From online's Capitol Hill Blue. It's looking more and more like Bible salesman Greg Stillson (Stephen King's "THE DEAD ZONE") was elected to the White House.
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 4, 2004, 06:15
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.
“We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t know anymore is just who the enemy might be,” says one troubled White House aide. “We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing.”
Aides say the President gets “hung up on minor details,” micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues.
“This is what is killing us on Iraq,” one aide says. “We lost focus. The President got hung up on the weapons of mass destruction and an unproven link to al Qaeda. We could have found other justifiable reasons for the war but the President insisted the focus stay on those two, tenuous items.”
Aides who raise questions quickly find themselves shut out of access to the President or other top advisors. Among top officials, Bush’s inner circle is shrinking. Secretary of State Colin Powell has fallen out of favor because of his growing doubts about the administration’s war against Iraq.
The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.
"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."
Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."
God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration’s lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft “the Blues Brothers” because “they’re on a mission from God.”
“The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion,” says one aide. “They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God.”
But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them “fucking assholes” in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him “unpatriotic” or “anti-American.”
“The mood here is that we’re under siege, there’s no doubt about it,” says one troubled aide who admits he is looking for work elsewhere. “In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the record.
© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Bush Campaign Seeks Help From Thousands of Congregations
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Can anyone deny that the First Amendment guarantees the principle of religious liberty, even though those words do not appear there? Similarly, the First Amendment guarantees the principle of the separation of church and state - by implication, because separating church and state is what allows religious liberty to exist.
Separation of Church and State
June 3, 2004 NY TIMES
Bush Campaign Seeks Help From Thousands of Congregations
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
The Bush campaign is seeking to enlist thousands of religious congregations around the country in distributing campaign information and registering voters, according to an e-mail message sent to many members of the clergy and others in Pennsylvania.
Liberal groups charged that the effort invited violations of the separation of church and state and jeopardized the tax-exempt status of churches that cooperated. Some socially conservative church leaders also said they would advise pastors against participating in such a partisan effort.
But Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush administration, said "people of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other community" and that the e-mail message was about "building the most sophisticated grass-roots presidential campaign in the country's history."
In the message, dated early Tuesday afternoon, Luke Bernstein, coalitions coordinator for the Bush campaign in Pennsylvania, wrote: "The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1,600 `Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis."
In each targeted "place of worship," Mr. Bernstein continued, without mentioning a specific religion or denomination, "we'd like to identify a volunteer who can help distribute general information to other supporters." He explained: "We plan to undertake activities such as distributing general information/updates or voter registration materials in a place accessible to the congregation."
The e-mail message was provided to The New York Times by a group critical of President Bush.
The campaign's effort is the latest indication of its heavy bet on churchgoers in its bid for re-election. Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and officials of Mr. Bush's campaign have often said that people who attended church regularly voted for him disproportionately in the last election, and the campaign has made turning out that group a top priority this year. But advisers to Mr. Bush also acknowledge privately that appearing to court socially conservative Christian voters too aggressively risks turning off more moderate voters.
What was striking about the Pennsylvania e-mail message was its directness. Both political parties rely on church leaders — African-American pastors for the Democrats, for example, and white evangelical Protestants for the Republicans — to urge congregants to go the polls. And in the 1990's, the Christian Coalition developed a reputation as a political powerhouse by distributing voters guides in churches that alerted conservative believers to candidates' position on social issues like abortion and school prayer. But the Christian Coalition was organized as a nonpartisan, issue-oriented lobbying and voter-education organization, and in 1999 it ran afoul of federal tax laws for too much Republican partisanship.
The Bush campaign, in contrast, appeared to be reaching out directly to churches and church members, seeking to distribute campaign information as well as ostensibly nonpartisan material, like issue guides and registration forms.
Trevor Potter, a Washington lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said the campaign's solicitation raised delicate legal issues for congregations.
"If the church is doing it, it is a legal problem the church," Mr. Potter said. "In the past, the I.R.S. has sought to revoke and has succeeded in revoking the tax-exempt status of churches for political activity."
If a member of the congregation is disseminating the information, however, the issue is more complicated. If the congregation had a table where anyone could make available any information whatsoever without any institutional responsibility or oversight, then a member might be able to distribute campaign literature without violating tax laws. But very few churches have such open forums, Mr. Potter said. "The I.R.S. would ask, did the church encourage this? Did the church permit this but not other literature? Did the church in any way support this?"
Mr. Bernstein, the e-mail message's author, declined to comment. Mr. Schmidt, the campaign spokesman, said the e-mail message only sought individual volunteers from among the "friendly congregations," not the endorsements of the any religious organizations or groups.
"The e-mail is targeted to individuals, asking individuals to become involved in the campaign and to share information about the campaign with other people in their faith community," Mr. Schmidt said. "Yesterday, a liberal judge from San Francisco overturned a partial-birth abortion ban which banned that abhorrent procedure. That is an example of an issue that people of faith from across the United States care about."
He said that the Pennsylvania e-mail message was part of a larger national effort. The number of congregations mentioned - 1,600 in just one state - suggests an operation on a vast scale.
But even some officials of some conservative religious groups said they were troubled by the notion that a parishioner might distribute campaign information within a church or at a church service.
"If I were a pastor, I would not be comfortable doing that," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "I would say to my church members, we are going to talk about the issues and we are going to take information from the platforms of the two parties about where they stand on the issues. I would tell them to vote and to vote their conscience, and the Lord alone is the Lord of the conscience."
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the liberal Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that any form of distributing campaign literature through a church would compromise its tax-exempt status. He called the effort "an absolutely breathtakingly large undertaking," saying, "I never thought anyone could so attempt to meld a political party with a network of religious organizations."
In a statement, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal group, called the effort "an astonishing abuse of religion" and "the rawest form of manipulation of religion for partisan gain." He urged the president to repudiate the effort.
In a statement, Mara Vanderslice, director of religious outreach for the Kerry campaign, said the effort "shows nothing but disrespect for the religious community." Ms. Vanderslice continued: "Although the Kerry campaign actively welcomes the participation of religious voices in our campaign, we will never court religious voters in a way that would jeopardize the sanctity of their very houses of worship."
How many congregations or worshippers will choose to cooperate remains to be seen. In an interview yesterday, the Rev. Ronald Fowlkes, pastor of the Victoria Baptist Church in Springfield, Pa., said he had not seen the e-mail message but did not think much of the idea.
"We encourage people to get out and vote," Mr. Fowlkes said, but as far as distributing information through church, "If it were focused on one party or person, that would be too much."
Can anyone deny that the First Amendment guarantees the principle of religious liberty, even though those words do not appear there? Similarly, the First Amendment guarantees the principle of the separation of church and state - by implication, because separating church and state is what allows religious liberty to exist.
Separation of Church and State
June 3, 2004 NY TIMES
Bush Campaign Seeks Help From Thousands of Congregations
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
The Bush campaign is seeking to enlist thousands of religious congregations around the country in distributing campaign information and registering voters, according to an e-mail message sent to many members of the clergy and others in Pennsylvania.
Liberal groups charged that the effort invited violations of the separation of church and state and jeopardized the tax-exempt status of churches that cooperated. Some socially conservative church leaders also said they would advise pastors against participating in such a partisan effort.
But Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush administration, said "people of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other community" and that the e-mail message was about "building the most sophisticated grass-roots presidential campaign in the country's history."
In the message, dated early Tuesday afternoon, Luke Bernstein, coalitions coordinator for the Bush campaign in Pennsylvania, wrote: "The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1,600 `Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis."
In each targeted "place of worship," Mr. Bernstein continued, without mentioning a specific religion or denomination, "we'd like to identify a volunteer who can help distribute general information to other supporters." He explained: "We plan to undertake activities such as distributing general information/updates or voter registration materials in a place accessible to the congregation."
The e-mail message was provided to The New York Times by a group critical of President Bush.
The campaign's effort is the latest indication of its heavy bet on churchgoers in its bid for re-election. Mr. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and officials of Mr. Bush's campaign have often said that people who attended church regularly voted for him disproportionately in the last election, and the campaign has made turning out that group a top priority this year. But advisers to Mr. Bush also acknowledge privately that appearing to court socially conservative Christian voters too aggressively risks turning off more moderate voters.
What was striking about the Pennsylvania e-mail message was its directness. Both political parties rely on church leaders — African-American pastors for the Democrats, for example, and white evangelical Protestants for the Republicans — to urge congregants to go the polls. And in the 1990's, the Christian Coalition developed a reputation as a political powerhouse by distributing voters guides in churches that alerted conservative believers to candidates' position on social issues like abortion and school prayer. But the Christian Coalition was organized as a nonpartisan, issue-oriented lobbying and voter-education organization, and in 1999 it ran afoul of federal tax laws for too much Republican partisanship.
The Bush campaign, in contrast, appeared to be reaching out directly to churches and church members, seeking to distribute campaign information as well as ostensibly nonpartisan material, like issue guides and registration forms.
Trevor Potter, a Washington lawyer and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said the campaign's solicitation raised delicate legal issues for congregations.
"If the church is doing it, it is a legal problem the church," Mr. Potter said. "In the past, the I.R.S. has sought to revoke and has succeeded in revoking the tax-exempt status of churches for political activity."
If a member of the congregation is disseminating the information, however, the issue is more complicated. If the congregation had a table where anyone could make available any information whatsoever without any institutional responsibility or oversight, then a member might be able to distribute campaign literature without violating tax laws. But very few churches have such open forums, Mr. Potter said. "The I.R.S. would ask, did the church encourage this? Did the church permit this but not other literature? Did the church in any way support this?"
Mr. Bernstein, the e-mail message's author, declined to comment. Mr. Schmidt, the campaign spokesman, said the e-mail message only sought individual volunteers from among the "friendly congregations," not the endorsements of the any religious organizations or groups.
"The e-mail is targeted to individuals, asking individuals to become involved in the campaign and to share information about the campaign with other people in their faith community," Mr. Schmidt said. "Yesterday, a liberal judge from San Francisco overturned a partial-birth abortion ban which banned that abhorrent procedure. That is an example of an issue that people of faith from across the United States care about."
He said that the Pennsylvania e-mail message was part of a larger national effort. The number of congregations mentioned - 1,600 in just one state - suggests an operation on a vast scale.
But even some officials of some conservative religious groups said they were troubled by the notion that a parishioner might distribute campaign information within a church or at a church service.
"If I were a pastor, I would not be comfortable doing that," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "I would say to my church members, we are going to talk about the issues and we are going to take information from the platforms of the two parties about where they stand on the issues. I would tell them to vote and to vote their conscience, and the Lord alone is the Lord of the conscience."
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the liberal Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that any form of distributing campaign literature through a church would compromise its tax-exempt status. He called the effort "an absolutely breathtakingly large undertaking," saying, "I never thought anyone could so attempt to meld a political party with a network of religious organizations."
In a statement, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal group, called the effort "an astonishing abuse of religion" and "the rawest form of manipulation of religion for partisan gain." He urged the president to repudiate the effort.
In a statement, Mara Vanderslice, director of religious outreach for the Kerry campaign, said the effort "shows nothing but disrespect for the religious community." Ms. Vanderslice continued: "Although the Kerry campaign actively welcomes the participation of religious voices in our campaign, we will never court religious voters in a way that would jeopardize the sanctity of their very houses of worship."
How many congregations or worshippers will choose to cooperate remains to be seen. In an interview yesterday, the Rev. Ronald Fowlkes, pastor of the Victoria Baptist Church in Springfield, Pa., said he had not seen the e-mail message but did not think much of the idea.
"We encourage people to get out and vote," Mr. Fowlkes said, but as far as distributing information through church, "If it were focused on one party or person, that would be too much."
Democrats Ask Special Halliburton/Cheney Counsel
Democrats Ask Special Halliburton/Cheney Counsel
Wed Jun 2, 6:40 PM ET
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Democrats urged a special counsel on Wednesday to probe whether Vice President Dick Cheney broke the law through any involvement in the award of a government contract in Iraq to his old company, Halliburton Co.
For the second day running, Democrats demanded more answers to questions raised by a newly unearthed Army e-mail that said Cheney's office "coordinated" action on a contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure that was awarded to Halliburton...
Wed Jun 2, 6:40 PM ET
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Democrats urged a special counsel on Wednesday to probe whether Vice President Dick Cheney broke the law through any involvement in the award of a government contract in Iraq to his old company, Halliburton Co.
For the second day running, Democrats demanded more answers to questions raised by a newly unearthed Army e-mail that said Cheney's office "coordinated" action on a contract to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure that was awarded to Halliburton...
Army Plan Aims to Keep Soldiers on Duty
Bush and his neocon administration have been wrong on every count since starting this war on false pretenses. So now they are penalizing our troops with extended tours of combat duty for their own incompetence.
Army Plan Aims to Keep Soldiers on Duty
Thu Jun 3, 1:05 AM ET
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will be required to stay if their units are ordered to Iraq or Afghanistan.
The announcement Wednesday, an expansion of a program called "stop-loss," affects units that are 90 days or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.
Commanders can make exceptions for soldiers with special circumstances. Otherwise, soldiers won't be able to leave the service or transfer from their units until they return to their home bases after their deployments end.
The Army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq. Almost every combat unit has faced or will face duty there or in Afghanistan, and increased violence has forced the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops to the Iraq region, straining units even further...
Army Plan Aims to Keep Soldiers on Duty
Thu Jun 3, 1:05 AM ET
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will be required to stay if their units are ordered to Iraq or Afghanistan.
The announcement Wednesday, an expansion of a program called "stop-loss," affects units that are 90 days or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel.
Commanders can make exceptions for soldiers with special circumstances. Otherwise, soldiers won't be able to leave the service or transfer from their units until they return to their home bases after their deployments end.
The Army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the occupation of Iraq. Almost every combat unit has faced or will face duty there or in Afghanistan, and increased violence has forced the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops to the Iraq region, straining units even further...
AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect
This administration throws innocents in jail and lets the real threats go free. Time for the cleam broom of John Kerry in November to remove these asses.
AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect
Thu June 3
By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh, once imprisoned as the No. 27 man on the FBI's list of must-capture terror suspects, is free again. He's free despite telling a Jordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City tunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al-Qaida operative shoot a flare to ignite a massive explosion.
Free despite telling the FBI he had trained on rifles and rocket propelled grenades at militant camps in Afghanistan and after admitting he sent money to a former roommate convicted of trying to blow up a hotel in Jordan.
Free despite efforts by prosecutors in Detroit and Chicago to indict him on charges that could have kept him in prison for years. Those indictments were rejected by the Justice Department in the name of protecting intelligence. Even two judges openly questioned al-Marabh's terror ties.
The Bush administration in January deported al-Marabh to Syria — his home and a country the U.S. government long has regarded as a sponsor of terrorism.
