14 Days in Iraq

January 16, 2005

OP-CHART

14 Days in Iraq

By ADRIANA LINS de ALBUQUERQUE and ALICIA CHENG

n the first two weeks of January, at least 202 people died as a result of the insurgency in Iraq. The killings have been indiscriminate. The dead include Iraqi officials, police officers, civilians and, of course, Iraqi, American and coalition soldiers. The attacks shown here took place across the country, but there is a clear concentration in the so-called Sunni Triangle, which stretches from Tikrit in the north to Baghdad in the east and to Falluja and Ramadi in the west.

While the daily toll is noted by the news media in headlines and video clips, many Americans have a hard time incorporating these individual pieces of information into a coherent image over time. This map, based on Pentagon data and news reports, shows the number killed and wounded since Jan. 1. Because of the limits placed on reporters and the military's need to inform families, there may have been additional casualties during this period that are not noted here. The map also does not include Iraqi civilians accidentally killed by coalition forces. Still, it is our attempt to visually depict the human cost of a fortnight in an embattled land.

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a senior research assistant at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Alicia Cheng is a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.




Sinking Deeper Into the Quagmire

January 14, 2005

NY TIMES EDITORIAL

Out of Iraq

kraine became the latest dropout from the "coalition of the willing" when President Leonid Kuchma formally ordered his generals on Monday to start pulling his country's roughly 1,600 troops out of Iraq. That was not a surprise because Ukraine has been heading for the door for some time. Still, given that Ukraine has been much in the news and that its contingent was the fifth-largest in Iraq (after the United States, Britain, Italy and Poland), the exit is worth noting.

It's the end of a cynical marriage of convenience. From the outset, there was an assumption that President Kuchma joined the coalition largely to buy slack from Washington over his notoriously corrupt rule. Then, in the recent brutal elections, the reformist and West-leaning Viktor Yushchenko, who defeated Mr. Kuchma's candidate, made pulling out of Iraq one of his issues. Mr. Kuchma, on the verge of leaving office, evidently saw no point in letting Mr. Yushchenko reap the plaudits from Ukrainians, who overwhelmingly oppose the war.

Ukraine's withdrawal punches a major and potentially fatal hole in the much-ballyhooed multinational division that Poland volunteered to lead in Iraq. Spain was the first to drop out, and Ukraine had the second-largest contingent after Poland itself. The coalition has also lost Hungary, the Philippines and Honduras, among others, while Poland itself, long regarded as second only to Britain in its fealty to the United States, is talking of cutting back. Several other countries intend to reduce their participation in the next few months.

Most of these countries provided token forces of a few dozen or less. But the Bush administration expended considerable political capital to beg or bully governments into joining the campaign to give it the semblance of an international operation in the absence of a credible international endorsement. Washington was especially keen to underscore the support of young democracies, which were supposed to be better capable of appreciating the blessings that Iraq was about to reap.

But in Ukraine, neither bad old dictators nor promising new democrats ever really backed the Iraq war. Like many other coalition members, the government weighed the potential benefits of making nice to Washington against the potential costs of not doing so and hoped it would all be over soon. Now that doesn't look likely, the exodus is on. When you go for facade, facade is what you get.

The Liar's Liars

Excuse me, but is that smoke in your ear?

by Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas
January 11th 2005

I wouldn't go calling anyone a liar, but as we say in our quaint Texas fashion, this administration is stuffed with people who are on a first-name basis with the bottom of the deck. They've been telling us only four out of the 18 provinces in Iraq will be too unsafe to vote in. Doesn't sound that bad, does it? Unless you happen to know that about 50 percent of the population lives in those four provinces.

Will someone explain to me what earthly good they expect to do by misleading us? If, God forbid, the Iraqi election turns out to be a disaster, will we be better off for not having expected it? How long are Bush and Cheney going to sit there pretending the problem is that the media won't report the "good news" out of Iraq? Be a lot more useful if they paid attention to some of the bad news.

Resigned to the fact that Social Security will have to be dismantled because it's in such terrible, awful trouble, headed toward bankruptcy the day after tomorrow? Well, the $10 trillion in unfunded liabilities they keep talking about sure sounds like a load of trouble. Except that it's a completely phony number. Not based on what will happen in 25 years or 50 or 75, but on infinity. Forever and ever.

President Bush says "the crisis is now" and Social Security will go into the red as of 2018. Eeek, just 13 years from now -- we might actually live that long. Except ... nobody else says that. The Social Security trustees, paid to be professional gloom-mongers on this subject, say it's good until 2042, and the conservative estimate by the Congressional Budget Office is 2052 -- not before Social Security goes broke, but before Social Security has to dip into its trust fund. Get a grip.

Now, in addition to the regular misleading, fudging, distorting and phony statistics games, we're getting actual covert propaganda, and dammittohell, they're making us pay for it. A quarter of a million bucks to a right-wing commentator to talk up No Child Left Behind. Why? Distributing video "news" releases to television stations made and paid for by the government, but not identified as such. It's not enough that Bush has the bulliest pulpit on earth, he has to sneak his message across with government propaganda? What the hell is this?

According to Bush, we're also having a lawsuit crisis. He got so exercised over it last week, he used the word "crisis" four times in one speech. In Texas, we have had tort deform up to our ears. Med-mal, as medical malpractice insurance is known in legislative circles, has been tort-deformed out the wazoo here -- $250,000 award caps, the whole ball of wax. Net result? Proposed rate increases for three of the state's largest med mal carriers up 16.6 percent to 35.2 percent. In Oklahoma, up 83 percent over three years for the largest med mal provider. Ohio, 10 percent to 40 percent is the range of expected rate increases by the five major carriers, etc. Doesn't work worth a damn.

Here in the National Laboratory for Bad Government, we are happy to help out by showing everyone else how not to solve problems, but it's really annoying when Bush insists on taking what didn't work here and making it nationwide.

More fun with numbers. The Bushies are crowing that their job forecast for last year was right on target. Um, which forecast? They predicted total job growth of 3.8 million, and it was actually 2.2 million. That's the difference between the total jobs in December versus the number at the beginning of the year. They also predicted the average number of jobs to increase by 2.6 million, when in fact it turned out to be 1.3 million higher than in 2003 -- that being difference between the average number of jobs in 2003 and 2004.

Too fast for you? If something goes up to eight from six, that's plus two, but the average of eight and six is seven, up one. The Bushies took the 2.2 million they predicted for last year's average job growth and pretended it was their prediction for total job growth, then said they were right when actual growth came in at 2.6 million. In other words, they were off again. (I am entirely indebted to bloggers Brad DeLong and Kevin Drum for this mathematical distinction.)

Also in the "you can't trust a word they say" category, the Natural Resources Defense Council has just released papers showing that the Defense Department and defense contractors collaborated in a backroom campaign to manipulate a federal report on the health threat of perchlorate, a toxic rocket fuel ingredient, in the water. The National Academy of Sciences is to release the report this week. What the NRDC has is evidence that pressure was put on the Academy of Sciences. Again, what good does it do to misinform people?

Not that I'm accusing anyone of lying, of course, but these people are slicker than bus station chili. Count your change when dealing with Bushies.

Bush Makes Nixon Look Like An Eagle Scout

The Truth Shall Set You Back
Lying is no sin for Bush's minions.
Margaret Carlson - L.A. TIMES

January 13, 2005

At CBS, four high-level people (five, if you count Dan Rather giving up his anchor chair) have been fired for being taken in by phony documents. You may not think that's enough, but what strikes me is how rare such firings are. When there's lying, cheating and stealing on Wall Street, a prosecutor has to have the corporate executive dead to rights — at Fannie Mae, at Marsh & McLennan, at Sanford Weill's Citigroup — before heads roll. And even then the dismissals are generally accompanied by a payday so lavish it would make Croesus blush.

