THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

What could that kind of money buy?

A college education - tuition, fees, room and board at a public university - for about half of the nation's 17 million high-school-age teenagers.

Pre-school for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country for the next eight years.

// posted by montag @ 7:40 PM 0 Comments

Only about 1 percent of food from other countries undergoes inspection at U.S. points of entry. Often, reviews include little more than a paperwork check.

"The big red strawberries in the middle of gloomy January are very pretty," Odabashian said. "But they're very likely being produced in countries with far less regulation than what we have here."

And,

The FDA has jurisdiction over 80 percent of food produced in this country, including seafood, fresh produce and processed foods.

Yet it has only several hundred inspectors for at least 60,000 food processing plants across the nation, Doyle said. In contrast, the USDA, which oversees meat and poultry, has 7,600 inspectors for 7,000 U.S. plants.

// posted by montag @ 1:25 PM 0 Comments

"The reality is the Republican brand right now is just not a good brand," said Tim Hibbitts, an independent Oregon pollster. "For Republicans, the only way things really get better … is if somehow, some way, Iraq turns around."

// posted by montag @ 12:23 PM 0 Comments

One study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week found that 94 percent of doctors have some type of relationship with the drug industry -- most commonly accepting free food or drug samples, which about 80 percent of physicians did. More than one-third of the 1,662 physicians who responded to a survey conducted from November 2003 to June 2004 reported being reimbursed by the drug industry for costs of going to professional meetings or continuing medical education, and 28 percent said they had been paid for consulting, giving lectures or signing up patients for clinical trials.

// posted by montag @ 11:12 PM 1 Comments

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

The newly built water purification system was not functioning either.

Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, commander of the Gulf Region Division of the Army Corps, told a news conference in Baghdad late last month that with so much coverage of violence in Iraq “what you don’t see are the successes in the reconstruction program, how reconstruction is making a difference in the lives of everyday Iraqi people.”

And those declared successes are heavily promoted by the United States government. A 2006 news release by the Army Corps, titled “Erbil Maternity and Pediatric Hospital — not just bricks and mortar!” praises both the new water purification system and the incinerator. The incinerator, the release said, would “keep medical waste from entering into the solid waste and water systems.”

But when Mr. Bowen’s office presented the Army Corps with the finding that neither system was working at the struggling hospital and recommended a training program so that Iraqis could properly operate the equipment, General Walsh tersely disagreed with the recommendation in a letter appended to the report, which also noted that the building had suffered damage because workers used excess amounts of water to clean the floors.

The bureau within the United States Embassy in Baghdad that oversees reconstruction in Iraq was even more dismissive, disagreeing with all four of the inspector general’s recommendations, including those suggesting that the United States should lend advice on disposing of the waste and maintaining the floors.

// posted by montag @ 10:28 PM 0 Comments

Mrs. Kuehn, who was driving to Florida to visit her in-laws with her husband, Scott Kuehn, 24, brother-in-law Michael Kuehn and friend Dan-Que Pham, said her ordeal began when she was attempting to leave the highway to stop for dinner at about 5:20 p.m. Saturday.

Taking the wrong exit, Mrs. Kuehn said she made a U-turn before pulling the black Volvo station wagon into the restaurant parking lot.

That's when she heard a voice over a loudspeaker, ordering her not to park the car. Seeing the flashing emergency lights and realizing it was a police officer, she pulled over.

A Georgia state trooper told her he was giving her citations for going 55 miles an hour in a 35 zone and failing to stop at a stop sign. But instead of writing a ticket, the officer told her she had to post a bond before she could resume her trip.

As she broke down in tears, Mrs. Kuehn said the officer threatened to handcuff her if she didn't get in the back seat of his cruiser for the trip to what she thought would be the area police station.

Instead, she was driven to the detention centre where she spent the next 11 difficult hours separated from her husband, even though he collected the $222 U.S. to post her bond within three hours of her arrest.

While the first few hours were spent sitting in a cold, common holding room, Mrs. Kuehn said she was never read her rights and jail officials offered little in the way of explanation about what was happening to her.

// posted by montag @ 7:30 PM 0 Comments

Simultaneous raids carried out in four Alabama counties Thursday turned up truckloads of explosives and weapons, including 130 grenades, an improvised rocket launcher and 2,500 rounds of ammunition belonging to the small, but mightily armed, Alabama Free Militia.

Six alleged members of the Free Militia also were arrested by federal authorities and are being held without bond...

... "We classify these groups as violent and anti-government," said Jim Cavanaugh, who supervises the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operations in portions of the South. "They stockpile things and live off a fear, a paranoia they're going to need weapons and explosives because some event is going to happen when they will need them."

"Any time you have a self-appointed colonel or a self-appointed major and they've got weapons and explosives, it is a recipe for tragedy," Cavanaugh said.

// posted by montag @ 6:49 PM 0 Comments

Gasoline prices, already above $3 a gallon in some states, could charge higher this summer and hit $4 a gallon in some locations, according to one industry expert.