The quiet end to al-Marabh's case provides a stark contrast to other cases in which the Bush administration has held suspects without lawyers as enemy combatants. It also contrasts with the terms FBI agents used to describe al-Marabh in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Al-Marabh "intended to martyr himself in an attack against the United States," an FBI agent wrote in December 2002. A footnote in al-Marabh's deportation ruling last year added, "The FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that al-Marabh has engaged in terrorist activity or will do so if he is not removed from the United States."...
AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect
Thu June 3
By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh, once imprisoned as the No. 27 man on the FBI's list of must-capture terror suspects, is free again. He's free despite telling a Jordanian informant he planned to die a martyr by driving a gasoline truck into a New York City tunnel, turning it sideways, opening its fuel valves and having an al-Qaida operative shoot a flare to ignite a massive explosion.
Free despite telling the FBI he had trained on rifles and rocket propelled grenades at militant camps in Afghanistan and after admitting he sent money to a former roommate convicted of trying to blow up a hotel in Jordan.
Free despite efforts by prosecutors in Detroit and Chicago to indict him on charges that could have kept him in prison for years. Those indictments were rejected by the Justice Department in the name of protecting intelligence. Even two judges openly questioned al-Marabh's terror ties.
The Bush administration in January deported al-Marabh to Syria — his home and a country the U.S. government long has regarded as a sponsor of terrorism.
The quiet end to al-Marabh's case provides a stark contrast to other cases in which the Bush administration has held suspects without lawyers as enemy combatants. It also contrasts with the terms FBI agents used to describe al-Marabh in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Al-Marabh "intended to martyr himself in an attack against the United States," an FBI agent wrote in December 2002. A footnote in al-Marabh's deportation ruling last year added, "The FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that al-Marabh has engaged in terrorist activity or will do so if he is not removed from the United States."...
Bush May Hire Lawyer in Probe Over CIA Leak
What happened to Bush's claim of taking full personal responsibility for his actions?
Bush May Hire Lawyer in Probe Over CIA Leak
Wed Jun 2, 8:10 PM ET
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has sought a lawyer to represent him in the criminal probe into who was responsible for a leak that was seen as retaliation against a critic of the Iraq war, the White House said on Wednesday.
"The president has had discussions with an outside attorney, and in the event that he needs advice he would retain him," said White House spokesman Allen Abney, naming the lawyer as Jim Sharp.
A federal grand jury has been hearing testimony since January from administration and government officials in an attempt to establish who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media last year.
Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was asked by the CIA to travel to Niger in February 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country.
Wilson dismissed the reports as unfounded, but Bush nevertheless included a reference to the supposed deal in his State of the Union speech in 2003, citing it as one of the reasons to invade Iraq.
The CIA later acknowledged that the uranium reports were based on forged documents and the White House said they should not have been mentioned in the State of the Union speech.
A newspaper columnist disclosed Plame's identity in July last year and Wilson accused the Bush administration of having leaked the information to pay him back for having publicly taken issue with the president's uranium claim.
It is illegal under U.S. law to disclose the name of a covert agent who has served outside the country in the previous five years.
Reports that Bush had contacted an attorney were first carried on Wednesday by CBS Evening News.
Bush May Hire Lawyer in Probe Over CIA Leak
Wed Jun 2, 8:10 PM ET
Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has sought a lawyer to represent him in the criminal probe into who was responsible for a leak that was seen as retaliation against a critic of the Iraq war, the White House said on Wednesday.
"The president has had discussions with an outside attorney, and in the event that he needs advice he would retain him," said White House spokesman Allen Abney, naming the lawyer as Jim Sharp.
A federal grand jury has been hearing testimony since January from administration and government officials in an attempt to establish who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media last year.
Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was asked by the CIA to travel to Niger in February 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country.
Wilson dismissed the reports as unfounded, but Bush nevertheless included a reference to the supposed deal in his State of the Union speech in 2003, citing it as one of the reasons to invade Iraq.
The CIA later acknowledged that the uranium reports were based on forged documents and the White House said they should not have been mentioned in the State of the Union speech.
A newspaper columnist disclosed Plame's identity in July last year and Wilson accused the Bush administration of having leaked the information to pay him back for having publicly taken issue with the president's uranium claim.
It is illegal under U.S. law to disclose the name of a covert agent who has served outside the country in the previous five years.
Reports that Bush had contacted an attorney were first carried on Wednesday by CBS Evening News.
Monday, May 31, 2004
June 1, 2004
NY TIMES OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Great Escape
By CRAIG UNGER
Americans who think the 9/11 commission is going to answer all the crucial questions about the terrorist attacks are likely to be sorely disappointed — especially if they're interested in the secret evacuation of Saudis by plane that began just after Sept. 11.
We knew that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis. We knew that Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, was behind 9/11. Yet we did not conduct a police-style investigation of the departing Saudis, of whom two dozen were members. of the bin Laden family. That is not to say that they were complicit in the attacks.
Unfortunately, though, we may never know the real story. The investigative panel has already concluded that there is "no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace." But the real point is that there were still some restrictions on American airspace when the Saudi flights began.
In addition, new evidence shows that the evacuation involved more than the departure of 142 Saudis on six charter flights that the commission is investigating. According to newly released documents, 160 Saudis left the United States on 55 flights immediately after 9/11 — making a total of about 300 people who left with the apparent approval of the Bush administration, far more than has been reported before. The records were released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative, nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington.
The vast majority of the newly disclosed flights were commercial airline flights, not charters, often carrying just two or three Saudi passengers. They originated from more than 20 cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Houston. One Saudi Arabian Airlines flight left Kennedy Airport on Sept. 13 with 46 Saudis. The next day, another Saudi Arabian Airlines flight left with 13 Saudis.
The panel has indicated that it has yet to find any evidence that the F.B.I. checked the manifests of departing flights against its terror watch list. The departures of additional Saudis raise more questions for the panel. Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar, told The Hill newspaper recently that he took full responsibility for approving some flights. But we don't know if other Bush administration officials participated in the decision.
The passengers should have been questioned about any links to Osama bin Laden, or his financing. We have long known that some faction of the Saudi elite has helped funnel money to Islamist terrorists —inadvertently at least. Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who has been accused of being an intermediary between Al Qaeda and the House of Saud, boarded one of the evacuation planes in Kentucky. Was he interrogated by the F.B.I. before he left?
If the commission dares to address these issues, it will undoubtedly be accused of politicizing one of the most important national security investigations in American history — in an election year, no less.
But if it does not, it risks something far worse — the betrayal of the thousands of people who lost their lives that day, not to mention millions of others who want the truth.
Craig Unger is the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties."
________________________________________________________________________
NY TIMES OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Great Escape
By CRAIG UNGER
Americans who think the 9/11 commission is going to answer all the crucial questions about the terrorist attacks are likely to be sorely disappointed — especially if they're interested in the secret evacuation of Saudis by plane that began just after Sept. 11.
We knew that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis. We knew that Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, was behind 9/11. Yet we did not conduct a police-style investigation of the departing Saudis, of whom two dozen were members. of the bin Laden family. That is not to say that they were complicit in the attacks.
Unfortunately, though, we may never know the real story. The investigative panel has already concluded that there is "no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace." But the real point is that there were still some restrictions on American airspace when the Saudi flights began.
In addition, new evidence shows that the evacuation involved more than the departure of 142 Saudis on six charter flights that the commission is investigating. According to newly released documents, 160 Saudis left the United States on 55 flights immediately after 9/11 — making a total of about 300 people who left with the apparent approval of the Bush administration, far more than has been reported before. The records were released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative, nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington.
The vast majority of the newly disclosed flights were commercial airline flights, not charters, often carrying just two or three Saudi passengers. They originated from more than 20 cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Houston. One Saudi Arabian Airlines flight left Kennedy Airport on Sept. 13 with 46 Saudis. The next day, another Saudi Arabian Airlines flight left with 13 Saudis.
The panel has indicated that it has yet to find any evidence that the F.B.I. checked the manifests of departing flights against its terror watch list. The departures of additional Saudis raise more questions for the panel. Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar, told The Hill newspaper recently that he took full responsibility for approving some flights. But we don't know if other Bush administration officials participated in the decision.
The passengers should have been questioned about any links to Osama bin Laden, or his financing. We have long known that some faction of the Saudi elite has helped funnel money to Islamist terrorists —inadvertently at least. Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who has been accused of being an intermediary between Al Qaeda and the House of Saud, boarded one of the evacuation planes in Kentucky. Was he interrogated by the F.B.I. before he left?
If the commission dares to address these issues, it will undoubtedly be accused of politicizing one of the most important national security investigations in American history — in an election year, no less.
But if it does not, it risks something far worse — the betrayal of the thousands of people who lost their lives that day, not to mention millions of others who want the truth.
Craig Unger is the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties."
________________________________________________________________________
May 31, 2004 NY TIMES LETTERS
Hastert and McCain
To the Editor:
So according to the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, Senator John McCain, of all people, does not know the meaning of sacrifice ("Hastert, the Reticent Speaker, Suddenly Has Plenty to Say," news article, May 24).
Given the administration's abysmal record — on all fronts, from economic policy to security to military affairs — it is not surprising that Mr. Hastert and other Congressional Republicans respond to criticism with personal attacks.
But you know they're desperate when they attack someone like Mr. McCain for daring to question the fiscal irresponsibility of this administration and its Congressional supporters.
SILVIO LEVY
Berkeley, Calif., May 24, 2004
Hastert and McCain
To the Editor:
So according to the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, Senator John McCain, of all people, does not know the meaning of sacrifice ("Hastert, the Reticent Speaker, Suddenly Has Plenty to Say," news article, May 24).
Given the administration's abysmal record — on all fronts, from economic policy to security to military affairs — it is not surprising that Mr. Hastert and other Congressional Republicans respond to criticism with personal attacks.
But you know they're desperate when they attack someone like Mr. McCain for daring to question the fiscal irresponsibility of this administration and its Congressional supporters.
SILVIO LEVY
Berkeley, Calif., May 24, 2004
washingtonpost.com
From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity
Scholars Say Campaign Is Making History With Often-Misleading Attacks
By Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01
It was a typical week in the life of the Bush reelection machine.
Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."
On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.
The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.
On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.
The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.
Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.
Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush's campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads -- or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.
The assault on Kerry is multi-tiered: It involves television ads, news releases, Web sites and e-mail, and statements by Bush spokesmen and surrogates -- all coordinated to drive home the message that Kerry has equivocated and "flip-flopped" on Iraq, support for the military, taxes, education and other matters.
"There is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you've historically had in the general-election period against either candidate," said University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communication. "This is a very high level of attack, particularly for an incumbent."
Brown University professor Darrell West, author of a book on political advertising, said Bush's level of negative advertising is already higher than the levels reached in the 2000, 1996 and 1992 campaigns. And because campaigns typically become more negative as the election nears, "I'm anticipating it's going to be the most negative campaign ever," eclipsing 1988, West said. "If you compare the early stage of campaigns, virtually none of the early ads were negative, even in '88."
In terms of the magnitude of the distortions, those who study political discourse say Bush's are no worse than those that have been done since, as Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar put it, "the beginning of time."
Kerry, too, has made his own misleading statements and exaggerations. For example, he said in a speech last week about Iraq: "They have gone it alone when they should have assembled a whole team." That is not true. There are about 25,000 allied troops from several nations, particularly Britain, in Iraq. Likewise, Kerry said several times last week that Bush has spent $80 million on negative and misleading ads -- a significant overstatement. Kerry also suggested several times last week that Bush opposed increasing spending on several homeland defense programs; in fact, Bush has proposed big increases in homeland security but opposed some Democratic attempts to increase spending even more in some areas. Kerry's rhetoric at rallies is also often much harsher and more personal than Bush's.
But Bush has outdone Kerry in the number of untruths, in part because Bush has leveled so many specific charges (and Kerry has such a lengthy voting record), but also because Kerry has learned from the troubles caused by Al Gore's misstatements in 2000. "The balance of misleading claims tips to Bush," Jamieson said, "in part because the Kerry team has been more careful."
Attacks Get Early Start
The attacks have started unusually early -- even considering the accelerated primary calendar -- in part because Bush was responding to a slew of attacks on his record during the Democratic primaries, in which the rivals criticized him more than one another. And because the Bush campaign has spent an unprecedented sum on advertising at this early stage of the campaign, "the average voter is getting a much more negative impression," said Ken Goldstein, who tracks political advertising at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
From the president and Cheney down to media aides stationed in every battleground state and volunteers who dress up like Flipper the flip-flopping dolphin at rallies, the Bush campaign relentlessly portrays Kerry as elitist, untrustworthy, liberal and a flip-flopper on major issues. This campaign is persistent and methodical, and it often revs up on Monday mornings with the strategically timed release of ads or damaging attacks on Kerry, including questioning medical and service records in Vietnam and his involvement in the peace movement afterward. Often, they knock Kerry off message and force him to deflect personal questions.
Sometimes the charges ring true. Last week, Kerry told NBC: "I'm for the Patriot Act, but I'm not for the Patriot Act the way they abuse the Constitution." That brought to mind Kerry's much-mocked contention in March on Iraq spending: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
But often they distort Kerry's record and words to undermine the candidate or reinforce negative perceptions of him.
One constant theme of the Bush campaign is that Kerry is "playing politics" with Iraq, terrorism and national security. Earlier this month, Bush-Cheney Chairman Marc Racicot told reporters in a conference call that Kerry suggested in a speech that 150,000 U.S. troops are "universally responsible" for the misdeeds of a few soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison -- a statement the candidate never made. In that one call, Racicot made at least three variations of this claim and the campaign cut off a reporter who challenged him on it.
In early March, Bush charged that Kerry had proposed a $1.5 billion cut in the intelligence budget that would "gut the intelligence services." Kerry did propose such a cut in 1995, but it amounted to about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget and was smaller than the $3.8 billion cut the Republican-led Congress approved for the same program Kerry was targeting.
The campaign ads, which are most scrutinized, have produced a torrent of misstatements. On March 11, the Bush team released a spot saying that in his first 100 days in office Kerry would "raise taxes by at least $900 billion." Kerry has said no such thing; the number was developed by the Bush campaign's calculations of Kerry's proposals.
On March 30, the Bush team released an ad noting that Kerry "supported a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax" and saying, "If Kerry's tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year." But Kerry opposes an increase in the gasoline tax. The ad is based on a 10-year-old newspaper quotation of Kerry but implies that the proposal is current.
Other Bush claims, though misleading, are rooted in facts. For example, Cheney's claim in almost every speech that Kerry "has voted some 350 times for higher taxes" includes any vote in which Kerry voted to leave taxes unchanged or supported a smaller tax cut than some favored.