It is not surprising that an administration that rose so directly from corporate America would operate the same way. Has anyone, for instance, lost his job for being wrong about weapons of mass destruction or for failing to put enough troops in place to secure Iraq before a deadly insurgency could take hold?

In the Bush administration, you lose your job not for lying but for telling the truth, as the axing of Gen. Eric Shinseki and economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey shows. No wonder most government officials wait until they're former officials before speaking out, as former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke did.

Those who speak in real time are soon gone. Consider the case of the Department of Homeland Security's former inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin. When Ervin, a Republican and a Harvard Law School graduate, reported that only 6% of oceangoing cargo was being inspected, that known felons were operating airport checkpoints, that no consolidated terrorist watch list had been compiled and that the managers responsible for these failures had been feted at a lavish awards ceremony that cost half a million dollars, the White House allowed his appointment to lapse, costing him his job, according to Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Senate Government Affairs Committee chairwoman.

The opposite happened over at the inspector general's office at the Department of Health and Human Services. The IG there decided it was perfectly fine for former Medicare chief Thomas Scully to repeatedly threaten to fire a subordinate if he dared tell Congress (which had asked) that the prescription drug bill would cost nearly $200 billion more than the president was letting on. The subordinate's silence carried the day. It wasn't until after the bill passed with the vote of 13 Republican deficit hawks (who had sworn they couldn't vote for a bill costing more than $400 billion) that President Bush said, oops, the price was $534 billion after all.

Then there's poor Dr. David Graham, who wouldn't keep silent over at the Food and Drug Administration. When Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) called him to Congress to testify, the Yale-trained physician said Merck and the FDA had ignored studies that showed Vioxx doubling the risk of heart attack. Graham estimated that 55,000 people had died as a result. Dr. Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the FDA's Office of New Drugs, insisted nonetheless that "our system works very well." Protected by civil service laws, Graham still has his job, but he says he has been made to feel "that I'm an enemy, a traitor, a pariah."

Graham shouldn't be a pariah. He should get the Medal of Freedom. Unfortunately, Bush gives those medals to people who keep their mouths shut, like L. Paul Bremer III, who got one for not saying until he retired that Bush hadn't sent enough troops to Iraq. Another went to former CIA Director George Tenet, who provided on request the "slam-dunk" pretext for the war Bush was determined to wage. With that medal around his neck, will Tenet also be a less-than-forthcoming memoirist in the book for which he reportedly got a $4-million advance?

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales has put off telling the truth, perhaps forever. He went before the Senate Judiciary Committee and pretended he didn't mean the things he wrote in his memo calling the Geneva Convention "quaint" and "obsolete," and that, in any event, he just hates torture. However, when asked whether torture could be used by U.S. personnel under any circumstances, he said he didn't think so, but "I'd want to get back to you on that."

Like Tenet and other architects of the war in Iraq, Gonzales gave the president what he wanted and is now being rewarded for it. Abu Ghraib was indeed a rogue operation, but as the female private with the leash heads to trial, we shouldn't forget for a minute that the real rogues who let it happen are in the administration. For his counsel, Gonzales will be elevated to attorney general, a post where he will be the symbol of justice in this country. He's lucky he doesn't work at CBS.

BUSH CUTS TAXES, GUARD SOLDIERS' WEAPONS DON'T WORK

AWOL Soldier Cites Army Inadequacies

Wed Jan 12, 7:55 AM ET

By Scott Gold Times Staff Writer

HOUSTON — An Army National Guard soldier said Tuesday that the inadequate training and equipment he received had led him to abandon his unit rather than face deployment to Iraq.

"I guess I'm AWOL right now," Spc. Joseph Jacobo, 46, said in a telephone interview from the Los Angeles area.

Among his concerns, Jacobo said, was that he had been unable to find anyone at his Texas training base who could fix his M-4 assault rifle, the primary weapon he would carry in Iraq. The weapon jams, he said.

"They try to put old parts in new rifles," he said. "It doesn't work. We're having all kinds of problems with our automatic weapons."

Soldiers in Jacobo's Modesto-based National Guard unit — the 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment — went public late last month with concerns that they would suffer needlessly high casualty rates in Iraq because of poor training. Military officials have denied the soldiers' charges, voiced in an article in the Los Angeles Times.

Similar tensions have arisen in other units as the military, short on active-duty personnel, has given National Guard and Reserve soldiers increased combat responsibilities and lengthy overseas assignments.

The soldiers, who trained at the Army's Ft. Bliss Training Complex, said there were equipment problems, including trucks without adequate armor and a shortage of night-vision goggles. They also said they had received very little "theater specific" training to prepare them for conditions in Iraq. For example, the soldiers said they had learned nothing about convoy protection or guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs.

Airing their concerns publicly, Jacobo said, only seems to have made matters worse. He said soldiers who were suspected of having spoken to the newspaper were called "cowards" and "yellow-bellies" by their supervisors. Equipment woes were not addressed, commanders became more strict and morale reached new lows, he said.

"They didn't change anything," Jacobo said. "How are we supposed to have any pride?"

His unit is scheduled to deploy to Kuwait soon, possibly by the end of the week, and then onto Iraq. Jacobo said he has been absent without permission since Jan. 2, when the soldiers were supposed to return from a brief holiday leave.

Jacobo, who is married with two grown children, said he was staying with relatives. He has spent much of his adult life in the military, he said, including a six-year stint in the Marines that took him to Nicaragua. The message on his cellphone voicemail concludes, "Semper fi" — the Marine motto that is shorthand for semper fidelis, or "always faithful."

Jacobo said he decided to rejoin the National Guard last year because he believed in the Iraq mission.

"I just thought it was the right thing to do," he said.

Jacobo faces a range of possible punishments. If he rejoins his unit soon, he probably would face "nonjudicial" punishment that could include extra duties and a reduction in rank, said Lt. Col. Coennie Woods, a National Guard spokeswoman in Washington. Jacobo also could be declared a deserter because his unit was preparing to go into combat when he disappeared. In that case, Woods said, he could be court-martialed, imprisoned for five years and dishonorably discharged.

Woods said she could not comment further on the situation. Military officials at Ft. Bliss did not return calls seeking comment.

BUSH GOT IT WRONG AND THOUSANDS DIED WHILE CREATING A NEW ARMY OF TERRORISTS

There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The President LIED to invade a country that didn't attack us. That dangerously cuts our legitimacy for authority in dealing with real threats in the future. It also means no other countries will step in to help in Iraq because it was entirely a colossal blunder by Bush. That cuts our growing need for allies in a world made more threatening by Bush's actions. Our government is spending billions of our tax dollars to support a war that is sinking into a quagmire while CUTTING TAXES for the rich. Our poor and middle class supplies the troops that fight and die in America's name while our wealthiest aren't asked to share even the financial burden. Bush has taken a nation with historic budget surpluses (under a Democrat) to historic debt. The economy is the worst it's been in over 80 years with no new job creation under Bush (No president has ever presided over an economy that did NOT create new jobs). Now Bush wants to do to Social Security what he's done in Iraq.

U.S. Ends Fruitless Iraq Weapons Hunt

WASHINGTON - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites) has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush (news - web sites) cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday.

AP Photo Latest headlines: · U.S. Wraps Up Search for Banned Weapons in Iraq Reuters - 5 minutes ago · Top Democrat slams Bush after inspectors find no WMD in Iraq AFP - 23 minutes ago · Car bombs rock Mosul, White House says Iraqi elections far from perfect AFP - 32 minutes ago Special Coverage

Democrats said Bush owes the country an explanation of why he was so wrong.