AND

Five states - California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Nevada - already have average prices above $3 a gallon, according to the motorist organization AAA. In California, the average price of gas has reached $3.35 a gallon.

Kilduff said it will be in those states, and possibly New England and the northern Midwest, where prices have the best chance of hitting $4 a gallon, mostly as a result of localized refinery problems.

Flames and smoke poured into the sky Saturday over an oil refinery where lightning set off a fire and an explosion that was felt miles away, authorities said.

Flames and smoke boiled hundreds of feet into the air from two 80,000-gallon tanks in the Wynnewood Refinery complex, officials said.

// posted by montag @ 6:10 PM 1 Comments

Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one.

But efforts to buy thousands more carriers - each costing about $1 million - could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion war spending bill.

About $3 billion for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

At a hearing last month, lawmakers urged the Army to get more of the carriers to the battlefront as quickly as possible. The vehicles, with their unique V-shaped hull that deflects blasts outward and away from passengers, are considered lifesavers against the No. 1 killer in Iraq - roadside bombs.

// posted by montag @ 4:57 PM 1 Comments

A parked car exploded Saturday near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines in the Iraqi city of Karbala, killing at least 55 people and wounding dozens, officials said.

The explosion took place in a crowded commercial area near the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Baghdad, officials said.

At least 55 people were killed and 70 wounded, said Salim Kazim, the head of the Karbala health department....The explosion took place as the streets were filled with people heading for evening prayers at the Abbas shrine and the adjacent Imam Hussein shrine, two of Iraq's holiest Shiite sites.

// posted by montag @ 1:35 PM 0 Comments

A World Bank committee investigating president Paul D. Wolfowitz has nearly completed a report that it plans to give the institution's governing board, concluding that he breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend, three senior bank officials said Friday.

// posted by montag @ 1:20 PM 0 Comments

Now BYU Alternative Commencement has received an email from a local businesswoman named Denise Harman, who claims that all BYU students participating in activities against Dick Cheney are being tracked by local businesses. "Many businesses are noting the names involved," she says.

Why are business tracking the names of soon to be graduating students? "You are being tagged as trouble makers and added to massive 'Do Not Hire' lists," says Denise Harman, who hires hundreds of graduates every year.

She adds curtly, "Just thought you should know that activities have consequences."

// posted by montag @ 12:36 PM 0 Comments

"The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place," he said. "The president has let (the Iraq war) proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. He lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies."

// posted by montag @ 12:23 PM 0 Comments

"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict."

// posted by montag @ 12:02 AM 0 Comments

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of President Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

That prospect would entail a dramatically longer commitment of frontline troops, patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad, than the one envisioned in legislation that passed the House and Senate this week.

// posted by montag @ 11:30 PM 0 Comments

So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

// posted by montag @ 7:03 PM 0 Comments

Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.

But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24.

Overall, statistics indicate that the number of violent deaths has declined significantly since December, when 1,391 people died in Baghdad, either executed and found dead on the street or killed by bomb blasts. That number was 796 in March and 691 through April 24.

Nearly all of that decline, however, can be attributed to a drop in executions, most of which were blamed on Shiite Muslim militias aligned with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Much of the decline occurred before the security plan began on Feb. 15, and since then radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army militia to stand down...

... Deaths from car bombings and improvised explosive devices, however, increased from 361 in December to a peak of 520 in February before dropping to 323 in March.

In that same period, the number of bombings has increased, as well. In December, there were 65 explosive attacks. That number was unchanged in January, but it rose to 72 in February, 74 in March and 81 through April 24.

// posted by montag @ 7:01 AM 0 Comments

Admiral Fallon does not appear to have come up with a catchy substitute for his predecessor’s turn of phrase.

"We continue to look for other options to characterize the scope of current operations," said Colonel McLaughlin, the spokesman.

// posted by montag @ 7:07 PM 0 Comments

Vice President Cheney should be the last person to lecture anyone on how leaders should make decisions.

Leaders should make decisions based on facts and reality, two words that seem to be foreign to the Vice President

This is the same guy who said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that we would be greeted as liberators. And it's the same guy who continues to assert that Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda long after our own intelligence agency conclusively refuted this notion. To suggest he lacks credibility would be an understatement.

The Vice President's and others' attacks on those who disagree with their failed policies are signs of desperation. They are lashing out because they know the days are numbered for their failed strategy and that the American people and a bipartisan majority are determined to force this Administration to change course in Iraq.

// posted by montag @ 6:09 PM 1 Comments

Khamael Muhsen, was a journalist with Radio Free Europe, the U.S.-government funded broadcaster. She'd been a famous television personality in Saddam Hussein's era. Now the 54-year-old is a statistic, her body dumped on the side of the road like so much garbage, one of at least 158 journalists, most of them Iraqis, who've been killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

// posted by montag @ 7:54 PM 0 Comments

"But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief — and this is his war,"

// posted by montag @ 6:06 PM 0 Comments

A jury awarded $9 million to a black man who suffered permanent brain damage after being beaten and dumped in a field by four men in 2003.