Stretching the Truth
Incumbent presidents often prefer to run on their records in office, juxtaposing upbeat messages with negative shots at their opponents, as Bill Clinton did in 1996.
Scott Reed, who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign that year, said the Bush campaign has little choice but to deliver a constant stream of such negative charges. With low poll numbers and a volatile situation in Iraq, Bush has more hope of tarnishing Kerry's image than promoting his own.
"The Bush campaign is faced with the hard, true fact that they have to keep their boot on his neck and define him on their terms," Reed said. That might risk alienating some moderate voters or depressing turnout, "but they don't have a choice," he said.
The strategy was in full operation last week, beginning Monday in Arkansas. "Senator Kerry," Cheney said, "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all. He said, quote, 'I don't want to use that terminology.' In his view, opposing terrorism is far less of a military operation and more of a law enforcement operation."
But Kerry did not say what Cheney attributes to him. The quote Cheney used came from a March interview with the New York Times, in which Kerry used the phrase "war on terror." When he said "I don't want to use that terminology," he was discussing the "economic transformation" of the Middle East -- not the war on terrorism.
On Tuesday, the Bush campaign held a conference call to discuss its new ad, which charged that Kerry was "pressured by fellow liberals" to oppose wiretaps, subpoena powers and surveillance in the USA Patriot Act. "Kerry would now repeal the Patriot Act's use of these tools against terrorists," the ad said.
Kerry has proposed modifying those provisions by mandating tougher judicial controls over wiretaps and subpoenas, but not repealing them. In the conference call, Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman was prodded to offer evidence that Kerry was pressured by liberals or that Kerry opposed wiretaps. He offered no direct evidence, saying only that Kerry objected to the Patriot Act after liberals did, and that "a common-sense reading indicates he intends to repeal those important tools."
Meanwhile, Kerry was greeted in Oregon and Washington state with television ads paid for by the Bush campaign that underscore what ad analysts call the negativity and misleading nature of many of the Bush TV spots. One titled "Doublespeak" pulls quotes from several major newspapers to argue that Kerry has waffled on major issues and has often said one thing and done another. The quotes, however, are often from editorials, sometimes from opinion pages hostile toward Kerry, such as that of the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, as Kerry talked about rising gasoline prices, the Bush campaign recycled its charge that Kerry supports raising the gasoline tax by 50 cents per gallon. This was done in a memo to reporters and through Bush surrogates such as Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.). The Bush-Cheney Web site also features a "Kerry Gas Tax Calculator," allowing users to learn "How much more would he cost you?"
In Thursday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tracey Schmitt, regional spokeswoman for Bush-Cheney '04, echoed the point: "John Kerry helped block the bill in the Senate and is now inserting himself into the debate in a blatant display of political opportunism. Senator Kerry supported higher gas taxes at least 11 times, including a 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax," Schmitt said.
On Thursday, after Kerry delivered a major foreign policy address, the Bush campaign dispatched Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to make this statement to the Green Bay Press-Gazette in his home state: "John Kerry has a history of making proposals and casting votes that would decrease America's safety." Kerry was campaigning in Green Bay on Thursday and Friday.
It is true Kerry has voted numerous times to eliminate weapons systems and opposed the 1991 Iraq war. But Cheney voted against many of those same weapons systems, and Kerry has voted for several defense increases, especially in recent years.
At Bush campaign headquarters on Thursday, Mehlman held a conference call with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and George Allen (R-Va.) to level similar charges. "For John Kerry, the war in Iraq and the overall war on terror are a political game of Twister," Mehlman said.
Mehlman also drew reporters' attention to a new feature on the Bush Web site, allowing visitors to "Track Kerry's Shifting Positions on Iraq." That feature joined a Web log that points out negative coverage of Kerry, a feature called "John Kerry: The Raw Deal," "The Kerry Line," "Kerry Flip Flop of the Day," and "Journeys with John," a Kerry itinerary allowing people to see why "John Kerry is wrong for your state."
On Wednesday, a Bush memo charged that Kerry "led the fight against creating the Department of Homeland Security." While Kerry did vote against the Bush version multiple times, it is not true that he led the fight, but rather was one of several Democrats who held out for different labor agreements as part of its creation. Left unsaid is that, in the final vote, Kerry supported the department -- which Bush initially opposed.
Staff writer Howard Kurtz contributed to this report.
_____________________________________________________________________________
From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity
Scholars Say Campaign Is Making History With Often-Misleading Attacks
By Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 31, 2004; Page A01
It was a typical week in the life of the Bush reelection machine.
Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."
On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.
The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.
On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.
The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.
Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.
Three-quarters of the ads aired by Bush's campaign have been attacks on Kerry. Bush so far has aired 49,050 negative ads in the top 100 markets, or 75 percent of his advertising. Kerry has run 13,336 negative ads -- or 27 percent of his total. The figures were compiled by The Washington Post using data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group of the top 100 U.S. markets. Both campaigns said the figures are accurate.
The assault on Kerry is multi-tiered: It involves television ads, news releases, Web sites and e-mail, and statements by Bush spokesmen and surrogates -- all coordinated to drive home the message that Kerry has equivocated and "flip-flopped" on Iraq, support for the military, taxes, education and other matters.
"There is more attack now on the Bush side against Kerry than you've historically had in the general-election period against either candidate," said University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communication. "This is a very high level of attack, particularly for an incumbent."
Brown University professor Darrell West, author of a book on political advertising, said Bush's level of negative advertising is already higher than the levels reached in the 2000, 1996 and 1992 campaigns. And because campaigns typically become more negative as the election nears, "I'm anticipating it's going to be the most negative campaign ever," eclipsing 1988, West said. "If you compare the early stage of campaigns, virtually none of the early ads were negative, even in '88."
In terms of the magnitude of the distortions, those who study political discourse say Bush's are no worse than those that have been done since, as Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar put it, "the beginning of time."
Kerry, too, has made his own misleading statements and exaggerations. For example, he said in a speech last week about Iraq: "They have gone it alone when they should have assembled a whole team." That is not true. There are about 25,000 allied troops from several nations, particularly Britain, in Iraq. Likewise, Kerry said several times last week that Bush has spent $80 million on negative and misleading ads -- a significant overstatement. Kerry also suggested several times last week that Bush opposed increasing spending on several homeland defense programs; in fact, Bush has proposed big increases in homeland security but opposed some Democratic attempts to increase spending even more in some areas. Kerry's rhetoric at rallies is also often much harsher and more personal than Bush's.
But Bush has outdone Kerry in the number of untruths, in part because Bush has leveled so many specific charges (and Kerry has such a lengthy voting record), but also because Kerry has learned from the troubles caused by Al Gore's misstatements in 2000. "The balance of misleading claims tips to Bush," Jamieson said, "in part because the Kerry team has been more careful."
Attacks Get Early Start
The attacks have started unusually early -- even considering the accelerated primary calendar -- in part because Bush was responding to a slew of attacks on his record during the Democratic primaries, in which the rivals criticized him more than one another. And because the Bush campaign has spent an unprecedented sum on advertising at this early stage of the campaign, "the average voter is getting a much more negative impression," said Ken Goldstein, who tracks political advertising at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
From the president and Cheney down to media aides stationed in every battleground state and volunteers who dress up like Flipper the flip-flopping dolphin at rallies, the Bush campaign relentlessly portrays Kerry as elitist, untrustworthy, liberal and a flip-flopper on major issues. This campaign is persistent and methodical, and it often revs up on Monday mornings with the strategically timed release of ads or damaging attacks on Kerry, including questioning medical and service records in Vietnam and his involvement in the peace movement afterward. Often, they knock Kerry off message and force him to deflect personal questions.
Sometimes the charges ring true. Last week, Kerry told NBC: "I'm for the Patriot Act, but I'm not for the Patriot Act the way they abuse the Constitution." That brought to mind Kerry's much-mocked contention in March on Iraq spending: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
But often they distort Kerry's record and words to undermine the candidate or reinforce negative perceptions of him.
One constant theme of the Bush campaign is that Kerry is "playing politics" with Iraq, terrorism and national security. Earlier this month, Bush-Cheney Chairman Marc Racicot told reporters in a conference call that Kerry suggested in a speech that 150,000 U.S. troops are "universally responsible" for the misdeeds of a few soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison -- a statement the candidate never made. In that one call, Racicot made at least three variations of this claim and the campaign cut off a reporter who challenged him on it.
In early March, Bush charged that Kerry had proposed a $1.5 billion cut in the intelligence budget that would "gut the intelligence services." Kerry did propose such a cut in 1995, but it amounted to about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget and was smaller than the $3.8 billion cut the Republican-led Congress approved for the same program Kerry was targeting.
The campaign ads, which are most scrutinized, have produced a torrent of misstatements. On March 11, the Bush team released a spot saying that in his first 100 days in office Kerry would "raise taxes by at least $900 billion." Kerry has said no such thing; the number was developed by the Bush campaign's calculations of Kerry's proposals.
On March 30, the Bush team released an ad noting that Kerry "supported a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax" and saying, "If Kerry's tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year." But Kerry opposes an increase in the gasoline tax. The ad is based on a 10-year-old newspaper quotation of Kerry but implies that the proposal is current.
Other Bush claims, though misleading, are rooted in facts. For example, Cheney's claim in almost every speech that Kerry "has voted some 350 times for higher taxes" includes any vote in which Kerry voted to leave taxes unchanged or supported a smaller tax cut than some favored.
Stretching the Truth
Incumbent presidents often prefer to run on their records in office, juxtaposing upbeat messages with negative shots at their opponents, as Bill Clinton did in 1996.
Scott Reed, who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign that year, said the Bush campaign has little choice but to deliver a constant stream of such negative charges. With low poll numbers and a volatile situation in Iraq, Bush has more hope of tarnishing Kerry's image than promoting his own.
"The Bush campaign is faced with the hard, true fact that they have to keep their boot on his neck and define him on their terms," Reed said. That might risk alienating some moderate voters or depressing turnout, "but they don't have a choice," he said.
The strategy was in full operation last week, beginning Monday in Arkansas. "Senator Kerry," Cheney said, "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all. He said, quote, 'I don't want to use that terminology.' In his view, opposing terrorism is far less of a military operation and more of a law enforcement operation."
But Kerry did not say what Cheney attributes to him. The quote Cheney used came from a March interview with the New York Times, in which Kerry used the phrase "war on terror." When he said "I don't want to use that terminology," he was discussing the "economic transformation" of the Middle East -- not the war on terrorism.
On Tuesday, the Bush campaign held a conference call to discuss its new ad, which charged that Kerry was "pressured by fellow liberals" to oppose wiretaps, subpoena powers and surveillance in the USA Patriot Act. "Kerry would now repeal the Patriot Act's use of these tools against terrorists," the ad said.
Kerry has proposed modifying those provisions by mandating tougher judicial controls over wiretaps and subpoenas, but not repealing them. In the conference call, Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman was prodded to offer evidence that Kerry was pressured by liberals or that Kerry opposed wiretaps. He offered no direct evidence, saying only that Kerry objected to the Patriot Act after liberals did, and that "a common-sense reading indicates he intends to repeal those important tools."
Meanwhile, Kerry was greeted in Oregon and Washington state with television ads paid for by the Bush campaign that underscore what ad analysts call the negativity and misleading nature of many of the Bush TV spots. One titled "Doublespeak" pulls quotes from several major newspapers to argue that Kerry has waffled on major issues and has often said one thing and done another. The quotes, however, are often from editorials, sometimes from opinion pages hostile toward Kerry, such as that of the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, as Kerry talked about rising gasoline prices, the Bush campaign recycled its charge that Kerry supports raising the gasoline tax by 50 cents per gallon. This was done in a memo to reporters and through Bush surrogates such as Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.). The Bush-Cheney Web site also features a "Kerry Gas Tax Calculator," allowing users to learn "How much more would he cost you?"
In Thursday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Tracey Schmitt, regional spokeswoman for Bush-Cheney '04, echoed the point: "John Kerry helped block the bill in the Senate and is now inserting himself into the debate in a blatant display of political opportunism. Senator Kerry supported higher gas taxes at least 11 times, including a 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax," Schmitt said.
On Thursday, after Kerry delivered a major foreign policy address, the Bush campaign dispatched Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to make this statement to the Green Bay Press-Gazette in his home state: "John Kerry has a history of making proposals and casting votes that would decrease America's safety." Kerry was campaigning in Green Bay on Thursday and Friday.
It is true Kerry has voted numerous times to eliminate weapons systems and opposed the 1991 Iraq war. But Cheney voted against many of those same weapons systems, and Kerry has voted for several defense increases, especially in recent years.
At Bush campaign headquarters on Thursday, Mehlman held a conference call with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and George Allen (R-Va.) to level similar charges. "For John Kerry, the war in Iraq and the overall war on terror are a political game of Twister," Mehlman said.
Mehlman also drew reporters' attention to a new feature on the Bush Web site, allowing visitors to "Track Kerry's Shifting Positions on Iraq." That feature joined a Web log that points out negative coverage of Kerry, a feature called "John Kerry: The Raw Deal," "The Kerry Line," "Kerry Flip Flop of the Day," and "Journeys with John," a Kerry itinerary allowing people to see why "John Kerry is wrong for your state."
On Wednesday, a Bush memo charged that Kerry "led the fight against creating the Department of Homeland Security." While Kerry did vote against the Bush version multiple times, it is not true that he led the fight, but rather was one of several Democrats who held out for different labor agreements as part of its creation. Left unsaid is that, in the final vote, Kerry supported the department -- which Bush initially opposed.
Staff writer Howard Kurtz contributed to this report.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Face it. Bush is not smart nor a strong leader. He just tries to play one on TV.
washingtonpost.com
The President: Paying the Price . . .
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page B01
When presidents take big chances, they have two choices. They can take all the responsibility on themselves and hope that when things go well, they will reap allthe rewards. Or they can choose to draw in the opposition from the beginning and count on some help and a feeling of solidarity if things start to go wrong.
President Bush took his big chance in Iraq without buying himself an insurance policy. He could have patiently built a coalition of the many -- not only abroad, but also at home -- rather than slapping together a coalition of the few, including the not-entirely-willing. He could have made clear, as his father did a decade earlier, that a decision to go to war is so momentous that Congress should consider the matter under circumstances that would encourage genuine deliberation.
Legislators from both parties will tell you that the congressional debate over the 1991 Persian Gulf War was one of the most ennobling experiences of their political lives. You don't hear much of that this time around. That's because approval was shoved through Congress by a president only too happy to turn war into a campaign issue.