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons and the administration does not hold out hopes that any weapons will be found. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Bush should explain what happened.

"Now that the search is finished, President Bush needs to explain to the American people why he was so wrong, for so long, about the reasons for war," she said.

"After a war that has consumed nearly two years and millions of dollars, and a war that has cost thousands of lives, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, nor has any evidence been uncovered that such weapons were moved to another country," Pelosi said in a written statement. "Not only was there not an imminent threat to the United States, the threat described in such alarmist tones by President Bush and the most senior members of his administration did not exist at all."

Chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer is to deliver his final report on the search next month. "It's not going to fundamentally alter the findings of his earlier report," McClellan said, referring to preliminary findings from last September. Duelfer reported then that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either. Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"Nothing's changed in terms of his views when it comes to Iraq, what he has previously stated and what you have previously heard," McClellan said. "The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region we are making the world a safer place."

Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong.

McClellan said the Iraq experience would not make Bush hesitant to raise alarms when he deems it necessary.

"But we're also going to continue taking steps to make sure that that intelligence is the best possible," he said.

"Our friends and allies had the same intelligence that we had when it came to Saddam Hussein," McClellan said. "And now we need to continue to move forward to find out what went wrong and to correct those flaws."

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday about 120 Iraqi scientists who had been working in weapons programs were being paid by the U.S. government to work in other fields.

Iraq Slips Into Hell Under The Texas Bull$#@* Artist

I'm willing to bet on Bush's bullheaded and dull thinking to do the wrong thing and allow for civil war to erupt in Iraq.

The New York Times
January 12, 2005
EDITORIAL

Facing Facts About Iraq's Election

When the United States was debating whether to invade Iraq, there was one outcome that everyone agreed had to be avoided at all costs: a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that would create instability throughout the Middle East and give terrorists a new, ungoverned region that they could use as a base of operations. The coming elections - long touted as the beginning of a new, democratic Iraq - are looking more and more like the beginning of that worst-case scenario.

It's time to talk about postponing the elections.

•

If Iraq is going to survive as a nation, it has to create a government in which the majority rules - in this case, that means the Shiites - but the minorities are guaranteed protection of their basic rights and enough of a voice to influence important decisions. The Kurds, non-Arab Sunnis who live in the northeastern part of the country, seem to believe that the elections will bring them what they most want: relative autonomy to conduct their own affairs as part of an Iraqi federation. But the Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the population, have grown increasingly estranged. The largest mainstream Sunni party has withdrawn from the current interim government, and just about all of the country's leading Sunni Arab politicians now call either for postponing the elections or boycotting them. Given the violence in Sunni areas, even voters who wish to take part may hesitate to turn out. In some places, the polls may not open at all.

A postponement - which would have to be for a fixed period of only two or three months - would not solve all the safety problems. But it would be a sign to the Sunni Arabs that their concerns were being taken into consideration. That in itself could go a long way toward reassuring them that the Shiite majority was not planning to trample on their rights. The interim government should convene an emergency meeting of top leaders from all major Iraqi communities to come up with a revised election timetable and procedures that would optimize the ability of minority groups to get proper representation. The Sunni leaders, in return, would have to promise to take part in the elections that followed.

Worrying about whether the Sunnis will be included in the government does not mean sympathizing with their baser resentments. Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunni minority reaped almost all of the good things Iraq had to offer while trampling on the rights of the Shiites and Kurds. Those days are over, and the Sunnis simply have to accept the fact that they will never again enjoy their old enormous share of the pie. But if Iraq is to start moving beyond its long history of communal hostility, the Shiites need to demonstrate that they will not treat the Sunnis the way the Sunnis treated them.

•

To understand what's happening in Iraq, imagine the mind-set of the Sunnis - not the loathsome terrorists who shoot election workers and kill civilians with car bombs and mines, but the average people, including middle-class men and women whose lives have been ruined since the invasion.

The United States and its allies made a great many mistakes in dealing with the Sunnis. On the top of the list would be the early decision to disband the Iraqi military and a decree, later reversed, that banned tens of thousands of teachers, doctors and other professionals who had belonged to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government employment - including many people who had joined the party perfunctorily to keep out of trouble.

Since then, the Sunnis have discovered that the American Army - which many regarded as all-powerful - has not protected them from either the criminals or the terrorists who have been operating throughout their region since the overthrow of the Hussein regime. Forced to huddle in their homes to avoid kidnappers or suicide bombers, they have had plenty of time to contemplate the fact that the Americans have also not delivered on their vow to improve infrastructure and provide reliable power and water service. More recently, Sunni civilians have borne the brunt of American counterinsurgency drives like the one in Falluja, which have left residential areas devastated and thousands homeless.

Much of this could have been avoided if the American invasion had been conducted more wisely, but it is the reality now, and the American occupiers can't fix it. A democratically elected government might be able to build up an effective Iraqi security force and win the war against the guerrillas, whose attacks are making everyday life impossible in the Sunni provinces. But it would have to be a government that included all factions.

A broad range of Sunni leaders, including some of the most moderate and pro-Western, are pleading for a postponement of the elections. They have good reason to fear that as matters now stand, many of their people will be unwilling or unable to take part. Last week the top American ground commander in Iraq said that large areas of four largely Sunni provinces, including Baghdad, are currently too insecure for people to vote. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi admitted yesterday there would be at least "pockets" of the country where voting would be too dangerous.

If the elections wind up taking place under current conditions, the new government could wind up with little or no Sunni representation when the new constitution was prepared. The winners of the elections, who will inevitably be Shiites, could, of course, appoint Sunni representatives. But the next Iraqi constitution is bound to include provisions that will make the Sunnis unhappy, and the people agreeing to those deals need to have the legitimacy that comes with being elected.

It seems clear in retrospect that the elections should have been set up along district or provincial lines, an approach that would have ensured minority representation. It would also have allowed the interim government to carry on with voting in the Shiite and Kurdish areas this month while postponing it in the four violence-racked provinces, giving Sunnis the prospect of electing their share of legislators later. The United Nations organizers are mainly at fault here. They made their decisions under heavy pressure from the Bush administration to come up with a simple system that could be in place by Jan. 30. But it now appears that it would have been better to accept the flaws inherent in a regional approach in order to get solid protection for the Sunnis.

•

For all the talk about letting the Iraqi interim authorities govern Iraq, President Bush will have the final say in large matters, like when to hold elections, as long as American troops are the only effective military in the country. He has always insisted on holding to the Jan. 30 date. Mr. Bush keeps saying that things will go well once the voting actually starts. We certainly hope he's right, but we doubt that he is as optimistic about the outcome as he appears to be in public.

Many Americans - and many Iraqis - worry that if the elections were postponed, the terrorists would feel empowered by having won. That might indeed be the case for the next few months. But that outcome would be far outweighed by the danger that would come from a civil war, with the Sunni territory becoming a no man's land where terrorists could operate at will. Others argue that civil war is probably inevitable one way or another, and that we may as well get the voting over with. That kind of pessimism may be warranted. But given the horrific possibilities, we should make every effort to avoid that end. A delay in the voting seems to offer at least a ray of hope, and it pushes Iraq in the direction it desperately needs to go: toward a democracy in which all religious and ethnic groups have a stake.

Mr. Bush does not need to call for a postponement of elections himself. He simply needs to take the pressure off the Iraqi authorities, and let them know they have the power to make whatever decision is best for their country. Some members of the interim government, including people close to Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, have shown some interest in putting off the voting if there is a chance of winning more Sunni participation, and others are said to be leaning that way in private.

