Wednesday, October 30, 2002

THE (POSSIBLE) ASSASSINATION OF PAUL WELLSTONE


George W. Bush's Legacy of Cynicism and Contempt



George W. Bush and his henchmen stole the presidency. They threw thousands of innocent people into prison without even charging them with a crime. They're gearing up to invade Iraq without bothering to come up with a substantial justification. Now some Democrats and progressive Americans are asking the unthinkable about an administration they increasingly believe to be ruled by thugs and renegades. Did government gangsters murder the United States' most liberal legislator?


Talk of foul play began hours after Senator Paul Wellstone's plane went down over northeastern Minnesota on Oct. 25, killing him, his wife and his daughter, along with three staffers and two pilots. "Please tell me I'm wrong to be thinking what I'm thinking," a self-described "liberal Democrat" from St. Paul e-mailed me that evening. "I want to be wrong, but I wouldn't put it past the Republicans--THESE Republicans--to sabotage Wellstone's plane." Internet discussion groups and e-mail in-boxes quickly echoed her sentiment.


People expressed similar fears after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan (news - web sites) died in plane crashes--the latter weeks before facing an election challenge from future Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites)--but the whispers of assassination following the Wellstone tragedy are more widespread and gaining mainstream currency far beyond the usual conspiracy nuts.

Arafat extends the olive branch to Israel


Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called yesterday for "reconciliation" with Israel and renewed his condemnation of attacks on civilians in a special session of parliament.

"I extend my hand in reconciliation to the Israelis to resume the peace process launched in Madrid in 1991," said Arafat, who has frequently called for a resumption of talks.

He likewise called for Israel and the Palestinians to be "good neighbours".

"We want to live as neighbours. Let us find a common ground for the security we desire, which you desire, for our common security," the Palestinian leader said.

The veteran leader, looking serious as he read out his speech before MPs in the West Bank town of Ramallah, also condemned attacks on civilians "anywhere in the world".


"I condemn terrorist operations against civilians anywhere in the world," he said.

Israel and the Palestinians have been locked in a cycle of bloodshed since a Palestinian uprising for independence began in September 2000.

Mr Arafat made his remarks in a speech announcing a new cabinet.

His previous cabinet quit last month after sensing it would lose a confidence vote in the reform-minded Palestinian Legislative Council which has criticised Arafat's government amid the uprising.

The new cabinet, if approved by parliament next week, will serve until presidential and legislative elections on January 20, 2003.

Meanwhile the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, faced a deepening rift with his main co-alition partner over funding for Jewish settlements on Monday, raising the prospect he will be forced to call early elections.

The impasse with the Labour Party was Mr Sharon's most serious political challenge since he came to power 19 months ago in the early stages of a Palestinian up-rising that he has failed to quell de-spite campaign pledges to restore security.

The Labour leader and De-fence Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said this week his centre-left party was certain to vote against Israel's 2003 budget un-less Mr Sharon shifted some money earmarked for settle-ments to social programs.

US intensifies Iraq build-up




The US military is continuing to move men and equipment towards Iraq as the Bush administration signals that the time for diplomacy at the United Nations is fast running out.
Air strikes against Iraqi missile batteries and radars said to be threatening US and British aircraft patrolling the air exclusion zones over northern and southern Iraq have become more frequent.

All the signs are that the military build-up could accelerate dramatically over the next few months if the US administration decides upon military action against Iraq.

Whatever may have been happening at the UN, the US military has been working to a pre-determined timeline - one that envisages a potential conflict with Iraq early in 2003.

Anti-Terrorism: a History of Abuses


Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security, David Cole and James X. Dempsey, (New Press 2002)

In 1999, Georgetown University Law professor David Cole and the Center for Democracy and Technology's James Dempsey published the first edition of their work Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. It detailed the enactment of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act--which, at the time, was famous not so much for its terrorism provision, but rather for its draconian pro-death penalty and anti-habeas corpus provisions.

This year brings the book's second edition--updated to account for recent developments in the "war on terrorism." The authors detail the Clinton administration's use of the Antiterrorism Act and examine the enactment and scope of the USA PATRIOT Act--a hastily enacted, post-9/11 law that gives the government wide-sweeping surveillance powers over American citizens.

Throughout Terrorism and the Constitution, Cole and Dempsey diverge from popular opinion by insisting that civil liberties, far from being a threat to national security, are the essence of America. What are we "fighting" for in this war on terrorism, they ask, if not to protect our way of life--which has personal liberty at its very core?

Neohawks: Leftists Who Love the War Too Much


Greil Marcus is a discerning radical humanist. So it was a shock to pick up the progressive paper First of the Month and find him dissing leftist intellectuals for their skepticism about the war on terror. Marcus is not the only member of the counterculturati to find the hawk within. Dan Savage, the shoot-from-the-hip sex columnist, has lately become hip to the shoot. Then there's Christopher Hitchens, the ex-socialist who has found an occasion in 9-11 to revise his ideological profile. He is now a latter-day incarnation of the Cold War liberal. Hitchens's recent homage to George Orwell includes a remarkable defense of his work for the British government during the McCarthy era, when Orwell supplied lists of suspected com-symps, dutifully noting who was homosexual—or Jewish. Hey, says Hitchens, Orwell wasn't lying.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

Democrats: Fire SEC Chairman Pitt




WASHINGTON -- Democratic leaders on Wednesday asked President Bush to remove Harvey Pitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, whom they accuse of opposing a tough candidate to head a new oversight board at the accounting industry's behest.

The White House called the accusations politically motivated. The call for Pitt's resignation came from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., at a news conference on Social Security in which they tried to switch the dominant political focus away from possible war with Iraq.

Daschle and Gephardt told Bush in a letter that Pitt's "repeated insensitivity suggests an arrogant indifference to the appearance of conflicts of interest."

Pitt is "giving the accounting industry a veto over who will head the new board," Daschle told reporters. "This is exactly the kind of abuse the new board was created to prevent."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer dismissed the charges.

"It's an old, tired cry," Fleischer said, citing what he said was the SEC's record number of enforcement actions and its confiscation of corrupt executives' illicitly earned money. "I think it's a political charge that has no merit and substance," he said.

Daschle and other Democrats already had called for Pitt to resign earlier this year, but so did a leading Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was blunter, calling Daschle and Gephardt's letter to Bush "amazingly hypocritical."

Oxley, who has been identified as the key GOP lawmaker allied with the accounting industry in opposing John Biggs to head the new board, said the Democrats "actively promote the candidacy of one individual."

Bush, who appointed Pitt in spring 2001 to head the market watchdog agency, has stood by him.

Pitt, who previously represented Wall Street's big players and all Big Five auditing firms as a private securities lawyer, is back in the hot seat in a year of corporate accounting scandals that started with the collapse of Enron Corp.

He was criticized last spring for meeting privately with the heads of companies under investigation by the SEC, and the watchdog group Common Cause demanded his resignation.

HARKEN COVER-UP
COLLAPSES

Dubya Approved Insider Trading, Market Manipulation

Covert Bail Out By Poppy Oil Backer And Hussein Crony

White House Stonewall Breached



George W. Bush has consistently told the press and the American people that everything they need to know about his shady dealings with the Harken Energy Corporation are well-established matters of record. The Securities and Exchange Commission, Bush has asserted, "fully looked into the matter, they looked at all aspects of it, and they did so in a very thorough way, and the people that looked into it said there is no case." Bush’s own S.E.C. Chairman, Harvey Pitt, has agreed, and has refused to reopen the S.E.C.’s suspended investigation into Harken or release files on the case, because, he says, there is nothing new.

“Unless there is a reason to reopen ancient history,” Pitt said on Meet the Press, “we should move on with the future and start helping today’s investors.”

But now, according to major reports in the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe, the White House cover-up on Harken has begun to collapse. There is plenty that is new.

These reports document how a long-time Bush family political supporter, Robert J. Stone, Jr., in league with the Cabot family oil interests, manipulated the Harvard Management Company to invest millions in Harken in an off-the books arrangement that bailed the failing company out of a liquidity crisis, kept hidden from Harken investors and the S.E.C., in 1990.

The reports further show that the financial guarantor of the deal was none other than Robert Abboud of First City Boston -- the one-time head of the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, a close political supporter of Bush’s father, a personal friend of Saddam Hussein, and a figure with a longtime history of dubious financial and political dealings.

Finally, the reports show that George W. Bush, as a member of Harken’s audit committee, personally signed off on the secret deals, the deception of investors, and the manipulation of Harken’s stock price.

As a result of that manipulation, the S.E.C. then justified its suspension of its investigation into possible fraud in the younger Bush’s earlier Harken dealings – an investigation whose files still remain under lock and key thanks to Harvey Pitt.