Instead of reaching out to doubters, Bush derided them. On the campaign trail in September 2002, he characterized Democratic members of Congress who wanted a strong mandate from the United Nations -- exactly what the administration is seeking now -- as evading responsibility. "It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States," he said, "you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States." Didn't his opponents think that defending the interests of the United States was exactly what they were doing? Bush continued: "If I were running for office, I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, 'Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I'm going to wait for somebody else to act.' "
No wonder the country is so polarized. Behind the president's plummeting poll numbers and public restlessness about the war is an emerging truth about the administration's way of doing business. Iraq was a preemptive war pursued by a president who governs by preemption.
There is a sad irony here, sad for Bush and for the country he leads. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had the opportunity to transform himself from the winner of a disputed election into a leader with unparalleled political authority. If you are a Bush supporter, it's worth contemplating the benefits of the road not taken.
At first, Bush did a masterful job of pulling the country together. Democrats as well as Republicans joined him at the ramparts. "We will speak with one voice," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle declared on 9/11. Bush's decision to go to war in Afghanistan won support across the political spectrum because it seemed an entirely appropriate response to an attack on our country by terrorists harbored by that nation's government.
Democrats were off balance, unsure of how to behave. Republicans recognized that the political ground was shifting in their favor. Rep. Tom Davis, the shrewd Virginia Republican, told me then that Bush had the chance "to reshape the image of the party from the top down." At the time, it was possible to imagine the reappearance of something like Eisenhower Republicanism and a long-term Republican majority that would embrace 55 to 60 percent of Americans.
But Bush chose aggressiveness over conciliation. At one point, in the debate over a bill creating a permanent Department of Homeland Security, he even said that "the Senate" -- meaning the bare Democratic majority that existed at the time -- was "not interested in the security of the American people." Don't doubt for a moment that every Democrat in the Senate remembers Bush saying that. You can play political hardball or you can call for national unity. You can't do both.
Give the current president this: His party won the 2002 midterm elections, whereas the first President Bush, after being more courtly on the war issue, saw his party go down to defeat in the 1990 congressional elections. So in the short term, hardball worked. And, yes, the first Bush did fail to win reelection, although his war had little to do with that defeat.
This President Bush put his potential opponents in a tough place. Sen. John F. Kerry voted to go to war, despite his doubts, because he didn't want to seem soft on Saddam Hussein. Kerry has been explaining his vote ever since, and Bush supporters chortle over his various explanations.
So Bush got what he wanted -- but at a higher price than he expected to pay.
For there is a cost to preemptive politics: Those who doubted your policies in the first place end up with no investment in them. When the administration's predictions about Iraq failed to come to pass -- we didn't find the dangerous weapons, we weren't seen as liberators for as long as we hoped -- those who had been accused of not being interested in the security of the American people had no stake in rallying to Bush's defense.
That's why many Republicans are wishing this president had paid more attention to his father's experience. Because the elder Bush took pains not to politicize the war issue, most of the war's opponents returned the favor. (It helped, of course, that U.S. forces won a smashing victory in Kuwait.) And because the first Bush reached out to build alliances across the globe -- how many air miles did then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III rack up in his quest for foreign support? -- there was none of the resentment of American power that now characterizes public opinion in countries that had long been American allies.
There is one explanation for Bush's preemptory posture: He genuinely believed that the weapons were there and that the transition to democracy in Iraq would be much easier than it turned out to be. I've been told by people inside the administration that the war's staunchest supporters really did have an optimistic view of this venture -- too optimistic, as it turns out, given the lack of planning for the alternatives. This could explain why Bush decided to place his bet without any insurance. He really did expect to be floating to reelection as morning came to America and Iraq and was about to dawn on that entity Bush likes to describe as "the greater Middle East."
Bush struggled this week to keep that hope alive. In his speech to the nation on Monday, he desperately tried to recreate the world of late 2001 and 2002. He recalled our sense of national unity after 9/11. He reminded us of the victory over the Taliban and "a totalitarian political ideology." He tried, again, to make the case that the war in Iraq is closely linked to the war on terrorism -- he used the words "terror," "terrorist" and "terrorism" 19 times.
But by reminding us of how united we once were, Bush only underscored how divided we have become. And that is why a president who once soared in the polls now finds himself struggling for reelection -- less by touting his own achievements than by trashing his opponent. John Kerry has spent nearly 20 years in the Senate, so there are thousands of votes to go after, a lot of opportunities to say Kerry has flip-flopped, changed his views, done what's necessary to win election.
All this might have worked in normal circumstances, and maybe it will this time. But at the moment, Bush is losing support among independent voters and has not nailed down moderate or even moderately conservative Republicans. Bush has signaled his own weakness by buying time on the Golf Channel, more a home to Republicans than to swing voters (except, perhaps, where the game itself is concerned).
By failing to embrace his opportunity to be a president of national unity, Bush has endangered the great project of his presidency: remaking Iraq. And he has offered Kerry the chance to be as tough as Howard Dean was -- but in the name of uniting Americans at a moment when solidarity is desperately needed.
This is why Kerry has reason to hope that his identity as a Vietnam veteran can trump his history as a Massachusetts liberal. And it's why President Bush, lacking the political insurance he should have sought, is right to be running scared.
Author's e-mail: postchat@aol.com
E.J. Dionne is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. This article is based, in part, on his just-published book, "Stand Up Fight Back" (Simon & Schuster).
____________________________________________________________________________
washingtonpost.com
The President: Paying the Price . . .
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page B01
When presidents take big chances, they have two choices. They can take all the responsibility on themselves and hope that when things go well, they will reap allthe rewards. Or they can choose to draw in the opposition from the beginning and count on some help and a feeling of solidarity if things start to go wrong.
President Bush took his big chance in Iraq without buying himself an insurance policy. He could have patiently built a coalition of the many -- not only abroad, but also at home -- rather than slapping together a coalition of the few, including the not-entirely-willing. He could have made clear, as his father did a decade earlier, that a decision to go to war is so momentous that Congress should consider the matter under circumstances that would encourage genuine deliberation.
Legislators from both parties will tell you that the congressional debate over the 1991 Persian Gulf War was one of the most ennobling experiences of their political lives. You don't hear much of that this time around. That's because approval was shoved through Congress by a president only too happy to turn war into a campaign issue.
Instead of reaching out to doubters, Bush derided them. On the campaign trail in September 2002, he characterized Democratic members of Congress who wanted a strong mandate from the United Nations -- exactly what the administration is seeking now -- as evading responsibility. "It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States," he said, "you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States." Didn't his opponents think that defending the interests of the United States was exactly what they were doing? Bush continued: "If I were running for office, I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, 'Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I'm going to wait for somebody else to act.' "
No wonder the country is so polarized. Behind the president's plummeting poll numbers and public restlessness about the war is an emerging truth about the administration's way of doing business. Iraq was a preemptive war pursued by a president who governs by preemption.
There is a sad irony here, sad for Bush and for the country he leads. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had the opportunity to transform himself from the winner of a disputed election into a leader with unparalleled political authority. If you are a Bush supporter, it's worth contemplating the benefits of the road not taken.
At first, Bush did a masterful job of pulling the country together. Democrats as well as Republicans joined him at the ramparts. "We will speak with one voice," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle declared on 9/11. Bush's decision to go to war in Afghanistan won support across the political spectrum because it seemed an entirely appropriate response to an attack on our country by terrorists harbored by that nation's government.
Democrats were off balance, unsure of how to behave. Republicans recognized that the political ground was shifting in their favor. Rep. Tom Davis, the shrewd Virginia Republican, told me then that Bush had the chance "to reshape the image of the party from the top down." At the time, it was possible to imagine the reappearance of something like Eisenhower Republicanism and a long-term Republican majority that would embrace 55 to 60 percent of Americans.
But Bush chose aggressiveness over conciliation. At one point, in the debate over a bill creating a permanent Department of Homeland Security, he even said that "the Senate" -- meaning the bare Democratic majority that existed at the time -- was "not interested in the security of the American people." Don't doubt for a moment that every Democrat in the Senate remembers Bush saying that. You can play political hardball or you can call for national unity. You can't do both.
Give the current president this: His party won the 2002 midterm elections, whereas the first President Bush, after being more courtly on the war issue, saw his party go down to defeat in the 1990 congressional elections. So in the short term, hardball worked. And, yes, the first Bush did fail to win reelection, although his war had little to do with that defeat.
This President Bush put his potential opponents in a tough place. Sen. John F. Kerry voted to go to war, despite his doubts, because he didn't want to seem soft on Saddam Hussein. Kerry has been explaining his vote ever since, and Bush supporters chortle over his various explanations.
So Bush got what he wanted -- but at a higher price than he expected to pay.
For there is a cost to preemptive politics: Those who doubted your policies in the first place end up with no investment in them. When the administration's predictions about Iraq failed to come to pass -- we didn't find the dangerous weapons, we weren't seen as liberators for as long as we hoped -- those who had been accused of not being interested in the security of the American people had no stake in rallying to Bush's defense.
That's why many Republicans are wishing this president had paid more attention to his father's experience. Because the elder Bush took pains not to politicize the war issue, most of the war's opponents returned the favor. (It helped, of course, that U.S. forces won a smashing victory in Kuwait.) And because the first Bush reached out to build alliances across the globe -- how many air miles did then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III rack up in his quest for foreign support? -- there was none of the resentment of American power that now characterizes public opinion in countries that had long been American allies.
There is one explanation for Bush's preemptory posture: He genuinely believed that the weapons were there and that the transition to democracy in Iraq would be much easier than it turned out to be. I've been told by people inside the administration that the war's staunchest supporters really did have an optimistic view of this venture -- too optimistic, as it turns out, given the lack of planning for the alternatives. This could explain why Bush decided to place his bet without any insurance. He really did expect to be floating to reelection as morning came to America and Iraq and was about to dawn on that entity Bush likes to describe as "the greater Middle East."
Bush struggled this week to keep that hope alive. In his speech to the nation on Monday, he desperately tried to recreate the world of late 2001 and 2002. He recalled our sense of national unity after 9/11. He reminded us of the victory over the Taliban and "a totalitarian political ideology." He tried, again, to make the case that the war in Iraq is closely linked to the war on terrorism -- he used the words "terror," "terrorist" and "terrorism" 19 times.
But by reminding us of how united we once were, Bush only underscored how divided we have become. And that is why a president who once soared in the polls now finds himself struggling for reelection -- less by touting his own achievements than by trashing his opponent. John Kerry has spent nearly 20 years in the Senate, so there are thousands of votes to go after, a lot of opportunities to say Kerry has flip-flopped, changed his views, done what's necessary to win election.
All this might have worked in normal circumstances, and maybe it will this time. But at the moment, Bush is losing support among independent voters and has not nailed down moderate or even moderately conservative Republicans. Bush has signaled his own weakness by buying time on the Golf Channel, more a home to Republicans than to swing voters (except, perhaps, where the game itself is concerned).
By failing to embrace his opportunity to be a president of national unity, Bush has endangered the great project of his presidency: remaking Iraq. And he has offered Kerry the chance to be as tough as Howard Dean was -- but in the name of uniting Americans at a moment when solidarity is desperately needed.
This is why Kerry has reason to hope that his identity as a Vietnam veteran can trump his history as a Massachusetts liberal. And it's why President Bush, lacking the political insurance he should have sought, is right to be running scared.
Author's e-mail: postchat@aol.com
E.J. Dionne is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. This article is based, in part, on his just-published book, "Stand Up Fight Back" (Simon & Schuster).
____________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, May 30, 2004
BUSH’S SECRET PLAN (click to read the memo)
What Else Is He Hiding From Us?
When the White House first released the President’s new budget in February 2004, an internal Office of Management and Budget document surfaced showing anticipated cuts to most federal agencies and programs beginning in fiscal year 2006. At the time the White House dismissed the cuts, stating they did not accurately reflect Administration policy. But a May 19, 2004 White House memo obtained by the Washington Post states that federal agencies should use the proposed cuts in calculating their future budgets. Under the Bush formula, after the election many vital areas of federal spending that Bush has promoted including homeland security, education, homeownership and scientific research would face substantial reductions.
Homeland Security Would Be Cut by $1 Billion Starting in Fiscal Year 2006. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, homeland security funding would slip by $1 billion in FY 2006 to $29.6 billion. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Education Funding Would Be Cut by $1.5 Billion. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the $1.7 billion discretionary funding increase that Bush is proposing in this year’s budget would be nearly wiped out by a $1.5 billion cut in FY 2006. In February, Education Secretary Paige told House members that “OMB has advised us that the numbers beyond 2005 do not reflect detailed policy decisions by the administration.” But the May 19 memo reverses that position. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Veterans Affairs Would Be Cut by $910 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the Veteran’s Affairs would receive a $910 million cut in the first budget after the election – a reduction below FY 2004 levels. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Homeownership Program Would be Cut by $53 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, homeownership programs that Bush has promoted as vital to our society would be but by $53 million in FY 2006. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
National Institutes of Health Would be Cut by $600 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the National Institutes of Health would face a $600 million, 2.1 percent cut in FY 2006.[Washington Post, 5/27/04]
WIC Nutrition Program Would be Cut by $122 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program would be cut by $122 million in FY 2006. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Head Start Would be Cut by $177 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, Head Start would lose $177 million (2.7 percent) of its budget in FY 2006. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
For more on Bush's lies and misinformation during this election campaign go to the DBunker.
____________________________________________________________________
What Else Is He Hiding From Us?
When the White House first released the President’s new budget in February 2004, an internal Office of Management and Budget document surfaced showing anticipated cuts to most federal agencies and programs beginning in fiscal year 2006. At the time the White House dismissed the cuts, stating they did not accurately reflect Administration policy. But a May 19, 2004 White House memo obtained by the Washington Post states that federal agencies should use the proposed cuts in calculating their future budgets. Under the Bush formula, after the election many vital areas of federal spending that Bush has promoted including homeland security, education, homeownership and scientific research would face substantial reductions.
Homeland Security Would Be Cut by $1 Billion Starting in Fiscal Year 2006. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, homeland security funding would slip by $1 billion in FY 2006 to $29.6 billion. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Education Funding Would Be Cut by $1.5 Billion. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the $1.7 billion discretionary funding increase that Bush is proposing in this year’s budget would be nearly wiped out by a $1.5 billion cut in FY 2006. In February, Education Secretary Paige told House members that “OMB has advised us that the numbers beyond 2005 do not reflect detailed policy decisions by the administration.” But the May 19 memo reverses that position. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Veterans Affairs Would Be Cut by $910 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the Veteran’s Affairs would receive a $910 million cut in the first budget after the election – a reduction below FY 2004 levels. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Homeownership Program Would be Cut by $53 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, homeownership programs that Bush has promoted as vital to our society would be but by $53 million in FY 2006. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
National Institutes of Health Would be Cut by $600 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the National Institutes of Health would face a $600 million, 2.1 percent cut in FY 2006.[Washington Post, 5/27/04]
WIC Nutrition Program Would be Cut by $122 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program would be cut by $122 million in FY 2006. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
Head Start Would be Cut by $177 Million. Under the May 19, 2004 White House Office of Management and Budget memo guidelines, Head Start would lose $177 million (2.7 percent) of its budget in FY 2006. [Washington Post, 5/27/04]
For more on Bush's lies and misinformation during this election campaign go to the DBunker.