The run-up to the election is taking place at a time when there's speculation about whether President Bush intends to use the arrival of a new, elected government as an occasion to declare victory and begin pulling out American troops. If such an idea is lurking in even the most remote corner of Mr. Bush's mind, he should at least do everything within his power - including welcoming a postponement - to prevent those elections from being something more than just the starting gun for a civil war.

BUSH TO D.C.: #@#$ YOU & HOMELAND SECURITY FOR MY PARTY!

Get this! Instead of cutting back on the parties and activities during Bush's inauguration (which ALL administrations have done during war time, and don't you forget that Bush sold his re-election ON being a "war" president) Bush is rewarding all his fat cat donors (who get all the tax breaks while running up the national debt to pay for invading/occupying Iraq) with the most parties around Washington in history. And who is Bush making take money from their homeland defense budget to pay for all the parties? It ain't his donors! Read on and add yet another tale to the long list of greed and @#$%-the-people-and-who-cares moment care of George W. Bush, the most vile president that ever trampled through the White House.


washingtonpost.com
U.S. Tells D.C. to Pay Inaugural Expenses

Other Security Projects Would Lose $11.9 Million!

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 11, 2005; Page A01

D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.

Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack.

But that grant money is earmarked for other security needs, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said in a Dec. 27 letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Williams's office released the letter yesterday.

Williams estimated that the city's costs for the inauguration will total $17.3 million, most of it related to security. City officials said they can use an unspent $5.4 million from an annual federal fund that reimburses the District for costs incurred because of its status as the capital. But that leaves $11.9 million not covered, they said.

"We want to make this the best possible event, but not at the expense of D.C. taxpayers and other homeland security priorities," said Gregory M. McCarthy, the mayor's deputy chief of staff. "This is the first time there hasn't been a direct appropriation for the inauguration."

A spokesman for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, which oversees the District, agreed with the mayor's stance. He called the Bush administration's position "simply not acceptable."

"It's an unfunded mandate of the most odious kind. How can the District be asked to take funds from important homeland security projects to pay for this instead?" said Davis spokesman David Marin.

The region has earmarked federal homeland security funds for such priorities as increasing hospital capacity, equipping firefighters with protective gear and building transit system command centers.

OMB spokesman Chad Kolton said no additional appropriation is needed for the inauguration.

"We think that an appropriate balance of money from [the annual reimbursement] fund and from homeland security grants is the most effective way to cover the additional cost the city incurs," Kolton said. "We recognize the city has a special burden to bear for many of these events. . . . That's expressly why in the post-9/11 era we are providing additional resources."

The $17.3 million the city expects to spend on this inauguration marks a sharp increase from the $8 million it incurred for Bush's first.

According to Williams's letter, the District anticipates spending $8.8 million in overtime pay for about 2,000 D.C. police officers; $2.7 million to pay 1,000-plus officers being sent by other jurisdictions across the country; $3 million to construct reviewing stands; and $2.5 million to place public works, health, transportation, fire, emergency management and business services on emergency footing.

Congressional aides said the District sought unsuccessfully last year to boost the annual security reimbursement fund from $15 million to $25 million to pay for inauguration expenses. In contrast, New York City and Boston-area lawmakers were able to obtain $50 million from Congress for each of those two jurisdictions to cover local security costs for the national political conventions.

Inauguration officials said they plan to spend $40 million on the four-day celebration, which will include fireworks, the swearing-in, a parade and nine balls. Those expenses -- which do not include security and other public services -- are being funded by private donors.

OMB and DHS spokesmen said they could not provide an estimate of what the inauguration will cost the federal government.

Federal employees who work in the District, Montgomery, Prince George's, Fairfax and Arlington counties, Alexandria and Falls Church are entitled to a holiday on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, the Office of Personnel Management has announced. As of June, the cost of giving federal workers in the capital area a day off was about $66 million.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) asked OPM chief Kay Coles James yesterday to dismiss federal employees at noon or 1 p.m. Jan. 19 to avoid gridlock. The Secret Service plans to close an area bordered by Constitution Avenue and E, 15th and 17th streets NW at 3:45 p.m. that day to accommodate a ceremony at the White House Ellipse, Norton's office said.

We Have More To Fear From Bush's Small Mind

George Bush's lack of interest in international affairs (he'd never left the county except to go to Mexico and Guatamela before becoming President) along with having no experience in such is why his Neo-Con cabal are leading him by the nose on dealing with Al Qaeda. Hell, the anthrax killer was never found and it looks to be a fanatic from within our own CIA than something "a vast network" of Al Qaeda could pull off. But hey, selling fear to the American public so he can cut taxes, run the country into the ground over the national debt while keeping his wealthy elitists backers happy is what George does best.

Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
ROBERT SCHEER

January 11, 2005

Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?

To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media's supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.

"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."

Stern stuff, indeed. But consider just a few of the many questions the program poses along the way:

• If Osama bin Laden does, in fact, head a vast international terrorist organization with trained operatives in more than 40 countries, as claimed by Bush, why, despite torture of prisoners, has this administration failed to produce hard evidence of it?

• How can it be that in Britain since 9/11, 664 people have been detained on suspicion of terrorism but only 17 have been found guilty, most of them with no connection to Islamist groups and none who were proven members of Al Qaeda?

• Why have we heard so much frightening talk about "dirty bombs" when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people?

• Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on "Meet the Press" in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing?


Of course, the documentary does not doubt that an embittered, well-connected and wealthy Saudi man named Osama bin Laden helped finance various affinity groups of Islamist fanatics that have engaged in terror, including the 9/11 attacks. Nor does it challenge the notion that a terrifying version of fundamentalist Islam has led to gruesome spates of violence throughout the world. But the film, both more sober and more deeply provocative than Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," directly challenges the conventional wisdom by making a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda.

Terrorism is deeply threatening, but it appears to be a much more fragmented and complex phenomenon than the octopus-network image of Al Qaeda, with Bin Laden as its head, would suggest.

While the BBC documentary acknowledges that the threat of terrorism is both real and growing, it disagrees that the threat is centralized:

"There are dangerous and fanatical individuals and groups around the world who have been inspired by extreme Islamist ideas and who will use the techniques of mass terror — the attacks on America and Madrid make this only too clear. But the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. Wherever one looks for this Al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the 'sleeper cells' in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy."

The fact is, despite the efforts of several government commissions and a vast army of investigators, we still do not have a credible narrative of a "war on terror" that is being fought in the shadows.

Consider, for example, that neither the 9/11 commission nor any court of law has been able to directly take evidence from the key post-9/11 terror detainees held by the United States. Everything we know comes from two sides that both have a great stake in exaggerating the threat posed by Al Qaeda: the terrorists themselves and the military and intelligence agencies that have a vested interest in maintaining the facade of an overwhelmingly dangerous enemy.

Such a state of national ignorance about an endless war is, as "The Power of Nightmares" makes clear, simply unacceptable in a functioning democracy.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Bush and his GOP pals don't have any family concerns in this war. They aren't losing any sons and daughters over there, it's poor and middle class folks. But somebody that YOU know will lose a husband, wife, son or daughter. A brother or sister. Cousins. Friends.

It's looking more and more like the end of Viet Nam to me only the consequences have encouraged a millitant terrorist group to grow that is sworn to destory the U.S. And it's all thanks to George W. Bush, the idiot elitist son of a former president who had no idea how to say no to the fanatics in his own cabinet.