“It seems to be a simple case of Aeneas [Harvard Management Company’s venture capital arm] bailing out Harken,” Dala Bharan, the accounting expert consulted by the Wall Street Journal, said.

The timing of that bail-out is all-important – coming at a time that salvaged George W. Bush’s sinking reputation as a businessman and fended off official federal investigations.

So are the off-the-books methods, which are almost identical to the kinds of arrangements that the thieves at Enron indulged in.

And the persons involved make the reports all the more alarming.

Why has Robert J. Stone refused for two months to return the phone calls of the Wall Street Journal? What did he get in exchange for his largesse?

And what did Robert Abboud – a name that sticks out like a sore thumb – get out of the deal?

Will the Media Whores question Ari Fleischer about Bush’s pattern of false and misleading statements about his Harken dealings and his continuing cover-up?

Will they ask Harvey Pitt whether he will noe reopen the S.E.C. investigation into Harken?

Will they follow up on the roles played by Robert J. Stone, Jr., the Bush political contributor who manipulated Harvard Management Company to save Dubya; and Robert Abboud, former presdent the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, who sealed the deal for Dubya?

Developing slickly...

Sticking Up for the 'Dirty Bomber'



Donna Newman is the sort of person America's folksy President might like. She's been happily married for 34 years, raised two children, and built a solid law practice on humble roots and cheery grit. Like George W. Bush, she's gym-fit and quick to quip, with her own hometown drawl, Brooklyn style, and a penchant for talking complex law in lay lingo. ("Kinda cute," she calls one procedural twist.)
But since June she's been putting in 15-hour days for weeks at a stretch, trying to prove the president dead wrong. He broke the law, she claims, in labeling American Jose Padilla—the so-called dirty bomber—an "enemy combatant" and ordering him into indefinite military detention.

She has wrestled with Bush's lawyers in a series of court filings that U.S. District Court Chief Judge Michael Mukasey has waited to review as a whole before ruling, which he's expected to do within the month. Previously an obscure if successful criminal defense lawyer, she has recently appeared on national television and seen her name—and age, to her horror—blown up in headline type in the pages of Time. It is not too great a stretch to imagine that she is heading for her first appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The whirlwind began on June 9, when the commander in chief ordered that Padilla be transferred from a regular prison in Manhattan into military custody. Until then, Padilla had been held as a noncriminal witness in the ongoing September 11 probe, having been arrested May 8 in Chicago and taken to New York for questioning. Newman, who like many private practitioners elects to serve periodically as a $90-an-hour court-appointed defender, was assigned to Padilla then.

The day after the president issued his order, Attorney General John Ashcroft, via television from Moscow, accused Padilla of meeting with senior Al Qaeda officials and "exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or dirty bomb, in the United States."

Newman received no notice of Padilla's transfer to military custody. When a government lawyer finally called her with the news, she thought he was kidding. "Just because he's a prosecutor doesn't mean he can't have a sense of humor."

But the government had thrust her into a quite serious fight. Padilla is the only American civilian ever to be arrested on U.S. soil and held by the military without a charge, a court hearing, or access to his lawyer. Unlike Yaser Hamdi, the other U.S. citizen imprisoned under similar restrictions, or "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, Padilla was not captured in a war zone aligned with enemy forces. He was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport, disembarking from a commercial flight he had taken with his real passport. Newman claims he was on his way to visit his son.

While Padilla—a jailhouse Muslim convert with a rap sheet listing murder—is hardly America's sweetheart, his fate carries implications for all Americans. Newman has largely avoided saying so, fearful of grandstanding. But in an interview last week, she voiced the stakes that have prompted the ACLU and other civil rights groups to file papers in Padilla's name.

To the average American, says Newman, a Bush win would mean: "You can be locked up for the rest of your natural years based on [the president's] say-so. Based on your neighbor, who doesn't like you and reports you. Based on a combination of circumstances that together don't look too good. And you wouldn't have a chance to say, 'Hey, wait a minute. Let me explain.' "

Two days after the military seized Padilla, Newman launched a habeas corpus bid that, no matter how it ends, is going down in history. Along with co-counsel Andrew Patel, whom the judge appointed to share the monstrous workload, she scrambled to master aspects of constitutional, international, and martial law, calling scholars around the country and consulting every defense veteran she knew. Her aim: to get Padilla charged (and therefore into court), or released.

Screw you!
You -- with the 401(k). Yeah, I'm talking to you.




AUSTIN, Texas -- We just lost the whole ballgame on corporate reform -- without the news even making it to the front page. The sick, sad tidings were tucked away discreetly on the business pages: "SEC Chief Hedges on Accounting Regulator." Now there's a sexy headline.
All of you who were shafted by Enron, shucked by Worldcom, jived by Global Crossing, everyone whose 401(k) is now a 201(k) (I think that's Paul Begala's line), you just got screwed again. They're not going to fix it.

They've already called off the reform effort; it's over. Corporate muscle showed up and shut it down. Forget expensing options, independent directors, going after offshore shams, derivatives regulation. For that matter, forget even basic reforms like separating the auditing and consulting functions of accounting firms and rotating accounting firms every few years. Bottom line: It's all going to happen again. We learned zip from the entire financial collapse. Our political system is too bought-off to respond intelligently.

Even the normally impeccable Lou Dobbs had taken to referring to SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt as "a reformer," a usage that stretches the language. Pitt, President Bush's appointee to the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a career-long mercenary for the securities industry, is the lawyer who memorably advised in one law journal article: If you get in trouble, shred the evidence. He came in promising to make the SEC "a kinder, gentler place for accountants." This unpromising champion of reform -- appointed to keep the corporations happy -- came under such heavy political fire during the financial collapse that he was suddenly out there flirting with Paul Volcker, Arthur Levitt and other genuinely concerned citizens with actual ideas about how to fix this ghastly mess.

No mas. According to The New York Times: "Harvey L. Pitt, under pressure from Republicans and former clients in the accounting industry, is backing away from the choice he and other members of the SEC favored to lead the new federal agency that will oversee the industry. Industry executives and at least one prominent Republican lawmaker complained that the top choice, John H. Biggs, was too tough on the industry."

And pigs will fly





You know the feeling you get when your darned checkbook just won't seem to balance. Multiply by a few zillions, and you have some idea of the way Washington is running things these days. It's not just a nightmare; it's that old familiar nightmare we thought we had shaken off years ago: A ballooning federal deficit and its evil twin, a widening trade gap, threaten the U.S. dollar, our financial markets, and our monetary policy. For the first time since 1997, our budget this year will show a deficit probably in excess of $160 billion, in sharp contrast with a $127 billion surplus last year. This dizzying swing–$287 billion–is the largest on record.


Why the big change? The drop in tax revenue this year, of over $130 billion, is the sharpest in 56 years, much of it due to layoffs, pay cuts, pay freezes, fewer exercised stock options, and a fall in capital gains. What's more, the reduction of tax rates for upper-income households enacted last year means that when the economy does finally pick up steam, Washington won't see a commensurate pickup in tax revenue.

The projected 10-year federal budget surplus had already shrunk by nearly 95 percent, from $5.6 trillion to $336 billion. But even that number is wildly overoptimistic. It doesn't include the costs of a prescription drug program for seniors, estimated to cost at least $300 billion over the next decade. It also doesn't include appropriate costs for military and homeland defense spending. And it assumes that discretionary spending will rise at the rate of inflation, a pipe dream. If government spending continues to increase at its current rate of 8.5 percent, we will add an additional $2.9 trillion in debt over the next decade.

Spree. Think it won't happen? Just look at discretionary spending this year. It's up by almost 14 percent, the biggest government spending spree in a generation. In fact, for the first time in over 30 years, annually appropriated programs controlled by Congress and the president have grown faster than formula-driven entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Only a third of the entire $91 billion increase in annually appropriated funds has been spent on homeland security and national defense; the rest goes for everything from highway construction to farm subsidies.

SEC is blasted in Enron fraud




WASHINGTON -- A Senate panel investigating Enron Corp.'s collapse said the Securities and Exchange Commission missed early signs of financial abuses at the energy giant, raising questions about whether the agency is "effectively functioning as the lead market watchdog that it is meant to be."

The investigation by the Governmental Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., found a "systemic and catastrophic failure" by those charged with protecting investors -- including stock analysts, credit-rating agencies and the SEC, according to the committee's report, which is to be released today.

Some of the harshest words were directed at the SEC, whose chairman, Harvey Pitt, has been criticized for not being more aggressive in rooting out corporate wrongdoing -- although many of the shortcomings highlighted in the committee's report date to before Pitt took over as chairman in August 2001.