____________________________________________________________________
It's not about cutting spending, it's about tax cuts for the upper elite of the wealthiest which are those corporate backers like Halliburton that Bush cares more for than the the middle class and the poor in American.
Bush Plan Eyes Cuts for Schools, Veterans
Thu May 27,11:23 PM ET
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has told officials who oversee federal education, domestic security, veterans and other programs to prepare preliminary 2006 budgets that would cut spending after the presidential election, according to White House documents.
The programs facing reductions — should President Bush be re-elected in November — would also include the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites), the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) and the Interior Department.
Many of the targeted programs are widely popular. Cuts could carry a political price for a president who has touted his support for schools, the environment and other domestic initiatives.
A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget said the documents, obtained by The Associated Press, contained routine procedural guidelines so officials could start gathering data about their needs for 2006.
Decisions about spending levels "won't be made for months," said the spokesman, J.T. Young. "It doesn't mean we won't adequately fund our priorities."
Democrats said the papers showed the pressures that a string of tax cuts Bush has won from Congress have heaped onto the rest of the budget.
"The only way we can even begin to pay for these huge tax cuts is by imposing cuts on critical government services," said Thomas Kahn, Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., in a teleconference set up by Democratic presidential contender John Kerry's campaign, called it the end of an administration "hide the ball" budget strategy.
"The ball is now out for everyone to see," Graham said. "The only thing that's left in place is the part of the ball that is labeled 'tax cuts for my rich friends.'"
A May 19 memorandum from the White House budget office to agencies said they should assume 2006 spending levels specified in an internal administration database that accompanied the 2005 budget that Bush proposed in February. The government's 2006 budget year begins Oct. 1, 2005.
"If you propose to increase funding above that level for any account, it must be offset within your agency" by cuts in other accounts "so that, in total, your request does not exceed the 2006 level assumed for the agency," the memo read in part.
The memorandum and portions of the internal database were obtained by The Associated Press from congressional officials who requested anonymity. The officials read other portions of the database to a reporter.
Congress is just beginning to consider the 2005 federal budget, which will total about $2.4 trillion. About two-thirds of it covers automatically paid benefits like Social Security, and the remainder — which Congress must approve annually — covers agency spending.
According to the database, that one-third of the budget would grow from the $821 billion Bush requested for 2005 to $843 billion in 2006, or about 2.7 percent.
But that includes defense and foreign aid spending, which are both slated for increases due in part to wars and the battle against terrorism.
The remaining amount — for domestic spending — would drop from $368.7 billion in 2005 to $366.3 billion in 2006. Though that reduction would be just 0.7 percent, it does not take into account inflation or the political consequences of curbing spending for popular programs.
"Continuing the strategy of last year's budget, the 2006 budget will constrain ... spending while supporting national priorities: winning the war on terror, protecting the homeland and strengthening the economy," the memorandum said.
The documents show spending for:
_Domestic security at the Homeland Security Department and other agencies would go from $30.6 billion in 2005 to $29.6 billion in 2006, a 3 percent drop.
_The Education Department would go from $57.3 billion in 2005 to $55.9 billion in 2006, 2.4 percent less.
_The Veterans Affairs Department would fall 3.4 percent from $29.7 billion in 2005 to $28.7 billion.
_The Environmental Protection Agency would drop from $7.8 billion in 2005 to $7.6 billion, or 2.6 percent.
_The National Institutes of Health, which finances biomedical research and had its budget doubled over a recent five-year period, would fall from $28.6 billion to $28 billion, or 2.1 percent.
_The Interior Department would fall 1.9 percent from $10.8 billion in 2005 to $10.6 billion.
_The Defense Department would grow 5.2 percent to $422.7 billion in 2006, and the Justice Department would increase 4.3 percent to $19.5 billion in 2006.
The documents were first reported by The Washington Post.
____________________________________________________________________
Bush Plan Eyes Cuts for Schools, Veterans
Thu May 27,11:23 PM ET
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has told officials who oversee federal education, domestic security, veterans and other programs to prepare preliminary 2006 budgets that would cut spending after the presidential election, according to White House documents.
The programs facing reductions — should President Bush be re-elected in November — would also include the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites), the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) and the Interior Department.
Many of the targeted programs are widely popular. Cuts could carry a political price for a president who has touted his support for schools, the environment and other domestic initiatives.
A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget said the documents, obtained by The Associated Press, contained routine procedural guidelines so officials could start gathering data about their needs for 2006.
Decisions about spending levels "won't be made for months," said the spokesman, J.T. Young. "It doesn't mean we won't adequately fund our priorities."
Democrats said the papers showed the pressures that a string of tax cuts Bush has won from Congress have heaped onto the rest of the budget.
"The only way we can even begin to pay for these huge tax cuts is by imposing cuts on critical government services," said Thomas Kahn, Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., in a teleconference set up by Democratic presidential contender John Kerry's campaign, called it the end of an administration "hide the ball" budget strategy.
"The ball is now out for everyone to see," Graham said. "The only thing that's left in place is the part of the ball that is labeled 'tax cuts for my rich friends.'"
A May 19 memorandum from the White House budget office to agencies said they should assume 2006 spending levels specified in an internal administration database that accompanied the 2005 budget that Bush proposed in February. The government's 2006 budget year begins Oct. 1, 2005.
"If you propose to increase funding above that level for any account, it must be offset within your agency" by cuts in other accounts "so that, in total, your request does not exceed the 2006 level assumed for the agency," the memo read in part.
The memorandum and portions of the internal database were obtained by The Associated Press from congressional officials who requested anonymity. The officials read other portions of the database to a reporter.
Congress is just beginning to consider the 2005 federal budget, which will total about $2.4 trillion. About two-thirds of it covers automatically paid benefits like Social Security, and the remainder — which Congress must approve annually — covers agency spending.
According to the database, that one-third of the budget would grow from the $821 billion Bush requested for 2005 to $843 billion in 2006, or about 2.7 percent.
But that includes defense and foreign aid spending, which are both slated for increases due in part to wars and the battle against terrorism.
The remaining amount — for domestic spending — would drop from $368.7 billion in 2005 to $366.3 billion in 2006. Though that reduction would be just 0.7 percent, it does not take into account inflation or the political consequences of curbing spending for popular programs.
"Continuing the strategy of last year's budget, the 2006 budget will constrain ... spending while supporting national priorities: winning the war on terror, protecting the homeland and strengthening the economy," the memorandum said.
The documents show spending for:
_Domestic security at the Homeland Security Department and other agencies would go from $30.6 billion in 2005 to $29.6 billion in 2006, a 3 percent drop.
_The Education Department would go from $57.3 billion in 2005 to $55.9 billion in 2006, 2.4 percent less.
_The Veterans Affairs Department would fall 3.4 percent from $29.7 billion in 2005 to $28.7 billion.
_The Environmental Protection Agency would drop from $7.8 billion in 2005 to $7.6 billion, or 2.6 percent.
_The National Institutes of Health, which finances biomedical research and had its budget doubled over a recent five-year period, would fall from $28.6 billion to $28 billion, or 2.1 percent.
_The Interior Department would fall 1.9 percent from $10.8 billion in 2005 to $10.6 billion.
_The Defense Department would grow 5.2 percent to $422.7 billion in 2006, and the Justice Department would increase 4.3 percent to $19.5 billion in 2006.
The documents were first reported by The Washington Post.
____________________________________________________________________
Our intelligence officers hid their identities. Why? And what's this about "corporate" people directing interrogations?!!!! Shades of Halliburton! Is that what Cheney really wants with moving so many military/government jobs to private oversight? So he and his cabal of neocons can circumvent our Constitutiona AND our American values? This sort of action is that of fascist nazi agents. It leads all the way up to the President and his wishes to dump the Geneva Convention. What example does this tell the Iraq people? But even worse what kind of monsters are we breeding within our own ranks from this failure of strong, moral and intelligent leadership?
Interrogators hid identities
Fri May 28, 6:41 AM ET
By Toni Locy, USA TODAY
Efforts to determine who orchestrated the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison may be complicated by the ways in which many military intelligence officials, covert U.S. agents and civilian contractors obscured their identities.
Intelligence officers, agents and interrogators at the prison did not wear name tags or display insignia indicating rank, according to testimony at an April 7 hearing for Sgt. Javal Davis, one of seven military police officers accused of abuse. Dressed in desert camouflage uniforms or casual clothes, military and civilian intelligence operatives blended in with other soldiers, and some of them responded coyly when MPs asked their names, says Paul Bergrin, a Newark, N.J., lawyer who represents Davis.
In an interview, Bergrin quoted Davis, 26, as saying that when he asked some of the mysterious agents and interrogators for their names, they would say, " 'I'm Special Agent John Doe,' or 'I'm Special Agent in Charge James Bond.' "
Some of the MPs have been able to identify civilian and military interrogators who they say encouraged the abuse, and photos that MPs took of detainees being abused have allowed investigators to zero in on several other suspects. But as the defense strategies begin to take shape for Davis and other reservists charged with maltreatment of detainees, dereliction of duty and other offenses, Bergrin says he is struggling to identify many of the shadowy covert operatives he claims directed the abuse from October to December.
Davis' defense also is hampered by the decisions of three of his supervisors to invoke their right to remain silent under the military's version of the Fifth Amendment.
The supervisors - including Capt. Donald Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police Company - refused to testify at Davis' hearing to avoid potentially incriminating themselves.
Bergrin says he is concerned about Davis' ability to get a fair trial if the defense can't call such key witnesses because Davis doesn't know their names or they refuse to testify. Like attorneys for other accused MPs, Bergrin plans to argue that military intelligence officials, CIA officers and civilian interrogators manipulated Davis and other MPs into "softening up" prisoners for interrogations.
But showing that the responsibility for the abuse goes up the chain of command could be difficult if defense attorneys cannot determine the identities of intelligence officers and interrogators who worked with the MPs.
"This is a major problem," Bergrin says. "They refused to provide their identities."
Prison logs haphazard
It is common for intelligence officers to shield their identities from prisoners, military analysts say. However, the prison's records should contain such information.
But sign-in logs were kept haphazardly at Abu Ghraib. Without such documentation or photos, defense attorneys and military investigators could have trouble finding evidence - besides someone's memory - to link individual intelligence officers and interrogators to specific acts of abuse.
In an April 15 report recommending that Davis face a court-martial, military investigating officer Maj. John Coughlin said that several civilian contract workers' "present whereabouts (are) unknown." He also said that "James Bond" appeared on a prison log and is an "agent not known, and believed to be a fictitious name."
Meanwhile, military prosecutors appear to be developing a theory of the case that dovetails with the stance taken by top officials at the Pentagon: that the abuse was not systemic and was the work of a small group of low-level soldiers. The seven charged so far are from the 372nd MP Company, based near Cumberland, Md.
The battle lines between the soldiers and their prosecutors are being drawn over whether defense attorneys should have access to records that they believe could show that superior officers knew about the abuses at Abu Ghraib and looked the other way.
Among the documents that Davis' attorneys want: records of activities within the prison last year as it prepared for a visit by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of military forces in Iraq, and reports produced after he left.
In their first skirmish with prosecutors, Davis' attorneys tried to call more than 30 witnesses to testify at an Article 32 hearing, which is the military's version of a civilian grand jury proceeding and a preliminary hearing. Four testified.
Several of the witnesses sought by the defense were from the 372nd MP Company and the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, based in Germany. They had been redeployed, and the military refused to bring them back to Baghdad to testify at Davis' hearing.
But witnesses who testified filled in more detail about several incidents of abuse that have been frozen in time by photographs that captured soldiers forcing prisoners into sexually provocative poses, supposedly to try to extract information about Iraqi insurgents.
According to a military summary of Davis' hearing obtained by USA TODAY, witnesses also revealed that military intelligence and "OGA" operatives - people from "other government agencies" who the MPs believed to be CIA officers - argued for at least two days over who should dispose of the body of a badly beaten prisoner who died during questioning in a shower room. While the unidentified intelligence officers bickered, the body was kept packed in ice.
Other witnesses testified that as the abuses escalated in an Abu Ghraib cellblock known as Tier 1, the MPs' supervisors - commissioned and non-commissioned officers - avoided the area, especially during the night shift. If supervisors showed up at all, according to testimony, it was only for a few minutes - sometimes seconds - at a time.
Against this backdrop, families of the accused soldiers say they are increasingly concerned that many superior officers will escape courts-martial and that the accused MPs will take the fall for a scandal that has damaged the USA's reputation as a proponent and protector of human rights.
"You have officers who were very close to these enlisted persons," Bergrin says. "They essentially slept in the same area. You can't tell me they didn't know what was going on."
'Sadistic, blatant' abuses
When the 372nd MP Company arrived in Iraq last spring, it was a close-knit group of men and women, most of them from small towns near Cresaptown, Md.
The 372nd initially was assigned to provide security for military convoys. By October, the unit's mission changed dramatically when it was assigned to guard captives at Abu Ghraib.
In mid-January, one of the unit's own, Spc. Joseph Darby, 24, went to commanders with a CD-ROM of graphic pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused.
An investigation began, and Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba documented "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" of prisoners by MPs. The Pentagon also began a separate criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing by military intelligence officers.
(The CIA also has asked the Justice Department to examine at least two deaths of Iraqi prisoners. And Justice officials, at the Pentagon's request, are probing alleged abuse by a civilian contractor.)
In the wake of those probes, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, one of the seven accused reservists from the 372nd, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against his friends.
Soldiers testified at Davis' hearing that the 372nd received two days of on-the-job training from the 72nd MP Company, which was leaving Abu Ghraib.
There were no "SOPs" - standard operating procedures - for handling detainees, the soldiers testified. There was no training on how to deal with the Arab culture. And there were no written instructions provided by commanders on the treatment of prisoners of war under the internationally accepted Geneva Conventions.
Very little, it turns out, was put in writing at the prison, Taguba concluded. When it was, the information often was wrong or incomplete, according to testimony.
Unprofessional behavior was the norm at the prison, Taguba found. Soldiers didn't salute superiors. They wore civilian clothes at times, and they wrote personal messages on their helmets and caps.
Tensions rise
At first, the Maryland reserve unit guarded fewer than 200 prisoners. But the number soared to up to 1,600 as the Iraqi insurgency movement stepped up deadly roadside bombings.
