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How bin Laden got away

TORA BORA, AFGHANISTAN - All 1,000 of the regional tribal leaders rose to their feet and shouted "Zindibad, Osama!" ("Long Live Osama!").
The Al Qaeda chief placed his right hand over his heart, the ethnic Pashtun sign for being honored, while 15 of his elite guards flanked him.
In the last public speech given at the Jalalabad Islamic studies center on Nov. 10, Osama bin Laden painted the battle lines black and white. "The Americans had a plan to invade, but if we are united and believe in Allah, we'll teach them a lesson, the same one we taught the Russians," he said, according to two tribal leaders who attended the speech.
Mr. bin Laden, with that speech, was laying his plans to stay a step ahead of the US campaign. He would travel to his favored fortified redoubt in Tora Bora, as the US expected him to, but he would also pave a way out. After his rousing speech, he bestowed cash gifts on key people who could later help him escape.

Price-gouging inquiries target Enron: Overcharges in California may exceed $40b

OS ANGELES - The practices of Enron Corp. and other energy companies that designed California's energy-deregulation bill resulted in $40 billion to $70 billion in utility overcharges and ancillary costs, said a consumer group and the agency that operates the state's energy grid.
These figures are sharply higher than the $8.9 billion refund that the state has demanded from Enron and other energy firms. They have been calculated as four state entities - the state attorney general's office, the Public Utilities Commission, the Electricity Oversight Board, and a state senate committee - investigate price-gouging allegations.
''We've been ringing the warning bell for quite some time,'' said Greg Cook, manager of market monitoring for the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state's energy grid.

Democrats: Bush broke prescription promise

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As President Bush touted education overhauls Saturday in his weekly radio address, Democrats used theirs to accuse him of breaking a campaign pledge to fund prescription drug coverage for all older Americans.
U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said Bush's prescription drug plan supports about 30 percent of older Americans, but does not cover about 7 million members of the middle class.
Rockefeller said Bush's budget provides less money for prescription drugs than Congress approved last year, even though prices are climbing at five times the rate of inflation.
"The dreams of millions of seniors are threatened by the runaway cost of prescription drugs," Rockefeller said. "They know that a single chronic illness could steal their retirement savings."
Rockefeller said Bush promised to provide prescription drug coverage for "every senior" during his presidential campaign.

G.O.P. Mobilizes to Help Hopefuls in Primary Races

DAYTON, Ohio, Feb. 26 This is how United States Representative Thomas M. Davis III, chairman of the committee responsible for keeping the House under Republican control in November, gets the job done:
Today's NewsPast WeekPast 30 DaysPast 90 DaysPast YearSince 1996
With White House consent, he infuriated Republicans in Ohio and Kansas this week by storming into two Congressional districts and taking sides in their primaries, campaigning for the candidates he preferred.
In Arkansas, he lured a former congressman into trying to win his seat back by promising him a coveted spot on the House Appropriations Committee.
From there, he went to Kentucky, where he gave a candidate a private pledge that he would heavily pressure lobbyists to contribute less to his Democratic opponent than they had intended

Full disclosure

THIS IS THE price of Dick Cheney's obstinacy: Until he tells the truth, Americans will wonder whether the nation's natural resources and power supply are controlled by campaign chits. Whether clean air is a right or a commodity. Whether the Office of the Vice President, and by extension the executive branch, is for sale.
Mr. Cheney's failure to disclose the work of his National Energy Policy Development Group is a sin of omission, with escalating potential for credibility damage.
In the early going, the question was whether now-disgraced Enron officials influenced national energy policy at Mr. Cheney's meetings. Now it is hard not to see the hand of campaign donors -- energy industry giants -- in administration proposals headed for Senate deliberation. The trail of crumbs keeps leading back to Mr. Cheney's task force.

Riordan: Simon 'too extreme' to win

HOLLYWOOD -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan on Friday called his GOP foe Bill Simon a "sanctimonious hypocrite" who wears his "religion on his lapel" and is "too extreme" to beat Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in November.
"Here's a person saying he's Dick Riordan's good friend and then he's going to set the record straight by telling lies about Dick Riordan," Riordan said at a Hollywood press conference.
The former Los Angeles mayor said he was calling Simon a "sanctimonious hypocrite" because "those are the words my mother taught me to say about people who wear their religion on their lapel and go around telling untruths about other people."