"The SEC, with its relatively small staff, does not, and is not set up to, directly perform many of the tasks necessary to root out corporate fraud," the report says. In a list of suggested reforms, the report recommends that the agency dramatically upgrade its oversight of corporate finances, including performing random corporate audits.

Enron's descent into bankruptcy last December, after disclosures that it used off-the-books partnerships to hide debt, spawned a frenzy of congressional hearings; contributed to passage of sweeping accounting reforms; and culminated last week in the arrest of Andrew Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, on charges of fraud.

Enron also faces two separate investigations by federal grand juries: one in Houston that is looking into the company's financial collapse; and another, out of San Francisco, that is investigating the role played by Enron and other electricity marketers in the California energy crisis.

The Senate committee investigation focused on whether the government and private-sector watchdogs could have done more to prevent Enron's collapse and the loss of billions of dollars by its investors, including its employees' retirement savings.

Bleeding us with more leeches: Big Insurance parasites dig deeper -- Oregon reaches for the salt


Here in Washington State, amidst the port shutdown and the Great War Debate, a different story slipped through the news last week: Premera Blue Cross wants to become a for-profit company.
Uh-oh.

Our state's largest health insurer wants to raise money by selling shares, and the state government is salivating at the chance to collect extra taxes (back and future) from a for-profit corporation. Democratic Gov. Gary Locke and lots of Olympia legislators love the idea, just like they did when the state's second-largest insurer, Regence Blue Shield, proposed the same thing a few months back. Nobody will suffer but us customers -- which is to say, everyone who needs health care at one time or another -- which is to say, most everyone.

That's not the official line, of course, which enthuses about improved service and rates and blah blah blah. Bullfeathers. As with most privatization schemes, this has been a trend sweeping the country, and it's been a disaster everywhere it's been tried. On this score, consider those flaming Bolshies, the Washington State Medical Association. WSMA's CEO, Tom Curry, notes dryly of the idea that "We're not aware of any place in the country where these conversions have improved things for plan subscribers, patients, doctors, or hospitals... The experience nationally is that plans that convert to investor-based operations use their capital to acquire other plans."

Tribulation Worketh Patience


We may soon find out, if W. David Hager becomes chairman of the powerful Food and Drug Administration panel on women's health policy. His résumé seems more impressive for theology than gynecology.

"Jesus stood up for women at a time when women were second-class citizens," Dr. Hager says. "I often say, if you are liberated, a woman's libber, you can thank Jesus for that."

A professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kentucky, he has a considerable body of work about Jesus' role in healing women, and last summer he helped the Christian Medical Association with a "citizens' petition" calling on the F.D.A. to reverse its approval of RU-486, the "abortion pill," claiming it puts women at risk. (RU-486 or RU-4Jesus?)

Karen Tumulty reports in Time that the F.D.A. senior associate commissioner, Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with Bush family ties, has rejected doctors proposed by F.D.A. staffers and is pushing Dr. Hager.

The policy panel, which helped get RU-486 approved, will lead the study on the hot issue of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women. As Time notes: "Some conservatives are trying to use doubts about such therapy to discredit the use of birth control pills, which contain similar compounds."

Dr. Hager wrote "As Jesus Cared for Women," blending biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from his own practice. "Jesus still longs to bring wholeness to women today," the jacket says.

He writes about a young patient named Sparkle who gets a job at a strip joint in Kentucky and becomes promiscuous and gets several sexually transmitted diseases. Sparkle reminds him of "a woman Jesus met who was generally known in her town as a sinner, but whom Jesus saw through eyes of love."

With his wife, Linda, he wrote "Stress and the Woman's Body," which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends Scripture readings to treat headaches (Matthew 13:44-46); eating disorders (Corinthians II, 10:2-5) and premenstrual syndrome (Romans 5:1-11, "Tribulation worketh patience.")

To exorcise affairs, the Hagers suggest a spiritual exercise: "Picture Jesus coming into the room. He walks over to you and folds you gently into his arms. He tousles your hair and kisses you gently on the cheek. . . . Let this love begin to heal you from the inside out."

Dr. Hager is also an editor of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies, and the Family." One of the pieces, "Using the Birth Control Pill is Ethically Unacceptable," says scientific data show that the pill causes abortions.

Dr. Hager said he disagreed with that piece. He says he prefers not to prescribe contraceptives to single women, but will if they insist and reject his advice to abstain.

The 'C' word: One magic word that might diffuse the public-opinion dumb bom


Gathering dust on a desk somewhere in the Pentagon is a computer printout listing projected American casualties for a range of Iraq invasion scenarios. Unfortunately, these vital figures are the only numbers that haven't been part of the war debate.
All together now: Casualties.

We've heard all kinds of estimates about how much the war is going to cost -- including Ari Fleischer's ultra-macho Bullet to Saddam's Head discount special -- how many troops will be deployed, how much the price of oil may go up, and the over-under on how long our forces will have to remain in Iraq. We've been given headcounts of Iraq's fractious Kurds and Shiites, reference numbers for security council resolutions defied, and been frequently reminded that Saddam has remained in power for 34 years, 11 of them since the last time we tried to send him and his mustache packing.

But no one in the Bush administration is talking about how many of our soldiers will be sent home in body bags. And not a single reporter has stood up at a press conference -- or at one of the president's countless fundraising appearances -- and asked, "Mr. President, how many young Americans are going to die?"

Will the deaths number in the hundreds, as was the case in Desert Storm and as would be again if Saddam collapsed like a cheap umbrella? Or will they be closer to the 10,000 to 50,000 some experts have predicted? And is Saddam the clear and present danger that would justify asking our sons and daughters to give up their lives for their country?

Edwards to Criticize Bush Foreign Policy



Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who has been one of the most outspoken supporters of military action against Iraq, will today distance himself from the administration with a speech in which he accuses President Bush of conducting a foreign policy of "arrogance without purpose" that is marked by "gratuitous unilateralism."

Edwards, a prospective 2004 presidential candidate, also will call for the creation of a new domestic intelligence agency to supplant the work of the FBI, a change that he argues would do a better job of protecting domestic security while providing greater protections for civil liberties during the war on terrorism.

Edwards is a sponsor of an administration-backed resolution in the Senate authorizing Bush to go to war against Iraq, but in today's speech he will condemn the administration for treating U.S. allies with contempt, for seeing military action as a "first resort" and for confusing leadership with wanting to go it alone.

"Instead of demonstrating 'purpose without arrogance' as the president promised in his inaugural address, the administration's foreign policy projects the opposite: arrogance without purpose," Edwards says in a draft of the speech that was made available to The Washington Post yesterday. "We seem determined to act alone for the sake of acting alone, which may be the easy way to achieve our short-term ends, but will never result in long-term security."

Edwards will deliver the speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies a few hours before Bush speaks to the nation about the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Edwards, along with two other possible presidential candidates, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee, has been among the strongest allies in Bush's effort to gain congressional authorization for military action against Iraq, even if the United Nations balks.

But the bulk of his prepared remarks focuses on sharp differences with the administration's overall approach to foreign policy. He challenges Bush's newly enunciated doctrine of preemption, arguing that it has been "damaging and distracting" to the administration's effort to rally international support for a war against Iraq.

REMAIN UNTIL CONGRESS VOTES ON WAR POWERS


Hours from now, a historic bill will be voted on in Congress which will shift war powers from the Congress to the Executive Branch, giving the president "authorization to use Armed Forces of the US as he determines necessary". Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, for the war or against, too much is at stake for this nation to transfer war powers from Congress to a single person. What can you do?

It is important to activate the nation in the hours remaining. Once this upcoming vote has been passed, our civil and legislative input on this conflict will be vastly muted. As the hours slip past, many of our nations leaders are finding the bravery to voice their concerns despite the short term concerns of the impending elections. It is up to you to recognize this as a critical moment in our nation's history and act now. Our best defense is to FILIBUSTER (measure used in Senate to delay a vote) in hopes to give this pivotal bill the debate it deserves. The press states that the President has urged Congress to pass this bill with out delay despite the building public outcry now overwhelming Senate offices. Headlines report the vote will pass overwhelmingly...but there are many brave Senators whom this coverage fails to account for. Senator Byrd has not released information on filibuster coalition though this possibility seems active. We still have a few hours to wake Congress up!

Dawn raids stoke fires of resentment




It was night when the American military helicopters landed in the dry cornfields around the village of Aab Khiel. Within minutes dozens of soldiers surrounded the small cluster of mud and brick homes, and the house-to-house search began.
"When they came to my house they didn't knock on the door, they just forced their way in," said Qarimullah, 28, a young farmer in the village, recalling last week's raid. "They broke the locks on the doors and our safe boxes. They took my camera and they threw all our clothes on the floor. They said they were looking for al-Qaida but why did they come into our houses like this? This is not right."