January 9, 2005

NY TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST

Defining Victory Down

By MAUREEN DOWD

ASHINGTON

The president prides himself on being a pig-headed guy. He is determined to win in Iraq even if he is not winning in Iraq.

So get ready for a Mohammedan mountain of spin defining victory down. Come what may - civil war over oil, Iranian-style fatwas du jour or men on prayer rugs reciting the Koran all day on the Iraqi TV network our own geniuses created - this administration will call it a triumph.

Even for a White House steeped in hooey, it's a challenge. President Bush will have to emulate the parsing and prevaricating he disdained in his predecessor: It depends on what the meaning of the word "win" is.

The president's still got a paper bag over his head, claiming that the daily horrors out of Iraq reflect just a few soreheads standing in the way of a glorious democracy, even though his commander of ground forces there concedes that the areas where more than half of Iraqis live are not secure enough for them to vote - an acknowledgment that the insurgency is resilient and growing. It's like saying Montana and North Dakota are safe to vote, but New York, Philadelphia and L.A. are not. What's a little disenfranchisement among friends?

"I know it's hard, but it's hard for a reason," Mr. Bush said on Friday, a day after seven G.I.'s and two marines died. "And the reason it's hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom." If it's just a handful, how come it's so hard?

Then the president added: "And I look at the elections as a - as a - you know, as a - as - as a historical marker for our Iraq policy."

Well, that's clear. Mr. Bush is huddled in his bubble, but he's in a pickle. The administration that had no plan for what to do with Iraq when it got it, now has no plan for getting out.

The mood in Washington about our misadventure seemed to grow darker last week, maybe because lawmakers were back after visiting with their increasingly worried constituents and - even more alarming - visiting Iraq, where you still can't drive from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone without fearing for your life.

"It's going to be ugly," Joe Biden told Charlie Rose about the election.

The arrogant Bush war council never admits a mistake. Paul Wolfowitz, a walking mistake, said on Friday he's been asked to remain in the administration. But the "idealists," as the myopic dunderheads think of themselves, are obviously worried enough, now that Mr. Bush is safely re-elected, to let a little reality seep in. Rummy tapped a respected retired four-star general to go to Iraq this week for an open-ended review of the entire military meshugas.

Mr. Wolfowitz, who devised the debacle in Iraq, is kept on, while Brent Scowcroft, Poppy Bush's lieutenant who warned Junior not to go into Iraq, is pushed out as chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. That's the backward nature of this beast: Deceive, you're golden; tell the truth, you're gone.

Mr. Scowcroft was not deterred. Like Banquo's ghost, he clanked around last week, disputing the president's absurdly sunny forecasts for Iraq, and noting dryly that this administration had turned the word "realist" into a "pejorative." He predicted that the elections "have the great potential for deepening the conflict" by exacerbating the divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. He worried that there would be "an incipient civil war," and said the best chance for the U.S. to avoid anarchy was to turn over the operation to the less inflammatory U.N. or NATO.

Mr. Scowcroft appeared at the New America Foundation with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, who declared the Iraq war a moral, political and military failure. If we can't send 500,000 troops, spend $500 billion and agree to resume the draft, then the conflict should be "terminated," he said, adding that far from the Jeffersonian democracy Mr. Bush extols, the most we can hope for is a Shiite-controlled theocracy.

The Iraqi election that was meant to be the solution to the problem - like the installation of a new Iraqi government and the transfer of sovereignty and all the other steps that were supposed to make things better - may actually be making things worse. The election is going to expand the control of the Shiite theocrats, even beyond what their numbers would entitle them to have, because of the way the Bush team has set it up and the danger that if you're a Sunni, the vote you cast may be your last.

It is a lesson never learned: Matters of state and the heart that start with a lie rarely end well.

Nothing Has Gone As Planned by Bush In Iraq

January 10, 2005

NY TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Scent of Fear

By BOB HERBERT

he assembly line of carnage in George W. Bush's war in Iraq continues unabated. Nightmares don't last this long, so the death and destruction must be real. You know you're in serious trouble when the politicians and the military brass don't even bother suggesting that there's light at the end of the tunnel. The only thing ahead is a deep and murderous darkness.

With the insurgency becoming both stronger and bolder, and the chances of conducting a legitimate election growing grimmer by the day, a genuine sense of alarm can actually be detected in the reality-resistant hierarchy of the Bush administration.

The unthinkable is getting a tentative purchase in the minds of the staunchest supporters of the war: that under the current circumstances, and given existing troop strengths, the U.S. and its Iraqi allies may not be able to prevail. Military officials are routinely talking about a major U.S. presence in Iraq that will last, at a minimum, into the next decade. That is not what most Americans believed when the Bush crowd so enthusiastically sold this war as a noble adventure that would be short and sweet, and would end with Iraqis tossing garlands of flowers at American troops.

The reality, of course, is that this war is like all wars - fearsomely brutal and tragic. The administration was jolted into the realization of just how badly the war was going by the brazen suicide bombing just a few days before Christmas inside a mess tent of a large and supposedly heavily fortified military base in Mosul. Fourteen American soldiers and four American contractors were among the dead.

Seven American soldiers were killed last Thursday when their Bradley armored personnel carrier hit a roadside bomb in northwestern Baghdad. Two U.S. marines were killed the same day in Anbar.

Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday of an ominous new development in Iraq. "We've noticed in the recent couple of weeks," he said, "that the I.E.D.'s [improvised explosive devices] are all being built more powerfully, with more explosive effort in a smaller number of I.E.D.'s."

Mr. Bush's so-called pre-emptive war, which has already cost so many lives, is being enveloped by the foul and unmistakable odor of failure. That's why the Pentagon is dispatching a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq to assess the entire wretched operation. The hope in Washington is that he will pull a rabbit out of a hat. His mission is to review the military's entire Iraq policy, and do it quickly.

I hope, as he is touring the regions in which the U.S. is still using conventional tactics against a guerrilla foe, that he keeps in mind how difficult it is to defeat local insurgencies, and other indigenous forces, as exemplified by such widely varying historical examples as the French experiences in Indochina and Algeria, the American experience in Vietnam, the Israeli experience in Lebanon, and so on.

But even the fortuitously named General Luck will be helpless to straighten anything out in time for the Iraqi elections. The commander of American ground forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, made it clear last week that significant areas of four major provinces, which together contain nearly half the population of the entire country, are not safe enough for people to vote.

"Today I would not be in much shape to hold elections in those provinces," said General Metz.

With the war draining the military of the troops needed for commitments worldwide, the Pentagon is being forced to take extraordinary steps to maintain adequate troop strength. A temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers for the Army, already approved by Congress, will most likely be made permanent. The Pentagon is also considering plans to further change the rules about mobilizing members of the National Guard and Reserve. Right now they cannot be called up for more than 24 months of active service. That limit would be scrapped, which would permit the Army to call them up as frequently as required.

That's not a back-door draft. It's a brutal, in-your-face draft that's unfairly limited to a small segment of the population. It would make a mockery of the idea of an all-volunteer Army.

Something's got to give. The nation's locked in a war that's going badly. The military is strained to the breaking point. And it's looking more and more like the amateur hour in the places that are supposed to provide leadership in perilous times - the Pentagon and the White House.

@#$%'em, Nobody In The White House Gives A Damn!

Hey, after all those tax cuts for millionaires and shooting the National Debt to Mars don't think this President is going to back down from being a cheap slimey bastard when it comes to his party!