Shifting blame

In "The World According to George Bush," Bill Clinton's sins include the latest Israeli–Palestinian killing spree.
That jaw–dropping incrimination of Clinton came last week from the mouth of Ari Fleischer, the president's acid–tongued Machiavellian press secretary.
Fleischer summed up his assessment of Clinton's considerable, even monumental if failed efforts to get a peace agreement thusly:
"Actually, I think if you go back to when the violence began, you can make the case that in an attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing, more violence resulted, (and) that as a result of an attempt to push the parties beyond where they were willing to go, that it led to expectations that were raised to such a high level that it turned into violence."
Such long–winded rationalizations and denouncements apparently pass for critical thinking in the Bush White House.
Fleischer, and by extension his boss, have conveniently concluded that Clinton bears the blame for the current violence because he expended TOO MUCH effort trying to get the two sides to make peace.

The Uses of American Power

If Congress cranks up the Pentagon's budget as much as President Bush would like, the United States will soon be spending more on defense than all the other countries of the world combined. That is just one measure of America's armed might — and a global imbalance of power the likes of which has probably not been seen since the height of the Roman empire. While the United States is used to regarding itself as a global power, and its status as the sole superpower has steadily grown since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming disparity is still a big change. So is the country's willingness to exercise its power in the wake of Sept. 11. Before President Bush decides where next to take the war against terrorism, he and the American people ought to pause for a moment to think about how we intend to behave in this new and awesome role.

Brazil probes Moonie land purchases

The authorities in Brazil are investigating the purchase of vast estates close to its border with Paraguay by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.
The church owns large amounts of property, including an entire town in Paraguay.
Members regard Revered Moon as the messiah
The area is notorious for smuggling and money laundering and Brazil's authorities are worried about a foreigner owning so much land in a border region.
Since the mid-1990's, the Reverend Moon's Unification Church has been buying up land both in Brazil and in Paraguay.

Campaign ethics becomes crusade

MICKEY JO LAWRENCE doesn't resemble a reform-minded zealot intent on bringing law and order to the Wild West politics of Texas.
Instead, she has the smart look of a Republican corporate lawyer, which she is. And she kind of favors a grandmother, which she is, though a young-looking one.
At first blush, there is little in Lawrence's appearance to indicate she has drawn a bead on some of the quickest political gunslingers in Texas.
But as a member of the Texas Ethics Commission, appointed in 2000 by then-Gov. George W. Bush, Lawrence ramrods a posse chasing elected officials and political players who ignore campaign finance laws.

US steps up ground offensive

New cracks emerged in the US political unity behind the war on terrorism last night, after allied troops engaged in the largest ground offensive since attacks in Afghanistan began.
US bombers yesterday continued to pound a mountain range in eastern Afghanistan for the third day running, using recently developed thermobaric bombs which are designed to create suffocating blasts in cave complexes.
Video footage released by the US military showed large plumes of thick black smoke billowing from caves. Officials said fighting in Paktia province was likely to continue for the next couple of days.

Andersen loses another major client

Andersen lost pharmaceuticals giant Merck & Co. as a client Friday, as the accounting firm agreed to pay $217 million to settle a malpractice lawsuit in Arizona.
About 13,000 mostly elderly investors lost nearly $590 million when the Baptist Foundation of Arizona reported huge real estate losses dating back to the early 1980s. According to the lawsuits, Chicago-based Andersen failed to disclose financial wrongdoing by the foundation's managers and ignored warnings of potential trouble.
"Many of the investors are over 70," said John P. Coffey, attorney for the foundation trustee. He said the settlement greatly speeds return of money to the victims.