When America began Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan a year ago it was largely welcomed. At last the west was promising to bring peace and reconstruction to a country run by warlords and ravaged by drought and 20 years of conflict.

But slowly Afghans have grown resentful of the thousands of US troops. The bitterness is especially deep in the southern Pashtun tribal lands, where the Stars and Stripes flies above isolated and heavily fortified bases in areas that were once the Taliban's heartland. Many Afghans, including powerful commanders, want them out.

Complaints of US army patrols becoming heavy handed in the past month have come from several villages in the south-east, particularly around the towns of Khost and Gardez. They say the soldiers have confiscated satellite telephones, passports, house and car documents and even family photographs.

No one was arrested Aab Khiel last week and no trace of al-Qaida was found. The operation succeeded only in turning the village solidly against the US military presence.

New Jersey Redraws Party Lines



Senator Robert G. Torricelli's withdrawal from the New Jersey race last week could mean defeat for the state's Democrats. Not only did they lose the advantage of incumbency, but the legal and political battles over his replacement could linger through the remainder of the campaign.

Yet unless the United States Supreme Court reverses the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision allowing the Democratic Party to replace Mr. Torricelli on the ballot with former Senator Frank Lautenberg, the Democrats stand a good chance of winning the election. That's because New Jersey, which voted for Republican presidential candidates from 1968 through 1988, is part of a nationwide swing — particularly strong in the Northeast, Far West and parts of the Midwest —toward the Democratic Party.

The first and most obvious reason for this trend is that the parties have changed. The New Jersey Republican Party used to be dominated by New Deal liberals, but since the late 70's conservatives have played a growing role. Republicans would nominate some moderates like former governors Thomas H. Kean and Christie Whitman, but they would also regularly back conservative candidates like gubernatorial nominees Jim Courter and Bret D. Schundler, whom Democrats easily defeated. Meanwhile, after voters denied re-election to Gov. Jim Florio, a Democrat, in 1993, largely because of his tax increases, New Jersey Democrats have moved to the political center. Gov. James E. McGreevey was the chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council in New Jersey and is fiscally cautious.

But the state's electorate has also changed dramatically. New Jersey used to be known for its heavy industry and its midsized immigrant cities, but it has become the nation's pre-eminent suburban, postindustrial state. It's a leader in financial and commercial services; it still makes goods, but many of them, like pharmaceuticals, are the products of extensive research and design. Professionals make up almost a quarter of New Jersey's work force, compared to 15 percent nationally.

In the 1950's, professionals voted Republican. But since the 1960's they have come to care more about clean air and water, women's rights, gun control and campaign finance reform. Many professionals, like doctors, worry that the quality of their work is being undermined by market forces. They don't like budget deficits and are leery of big spending programs, but they are concerned about inequality and injustice. And they increasingly vote Democratic.

Illusions Of Iraqi Democracy



In its effort to garner domestic and international support for a military campaign to disarm Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's regime, the Bush administration has promised to bring democracy into the country and strategically transform the whole region. President Bush and his senior aides note that liberating Baghdad would usher in a peaceful, democratic dawn in Iraq that would spill over into other authoritarian Arab states. It is a tall and ambitious order for the Middle East. But as America moves closer to war with Iraq, the policy debates have focused on procedural issues, not on the internal conditions in Iraq that will determine the likelihood of a peaceful, democratic state after Hussein's departure.

Iraq's fragmented society and blood-soaked political history should make anyone wary of predicting the swift creation of a viable democracy there. The U.S. establishment does not seem to appreciate how deeply entrenched are sectarian, tribal and ethnic loyalties and how complex would be the job of reconnecting Iraqi communities, estranged from one another by decades of divisive official policies.

Iraq always has been difficult to manage and govern. Hastily glued together by Britain in the 1920s to serve its imperial interests, it was placed under the Hashemite monarchy, brought from nearby Hijaz (today's Saudi Arabia), which lacked public legitimacy because of its close ties with colonial Britain and its narrow social base of support. The Hashemites were detached from everyday life; state and society remained separate. Reliance on the army for its hold on power meant that it was only a matter of time before "the man on horseback" would overthrow the monarchy and rule Iraq with an iron fist. Ambitious army officers were in a hurry to do away with the old order and to remake Iraq in their own image: hierarchical, rigid and authoritarian.

Abdul Karim Qasim's brutal 1958 coup inaugurated a new militaristic era in Iraq and sowed the seeds of perpetual power struggles and bloodshed. Between 1958 and 1968, army officers turned their guns against one another and terrorized Iraqis into submission. Their rivalry, along nationalist-communist lines, mirrored that of Iraqi society and was resolved mostly by physical elimination and exclusion. The mentality of the mob prevailed and both groups committed atrocities and massacres that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of activists and innocent civilians. Iraq became the most violent and volatile country in the region.

Mohamed Heikal, an astute observer of Arab politics, has asserted: "Iraq has always been a border state between civilizations and a place where empires collided and armies clashed. Violence has become ingrained in the Iraqi character."

The West's battle for oil




Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq ... to secure control of its oil. Neil Mackay on the document which casts doubt on the hawks



IT is a document that fundamentally questions the motives behind the Bush administration's desire to take out Saddam Hussein and go to war with Iraq.
Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century describes how America is facing the biggest energy crisis in its history. It targets Saddam as a threat to American interests because of his control of Iraqi oilfields and recommends the use of 'military intervention' as a means to fix the US energy crisis.

The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs. It was commissioned by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, and submitted to Vice-President Dick Cheney in April 2001 -- a full five months before September 11. Yet it advocates a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields.

One of the most telling passages in the document reads: 'Iraq remains a destabilising influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets.

'This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab leader ... and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments.

'The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies.'

At the moment, UN sanctions allow Iraq to export some oil. Indeed, the US imports almost a million barrels of Iraqi oil a day, even though American firms are forbidden from direct involvement with the regime's oil industry. In 1999, Iraq was exporting around 2.5 million barrels a day across the world.

The US document recommends using UN weapons inspectors as a means of controlling Iraqi oil. On one hand, 'military intervention' is supported; but the report also backs 'de-fanging' Saddam through weapons inspectors and then moving in to take control of Iraqi oil.

Republicans, Corporate Players Make the Voting Machines



The story is not about allegations of fraud — it's about an appearance of impropriety that is stunning in its magnitude.

Unfettered by any disclosure regulations about ownership or political affiliations, just a few companies create and control almost all the voting machines in the U.S.

Election Systems & Software, the firm whose machines were involved in the 2002 flubbed Florida primary election — and the company that now makes the voting machines for most of America — is a private company that does not like to tell the public who owns it. But at least one major shareholder is Michael R. McCarthy, who runs the McCarthy Group. The McCarthy Group has been a primary owner of Election Systems & Software, including its predecessor, American Information Systems for more than a decade. Michael R. McCarthy is the current campaign Treasurer for Republican senator Chuck Hagel. [See Hagel and McCarthy Documents] Prior to his election, Republican Senator Hagel was president of McCarthy & Company. In fact, he was first elected while his own company was making the vote-counting machines!

Before the 2002 Election, let's get disclosure from the handful of companies who make the voting machines that count our votes. These companies have nothing to hide (right?) so they should do this voluntarily. Then, Senator Hagel will lead the charge (won't he?) and he'll protect us from a situation that is, frankly, dangerous to Democracy, by getting some regulations in place:

(1) Require that any company who makes voting machines publicly disclose identities and political activities. And while we're at it, maybe criminal background checks are a nice idea, because if Republicans can control the big corporations that make the voting machines, just think what would happen if some crooks got into it. But I repeat myself.

(2) Require that all voting machines produce tamper-proof audit trails — and that means retaining a paper trail — using transparent computer code so that independent experts can investigate allegations of election tampering whenever needed.

''Democracy sucks''



(YellowTimes.org) – This article was prompted by an e-mail exchange I had with a reader who had written to me about one of my earlier columns (it doesn't matter which one; this reader doesn't like any of them). After a few messages between us, our reader finally concluded by saying that YellowTimes.org promotes anti-Americanism, that our funding all comes from places like Teheran and Beirut, and that we actively discourage democracy. As I would hope you all understand, none of this is true but his final accusation caught my attention. How exactly do we discourage democracy? In our view, we are fervently hoping that people will once again participate in democracy and we are trying to engage them to do so.