Forget Iraq and South Asia, It's Party Time
Margaret Carlson

January 6, 2005

Jeanne Phillips, chairwoman of the 55th Presidential Inaugural Committee, was asked in a recent interview if the $40 million being spent on the festivities might be better spent on the troops in Iraq. No, not really. She and the president instead decided to dedicate the festivities to "honoring service" and throwing, for the first time, a Commander in Chief Ball to which 2,000 servicemen have been invited. That, of course, leaves out the 140,000 troops stationed in Iraq, and countless others around the world. Just how do these events benefit the troops? "I'm not sure that they do," she admitted, but she quickly repeated that "honoring service is what our theme is about."

Let the troops eat a theme. Members of the 101st Airborne Division will no doubt be pleased to learn that partygoers at nine ballrooms will be honoring them. Surely that soldier who asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about a lack of armor won't feel so bad about his unfortified vehicle if 2,000 servicemen are eating canapes in his name, and arms merchants are dancing till dawn in honor of arms-bearers in Mosul.

What's surprising is that the down-to-earth president doesn't get that the world has changed since his extravaganza in 2001. The master of identifying with the common man has blown such an easy opportunity to reinforce the image he's so ardently cultivated, an image that just won him reelection despite four years of policies undertaken on behalf of the uncommon man. It's a mask he must maintain if he's to make tax cuts permanent, dismantle Social Security and pursue an ownership society for the benefit of the people who already own it — without the rest of the country catching on.

Naming the inaugural ball "Patriotic" doesn't make it so. That's especially true now that the war is overlaid with massive human suffering and deprivation in South Asia. If you were looking for the opposite of planting a victory garden, you couldn't do better than to have sitcom star Kelsey Grammer emcee the military ball. If you want to laugh at human suffering then go trip the light fantastic at the Liberty Ball. (Visiting the black hole of devastation in Sumatra, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "I've never seen anything like it." Of course, nothing Powell says will change anything. Powell's involvement in an issue is confirmation that the president doesn't care about it.)

Even the soft-as-a-pillow interviewer Larry King saw the incongruity of all this. In the middle of a joint interview on Monday with Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, just named to spearhead private donations for tsunami victims, King said "some people are saying that maybe some of the inaugural events can be … canceled or tempered down. What do you think?" Bush the elder said: "I think life goes on. I don't think it will help anything in Sri Lanka if the balls were, you know, peeled back. That's a separate question." Any suggestion that his son was slow to respond or chintzy, added Bush, was simply "inside-the-Beltway stuff."

Life goes on; that's a truism. But inside the Beltway there was hardly a peep. This is fully Bushland now. Why is it a separate question? Given that the events are dedicated to the troops, why not give half the $40 million to them (with a chunk to the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for phone cards so they can call home) and half of it to Sri Lanka?

So why did Bush finally spring into action on the tsunami? It was his slow realization that he looked out of step with ordinary Americans, treating his base as less than they are, simply as a voting bloc. While millions of good-hearted Americans were jamming the websites of Catholic Charities, the American Red Cross and other groups with donations, Bush was still on vacation, clearing brush at the ranch. It took more than a week for him to make a personal donation.

To cancel the balls, one Republican said, would be a cheap gesture. That was like the White House's initial excuse for dragging its feet, that Bush didn't want to jump on tragedies as did his predecessor, Clinton, who Bush has officially appointed to jump on the tragedy.

But the truth is that Bush loves a cheap gesture — landing on an aircraft carrier in a flyboy suit or giving a speech like the one Wednesday on medical malpractice, in which he was surrounded by people in white jackets to signify medical good practice.

The deputy of the inaugural organization said a presidential inaugural has never been canceled, even during the world wars, so the administration isn't going to start now. But that's the inauguration itself, which is a pretty economical affair — a Bible, a platform, some seating. Balls are different. Franklin D. Roosevelt canceled three balls because of the Depression and World War II. It is hard to believe that a president who used life-size pictures of Roosevelt as a backdrop at an international speech wouldn't see the anomaly. Imagine if this were a month after the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

A REALLY BAD NATION, I MEAN, NOVEL...

January 7, 2005

NYT OP-ED COLUMNIST

Worse Than Fiction

By PAUL KRUGMAN

've been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with - they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels.

In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction.

In my bad novel, crusaders for moral values will be driven by strange obsessions. One senator's diatribe against gay marriage will link it to "man on dog" sex. Another will rant about the dangers of lesbians in high school bathrooms.

In my bad novel, the president will choose as head of homeland security a "good man" who turns out to have been the subject of an arrest warrant, who turned an apartment set aside for rescue workers into his personal love nest and who stalked at least one of his ex-lovers.

In my bad novel, a TV personality who claims to stand up for regular Americans against the elite will pay a large settlement in a sexual harassment case, in which he used his position of power to - on second thought, that story is too embarrassing even for a bad novel.

In my bad novel, apologists for the administration will charge foreign policy critics with anti-Semitism. But they will be silent when a prominent conservative declares that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular."

In my bad novel the administration will use the slogan "support the troops" to suppress criticism of its war policy. But it will ignore repeated complaints that the troops lack armor.

The secretary of defense - another "good man," according to the president - won't even bother signing letters to the families of soldiers killed in action.

Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture.

How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

The public became unwilling to believe bad things about those who claim to be defending the nation against terrorism. And the hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels of the right, empowered by the public's credulity, have come out in unprecedented force.

Apologists for the administration would like us to forget all about the Kerik affair, but Bernard Kerik perfectly symbolizes the times we live in. Like Rudolph Giuliani and, yes, President Bush, he wasn't a hero of 9/11, but he played one on TV. And like Mr. Giuliani, he was quick to cash in, literally, on his undeserved reputation.

Once the New York newspapers began digging, it became clear that Mr. Kerik is, professionally and personally, a real piece of work. But that's not unusual these days among people who successfully pass themselves off as patriots and defenders of moral values. Mr. Kerik must still be wondering why he, unlike so many others, didn't get away with it.

And Alberto Gonzales must be hoping that senators don't bring up the subject.

The principal objection to making Mr. Gonzales attorney general is that doing so will tell the world that America thinks it's acceptable to torture people. But his confirmation will also be a statement about ethics.

As White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales was charged with vetting Mr. Kerik. He must have realized what kind of man he was dealing with - yet he declared Mr. Kerik fit to oversee homeland security.

Did Mr. Gonzales defer to the wishes of a president who wanted Mr. Kerik anyway, or did he decide that his boss wouldn't want to know? (The Nelson Report, a respected newsletter, reports that Mr. Bush has made it clear to his subordinates that he doesn't want to hear bad news about Iraq.)

Either way, when the Senate confirms Mr. Gonzales, it will mean that Iokiyar remains in effect, that the basic rules of ethics don't apply to people aligned with the ruling party. And reality will continue to be worse than any fiction I could write.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

White House illegally paid black commentator to promote law

Like all good conservative commentators Armstrong Williams fought for a Bush program like NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND because it was the right thing to do. Not because he was paid to and all while he concealed to his audience the quarter of a million dollars payment. On top of this it was an illegal use of taxpayer's money (yep, YOU paid for it) by Bush's administration. Well, at least Williams wasn't buying drugs illegally from his housekeeper while ruining his health and hearing.



"Just because I believe in the President's program and was paid for promoting it with your taxpayer's money doesn't mean I'm a, 'Yass sir, Massa' Bush!' black man. Far from it and how dare you suggest such a racist thing! I'm just a good conservative journalist with rock-solid convictions interested in putting the welfare of all Americans first with no interest in personal gain no matter how much they paid me." ---future SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE skit. No wait, they're owned by GE.

White House paid commentator to promote law

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

The contract, detailed in documents obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request, also shows that the Education Department, through the Ketchum public relations firm, arranged with Williams to use contacts with America's Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, "to encourage the producers to periodically address" NCLB. He persuaded radio and TV personality Steve Harvey to invite Paige onto his show twice. Harvey's manager, Rushion McDonald, confirmed the appearances.