Congressional Inquiry Cites Flaws in Antimissile Sensor

A Congressional inquiry into reports of corporate fraud has found widespread technical failures in a prototype antimissile sensor meant to track enemy warheads. It leaves open the question of whether the government contractors withheld information about those failures from military officials.
The 18-month inquiry, by the General Accounting Office, is the latest government examination of the questions raised by Dr. Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer at the contractor TRW Inc. in 1995 and 1996. Dr. Schwartz accused her employer of faking work on the sensor, which is meant to distinguish enemy warheads from decoys. TRW has long maintained that it did nothing wrong.
A report by the accounting office, to be made public today, details a litany of failures in the sensor, the product of a collaboration between TRW and the Boeing Company. The failures listed include noise, cooling and calibration problems; finding targets in space where none existed; and difficulty distinguishing mock warheads from decoys.

Lessons of Tora Bora Prompt Greater Use Of American Troops

Although still relying heavily on local Afghan forces, U.S. military commanders have adopted a markedly different strategy for the offensive that began last weekend in eastern Afghanistan than they did three months ago in the battle for the caves around Tora Bora, which resulted in many al Qaeda leaders apparently getting away.
The U.S. decision to deploy hundreds of American and other Western military personnel near Gardez is a significantly larger commitment of ground troops than the Tora Bora battle, which featured no more than a few dozen U.S. Special Forces soldiers.
Pakistan is reported to have taken more aggressive steps as well to shut its border in the area and stop al Qaeda or Taliban fighters from escaping.

Europe, U.S. Diverging on Key Policy Approaches

PARIS -- The Sept. 11 attacks initially brought Europe and the United States closer together, with spontaneous outpourings of sympathy on the streets of Europe and pledges of solidarity from the corridors of power. But nearly six months on, the transatlantic allies are at odds over how to deal with key international issues highlighted by the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
While Americans are still coming to grips with their newfound vulnerability, many Europeans -- long accustomed to terrorism at home -- believe it is time to move on. While the Bush administration has made the war on terrorism the central focus of its foreign policy, Europeans are pursuing a more broadly focused policy that looks at what they see as the root causes of terrorism, such as poverty, disease and environmental degradation.

EPA Resignation Prompts Hearings on Administration Environmental Record

The resignation of a top Environmental Protection Agency enforcement official who complained about White House interference in pursuing violations at power plants is prompting Senate hearings into the Bush administration's environmental record.
Eric Schaeffer, the EPA's director of civil enforcement, resigned after a dozen years at the agency, complaining that the White House "seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce."
Schaeffer, in a letter to EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, said that the message being sent by the Bush administration has prompted utilities accused of clean air violations "to walk away from the table" and refuse to negotiate settlements.

“We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.”

— Excerpt from open letter

of Israeli military reservists

Murray Polner

Special To The Jewish Week

The refusal of courageous Israeli officers and soldiers to serve in the West Bank and Gaza because they believe the government’s conduct is immoral is the sharpest break since hundreds objected to serving during the invasion of Lebanon and then went on to organize Peace Now and Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit”).

Arafat's Words: 'A Push From Outside'

Q. Do you think it is possible that this initiative can move forward under Prime Minister Sharon?
A. The most important thing that this has been accepted by the Europeans, by the Russians, by the Americans and that President Bush is in contact with Prince Abdullah and he is sending his adviser to America to be in permanent contact with the Americans concerning that initiative.

Q. So you're optimistic that something can begin with this?
A. Yes we hope so. We hope so. Especially since until now the peace process had faced very difficult circumstances.

Q. Have the Americans been as constructive as they could have been?
A. No doubt, and not to forget the peace process started through the initiative which had been declared by Bush the father at the Madrid conference, and we hope that President Bush his son will complete this very international, historical initiative.

Uncertainties Vex Detainees, U.S.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- In addition to banana rats, tarantulas and scorpions, this outpost is home to 3-foot-long iguanas, a protected species. It is also home to 300 increasingly angry prisoners of the war in Afghanistan whose status is far less defined, and that, admit U.S. military officials who are in charge of this makeshift prison, is becoming a problem.
In unprecedented legal limbo as the U.S. government figures out what to do with them, they fully expect to be tortured or worse and have no idea whether they will be tried and executed--or simply sent home.
Prison officials say those tensions underlie the hunger strike that erupted this week after a guard stripped a prisoner of the turban he had fashioned from a bedsheet, in violation of camp rules.