We've all heard variations on the statement, usually ascribed to Winston Churchill, that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. But somebody define democracy for me. The Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1992 pocket edition) says it is: "1. government by the whole population, usually through elected representatives; 2. classless and tolerant society." Anybody know where I can find one of those? Does everyone agree that's what makes a democracy?

A few years ago, a very bright Canadian journalist by the name of Patrick Watson got intrigued by the question of just what is a democracy. He noted that, for instance, the United States has a formal constitution and a whole set of laws and rules for how its version of democracy works. Countries following the English parliamentary tradition don't follow the same rules as the U.S., but most folks would agree they are democracies. Many other nations follow neither of those models but still describe themselves as democracies. Is any one of these models the "real" democracy? Or are they variations of the same thing and thus equally entitled to think of themselves as democracies?

Watson produced a multi-segment documentary on the struggle for democracy and part of what had intrigued him was the variety of manifestations around the world of countries claiming to have democracies although they bore no resemblance to each other. In the course of his research, he was quite surprised to discover a number of countries who considered themselves to be democratic that would astonish most of us in the West: countries such as Libya, the former USSR, and China. How could they think of themselves as democracies? Because we are smug in our self-assurance and they are the bad guys, our natural tendency is to simply dismiss them as liars. But let's try to examine what democracy really is.

U.S. units on deck for Iraq


NEW YORK, Oct. 8 — As implausible as it sounds, the United States may yet reach some negotiated settlement with Iraq. But against the likelihood that there will not be a peaceful end to the Iraqi regime, the military has for some time been taking steps to ensure that any conflict will end on its terms.

AS DIPLOMATIC maneuvering continues, more concrete maneuvers are underway to get the U.S. military prepared for a conflict that would be fought in four distinct phases.

PHASE I: PREPARING THE GROUND
Employing satellite imagery, airborne reconnaissance, radio intercept and special operations forces, the United States already is trying to locate Scud missiles and warheads, command and control installations, and troop concentrations.
U.S. drone aircraft are being used to locate anti-aircraft missile sites and their controlling radars, destroying them with increasing frequency. So far this month alone, American forces have struck locations around al-Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, six times.
In addition, it is fair to assume that Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south already are being trained by U.S. special operations forces in small unit tactics like patrolling, ambushes and raids. This will enable them to fight if necessary and to help control their areas in the aftermath of an Iraqi surrender.

At the same time, the United States is moving the advance party elements of combat and support units into the region. Already, the U.S. has installations in Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Bahrain; the Marines are conducting exercises in Jordan. Some 6,000 U.S. airmen remain in Saudi Arabia, and United States Central Command or CENTCOM, which will be responsible for commanding the troops in any such war, already has moved elements of its headquarters to the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar.


Chemical Weapons Tests by US in 60s



The United States held open-air biological and chemical weapons tests in at least four states — Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Florida — during the 1960s in an effort to develop defenses against such weapons, according to Pentagon (news - web sites) documents.



A series of tests in Alaska from 1965-67 used artillery shells and bombs filled with the nerve agents sarin and VX, the records show.

The Defense Department planned to release summaries of 28 chemical and biological weapons tests at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained the summaries Tuesday.

The documents did not say whether any civilians had been exposed to the poisons. Military personnel exposed to weapons agents would have worn protective gear, the Pentagon says.

The Pentagon previously acknowledged that it had conducted biological and chemical tests, but this was the first time it disclosed that some tests were conducted over land and not out at sea.

The tests were part of Project 112, a military program in the 1960s and 1970s to test chemical and biological weapons and defenses against them. Parts of the testing program done on Navy ships were called Project SHAD, or Shipboard Hazard and Defense.

The tests were directed from the Deseret Test Center, part of a biological and chemical weapons complex in the Utah desert.

Some of those involved in the tests say they now suffer health problems linked to their exposure to dangerous chemicals and germs. They are pressing the Veterans Affairs Department to compensate them and the Defense Department to release more information about the tests.

In response to pressure from veterans and Congress, the Pentagon began releasing details of the tests last year. Earlier this year, the Defense Department acknowledged for the first time that some of the 1960s tests used real chemical and biological weapons, not just benign stand-ins.

"The Cold War era experiments of Project SHAD, which we are now learning used live toxins and chemical poisons on American servicemen on American soil, must be aggressively investigated in as open and transparent a manner as possible," said the House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. "Our focus must be on quickly identifying those veterans who were involved, assessing whether they suffered any negative health consequences and, if warranted, providing them with adequate health care and compensation for their service."

The Defense Department has identified nearly 3,000 soldiers involved in tests disclosed earlier, but the VA has sent letters to fewer than half of them. VA and Pentagon officials acknowledged at a July hearing that finding the soldiers has been difficult.


Reservists call on PM to stop sending them to illegal outposts


Dozens of soldiers, most of them reservists in an elite unit, have signed a petition in recent days which is to be sent to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government, and which demands the evacuation of all illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank.

The signatories are calling on Sharon to cease sending soldiers to protect these outposts and to dismantle them.

Amit Harel, one of the organizers of the petition, told Ha'aretz that the initiative was born after the unit took part in Operation Defensive Shield in April earlier this year. Since then members of the unit have taken part in various protest actions emphasizing the need for separation between Israel and the Palestinians.

Those signing the petition have made it clear that they are not refusing to serve in the territories and that they will continue to do reserve duty, regardless of their political opinions. The group plans to demonstrate opposite the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on Friday.

Meretz MK Mossi Raz, who serves in the unit, also signed the petition.

In the coming weeks, the issue of the illegal settlement outposts is likely to be back in the spotlight, especially with Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer planning to dismantle dozens of the outposts across the West Bank.

Straw fails to secure Arab support for UN resolution


Britain was rebuffed by Arab leaders yesterday as the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, attempted to drum up international support for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq that could pave the way for a military invasion.

Egypt and Jordan insisted that Saddam Hussein's acceptance of the return of weapons inspectors meant the standoff could be resolved under existing UN resolutions.

However as negotiations continued among the UN Security Council powers on a new resolution, it appeared that key states were narrowing their differences on the need to open up all suspect weapons sites to the inspectors – including presidential compounds. The major focus of the negotiations is on the trigger for military action, on which Russia and France have strong reservations.

Under the American draft, backed by Britain, any UN member could launch a military strike if it concluded Iraq had violated new Security Council demands relating to its suspected weapons of mass destruction.Mr Straw, who is on a four-day tour of Arab capitals, was told by the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher in Cairo that there was no need to "rewrite the rules in the middle of the game".

In both Egypt and Jordan, Mr Straw was told that the priority should be the early return of the inspectors, not military action to overthrow President Saddam.

King Abdullah of Jordan said: "Jordan hopes that the acceptance by Iraq of the return of the inspectors will lead to the implementation of all UN decisions linked to the Gulf War and will contribute to lower the tension and avoid a new conflict in the region."

Echoing the words of US President George Bush, who outlined his Iraq strategy in a speech on US television on Monday, Mr Straw said: "Use of force in Iraq is not inevitable. President Bush made that crystal clear in his speech yesterday, which I greatly welcome." President Bush, in his 25-minute speech in Cincinnati, called President Saddam a "homicidal dictator" and said that his "nuclear holy warriors" could have developed a nuclear weapon within a year.

Iraq dismissed the speech, in which Mr Bush said Iraq may be planning to attack the US with biological or chemical weapons, as "lies". The Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said: "The speech contained misleading information through which Bush is trying to justify an illogical and illegitimate attack on Iraq."

Looking Behind Ha'aretz's Liberal Image



A new Israeli web-site, supported by two major settlers' sites from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is dedicated to the holy cause of "encouraging and supporting the employment of Jews only". It is already listing dozens of Israeli firms that do not employ "Gentiles". In the first months of the Intifada, Israeli racists initiated a boycott of Arab shops and restaurants; now, employment of Arabs is targeted. Let's keep the inevitable historical analogies for another time; the point I want to make now is, that most of you haven't heard of this web-site. Right?

The site is neither confidential nor is it my discovery: I simply read about it in the Hebrew Ha'aretz a few days ago (24.9.02). But most of you could not. Why? Because this item was left out of Haaretzdaily.com, the English version of Ha'aretz.


Haaretzdaily.com is not Ha'aretz

Is this a mistake? An exception? No it is not. Ha'aretzdaily.com is not a full translation of the Hebrew paper; it's a selection. It often omits certain items, certain columns, that Ha'aretz does not find "suitable" for foreign eyes, like the report I just mentioned.

Another way to achieve the same hidden bias is by "nationalistically correct" translations. For example, when Hebrew Ha'aretz read (2.7.02): "Recent reports about Egyptian intentions to develop nuclear weaponry WERE APPARENTLY THE RESULT OF ISRAELI PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE AND do not match intelligence information in Jerusalem, according to a senior Israeli official", the English translation simply omitted the words I've capitalised.