Military intelligence officials were placed in charge of the MPs at Abu Ghraib on Oct. 12, not long after the Pentagon sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the military's prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Iraq to assess the quality of intelligence-gathering efforts at the U.S.-controlled prisons.
Two MPs with experience as civilian corrections officers - Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, 37, of Buckingham, Va., and Spc. Charles Graner, 35, of Uniontown, Pa. - took the lead in preparing prisoners for interrogation, according to testimony at Davis' hearing.
By Nov. 8, tensions inside and outside Abu Ghraib had escalated. That week 27 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq. The abuse on cellblocks 1A and 1B entered a new phase of cruelty amid pressure to learn more about the insurgency.
It began when seven prisoners suspected of starting a riot at another prison, Camp Ganci, were brought to Abu Ghraib, according to testimony at Davis' hearing.
The prisoners' hands were bound by plastic cuffs, and sandbags were put over their heads. "It is a long walk from in-processing to Tier 1," Spc. Matthew Wisdom testified. "The escorts were leading them into walls and cell bars as they walked with them."
At first, the prisoners, who were still clothed, were placed in a "dog pile" on the floor. Davis allegedly jumped on the prisoners and stomped on their hands and feet. Unlike Graner and Frederick, Davis is not charged with sexually humiliating prisoners.
By the time the night shift ended the next morning, the seven suspected riot leaders had been stripped, arranged in a human pyramid and ordered to masturbate.
One prisoner was forced to stand on a box of military meals, with a wire attached to his penis, and threatened with electrocution if he lost his balance. Photos taken that night by the soldiers became worldwide symbols of the abuse.
According to testimony at Davis' hearing, a platoon sergeant, Shannon Snider, was nearby when Davis jumped on the prisoners. But Sivits told investigators that Snider stuck around for "two minutes or less" after admonishing Davis and that Snider missed the worst abuse. Taguba recommended that Snider be relieved of duty and reprimanded for not reporting Davis.
Another supervisor, Staff Sgt. Robert Elliot, brought the seven suspected leaders of the Ganci riot to Abu Ghraib. But Elliot, a squad leader, left the tier after about "20 seconds or so," Sivits said.
Snider and Elliot invoked their rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify at Davis' hearing. Spc. Jason Kenner, another MP, testified that he rarely saw superior officers in the prison, checking up on underlings. "If they didn't walk the tier, they wouldn't see the nakedness," he said.
Capt. Scott Dunn, Davis' military lawyer in Baghdad, is asking prosecutors to turn over evidence that documents what superior officers and enlisted supervisors did or didn't do at Abu Ghraib.
Dunn wants all prisoner logs and written authorizations from up the chain of command for "unusual or different treatment of detainees." He also is demanding that the military provide names of all military intelligence officials, CIA officers, FBI agents and civilian contract interrogators who questioned prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor, has refused. He said the requests for records on superior officers' activities and Sanchez's visit are "overly vague and non-specific." A military judge will mediate the dispute before trial, just as a judge would in a civilian court.
In court papers, McCabe also said the defense knows as much as he does about the identities of government agents and contract workers who were at the prison.
The pursuit of higher-ups
To show that Davis was doing what he was told, his lawyers face the daunting task of identifying the specific order and the person who gave it, says retired Marine lieutenant colonel Gary Solis, a former military prosecutor who teaches the laws of war at Georgetown University in Washington.
Then, Solis says, they must show that the order was "lawful." Under military law, following an order cannot be used as a defense to a charge of criminal wrongdoing if it was unlawful.
But Solis says the defense is on the right track in pursuing superior officers and other supervisors who failed to spot the abuse and stop it.
In his report, Taguba recommended reprimands and reassignments for several higher-ranking MP and military intelligence personnel, including Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th MP Brigade, who was in charge of the prison.
Taguba also found that two military intelligence officials and two civilian contract workers were "either directly or indirectly responsible for abuses at Abu Ghraib." They are: Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th MI Brigade; Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, former director of the military's Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center in Iraq; Steven Stephanowicz, a civilian interrogator employed by CACI International Inc.; and John Israel, a civilian interpreter employed by CACI.
Stephanowicz was accused in Taguba's report of instructing MPs in "setting conditions" for interrogations, knowing that his suggestions "equated to physical abuse." Stephanowicz's attorney, Henry Hockeimer of Philadelphia, says Stephanowicz no longer is in Iraq but is still employed by CACI.
Taguba recommended that Pappas' failures be examined in the Pentagon's military intelligence probe and that Jordan be relieved of duty for lying to investigators.
Solis says the military must do more. "This crap about career-ending reprimands doesn't get it," he says. "Officers have to go to court-martial." If they aren't charged, Solis says, "that adds a new layer of injustice to the wrongs that have been committed."
Bill Lawson, Frederick's uncle, says that "my nephew will take his licks, but they need to prosecute everybody else" involved in the abuse scandal.
At Davis' hearing, two prosecution witnesses and four soldiers called by the defense sounded a similar theme: The MPs wanted to please the military intelligence officers and civilian interrogators and did not question them.
Sgt. Hydrue Joyner of the 372nd said that like the others, he also did not challenge Graner and Frederick, the MPs with civilian prison guard experience.
"I am not a corrections officer," Joyner testified. "I'm just an MP, on the road fighting the forces of evil."
__________________________________________________________________
Interrogators hid identities
Fri May 28, 6:41 AM ET
By Toni Locy, USA TODAY
Efforts to determine who orchestrated the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison may be complicated by the ways in which many military intelligence officials, covert U.S. agents and civilian contractors obscured their identities.
Intelligence officers, agents and interrogators at the prison did not wear name tags or display insignia indicating rank, according to testimony at an April 7 hearing for Sgt. Javal Davis, one of seven military police officers accused of abuse. Dressed in desert camouflage uniforms or casual clothes, military and civilian intelligence operatives blended in with other soldiers, and some of them responded coyly when MPs asked their names, says Paul Bergrin, a Newark, N.J., lawyer who represents Davis.
In an interview, Bergrin quoted Davis, 26, as saying that when he asked some of the mysterious agents and interrogators for their names, they would say, " 'I'm Special Agent John Doe,' or 'I'm Special Agent in Charge James Bond.' "
Some of the MPs have been able to identify civilian and military interrogators who they say encouraged the abuse, and photos that MPs took of detainees being abused have allowed investigators to zero in on several other suspects. But as the defense strategies begin to take shape for Davis and other reservists charged with maltreatment of detainees, dereliction of duty and other offenses, Bergrin says he is struggling to identify many of the shadowy covert operatives he claims directed the abuse from October to December.
Davis' defense also is hampered by the decisions of three of his supervisors to invoke their right to remain silent under the military's version of the Fifth Amendment.
The supervisors - including Capt. Donald Reese, commander of the 372nd Military Police Company - refused to testify at Davis' hearing to avoid potentially incriminating themselves.
Bergrin says he is concerned about Davis' ability to get a fair trial if the defense can't call such key witnesses because Davis doesn't know their names or they refuse to testify. Like attorneys for other accused MPs, Bergrin plans to argue that military intelligence officials, CIA officers and civilian interrogators manipulated Davis and other MPs into "softening up" prisoners for interrogations.
But showing that the responsibility for the abuse goes up the chain of command could be difficult if defense attorneys cannot determine the identities of intelligence officers and interrogators who worked with the MPs.
"This is a major problem," Bergrin says. "They refused to provide their identities."
Prison logs haphazard
It is common for intelligence officers to shield their identities from prisoners, military analysts say. However, the prison's records should contain such information.
But sign-in logs were kept haphazardly at Abu Ghraib. Without such documentation or photos, defense attorneys and military investigators could have trouble finding evidence - besides someone's memory - to link individual intelligence officers and interrogators to specific acts of abuse.
In an April 15 report recommending that Davis face a court-martial, military investigating officer Maj. John Coughlin said that several civilian contract workers' "present whereabouts (are) unknown." He also said that "James Bond" appeared on a prison log and is an "agent not known, and believed to be a fictitious name."
Meanwhile, military prosecutors appear to be developing a theory of the case that dovetails with the stance taken by top officials at the Pentagon: that the abuse was not systemic and was the work of a small group of low-level soldiers. The seven charged so far are from the 372nd MP Company, based near Cumberland, Md.
The battle lines between the soldiers and their prosecutors are being drawn over whether defense attorneys should have access to records that they believe could show that superior officers knew about the abuses at Abu Ghraib and looked the other way.
Among the documents that Davis' attorneys want: records of activities within the prison last year as it prepared for a visit by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of military forces in Iraq, and reports produced after he left.
In their first skirmish with prosecutors, Davis' attorneys tried to call more than 30 witnesses to testify at an Article 32 hearing, which is the military's version of a civilian grand jury proceeding and a preliminary hearing. Four testified.
Several of the witnesses sought by the defense were from the 372nd MP Company and the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, based in Germany. They had been redeployed, and the military refused to bring them back to Baghdad to testify at Davis' hearing.
But witnesses who testified filled in more detail about several incidents of abuse that have been frozen in time by photographs that captured soldiers forcing prisoners into sexually provocative poses, supposedly to try to extract information about Iraqi insurgents.
According to a military summary of Davis' hearing obtained by USA TODAY, witnesses also revealed that military intelligence and "OGA" operatives - people from "other government agencies" who the MPs believed to be CIA officers - argued for at least two days over who should dispose of the body of a badly beaten prisoner who died during questioning in a shower room. While the unidentified intelligence officers bickered, the body was kept packed in ice.
Other witnesses testified that as the abuses escalated in an Abu Ghraib cellblock known as Tier 1, the MPs' supervisors - commissioned and non-commissioned officers - avoided the area, especially during the night shift. If supervisors showed up at all, according to testimony, it was only for a few minutes - sometimes seconds - at a time.
Against this backdrop, families of the accused soldiers say they are increasingly concerned that many superior officers will escape courts-martial and that the accused MPs will take the fall for a scandal that has damaged the USA's reputation as a proponent and protector of human rights.
"You have officers who were very close to these enlisted persons," Bergrin says. "They essentially slept in the same area. You can't tell me they didn't know what was going on."
'Sadistic, blatant' abuses
When the 372nd MP Company arrived in Iraq last spring, it was a close-knit group of men and women, most of them from small towns near Cresaptown, Md.
The 372nd initially was assigned to provide security for military convoys. By October, the unit's mission changed dramatically when it was assigned to guard captives at Abu Ghraib.
In mid-January, one of the unit's own, Spc. Joseph Darby, 24, went to commanders with a CD-ROM of graphic pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused.
An investigation began, and Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba documented "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" of prisoners by MPs. The Pentagon also began a separate criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing by military intelligence officers.
(The CIA also has asked the Justice Department to examine at least two deaths of Iraqi prisoners. And Justice officials, at the Pentagon's request, are probing alleged abuse by a civilian contractor.)
In the wake of those probes, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, one of the seven accused reservists from the 372nd, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against his friends.
Soldiers testified at Davis' hearing that the 372nd received two days of on-the-job training from the 72nd MP Company, which was leaving Abu Ghraib.
There were no "SOPs" - standard operating procedures - for handling detainees, the soldiers testified. There was no training on how to deal with the Arab culture. And there were no written instructions provided by commanders on the treatment of prisoners of war under the internationally accepted Geneva Conventions.
Very little, it turns out, was put in writing at the prison, Taguba concluded. When it was, the information often was wrong or incomplete, according to testimony.
Unprofessional behavior was the norm at the prison, Taguba found. Soldiers didn't salute superiors. They wore civilian clothes at times, and they wrote personal messages on their helmets and caps.
Tensions rise
At first, the Maryland reserve unit guarded fewer than 200 prisoners. But the number soared to up to 1,600 as the Iraqi insurgency movement stepped up deadly roadside bombings.
Military intelligence officials were placed in charge of the MPs at Abu Ghraib on Oct. 12, not long after the Pentagon sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the military's prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Iraq to assess the quality of intelligence-gathering efforts at the U.S.-controlled prisons.
Two MPs with experience as civilian corrections officers - Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, 37, of Buckingham, Va., and Spc. Charles Graner, 35, of Uniontown, Pa. - took the lead in preparing prisoners for interrogation, according to testimony at Davis' hearing.
By Nov. 8, tensions inside and outside Abu Ghraib had escalated. That week 27 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq. The abuse on cellblocks 1A and 1B entered a new phase of cruelty amid pressure to learn more about the insurgency.
It began when seven prisoners suspected of starting a riot at another prison, Camp Ganci, were brought to Abu Ghraib, according to testimony at Davis' hearing.
The prisoners' hands were bound by plastic cuffs, and sandbags were put over their heads. "It is a long walk from in-processing to Tier 1," Spc. Matthew Wisdom testified. "The escorts were leading them into walls and cell bars as they walked with them."
At first, the prisoners, who were still clothed, were placed in a "dog pile" on the floor. Davis allegedly jumped on the prisoners and stomped on their hands and feet. Unlike Graner and Frederick, Davis is not charged with sexually humiliating prisoners.
By the time the night shift ended the next morning, the seven suspected riot leaders had been stripped, arranged in a human pyramid and ordered to masturbate.
One prisoner was forced to stand on a box of military meals, with a wire attached to his penis, and threatened with electrocution if he lost his balance. Photos taken that night by the soldiers became worldwide symbols of the abuse.
According to testimony at Davis' hearing, a platoon sergeant, Shannon Snider, was nearby when Davis jumped on the prisoners. But Sivits told investigators that Snider stuck around for "two minutes or less" after admonishing Davis and that Snider missed the worst abuse. Taguba recommended that Snider be relieved of duty and reprimanded for not reporting Davis.
Another supervisor, Staff Sgt. Robert Elliot, brought the seven suspected leaders of the Ganci riot to Abu Ghraib. But Elliot, a squad leader, left the tier after about "20 seconds or so," Sivits said.
Snider and Elliot invoked their rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify at Davis' hearing. Spc. Jason Kenner, another MP, testified that he rarely saw superior officers in the prison, checking up on underlings. "If they didn't walk the tier, they wouldn't see the nakedness," he said.
Capt. Scott Dunn, Davis' military lawyer in Baghdad, is asking prosecutors to turn over evidence that documents what superior officers and enlisted supervisors did or didn't do at Abu Ghraib.
Dunn wants all prisoner logs and written authorizations from up the chain of command for "unusual or different treatment of detainees." He also is demanding that the military provide names of all military intelligence officials, CIA officers, FBI agents and civilian contract interrogators who questioned prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor, has refused. He said the requests for records on superior officers' activities and Sanchez's visit are "overly vague and non-specific." A military judge will mediate the dispute before trial, just as a judge would in a civilian court.
In court papers, McCabe also said the defense knows as much as he does about the identities of government agents and contract workers who were at the prison.
