq," Mouwaffak al-Rubaie told CNN's "Late Edition."

"This is an extremely important point to make across and to the Western audience and to the Arab audience as well as the larger Muslim audience."

The idea of organizing local communities for their own defense has caught on here in recent months following the success of Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar province that took up arms to help drive al-Qaida from their towns and villages.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said they hope to replicate the "Anbar model" elsewhere in the country, albeit under government supervision and control.

On Sunday, Lt. Gen. Ali Gheidan said the Iraqi army planned to raise volunteer forces in Diyala province, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have driven al-Qaida fighters from part of the capital of Baqouba.

He said more than 3,800 volunteers had already been recruited.

"Their mission will be like the police, working under the Iraqi police," Gheidan told reporters.

"They work as a protection for each area, and they will only be from the residents of that area."

"Their role is to hold onto territory after it has been cleansed by the military."

U.S. commanders have long believed the key to restoring security was the ability of Iraqi forces to hold on to areas cleared by American troops.

Several senior U.S. officers have questioned whether the Iraqi police and army were capable of preventing insurgents from returning once the Americans had left.

Local defense forces would offer a way to compensate for weaknesses in the Iraqi police and army, but without careful controls, the system could backfire by promoting more militias in a country already awash in weapons.

Also Sunday, the British Defense Ministry announced the death of a British soldier who was wounded Saturday in the biggest British offensive against Shiite militias this year.

"Burn, baby, burn: GOP contenders' worry"

By: Jeanne Cummings

Jul 6, 2007 05:59 AM EST

As the Democratic presidential field enjoys an unprecedented surge in campaign donations, Republicans are already wringing their hands over “burn rates.”

John McCain's campaign admitted it had reason to worry this week when it reported raising just over $11 million in the second quarter.

The problem: McCain’s monthly burn rate was averaging $3.6 million, which meant he was bringing in only enough money to pay in-house expenses.

Burn rates are the operating costs that campaigns incur, such as salaries, taxes, office expenses, fundraising costs and consultant retainers.

Money raised on top of those costs can be spent on advertising and voter turnout.

But when fundraising falls below burn rate, a campaign could go under unless drastic measures are taken.

The McCain campaign refused to comment publicly on where trims will come, but some cuts are obvious.

By shifting focus to four early-primary states, McCain’s shop can close down offices in Michigan and Alabama, states with primaries that will come after the field is vetted – and narrowed – by voters in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Some other trims were already in place.

After a disappointing $13 million first-quarter fundraising report, the McCain camp revamped its fundraising operation and negotiated downward the more than $1 million it paid to consultants.

But other cuts are hard because they involve the operation’s far-flung and well-paid staff, and could possibly be harmful to his political aims.

For instance, the Iowa office has been cut in half, although the campaign may refill some of those positions later.

Job cuts

Payroll ranked as McCain’s single-biggest expense in the first quarter, at $1.6 million.

Today, campaign officials are consolidating jobs, shedding others and converting paid employees into volunteers.

By reducing staff, McCain can wrest savings in other expense categories, including payroll taxes ($851,112 for the first quarter alone) and personnel payroll processing and insurance ($287,657 in the first quarter).

The way some outside campaign finance experts see it, if McCain can reduce his burn rate by a million, he will need only about $12 million to cover his overhead costs between now and the Iowa caucuses expected in January.

Money brought in during the third and fourth quarter that exceeds his fixed costs can be set aside for advertising and other political tactics vital to getting his messages out to the voters.

Of course, that assumes McCain can maintain donor confidence in the viability of his campaign and his management of it.

One Republican insider says he can do that based on his long history as a leader in the party.

But the expected entry of former Sen. Fred Thompson into the race later this month will surely test him.

Loans make the difference

McCain isn’t the only candidate with burn rate issues.

Mitt Romney managed to mask his by lending his campaign $6.5 million in the second quarter – a sum that accounts for nearly a third of the total cash he raised in the second quarter: $20.5 million.

He loaned himself $2.4 million in the first quarter.

He ranks as the Republican presidential field’s top money raiser and spender, collecting $44 million from supporters since January and spending $32 million.

Like McCain, he has opened offices outside the early-state perimeters, including in Michigan and Florida.

After spending about $4 million on television advertising, Romney’s average monthly burn rate for overhead expenses is running around $4.7 million.

Only the candidate’s infusion of $9 million in personal loans prevented his campaign from reporting a second-quarter cash balance as strikingly low as McCain’s.

Kevin Madden, a Romney spokesman, said the spending rates are necessary because the former Massachusetts governor is a newcomer to the national stage.

“Money doesn’t do any good sitting in a bank when you are not as well known as the other candidates."

"That is one of the realities of this campaign,” he said.

Madden refused to say how much of his personal fortune Romney is willing to spend on his presidential ambitions.

Would he still be in the race if a majority of his campaign cash came from his personal account?

“If 'ifs' and 'buts' were beer and nuts, we’d have a heckuva party,” was Madden’s mantra.

But it’s clear the Romney family account will remain available for subsidy payments as long as the candidate is convinced his support is growing.

Madden pointed out that Romney more than doubled his donor base, from 32,000 in the first quarter to 80,000 in the second quarter.

“That’s the model we expect to advance from here forward,” said Madden.

It’s unclear whether Rudy Giuliani’s financial situation will follow a similar pattern.

He ended the quarter in the best financial shape of the Republicans, raising $17 million and reporting $18 million cash on hand.

But Giuliani’s expenses for now appear to be on a par with those of his competitors.

He spent only about $5 million in the first quarter after launching his bid midway through the quarter.

As he began building a full-scale operation, his expenses in the second quarter shot up to $11 million, creating an average burn rate of around $3.6 million.

But he is building an aggressive organization, establishing operations in such expensive venues as Florida and California.

If Giuliani keeps up that pace, he may emerge as the only Republican leader who is raising more money than he’s spending.

But even in Giuliani’s second-quarter winning numbers there was a warning signal: He was the only top Republican to report raising more in the second quarter than in the first – and the increase amounted to just $300,000.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/4804.html