Or, quoting an Israeli officer on the use of Palestinians as "human shields", the English version read (16.8.02): "Before the search [in a Palestinian house] we go to a neighbour, take him out of his house and tell him to call the people we want out of the next door house. [...] The neighbour does not have the option to refuse to do it. He shouts, knocks on the door and says the army's here. If nobody answers, he comes back and we go to work." Sounds pretty harmless? – Just because the last sentence is a "nationalistically correct" translation of the following Hebrew sentence: "If nobody answers, we have to tell the neighbour that he will be killed if no one comes out."

Profiteers of the Warfare State




Larry Ellison has an idea. The relentlessly self-promoting CEO of Oracle Corp., a Silicon Valley software company famous for its ability to grab government contracts, envisions post-September 11 America as a country where everyone walks around with a "smart card." Days after the terrorist attacks, the opportunistic Ellison was all over the media claiming that "We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card."

Naturally, it would all be backed up by an Oracle database. And, of course, he will do it for free—at least until the first inevitable "upgrade."

The only way to protect ourselves from terrorists is to "ensure that all the information in myriad government databases was integrated into a single national file," says Ellison. Oh, and we should not worry about the government intruding where it is not supposed to, because privacy is so pre-September 11: "Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion," Ellison told news anchor Hank Plante of San Francisco's KPIX-TV shortly after September 11. "All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they [sic] earn and if they [sic] had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information."

We are all serfs now, anyway, so why not wear the slave collar and be done with it? It is an interesting argument to make, and oddly compelling—but not to real Americans, who never were serfs and never will be.

We have been so busy worrying about Big Brother snooping, says Ellison, that "we've made it impossible for the government to protect us." That's right: It is our fault that the FBI obstructed its own terror investigation and failed to detect a terrorist plot more than five years in the making. Besides, all this anxiety about such archaic abstractions as "liberty" and "privacy" is rather dated. "Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned us that our liberties were at risk unless we exercised 'eternal vigilance,'" writes Ellison in the War Street Journal—but "Jefferson lived in an age of aristocrats and monarchs."

We, on the other hand, live in a age of yuppies and demagogues, when such old-fashioned niceties as individual liberty and the right to be left alone have long since ceased to exist. Welcome to the new world, the world according to Larry Ellison; and please, put on your slave bracelet—it is for your own protection.

Vets Group Wants Rumsfeld Out Over Alleged Shipment to Iraq


CNSNews.com) - The American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA) is calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his reported denial that he knew anything about U.S. shipments of chemical and biological agents to Iraq in the 1980s.

If the defense secretary is unaware or in denial of the sale of biological materials to a country the United States is preparing to attack, then he represents a danger to the lives of service members, said Joyce Riley vonKleist, a spokeswoman for ANGWA.

"As a result of the actions of the secretary of defense, we have now called for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation or dismissal from his office. This is absolutely unconscionable," vonKleist said.

In response to questioning by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 19, Rumsfeld "quickly and flatly denied" any knowledge that the United States helped Iraq acquire biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, Byrd stated in a Sept. 20 press release.

Rumsfeld, however, told Byrd he would review Pentagon records on the issue.

Byrd, citing a 1995 letter from David Satcher, the former director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the United States in fact provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in the mid-1980s, "samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases," according to Byrd.

A Senate report on U.S. dual-use exports to Iraq, dated May 1994, made clear the United States shipped anthrax and the West Nile virus to Saddam Hussein's nation in the 1980s with the knowledge and approval of the Commerce Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vonKleist charged.

Rumsfeld should be up-to-date with information about the military capabilities of a potential enemy, she added.

A defense official had no comment on the veteran group's demand for Rumsfeld's resignation. Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said a review of Pentagon records to date indicated, however, that the department had not supplied germs or other toxins to Iraq.

Rumsfeld's testimony has become a controversial subject with Gulf War veterans who have comrades who died of unexplained deaths or suffer illnesses the veterans believe they contacted in the Gulf in 1990-91.

Of 697,000 service members who deployed, 400,000 are suffering some form of illness related to the conflict, said vonKleist, who served as a medical crew director aboard a C-130 at the rank of captain in the Air Force in 1991.

According to an April 2002 report from the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 7,800 Desert Storm veterans have died since the end of the conflict and nearly 200,000 filed claims with the VA for medical problems.

Gulf War veterans suffered from exposure to biological and chemical weapons, depleted uranium in ammunition, and smoke from oil well fires, veterans' groups report. VonKleist said the Defense Department has not fully investigated the effects of various vaccines service members were required to take, including inoculations for anthrax.

Pinprick attacks on US forces mount worldwide




AMMAN, JORDAN – A shooting attack on US Marines during a live-fire exercise in Kuwait Tuesday is the latest in a string of pinprick strikes against expanding American forces abroad – even in nations that welcome the US presence.
One US Marine died and another was wounded as about 1,000 US Marines and Navy sailors took part in the annual Kuwait-US war game, Eager Mace. Two unknown assailants – reportedly civilians – pulled up in a pickup truck, got out, and opened fire. US troops returned fire and killed the two.

Since it was liberated from Iraqi occupation by a US-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait has been the Middle East nation most genuinely sympathetic toward American policy in the Gulf, and the most hospitable, providing military bases, training and support.

Unlike in Saudi Arabia, extreme Islamist sentiment in Kuwait is rarely directed at the US; Al Qaeda operatives have never been tolerated there.

But as the US gears up to expand Washington's "war on terror" to Iraq, a series of fresh attacks against US forces – even in nations where the majority support the US presence – underscores the risk to growing US military deployments.

From Kuwait and Afghanistan to South Korea and the Philippines, US forces have been recently targeted in ways that seem to bear out, even if partially, fresh promises by Al Qaeda and its supporters to continue their war against America.

20,000 UK troops destined for Iraq




TONY Blair is to authorise the sending of an expeditionary force of up to 20,000 servicemen and women to the Middle East for a US-led war against Iraq.

Senior Whitehall sources said the Prime Minister’s decision, expected at the end of the month, comes amid growing concern among defence chiefs at the lack of strategic direction from the government to allow them to prepare troops for any mission to Iraq.

Mr Blair kept war planning within a small group of civil servants and military officers working in the Cabinet Office to prevent leaks prior to the Labour Party conference.

"Now the conference is out of the way, the Prime Minister feels more confident to start winding up military preparations," said one source. "Up to now, the line has been that no decisions have been made about war. This will start to change ."

Last month, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, visited Donald Rumsfeld, his US counterpart, to offer British troops for an Iraqi campaign. However, defence sources said that since then, there had been little feedback from the US on what type of troops they want and how they would be used.

The sources said a prompt decision from the government was needed to allow the army to begin training for desert warfare. The "big" British contribution would involve heavy armoured forces to fight alongside US divisions currently gathering in Kuwait.

An enlarged armoured brigade with Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior troop carriers will be the core of the UK force. Most of the units will be drawn from the 1st Armoured Division and 7th Armoured Brigade, based in Germany.

Two Scottish regiments, the Black Watch and Scots Dragoon Guards, are currently assigned to the Desert Rats Brigade and will play a key role in any desert deployment. Up until last month, they were on stand-by for firefighting duty, but were then told to return to normal military training. Military sources described this ring-fencing of Germany-based combat units as prudent contingency planning to allow initial preparations to be made in the run-up to Mr Blair’s deployment announcement.

A strong RAF contingent is also expected to be sent to the Middle East to join Tornado squadrons from RAF Lossiemouth, in Morayshire, and RAF Leuchers, in Fife, that are already in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on no-fly zone patrol duty.


The tip of the U.S. spear in the Gulf


ABOARD THE USS FLETCHER, Off the Iraqi Coast, Oct. 7 — Under inky black skies and in thick, humid air, two U.S. Navy inflatable boats headed toward the “car park,” the spot where tankers anchor while awaiting instructions to pick up or deliver cargo to the Iraqi port of Basra. It’s a navigational nightmare, with hazards ranging from minefields, floating debris and burning oil drums to shallow waters, oil rigs and merchant ships. The target of the operation: Smugglers violating U.N. sanctions by ferrying goods in and out of Iraq.

THE BOATS are from the USS Fletcher, which is part of an international force that enforces the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Persian Gulf War.
They are patrolling a narrow inlet in the Gulf that leads to Basra and is within striking distance of Iraq.
With the United States contemplating a new war against Iraq, the vessels are the closest American military presence to Saddam’s forces.
Washington says Baghdad has been flouting the U.N. resolution that established the embargo in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait, as well as a later one that allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil and use the proceeds to buy food and medicine. Instead, the United States says that Saddam is smuggling oil and using the proceeds to finance his weapons program.