The pursuit of higher-ups
To show that Davis was doing what he was told, his lawyers face the daunting task of identifying the specific order and the person who gave it, says retired Marine lieutenant colonel Gary Solis, a former military prosecutor who teaches the laws of war at Georgetown University in Washington.
Then, Solis says, they must show that the order was "lawful." Under military law, following an order cannot be used as a defense to a charge of criminal wrongdoing if it was unlawful.
But Solis says the defense is on the right track in pursuing superior officers and other supervisors who failed to spot the abuse and stop it.
In his report, Taguba recommended reprimands and reassignments for several higher-ranking MP and military intelligence personnel, including Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th MP Brigade, who was in charge of the prison.
Taguba also found that two military intelligence officials and two civilian contract workers were "either directly or indirectly responsible for abuses at Abu Ghraib." They are: Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th MI Brigade; Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, former director of the military's Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center in Iraq; Steven Stephanowicz, a civilian interrogator employed by CACI International Inc.; and John Israel, a civilian interpreter employed by CACI.
Stephanowicz was accused in Taguba's report of instructing MPs in "setting conditions" for interrogations, knowing that his suggestions "equated to physical abuse." Stephanowicz's attorney, Henry Hockeimer of Philadelphia, says Stephanowicz no longer is in Iraq but is still employed by CACI.
Taguba recommended that Pappas' failures be examined in the Pentagon's military intelligence probe and that Jordan be relieved of duty for lying to investigators.
Solis says the military must do more. "This crap about career-ending reprimands doesn't get it," he says. "Officers have to go to court-martial." If they aren't charged, Solis says, "that adds a new layer of injustice to the wrongs that have been committed."
Bill Lawson, Frederick's uncle, says that "my nephew will take his licks, but they need to prosecute everybody else" involved in the abuse scandal.
At Davis' hearing, two prosecution witnesses and four soldiers called by the defense sounded a similar theme: The MPs wanted to please the military intelligence officers and civilian interrogators and did not question them.
Sgt. Hydrue Joyner of the 372nd said that like the others, he also did not challenge Graner and Frederick, the MPs with civilian prison guard experience.
"I am not a corrections officer," Joyner testified. "I'm just an MP, on the road fighting the forces of evil."
__________________________________________________________________
Some people think MY words on Bush and his failed leadership are too strong. Look at what a Republican Marine General and expert on Iraq has to say!
Ex-general: War ill-conceived
Sat May 29, 9:40 AM ET
By Vincent J. Schodolski Chicago Tribune national correspondent
The man who once drew up a U.S. battle plan to invade Iraq thinks the United States is in deep trouble in that country because of bad planning and an ill-conceived rush to war driven by a few officials in Washington.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who formerly headed the U.S. Central Command that oversees military strategy and execution in the Middle East, said the drive to topple Saddam Hussein and reshape the region was botched and that the blame lies at the highest level of U.S. civilian authority.
"I think in the start the concept was wrong," Zinni said in an interview. "The original idea that we would change the Middle East, that was wrong."
That concept, originated by advisers close to President Bush, held that the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq would shake dictatorial and traditional regimes in the Middle East, force changes to more moderate governments and thus enhance security for Israel.
Zinni said that, instead, U.S. actions had the opposite effect, had seriously damaged the effectiveness of Washington's policy in the region and led millions to view the U.S. military as part of a modern crusade.
"My problem is with the civilian leadership in the Pentagon," the retired general said. "It has to start with the senior leaders from the secretary [of defense, Donald Rumsfeld] on down. That's where the responsibility lies."
He said those responsible should lose their jobs.
After leaving the Marines in 2000, Zinni was a special U.S. adviser in the Middle East and tried to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Zinni, 60, says that faulty intelligence or manipulated intelligence was a key cause of the present problem in Iraq.
On book tour
He is promoting a book written by author Tom Clancy with his cooperation. Entitled "Battle Ready," it chronicles Zinni's life and career and includes his views on the Iraq situation.
In the book Zinni says: "In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility; at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."
Explaining those words in the interview, Zinni said he meant decisions ranging from sending into battle a force that was too small and failing to plan for what would follow the defeat of Iraq's armed forces, including the looting and revenge killings that took place.
In the battle plan he drew up for an invasion of Iraq, Zinni said he called for 300,000 troops, more than twice the number sent in early 2003, and that he anticipated that chaos would follow the collapse of Hussein's decades-long totalitarian rule.
"I knew the U.S. military would have to clean up the mess," Zinni said.
The intelligence failure was, in part, due to bad information provided by people with personal stakes in removing Hussein, he said.
"We bought into all those exiles' stories," Zinni said of Iraqis advising the Bush administration, including Ahmad Chalabi, who was particularly favored by Pentagon officials.
Chalabi was one of the administration's main sources when developing intelligence on weapons of mass destruction Iraq was thought to have. The belief that Hussein had such weapons was a major rationale for the pre-emptive strike against Iraq. No large stores of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons have been found.
The administration this month had a public break with Chalabi, a man who sat near First Lady Laura Bush during the president's last State of the Union address in January. Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers raided Chalabi's Baghdad headquarters and seized computers and other items.
Chalabi denunciation
Although coalition forces later said Chalabi was not the target of the raid, Chalabi angrily denounced the U.S. and said he no longer had a relationship with the coalition governing Iraq until the end of June.
"There were a series of bad decisions," Zinni said, adding that it was more than just bad intelligence.
In addition to committing too few troops, Zinni said it had been a mistake to disband the Iraqi army, a move that left 300,000 to 400,000 men jobless.
He also said the decision to deny work to ranking members of the Baath Party had been another error since it denied employment to people in many vital jobs. These included teachers, doctors, lawyers and many skilled workers. Party membership was previously a requirement for many jobs in Iraq.
Although he is a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000, Zinni told The Associated Press that he would not support the president's re-election unless there were major personnel changes in the Defense Department.
__________________________________________________________________
Ex-general: War ill-conceived
Sat May 29, 9:40 AM ET
By Vincent J. Schodolski Chicago Tribune national correspondent
The man who once drew up a U.S. battle plan to invade Iraq thinks the United States is in deep trouble in that country because of bad planning and an ill-conceived rush to war driven by a few officials in Washington.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who formerly headed the U.S. Central Command that oversees military strategy and execution in the Middle East, said the drive to topple Saddam Hussein and reshape the region was botched and that the blame lies at the highest level of U.S. civilian authority.
"I think in the start the concept was wrong," Zinni said in an interview. "The original idea that we would change the Middle East, that was wrong."
That concept, originated by advisers close to President Bush, held that the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq would shake dictatorial and traditional regimes in the Middle East, force changes to more moderate governments and thus enhance security for Israel.
Zinni said that, instead, U.S. actions had the opposite effect, had seriously damaged the effectiveness of Washington's policy in the region and led millions to view the U.S. military as part of a modern crusade.
"My problem is with the civilian leadership in the Pentagon," the retired general said. "It has to start with the senior leaders from the secretary [of defense, Donald Rumsfeld] on down. That's where the responsibility lies."
He said those responsible should lose their jobs.
After leaving the Marines in 2000, Zinni was a special U.S. adviser in the Middle East and tried to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Zinni, 60, says that faulty intelligence or manipulated intelligence was a key cause of the present problem in Iraq.
On book tour
He is promoting a book written by author Tom Clancy with his cooperation. Entitled "Battle Ready," it chronicles Zinni's life and career and includes his views on the Iraq situation.
In the book Zinni says: "In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility; at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."
Explaining those words in the interview, Zinni said he meant decisions ranging from sending into battle a force that was too small and failing to plan for what would follow the defeat of Iraq's armed forces, including the looting and revenge killings that took place.
In the battle plan he drew up for an invasion of Iraq, Zinni said he called for 300,000 troops, more than twice the number sent in early 2003, and that he anticipated that chaos would follow the collapse of Hussein's decades-long totalitarian rule.
"I knew the U.S. military would have to clean up the mess," Zinni said.
The intelligence failure was, in part, due to bad information provided by people with personal stakes in removing Hussein, he said.
"We bought into all those exiles' stories," Zinni said of Iraqis advising the Bush administration, including Ahmad Chalabi, who was particularly favored by Pentagon officials.
Chalabi was one of the administration's main sources when developing intelligence on weapons of mass destruction Iraq was thought to have. The belief that Hussein had such weapons was a major rationale for the pre-emptive strike against Iraq. No large stores of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons have been found.
The administration this month had a public break with Chalabi, a man who sat near First Lady Laura Bush during the president's last State of the Union address in January. Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers raided Chalabi's Baghdad headquarters and seized computers and other items.
Chalabi denunciation
Although coalition forces later said Chalabi was not the target of the raid, Chalabi angrily denounced the U.S. and said he no longer had a relationship with the coalition governing Iraq until the end of June.
"There were a series of bad decisions," Zinni said, adding that it was more than just bad intelligence.
In addition to committing too few troops, Zinni said it had been a mistake to disband the Iraqi army, a move that left 300,000 to 400,000 men jobless.
He also said the decision to deny work to ranking members of the Baath Party had been another error since it denied employment to people in many vital jobs. These included teachers, doctors, lawyers and many skilled workers. Party membership was previously a requirement for many jobs in Iraq.
Although he is a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000, Zinni told The Associated Press that he would not support the president's re-election unless there were major personnel changes in the Defense Department.
__________________________________________________________________
The corrupt politics that drove us to war while alienating our world allies AND causing tensions within the Pentagon is a glaring example of just what a failure of a leader George Bush is. Use the voting booth to send him packing and John Kerry into the White House with a clean broom.
Iraq War Woes Deepen Internal Pentagon Tensions
Sun May 30,10:45 AM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions between the civilian leaders of the Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the U.S. military's top brass have deepened amid the deteriorating situation in Iraq.
Even before the Iraq war some senior officers chafed under the guidance of Rumsfeld and his team, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.
Retired officers and defense analysts said the problems have worsened during a war in which critics accuse Rumsfeld's team of neglecting to provide enough troops to stabilize Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein, botching the planning for the postwar period, and failing to anticipate and later comprehend an insurgency that threatens the mission with failure.
"The war itself has led to, rightly or wrongly, the feeling among many in the military that they're not receiving competent direction, that it is too ideological, and that a lot of their military efforts have been wasted by what they regard as poor, inept planning for the stability phase," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The military, particularly the Army, has been strained mightily in maintaining troop levels in Iraq far higher than the Pentagon had forecast. Faced with a relentless insurgency, the Pentagon ordered 20,000 troops to remain three months longer than promised, and scrambled to find ways to maintain the current count of 138,000 troops there through the end of 2005.
Meanwhile, the military has been stained by a scandal in which soldiers physically and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners.
"It's obvious there has been damage to the U.S. military as an institution because it is over-strained and it is over-deployed. And it is beginning to see its morale erode because it is losing confidence in the direction of the war," Cordesman said.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, former top U.S. commander in the Middle East, criticized Rumsfeld's team in "Battle Ready," a book written with author Tom Clancy.
"In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption," Zinni wrote.
'WAITING HIM OUT'
University of North Carolina military historian Richard Kohn said a natural tension has existed between political appointees named by any president to head the Defense Department and the professional military officers who must follow their lead. Kohn said Rumsfeld's relationship with the military brass has been as tense as any defense secretary except Robert McNamara, the Vietnam War era Pentagon chief.
"He has alienated the military," Kohn said. "Many of them are waiting him out, or avoiding bringing problems to him, or trying to avoid dealing with him. And he knows that. And he avoids them quite frequently, and circumvents them, and tries to get around the bureaucracy."
"He's blunt. He's direct. He can be abusive. He can be difficult. And he's often indecisive. He keeps questioning and questioning, and he doesn't provide these people with answers. And they're not sure what his position is. They're not sure what he wants," Kohn said.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, who commanded an armored brigade in the 1991 Gulf War and led troops into Bosnia, said some grumbling by senior officers is customary.
"But this time around, it seems that there are some very serious concerns, primarily oriented on the issue of what this escapade (Iraq) has done to the military, primarily the Army," added Nash, now with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rumsfeld, who also served as defense secretary from 1975 to 1977, began his second stint in 2001 determined to reassert civilian control over the generals and admirals, who he felt were ceded too much sway in the Clinton administration.
"The Constitution calls for civilian control of this department, and I'm a civilian," Rumsfeld once told reporters.
Rumsfeld's first skirmishes stemmed from his quest to "transform" the military from a plodding, Cold War-era relic into an agile force designed to confront 21st century threats.
Rumsfeld was seen as particularly hard on the Army, undercutting its former top officer, Gen. Eric Shinseki. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz dismissed Shinseki's assertion a month before the war that several hundred thousand U.S. troops might be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq.
"The Shinseki thing is really ironic because not only was he badly treated, he was right," Nash said.
______________________________________________________________________
Iraq War Woes Deepen Internal Pentagon Tensions
Sun May 30,10:45 AM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions between the civilian leaders of the Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the U.S. military's top brass have deepened amid the deteriorating situation in Iraq.
Even before the Iraq war some senior officers chafed under the guidance of Rumsfeld and his team, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.
Retired officers and defense analysts said the problems have worsened during a war in which critics accuse Rumsfeld's team of neglecting to provide enough troops to stabilize Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein, botching the planning for the postwar period, and failing to anticipate and later comprehend an insurgency that threatens the mission with failure.
"The war itself has led to, rightly or wrongly, the feeling among many in the military that they're not receiving competent direction, that it is too ideological, and that a lot of their military efforts have been wasted by what they regard as poor, inept planning for the stability phase," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The military, particularly the Army, has been strained mightily in maintaining troop levels in Iraq far higher than the Pentagon had forecast. Faced with a relentless insurgency, the Pentagon ordered 20,000 troops to remain three months longer than promised, and scrambled to find ways to maintain the current count of 138,000 troops there through the end of 2005.
Meanwhile, the military has been stained by a scandal in which soldiers physically and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners.
"It's obvious there has been damage to the U.S. military as an institution because it is over-strained and it is over-deployed. And it is beginning to see its morale erode because it is losing confidence in the direction of the war," Cordesman said.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, former top U.S. commander in the Middle East, criticized Rumsfeld's team in "Battle Ready," a book written with author Tom Clancy.
"In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption," Zinni wrote.
'WAITING HIM OUT'
University of North Carolina military historian Richard Kohn said a natural tension has existed between political appointees named by any president to head the Defense Department and the professional military officers who must follow their lead. Kohn said Rumsfeld's relationship with the military brass has been as tense as any defense secretary except Robert McNamara, the Vietnam War era Pentagon chief.
"He has alienated the military," Kohn said. "Many of them are waiting him out, or avoiding bringing problems to him, or trying to avoid dealing with him. And he knows that. And he avoids them quite frequently, and circumvents them, and tries to get around the bureaucracy."