Williams said he does not recall disclosing the contract to audiences on the air but told colleagues about it when urging them to promote NCLB.

"I respect Mr. Williams' statement that this is something he believes in," said Bob Steele, a media ethics expert at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. "But I would suggest that his commitment to that belief is best exercised through his excellent professional work rather than through contractual obligations with outsiders who are, quite clearly, trying to influence content."

The contract may be illegal "because Congress has prohibited propaganda," or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "And it's propaganda."

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said he couldn't comment because the White House is not involved in departments' contracts.

Ketchum referred questions to the Education Department, whose spokesman, John Gibbons, said the contract followed standard government procedures. He said there are no plans to continue with "similar outreach."

Williams' contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced "video news releases" designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers' dollars.

Williams, 45, a former aide to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is one of the top black conservative voices in the nation. He hosts The Right Side on TV and radio, and writes op-ed pieces for newspapers, including USA TODAY, while running a public relations firm, Graham Williams Group.

Bush & Congress Show Contempt For Vets By Kicking Out Their Greatest Ally

Our fighting veterans' top GOP congressional friend and a House leader on veterans affairs has been kicked out by a GOP Congress (and Bush's neo-con cabal) that didn't like his standing up for the rights and benefits of our retired military over the tax cuts. This administration and congress is not for vets, it's for their corporate buddies and millionares tax breaks so they can cut veterans benefits AND IN A TIME OF WAR and when they will be needing them the most. If this doesn't turn your stomach then you don't give a fig about the future of America's fighting men.

House Republicans Oust VA Panel Chairman

Wed Jan 5, 7:05 PM ET

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders decided Wednesday to oust Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher Smith, a lawmaker with strong allies in the veterans' community who has tested his party's demands for loyalty with his stances on funding.

The GOP leaders, in a secret ballot, chose Rep. Steve Buyer (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., a 10-year veteran of the committee, to replace Smith, R-N.J., who has led the panel for the past four years. Smith is expected to lose his committee seat, which he has held for 24 years.

The decision is expected to be ratified when all House Republicans meet on Thursday.

Buyer was the only lawmaker to challenge a sitting chairman as party leaders met to organize for the 109th session of Congress. Removing an incumbent is highly unusual, but Smith has been criticized for not being a team player and threatened with loss of his post for questioning party policies.

Republican Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., talking to reporters after the vote, cited what he said was Smith's unwillingness to accept even those budgets backed by the Veterans Affairs Department.

Blunt said Buyer, a 46-year-old Persian Gulf War (news - web sites) veteran who is a colonel in the Army Reserve, had presented a more forward-looking vision in pressing his case to party leaders.

Smith, in an interview, defended his record, saying the gains he has made for veterans are enduring, and he denied that he has acted in defiance of the party.

"I think I am very much a team player because I think that good public policy is good for the team," he said.

Smith in the past has angered party leaders by saying that stringent GOP-backed budgets undercut veterans' programs, a sensitive subject when the Bush administration and Congress are trying to show their wartime commitment to troops and veterans.

That independence has won Smith strong support among veterans groups. On Monday the heads of eight veterans groups, including the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, wrote House Speaker Dennis Hastert to say it would be a "tragedy" if Smith were removed from his post.

They noted that Smith had shepherded major legislation through Congress, including modernizing the GI bill, strengthening legal protections and expanding health care services and benefits.

Bush & GOP Congress Letting America Down On Homeland Security

Meanwhile our cities, ports and borders are not receiving the financial support required to meet Homeland Security needs. Key cities have been forced to cut back First Responders (police and firemen). This is a travesty concerning leadership under Bush.

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Homeland Security Goes Begging

Congress has a critical role in protecting the nation from terrorists by exercising careful scrutiny of homeland security programs. But so far, the House and Senate have been contributing to the problem rather than the solutions, distracting antiterrorism efforts by forcing officials to report to dozens of competing, power-hungry committees. The independent 9/11 commission cried out for an end to this "dysfunctional" system. Its solution was clean and obvious: create a single streamlined homeland security committee in each house, with both budget power and responsibility for oversight. Yet no national priority has been more shamefully subject to evasion by a truculent Congress ensconced in the traditions of turf battles.

Currently, the leaders of the Department of Homeland Security report to more than 80 committees and subcommittees in the House and Senate, each with a zealously guarded slice of the budget for securing the nation against terrorists. There is no one in Congress with the power or the responsibility to make sure the secretary of homeland security has the manpower and money he needs and to hold him accountable for the department's performance. Like the 9/11 panel, any average American could have seen the answer.

But not Congress. In its latest evasion, the House Republican leadership this week announced, with great fanfare, that it was granting "permanent" status to the existing House Select Committee on Homeland Security. All that was lacking was jurisdiction over homeland security budgeting, spending or performance.

Besides leaving the committee squarely in limbo, Speaker Dennis Hastert appeased powerful rival chairmen who were already sniping away at the homeland panel, which has spent the last two years scrambling for survival and office space. The committee's Republican chairman, Christopher Cox of California, can look forward to an inch-by-inch struggle for jurisdiction in arcane debates in the parliamentarian's office as his rivals - the ranking committee "bulls" of the Judiciary, Energy and Transportation Committees - invoke historical precedence over the newcomer.

Even as the new permanent homeland panel was proclaimed, rivals already conspired to deprive it of the jurisdiction for overseeing such basic essentials as the Coast Guard, border entries and cybersecurity threats to the country's electric power grids and other vulnerable infrastructures.

"This is the speaker's committee," says Mr. Cox, expecting help from on high. But even for an old wrestling coach like the speaker, refereeing the looming food fights over oversight and appropriations is no way to see that the people get proper vigilance and protection from their government.

Comparable cosmetic changes have been loftily proclaimed for the Senate committee system, but the same blur of jurisdiction, power jockeying and eventual inertia can be expected to continue. Three years after the 9/11 attacks, House leaders dared to defend their system in Orwellian terms as "purposeful redundancy" and a "competition of ideas." The bulls of Congress should only guard the nation this zealously.

Army Reserve overextended, general says

"Let them eat cake." ---Cheney and generals dig in.


Fact: Bush lied about WMD in Iraq to rush to war. Fact: Bush couldn't convince the world to support his war with Iraq and thus he forced America to bear the brunt of its commitment in troops and money. Fact: Bush ignored pleas before going to war by military leaders asking to send more troops to deal with the occupation. Fact: insurgent attacks increased during the occupation as was originally warned. Fact: Bush sent more troops (increased Reserve troops to fill gaps) and then he recalled them, then he sent them back. Fact: insurgent attacks increased steadily since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished." Fact: the Reserves have become a backdoor draft. Fact: Bush taunted the insurgents with "Bring it on!" Fact: Bush extended the tour of duty of troops in Iraq to deal with shortages. Fact: in the meantime the Reserves were not being properly trained and equipped for the war. Fact: the Reserves have begun to break down. Fact: the Pentagon is frantically observing the number of re-enlistments and new enlistments fall drastically below the projected needs in the Reserves. Fact: other branches of the military are beginning to show a drop in enlistment.

Fact: Bush was totally unprepared for the realities of war in Iraq.

Do you have a son coming into draft age in the next ten years as the Pentagon deals with increasing troop shortages while tied to military commitments in Iraq and around the world?