White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat'




President Bush's case against Saddam Hussein, outlined in a televised address to the nation on Monday night, relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday.
Officials in the CIA, FBI and energy department are being put under intense pressure to produce reports which back the administration's line, the Guardian has learned. In response, some are complying, some are resisting and some are choosing to remain silent.

"Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence.

In his address, the president reassured Americans that military action was not "imminent or unavoidable", but he made the most detailed case to date for the use of force, should it become necessary.

But some of the key allegations against the Iraqi regime were not supported by intelligence currently available to the administration. Mr Bush repeated a claim already made by senior members of his administration that Iraq has attempted to import hardened aluminium tubes "for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons". The tubes were also mentioned by Tony Blair in his dossier of evidence presented to parliament last month.

However, US government experts on nuclear weapons and centrifuges have suggested that they were more likely to be used for making conventional weapons.


C.I.A. Warns That a U.S. Attack May Ignite Terror


WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — The Bush administration pushed Congress today for a broad vote to authorize the president to use force against Iraq.

But a new element was injected into the debate by a C.I.A. assessment that Saddam Hussein, while now stopping short of an attack, could become "much less constrained" if faced with an American-led force.

The judgment was contained in a letter signed by the deputy C.I.A. director, John McLaughlin, on behalf of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. It was alluded to in a hearing of a Congressional panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks and then released tonight, after the House opened its debate on Iraq.

The letter said "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks" with conventional or chemical or biological weapons against the United States.

"Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action," it continued. It noted that Mr. Hussein could use either conventional terrorism or a weapon of mass destruction as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

The letter dated Oct. 7 also declassified an exchange from a closed Congressional hearing on Oct. 2 in which a senior intelligence official judged the likelihood of Mr. Hussein's initiating an attack in the foreseeable future as "low."


The 'say yes' force


The Bush administration and Congress have been locked in a verbal tug-of-war over whether the United States should go to war against Iraq. Will our allies support us? Are we certain Saddam Hussein has harbored al Qaeda terrorists? But lawmakers and administration officials might be overlooking an equally pressing question about launching an attack on Iraq: are our troops ready for another war?


Pentagon planners have reportedly drawn up plans calling for an unprecedented air barrage to kick off the campaign in Iraq. It would take out much of the Iraqi military infrastructure before sending ground troops in to topple Hussein. But those planners calling for an all-out air assault may also want to listen to some of the concerns recently raised by Air Force and Air National Guard leaders about the strains the war on terrorism and other missions are already placing on pilots and airmen.


“You’ve heard of ‘just say no.’ We have become the ‘always say yes force,” Air Guard Chief Lt. Gen. Daniel James recently told the Defense Writer’s Group, echoing a sentiment increasingly shared by senior Air Force and Air Guard officers that the service is shouldering the brunt of post-Cold War deployments.


James said he is concerned that the air reserve component might be nearing its breaking point. With 25,000 Air Guard members called up since Sept. 11, 2001, and with the Air Guard having supplied about 40 percent of the nation’s aircraft, from fighters to tankers, for the war on terrorism, that assessment should raise eyebrows at the Pentagon.


James says the Air Guard is not yet focused on, or planning for, an attack on Iraq, but he assumes the Guard will be a player. Currently, James is surveying Guardsmen to see if increased operations since last year’s terrorist attacks will cause members to quit the reserve component rather than stay on. “People are in the process right now of making up their minds about whether they will stay or get out,” he said.

India, Israel linked to Pakistan plot



KARACHI - For the past 23 years, Afghanistan has served as a proxy military playing field for different countries, including the former Soviet Union, the United States and Pakistan. Now, after a year of the US-led war on terrorism, a new proxy war has begun in Afghanistan, this time aimed at Pakistan and involving the intelligence networks of India and Israel.

It has been learned from highly placed intelligence sources that India's Reasearch and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel's Mossad are collaborating to train several hundred militants to be used in an attempt to destabilize the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf.

The sources say that training camps have been established near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, and the eastern city of Jalalabad, which lies close to Pakistan's western tribal areas. It is said that RAW has arranged most of the "human resources", while training is the responsibility of the Special Operations Division (Metsada) of Mossad. Metsada generally conducts highly sensitive assassination, sabotage, paramilitary and psychological warfare projects.

Once trained, the recruits will infiltrate the border areas of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan Province, where they will attempt to forge links with local tribespeople and militants in an effort to rally support for an uprising against Musharraf, who is widely discredited in these regions for abandoning the Taliban and siding with the US in its war on terror. These provinces have a strong pro-Taliban history.

Musharraf's decision to throw in his lot with the US resulted in pressure from Washington to clamp down on militant organizations and to stem the flow of jihadis from Pakistani soil into Indian-administered Kashmir. And since Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had strong (albeit covert) links with the militant organizations, it was able to bring pressure to bear on the leaders for them to back off for the interim.

Chemical Warfare Gear Not "Good to Go"


Dear Congress:

While you ponder green-lighting war with Iraq, you need to know that our deployed troops – who will be at the highest risk from deadly biological/chemical attack – are not good to go. Many soldiers are sounding off about the poor quality of their bio/chem protection and detection gear and the bio/chem training they've received. They rightly figure that Saddam Hussein will do his worst in a desperate last-ditch stand, and they'll end up as the meat in the hazmat sandwich.

"I'm the nuclear, biological and chemical [NBC] officer for my unit," says a leader in a unit bound for Kuwait. "Across the board, my soldiers don't feel confident with their protective gear or level of training. We know how to use the decontamination kits and other gear, but no one really knows if anything works."

"I worry about the NBC system on our [Abrams] tanks – there've been several fires recently caused by the system," says a company commander. "Another worry is all my tanks leak like sieves. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that chemical agents can kill the crew if water can get in our tanks at the wash rack."

"In two years, my battalion hasn't done a week of dedicated NBC training," says a commander. "Our NBC decontamination apparatus hasn't worked for over a year. The new protective suits haven't been issued. They tell me we'll get them just before we deploy – a little late to learn how to use 'em when we're moving out to fight."

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

Peacekeeping would take 400,000 troops



WASHINGTON - A new study by the Army's Center of Military History has found that the U.S. military would have to commit 300,000 peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan and 100,000 in Iraq if it were to occupy and reconstruct those nations on the scale that occurred in Japan and Germany after World War II.

The study was requested by the Army's director of transformation in May as part of a force structure review undertaken in light of significant new troop demands in Afghanistan, ongoing commitments in the Balkans and potential peacekeeping duties in Iraq.

Although no one inside or outside the Pentagon is proposing anything close to post-World War II occupation forces in either Afghanistan or Iraq, Army officers say the study underscores the extent of new long-term force commitments the United States could be required to make.

One Army officer said the study was only one of many "data points" being analyzed. But the officer added: "One fact is that where we go, we tend to stay, and the list is increasing."

The officer noted that there are 10 active duty divisions in the Army now, compared with 18 at the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. As a result, because of the existing commitments in Korea, Afghanistan and the Balkans, an invasion of Iraq at the same level as in the Gulf War would essentially require the rest of the Army.

The study is based on the number of troops deployed in 16 occupations during the 20th century, from the Philippines in the early 1900s to Iraq after the Gulf War.

Israel Defies U.N., Continues Siege


RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israel defied a U.N. Security Council demand Tuesday to end its six-day siege of Yasser Arafat ( news - web sites)'s devastated West Bank headquarters, and nine Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike against alleged munitions factories and other targets in Gaza City

Israel's siege drew criticism from President Bush ( news - web sites) and many Israelis who questioned the wisdom of a military operation that may have boosted the Palestinian leader's popularity at a time when voices had begun to be heard urging him to share power.

Sporadic pro-Arafat demonstrations persisted Tuesday despite curfews imposed in the West Bank in an effort to halt suicide attacks.

With the United States abstaining, the Security Council demanded early Tuesday that Israel end its operations, "including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure." The resolution also called on the Palestinian Authority ( news - web sites) to ensure "those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice."

In Washington, Bush said: "We've got to end the suffering. I thought the actions the Israelis took were not helpful in terms of the establishment and development of the institutions necessary for a Palestinian state to emerge."

Unmoved, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that "no resolution, and no person, can take from us our exclusive right to defend our homes, our people."

Online special: Molly Ivins


No. This is not acceptable. This is not the country we want to be. This is not the world we want to make.

The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood.