"He's blunt. He's direct. He can be abusive. He can be difficult. And he's often indecisive. He keeps questioning and questioning, and he doesn't provide these people with answers. And they're not sure what his position is. They're not sure what he wants," Kohn said.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, who commanded an armored brigade in the 1991 Gulf War and led troops into Bosnia, said some grumbling by senior officers is customary.
"But this time around, it seems that there are some very serious concerns, primarily oriented on the issue of what this escapade (Iraq) has done to the military, primarily the Army," added Nash, now with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rumsfeld, who also served as defense secretary from 1975 to 1977, began his second stint in 2001 determined to reassert civilian control over the generals and admirals, who he felt were ceded too much sway in the Clinton administration.
"The Constitution calls for civilian control of this department, and I'm a civilian," Rumsfeld once told reporters.
Rumsfeld's first skirmishes stemmed from his quest to "transform" the military from a plodding, Cold War-era relic into an agile force designed to confront 21st century threats.
Rumsfeld was seen as particularly hard on the Army, undercutting its former top officer, Gen. Eric Shinseki. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz dismissed Shinseki's assertion a month before the war that several hundred thousand U.S. troops might be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq.
"The Shinseki thing is really ironic because not only was he badly treated, he was right," Nash said.
______________________________________________________________________
This administration is so OPENLY corrupt that you don't have to hack it open to see or find the corporate maggots chewing on the nation. Imagine what vileness would be exposed if decent investigations were conducted! This is why the corporate heads and lobbyists support Bush so strongly and will do anything to prevent John Kerry from capturing the White House back for the American people from them. Which is why every person in the United States that isn't a corporate shill should be working like hell to get Kerry elected president.
Oil Companies Exceed Land Limit
By DAVID PACE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A single New Mexico family and a dozen big oil companies, including one once headed by Commerce Secretary Don Evans, now control one-quarter of all federal lands leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States despite a law intended to prevent such concentration, federal records show.
Since 1997, mainly as a result of mergers and acquisitions, six companies have exceeded the legal limit of 246,080 acres in lease holdings on public lands in states other than Alaska. But the Bureau of Land Management, in charge of enforcing the 1920 law, has chosen to extend compliance deadlines for years.
In fact, an Associated Press computer analysis found the Interior Department agency permitted companies it knew were in violation of the law in Wyoming to continue to acquire thousands of acres of new oil and gas leases in that state. The bureau has given the companies additional years to comply.
"They should not be purchasing leases," said Tom Lonnie, the bureau's assistant director for minerals, realty and resource protection. Before acquiring a lease, a company must certify that its holdings do not exceed the legal limit.
The government can cancel leases held by companies that exceed the cap. Agency officials acknowledge they have never done that nor denied a company's request for more time to comply.
Companies in violation of the state limit as a result of a merger or acquisition have 180 days to comply.
"We try to work with them instead of hitting them with a hammer," said Bob Bennett, the bureau's Wyoming state director.
When Anadarko Petroleum of Houston asked for a two-year extension to get back into compliance after a 2000 merger with Union Pacific Resources put it over the limit in Wyoming, the bureau said yes. That was the case, too, for a 2002 request by Encana Oil and Gas of Canada.
In the first 15 months of Anadarko's extension, the company acquired 70 new leases in Wyoming totaling more than 100,000 acres. A year after granting Encana the extension, the bureau allowed Encana to acquire two new leases totaling more than 2,000 acres in the state.
Anadarko relinquished 50 of its leases to meet a deadline this April 30 to get back under the acreage cap, Lonnie said. Encana has until October to comply. Four other companies that had gone over the cap in Wyoming since 1997 are now in compliance.
Bureau officials say they have to rely on companies to provide accurate accounts of their holdings because the agency's computerized records do not track transfers of lease operating rights or the ownership of divided shares of leases.
The lax enforcement coincides with the Bush administration's push to open new public lands for oil and gas development. In March, bureau records showed 40 million acres of federal lands were under lease in the continental United States. That is 5.3 million more acres than when President Bush took office.
Companies and individuals that dominate federal oil and gas leasing have been major financial supporters of Bush and the Republican Party. Since the 1999, the top 25 owners of federal oil and gas leases have directed 86 percent of their $8.2 million in political donations to the GOP.
Individuals and companies affiliated with the Yates family of Artesia, N.M., which is by far the biggest lease holder, have given $276,926 to GOP parties and candidates since 1999, and just $11,400 to Democrats.
Vice President Dick Cheney visited Artesia in March to raise money for a GOP congressional candidate backed by the Yates. A month earlier, he was in Albuquerque for a presidential campaign fund-raiser that took in more than $200,000.
Denver-based Tom Brown Inc. was over the acreage limit in Wyoming from 1997 to 2000, while current Commerce Secretary Evans was the company's chief executive.
As Bush's campaign chairman, Evans raised millions of dollars from the oil industry for the winning 2000 campaign. When he resigned at Tom Brown before joining the Cabinet in 2001, Evans received a retirement package worth more than $5 million.
Encana, which the government says has exceeded the acreage limit since 2002, announced plans last month to acquire Tom Brown. The merger would join two of the top three federal oil and gas lease owners.
Environmental groups contend the administration is rewarding its financial backers by ignoring the acreage law while pushing more public lands into development.
"It's clear from the data that there is no reason for the Bush administration to issue leases on America's last remaining wild public lands, other than as a favor to their most generous political patrons," said Dave Alberswerth, public lands director for the Wilderness Society.
Lonnie, the BLM's assistant director, said administration officials have left enforcement of the acreage law to bureau officials in the states. He said agency officials are following the same policies they used in the Clinton administration.
Enforcement efforts consist mainly of annual record title checks by bureau officials in each state, Lonnie said. Companies near the limit are asked to produce a record of their holdings for review. But Lonnie said no attempt is made to verify that the record is complete unless there is reason to believe something has been omitted.
Congress limited oil and gas lease ownership in 1920 amid concerns that a few companies would monopolize mineral rights on public lands by cornering leases they did not intend to exploit. But changes in the law over the years and new interpretations have allowed companies to amass far more than the current 246,080-acre limit per state.
Legislation pending in Congress would remove any producing lease from that cap.
The top 25 of the more than 10,000 owners of oil and gas leases, for example, now control more than one-third of all leased acres and 37 percent of the acres in leases actually producing oil and gas, the AP analysis found.
The Yates family, through nearly three dozen companies, individuals and trusts operating out of the same building in Artesia, controls 2.7 million acres of oil and gas leases on public lands. That includes more than 1 million acres in Wyoming, more than 800,000 acres in New Mexico and more than 500,000 in Nevada.
"We pay very close attention to that acreage limitation and are in compliance with it all the time," said Randy Patterson, vice president for exploration at Yates Petroleum.
A dozen companies with Yates family members as officers show up in BLM lease owner records, all with the same address. When the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, questioned the arrangement in 1994, the bureau's chief lawyer ruled the law does not require that lease holdings of affiliated companies or individuals be counted together.
The acreage limit applies to individuals and their share of leases held by corporations in which they own more than 10 percent. When the bureau last audited individual holdings in the Yates family businesses eight years ago in Wyoming, it found no violations of the acreage cap.
Large public corporations cannot take advantage of the law the way the Yates family does because their subsidiaries are considered part of the company and their combined lease holdings must be below the state acreage limit.
Both big oil companies and independent operators have another way to amass lease holdings in excess of the state limit. They can enter into agreements with other companies, approved by the government, to develop the oil or gas on several adjoining leases as a unit under fairly strict controls. In return, they get to exclude that acreage from the cap.
Tom Brown, for example, owns 378,790 acres of oil and gas leases on public lands in Colorado, but more than 260,000 acres are excluded from the cap because of such agreements. Encana owns more than 400,000 acres of leases in Colorado, but only 155,715 are counted against the acreage limit.
In all, Encana controlled more than 1 million acres of federal oil and gas leases in March; Tom Brown controlled 856,887 acres.
Other companies that have been in violation of the acreage cap in recent years, all in Wyoming, are BP Amoco, Devon Energy Corp., and Marathon Oil. The combined public land oil and gas leases of those companies in March were 645,969 acres by Devon, 446,615 by BP Amoco, and 358,611 by Marathon.
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On the Net:
A list of the top 100 federal land lease holders is available HERE.
__________________________________________________________________
Oil Companies Exceed Land Limit
By DAVID PACE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A single New Mexico family and a dozen big oil companies, including one once headed by Commerce Secretary Don Evans, now control one-quarter of all federal lands leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States despite a law intended to prevent such concentration, federal records show.
Since 1997, mainly as a result of mergers and acquisitions, six companies have exceeded the legal limit of 246,080 acres in lease holdings on public lands in states other than Alaska. But the Bureau of Land Management, in charge of enforcing the 1920 law, has chosen to extend compliance deadlines for years.
In fact, an Associated Press computer analysis found the Interior Department agency permitted companies it knew were in violation of the law in Wyoming to continue to acquire thousands of acres of new oil and gas leases in that state. The bureau has given the companies additional years to comply.
"They should not be purchasing leases," said Tom Lonnie, the bureau's assistant director for minerals, realty and resource protection. Before acquiring a lease, a company must certify that its holdings do not exceed the legal limit.
The government can cancel leases held by companies that exceed the cap. Agency officials acknowledge they have never done that nor denied a company's request for more time to comply.
Companies in violation of the state limit as a result of a merger or acquisition have 180 days to comply.
"We try to work with them instead of hitting them with a hammer," said Bob Bennett, the bureau's Wyoming state director.
When Anadarko Petroleum of Houston asked for a two-year extension to get back into compliance after a 2000 merger with Union Pacific Resources put it over the limit in Wyoming, the bureau said yes. That was the case, too, for a 2002 request by Encana Oil and Gas of Canada.
In the first 15 months of Anadarko's extension, the company acquired 70 new leases in Wyoming totaling more than 100,000 acres. A year after granting Encana the extension, the bureau allowed Encana to acquire two new leases totaling more than 2,000 acres in the state.
Anadarko relinquished 50 of its leases to meet a deadline this April 30 to get back under the acreage cap, Lonnie said. Encana has until October to comply. Four other companies that had gone over the cap in Wyoming since 1997 are now in compliance.
Bureau officials say they have to rely on companies to provide accurate accounts of their holdings because the agency's computerized records do not track transfers of lease operating rights or the ownership of divided shares of leases.
The lax enforcement coincides with the Bush administration's push to open new public lands for oil and gas development. In March, bureau records showed 40 million acres of federal lands were under lease in the continental United States. That is 5.3 million more acres than when President Bush took office.
Companies and individuals that dominate federal oil and gas leasing have been major financial supporters of Bush and the Republican Party. Since the 1999, the top 25 owners of federal oil and gas leases have directed 86 percent of their $8.2 million in political donations to the GOP.
Individuals and companies affiliated with the Yates family of Artesia, N.M., which is by far the biggest lease holder, have given $276,926 to GOP parties and candidates since 1999, and just $11,400 to Democrats.
Vice President Dick Cheney visited Artesia in March to raise money for a GOP congressional candidate backed by the Yates. A month earlier, he was in Albuquerque for a presidential campaign fund-raiser that took in more than $200,000.
Denver-based Tom Brown Inc. was over the acreage limit in Wyoming from 1997 to 2000, while current Commerce Secretary Evans was the company's chief executive.
As Bush's campaign chairman, Evans raised millions of dollars from the oil industry for the winning 2000 campaign. When he resigned at Tom Brown before joining the Cabinet in 2001, Evans received a retirement package worth more than $5 million.
Encana, which the government says has exceeded the acreage limit since 2002, announced plans last month to acquire Tom Brown. The merger would join two of the top three federal oil and gas lease owners.
Environmental groups contend the administration is rewarding its financial backers by ignoring the acreage law while pushing more public lands into development.
"It's clear from the data that there is no reason for the Bush administration to issue leases on America's last remaining wild public lands, other than as a favor to their most generous political patrons," said Dave Alberswerth, public lands director for the Wilderness Society.
Lonnie, the BLM's assistant director, said administration officials have left enforcement of the acreage law to bureau officials in the states. He said agency officials are following the same policies they used in the Clinton administration.
Enforcement efforts consist mainly of annual record title checks by bureau officials in each state, Lonnie said. Companies near the limit are asked to produce a record of their holdings for review. But Lonnie said no attempt is made to verify that the record is complete unless there is reason to believe something has been omitted.
Congress limited oil and gas lease ownership in 1920 amid concerns that a few companies would monopolize mineral rights on public lands by cornering leases they did not intend to exploit. But changes in the law over the years and new interpretations have allowed companies to amass far more than the current 246,080-acre limit per state.
Legislation pending in Congress would remove any producing lease from that cap.
The top 25 of the more than 10,000 owners of oil and gas leases, for example, now control more than one-third of all leased acres and 37 percent of the acres in leases actually producing oil and gas, the AP analysis found.
The Yates family, through nearly three dozen companies, individuals and trusts operating out of the same building in Artesia, controls 2.7 million acres of oil and gas leases on public lands. That includes more than 1 million acres in Wyoming, more than 800,000 acres in New Mexico and more than 500,000 in Nevada.
"We pay very close attention to that acreage limitation and are in compliance with it all the time," said Randy Patterson, vice president for exploration at Yates Petroleum.
A dozen companies with Yates family members as officers show up in BLM lease owner records, all with the same address. When the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, questioned the arrangement in 1994, the bureau's chief lawyer ruled the law does not require that lease holdings of affiliated companies or individuals be counted together.
The acreage limit applies to individuals and their share of leases held by corporations in which they own more than 10 percent. When the bureau last audited individual holdings in the Yates family businesses eight years ago in Wyoming, it found no violations of the acreage cap.
Large public corporations cannot take advantage of the law the way the Yates family does because their subsidiaries are considered part of the company and their combined lease holdings must be below the state acreage limit.
Both big oil companies and independent operators have another way to amass lease holdings in excess of the state limit. They can enter into agreements with other companies, approved by the government, to develop the oil or gas on several adjoining leases as a unit under fairly strict controls. In return, they get to exclude that acreage from the cap.
Tom Brown, for example, owns 378,790 acres of oil and gas leases on public lands in Colorado, but more than 260,000 acres are excluded from the cap because of such agreements. Encana owns more than 400,000 acres of leases in Colorado, but only 155,715 are counted against the acreage limit.
In all, Encana controlled more than 1 million acres of federal oil and gas leases in March; Tom Brown controlled 856,887 acres.
Other companies that have been in violation of the acreage cap in recent years, all in Wyoming, are BP Amoco, Devon Energy Corp., and Marathon Oil. The combined public land oil and gas leases of those companies in March were 645,969 acres by Devon, 446,615 by BP Amoco, and 358,611 by Marathon.
___
On the Net:
A list of the top 100 federal land lease holders is available HERE.
__________________________________________________________________
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