Chicago Tribune
Army Reserve overextended, general says

Wed Jan 5, 9:40 AM ET

By Tom Bowman Tribune Newspapers: The Baltimore Sun

The Army Reserve, a force of some 200,000 part-time soldiers who provide key support in Iraq and Afghanistan with medics, engineers and truck drivers, "is rapidly degenerating into a `broken' force," its top general has told senior Army leaders.

Lt. Gen. James "Ron" Helmly, the chief of the Army Reserve, in a blunt and detailed memo cited the demands of overseas commitments and the unwillingness of Army and Pentagon officials to change "dysfunctional" policies that are hampering the Army Reserve on issues ranging from training and extension of service time to the mobilization of his soldiers.

The Dec. 20 memo, obtained by The Baltimore Sun, said that in meeting the "current demands" of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army Reserve is in "grave danger" of being unable to meet other missions in Pentagon contingency plans or help with domestic emergencies "and is rapidly degenerating into a `broken' force."

"The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability to meet mission requirements" in Iraq and Afghanistan "and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions," Helmly wrote in the eight-page memo sent through Army channels for the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker. "I do not wish to sound alarmist. I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern."

Interviewed Tuesday at the Pentagon, Helmly said, "I stand by the memorandum. Is there frustration? Absolutely. Is the frustration beyond control? No."

Policy reform sought

The memo was designed as a frank exchange with Army leaders in advance of upcoming congressional hearings, said Helmly, adding that he planned to press ahead with reforms for the long-term health of the Army Reserve.

Helmly would not discuss the specific officials who declined to support policy changes, though he said in one instance political pressure from Congress led to a roadblock.

A senior Army official who requested anonymity said Tuesday that unexpected troop requirements in Iraq led to the problems outlined by Helmly. The active-duty forces needed there continually rose over the past year, requiring an increased number of Reserve soldiers to provide support.

In May 2003, before the insurgency sharply increased, some 8,000 Army Reserve soldiers in Iraq were sent home, only to be recalled to duty three months later.

The 150,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq include about 30,000 Army Reserve soldiers serving in Iraq and Kuwait.

The senior official said "we were still able to field the forces we needed" and were reluctant to change policies that would burden soldiers and their families. Now with Iraq expected to hold down a sizable number of U.S. soldiers for several years, some of those policies will have to be changed, the official said.

"I think some will be changed. I think some have to be changed," he said, adding that he expected Schoomaker and Army Secretary Francis Harvey to discuss the issues with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The private and unvarnished assessment by Helmly echoes the concerns of other officers, defense analysts and some members of Congress, who have predicted that the burdens of overseas missions could begin to fray the all-volunteer U.S. military. Both the National Guard and Army Reserve are experiencing a recruiting slump, although the Army is meeting its goals.

`Spread too thin'

"The general consensus is the Army's spread too thin," said Charles Moskos, a longtime military sociologist at Northwestern University. He has traveled to Iraq and heard complaints from reservists that included a lack of adequate training and equipment. "The Reserve and Guard are not treated equally with the other services."

Moskos said the problems outlined by Helmly need to be addressed by some type of commission that is independent of the Pentagon.

Helmly is a Vietnam War combat veteran who served two tours and received a Bronze Star for valor. He has earned a reputation as a no-nonsense leader during 2 1/2 years as the top Army Reserve officer. But he has irritated the Pentagon's hierarchy in the past year with pessimistic talk about recruiting and retention at a time when the military's leadership has tried to be more upbeat.

In his memo, Helmly cited the Pentagon's requirement to leave a large amount of Army Reserve equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan for other services and contractors. He also criticized policies that delay training of reservists who have returned home from overseas duty, citing them among "peacetime" personnel policies that need to change.

IT'S STILL TRUE

John Kerry was right in the debate (click to see: QuickTime required) and even more so now with Americans (and the Iraqi people) dying at a greater rate than ever before in Iraq.

Bush lied about the reasons to go to war (and has been proven so).

Bush lied about having an occupation plan (and has been proven so).

Bush lied about having an exit plan (and has been proven so).

It's not getting better in Iraq, it's getting worse. Bush has been forced to send more troops to counter insurgent attacks. Bush can't get more nations involved to help and reduce our troops' involvement. Nations are pulling OUT of Iraq. Under Bush's leadership the Reserves serve as a back-door draft while enlistment in the military has fallen. What does that hold for the future and America's children in the next few years?

THE FAILURE

Click on the link above or below for an analysis of Bush's failures in leading the country.

The debate on the failure of Bush as president.

Bush The Unfeeling Miser

Our president is an idiot. Left on his own over the holiday (his handlers were vacationing) he showed his true colors and concerns. He was thinking of his inauguration! Did you know that his corporate pals are planning to lavash $40,000,000 on the big party? And what was Bush's initial offer to help out with the victims of the tsunami disasters? $15,000,000. Says it all about this "compassionate conservative". But read on. Look how out of the "big picture" he really is.

EDITORIAL L.A. Times
A Marshall Plan for South Asia

January 2, 2005

If a tsunami were to strike Northern Europe, killing more than 100,000 people from Ireland to Sweden, does anybody think it would take President Bush 72 hours to speak up about the tragedy and call leaders of the devastated countries?

In fairness to the vacationing president, the full magnitude of the natural disaster in the Indian Ocean wasn't apparent immediately after the undersea earthquake and the ensuing tsunami struck a week ago today. Still, there is no disputing that the first response of the American president and government, seen as omnipotent in much of the world, was lackadaisical and stingy. When Bush finally spoke Wednesday, Spain's pledge of relief funds was nearly double that of the U.S., and even that U.S. contribution ($35 million) came only after heavy criticism of Washington.

All of this conveyed the impression that Americans don't value the lives of people in poor countries as much as they value their own, or European, lives. Most of us have been guilty of shrugging our shoulders in the past over natural disasters in South Asia. How much attention did we pay in 1991, for instance, when a cyclone claimed nearly 140,000 lives in Bangladesh?

Bush's announcement Friday that the United States will contribute $350 million, 10 times the earlier amount, can go far to show that Washington will act boldly overseas in response to natural calamities, not just military threats. Sending his brother Jeb to the disaster area also symbolizes the U.S. concern. But we also urge Bush to propose a Marshall Plan-like strategy for the region that would commit billions of dollars for long-term programs like water purification and improved sanitation systems.

The president would be wise to travel to the region in coming weeks. There is no need for a grandstanding tour of devastated communities, but a respectful visit to national capitals to express our nation's condolences and to ask how the president could help would go a long way toward rehabilitating the U.S. image in the world.

If conservatives in the president's own party balk at a multibillion-dollar Marshall Plan for South Asia, Bush shouldn't hesitate to employ his favorite marketing ploy: Peg the effort to the war on terror by pointing out the strategic importance of the region. Indonesia, the most severely affected nation, also happens to be the world's largest Muslim country, where most practice a moderate form of the religion but the government battles extremists.

Offering humanitarian assistance could inoculate Indonesians against sympathy for terrorists. An all-out effort by the U.S. to help a Muslim country would also counter those across the Muslim world who preach that the West is out to undermine all Muslim societies.

Beyond Indonesia, Sri Lanka fights Tamil terrorists, Thailand worries about Muslim separatists in the south, and India works hard to maintain peace among its many religious and ethnic communities while seeking to improve ties with Pakistan. All four nations are natural allies of the U.S., democracies of the kind Bush repeatedly says he wants to see flourish.

The U.S. spends a bit over one-tenth of 1% of its national income on aid, less than any other developed nation. A massive American-led Marshall Plan for South Asia would cost only a fraction of the nearly $225 billion requested so far to pay for the Iraq war. And, without a doubt, it would be a far wiser investment in the war on terror.