I rarely use the word "we" because it's so arrogant for one citizen to presume to speak for all of us -- and besides, Americans famously can't agree on the time of day. But on this one, I know we want to find a way so that killing is the last resort, not the first. We would rather put our time, energy, money and even blood into making peace than making war.

"The National Security Strategy of the United States -- 2002" is repellent, unnecessary and, above all, impractical. Americans are famous for pragmatism, and we need a good dose of common sense right now. This Will Not Work.

All the experts tell us anti-Americanism thrives on the perception that we are arrogant, that we care nothing for what the rest of the world thinks. Even our innocent mistakes are often blamed on obnoxious triumphalism. The announced plan of this administration for world domination reinforces every paranoid, anti-American prejudice on this earth. This plan is guaranteed to produce more terrorists. Even if this country were to become some insane, 21st century version of Sparta -- armed to teeth, guards on every foot of our borders -- we would still not be safe. Have the Israelis been able to stop terrorism with their tactics?

Washington prepares for influx of protesters


WASHINGTON (AP) This week's meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are expected to lure thousands of protesters to the nation's capital, and police are preparing by closing streets and bringing in extra officers.

While the major organizers promise a series of peaceful protests, at least one group is threatening to block key intersections and the Metro subway system, threatening to tie up traffic in downtown Washington.

According to the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, which includes businesses near the World Bank, there will be platoons of 34 police officers each at several key downtown intersections. In addition, the public is being urged to stay away from the area on Friday. The Business Improvement District warns that ''major disruptions to morning traffic are expected.''

The Greater Washington Board of Trade, a regional business organization, is urging workers to use mass transit and companies to allow employees to work at home if possible.

''We want to see business as usual,'' spokeswoman Mary Anne Reynolds said. ''That's what the protesters don't want to see. We're saying take Metro and come on in. Those who can't, this is a good time to consider teleworking.''

The Board of Trade is advising businesses to remove sidewalk furniture, flower pots, and anything else that could be picked up and thrown. In addition, the group suggested businesses empty their trash bins by Wednesday.

Martin Thomas of the Mobilization for Global Justice, the group organizing most of the protests, said his organization does not support blockades or other disruptive actions. Indeed, the group has scheduled three days of workshops on nonviolent protest.

''No protesters are advocating violence,'' Thomas said. ''These events are going to be safe. They're going to be colorful.''

Activities such as teach-ins, workshops and a Thursday night candlelight vigil are preliminaries to a rally and march scheduled for Saturday on the grounds of the Washington Monument.

What concerns local officials is the call by a group known as the Anti-Capitalist Convergence to block bridges, roads and the subway system on Friday.

D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey said he was concerned that such protests could hinder efforts to respond to a terrorist attack.

''To knowingly set out to strangle this city in terms of causing massive traffic jams, both Metro and vehicular traffic, to knowingly do that to Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States at a point in our history when our very nation is at risk and under high alert is just totally irresponsible and I think goes way beyond something that one could associate with the right to protest or petition the government,'' Ramsey said.

Judge Concludes Energy Company Drove Up Prices


WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — An administrative law judge concluded today that the El Paso Corporation illegally helped to drive up prices for natural gas in California during the state's power crisis in 2000 and 2001, the first time any federal regulatory official has determined there was widespread manipulation of energy supplies.

In the ruling, Curtis L. Wagner Jr., the chief administrative law judge at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, essentially validates the suspicions of California officials that El Paso, the nation's largest natural gas company, withheld natural gas from the state, thus driving up the cost of electricity that was generated by gas-fired turbines.

"El Paso Pipeline withheld extremely large amounts of capacity that it could have flowed to its California delivery points," Judge Wagner said in the ruling. El Paso's actions significantly increased the price of natural gas flowing to California, he added, and "substantially tightened the supply of natural gas at the California border."

Executives at El Paso, which is based in Houston, said the ruling "is unsupported by the evidence and is inconsistent with FERC policy."

Judge Wagner recommended that the energy agency begin determining penalties against El Paso for violating federal rules and "for the unlawful exercise of market power."

The ruling sent shares in El Paso down $4.16, or 36 percent, to $7.51.

California officials and one of the state's major utilities, which argued the case in hearings at the energy commission, said they would seek to recover nearly $4 billion in what they contended were higher power and gas prices caused by El Paso's actions.

The company also faces a number of lawsuits, which will be aided if the ruling is upheld.

But the decision faces review by the four-member energy regulatory commission and, if upheld there, an almost certain appeal to a federal appellate court.

El Paso predicted that the ruling would be reversed. In a statement, the chairman and chief executive of El Paso, William A. Wise, said: "We are disappointed that today's proposed decision does not recognize the substantial record evidence supporting El Paso Natural Gas's position that the pipeline was operated properly. We are confident in the strength of our position."

"Given the critical safety and deliverability concerns associated with operating a natural gas pipeline," Mr. Wise said, "it is inappropriate and without precedent to second-guess a pipeline's day-to-day operations."

Democrats Step Up Attack on Bush Economic Record


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush ( news - web sites) said on Tuesday he was optimistic about U.S. economic strength as Federal Reserve ( news - web sites) policymakers warned of possible further weakness and Democrats stepped up their attacks on the president's record.

After a private business research group reported on Tuesday that consumer confidence declined for a fourth straight month in September, Bush said more work was needed but that with low inflation and low interest rates, the economy had the ingredients for growth.

"You bet I'm optimistic but I understand that we've got a lot of work to do," Bush told reporters after a meeting of his Cabinet. "I'm optimistic about America in general. The American people are resilient, they're strong. We've got the best workers in the world," Bush said.

But Democrats, anxious to focus public debate on the economy as well as a possible war with Iraq ahead of the November congressional elections, said the country could be on the brink of a second economic slump in nearly two years.

"DOUBLE DIP RECESSION?"

"Statistic after statistic makes me think that there is a real possibility for a double dip recession," Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said. "There can be no question, unless we are able to deal more effectively with the economy, it could become a bigger issue than anything else on the horizon."

He made his remarks to reporters as the Federal Reserve policymakers announced they would keep key interest rates steady, but warned the economic outlook was uncertain in the face of rising global tensions over Iraq.

In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri said the economy was suffering its worst performance since the 1950s.

"We've seen the most anemic period of economic growth since Eisenhower was president," he said. "In 18 months, the stock market lost $4.5 trillion in value; more than two million people have lost their jobs. A wave of corporate scandals has eroded people's fundamental faith in our nation's free markets, and scores of corporations have become bankrupt."

After one year in Afghanistan, are U.S. troops close to winning the war or is Al Qaeda about to release a devastating death trap?




This month, one year after the 9/11 attacks, there has been much talk that we have the terrorists on the run and are winning the War on Terrorism. The Afghan camps have been destroyed, the Taliban and al Qaeda have been overthrown and mostly forced out of Afghanistan, their command structure and ability to operate has been severely disrupted. Furthermore, the West has not experienced another major terrorist attack and a number of smaller attacks have been thwarted in both the U.S. and in Europe. This heightened sense of security in the West has succeeded in unearthing al Qaeda and sympathetic individuals in a number of European and Middle Eastern countries, which has stopped a number of dangerous attacks.

The picture painted by governments and media has been one of a highly successful campaign waged by the U.S. and allies that caught the Taliban and al Qaeda by surprise, sent them scurrying for the mountains, where significant sections of them were killed and their supplies destroyed, their camps wiped out and their ability to function as a network severely undermined. According to this view, al Qaeda was caught and punished and is now a shattered group reduced to panic and disorder.

Yet, we might be in danger of overestimating our successes. We may be gauging our success by our standards and by rules of engagement that have been applied to traditional military combat, counter-intelligence and previous anti-terrorist groups. Although it is true that al Qaeda and the Taliban have suffered important setbacks, the central command still exists and has influence, it is operationally effective and highly dangerous and much of its financial and logistical capabilities remain in tact. Indeed, al Qaeda may be more dangerous and difficult to track down and destroy now than before.

Al Qaeda is extremely flexible and its cadre operatives are trained and able to function independently. The CIA describes them as highly professional and disciplined combatants with skills as good or beyond those of a normal combat soldier. They have been trained in how to maintain cult cells and lie low patiently in the West, fabricate and use disguises and false papers, communicate with extreme secrecy and, moreover, to plan and operate independently using a wide variety of weapons and explosives, including biological and chemical ones. They are able to bide their time and meticulously prepare to attack, as was seen not only on September 11, but also in the Embassy bombings of Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole. One of the key purposes of the Afghan camps was to create such independent units for global operations over long periods.

Al Qaeda, then, is one of the most sophisticated, cunning and intelligent terrorist cults to exist in history. Its leaders are a combination of highly educated and intelligent people and expert, battle-hardened military strategists.