Billy Ray Johnson, 46, lives in a nursing home because of the injuries he suffered in the beating. In the criminal case, the men accused of assaulting him were fined and sentenced to probation and jail time, but none served more than 60 days behind bars.

In a four-day civil trial in District Court that ended Friday, jurors found James Cory Hicks and Christopher Colt Amox responsible for Johnson's injuries. Defendants Dallas Chadwick Stone and John Wesley Owens previously reached confidential settlements, attorneys said.

A jury of 11 whites and one black deliberated less than four hours before returning a unanimous verdict, said attorneys for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of Johnson.

He was found unconscious on a fire ant mound and had suffered a serious concussion and bleeding in the brain.

// posted by montag @ 5:46 PM 1 Comments

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."

// posted by montag @ 4:42 PM 0 Comments

Gunmen shot and killed 23 members of an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq on Sunday after stopping their bus and separating out followers of other faiths, while at least 20 people were killed in car bombings in the capital...

..Police said 13 people died - five policemen and eight civilians. The wounded included 46 policemen and 36 civilians.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a parked car bomb exploded in the Sadiyah neighborhood, killing seven civilians and wounding 42, police said. A roadside bomb then struck a police patrol coming to check on the blast, killing one officer and wounding two others.

In all, at least 72 people were killed or found dead in Iraq on Sunday, including 24 bullet-riddled bodies and two brothers who were shot to death in the volatile city of Fallujah, a day after the chairman of the city's council was assassinated.

The U.S. military also reported the deaths of three soldiers. Two were killed in attacks in Baghdad on Saturday, while the third died from an unidentified non-combat cause that was still under investigation, the military said.

// posted by montag @ 4:08 PM 0 Comments

Almost exactly three years ago, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice appeared before Congress to talk about why she hadn't felt it necessary to take any special action after being warned that Osama bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States. "If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something," Rice said at the time, "I would have been expected to be asked to do it." At the time, this sentence seemed a marvel of tortured syntax and evasive passivity. But with Gonzales' testimony in hand, we can now read it differently. What Rice was saying was not that she was too disengaged or too inexperienced to do her job. Instead, she may merely have been expressing her trust in the distributed system of knowledge that gives the Bush administration its remarkable confidence.

The hive mind has a curious blindness, however. It has reasons for doing things, but those reasons are typically inaccessible to its members. Pressed hard, Gonzales simply looked at the committee and admitted that he was baffled as to why he did what he did. Repeatedly, he was asked what criteria were used to select individuals for firing. "I would like to know," he said. "I would like to ask that question."

// posted by montag @ 1:14 PM 1 Comments

That investigation has now become a formal public-corruption probe by a federal grand jury in Tucson. On Thursday, the grand jury authorized a search warrant of a Renzi family business. Investigators have uncovered evidence that Mr. Renzi received a cash payment from his former business partner, funneled through a family wine company, after a second investor group pursuing an unrelated land swap agreed to pay $4 million for the alfalfa field, according to people contacted in the course of the two-year investigation.

State Department officials familiar with the details of this matter confirmed to me that Shaha Ali Riza was detailed to the State Department and had unescorted access while working for Elizabeth Cheney. Access to the building requires a national security clearance or permanent escort by a person with such a clearance. But the State Department has no record of having issued a national security clearance to Riza.

State Department officials believe that Riza was issued such a clearance by the Defense Department after SAIC was forced by Wolfowitz and Feith to hire her. Then her clearance would have been recognized by the State Department through a credentials transmittal letter and Riza would have accessed the State Department on Pentagon credentials, using her Pentagon clearance to get a State Department building pass with a letter issued under instructions from Liz Cheney.

But State Department officials tell me that no such letter can be confirmed as received. And the officials stress that the department would never issue a clearance to a non-U.S. citizen as part of a contractual requisition. Issuing a national security clearance to a foreign national under instructions from a Pentagon official would constitute a violation of the executive orders governing clearances, they say.

// posted by montag @ 5:25 PM 0 Comments

"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday,"

// posted by montag @ 12:08 PM 0 Comments

Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.

"As more information becomes available about the administration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens," he said.

// posted by montag @ 12:20 AM 0 Comments

If you aren't prepared to invest your son or daughter in continuing this war, then it's time for you to give some serious thought to how and when it can be ended, and what the candidates for president in 2008 are saying about an open-ended commitment of other Americans' sons and daughters to a war we can't afford and can't win.

// posted by montag @ 7:22 AM 0 Comments

Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said....

....U.S. forces complained that the Iraqi forces weren't getting the support from their government and that Iraqi military commanders, many who worked under Saddam Hussein, weren't as willing to embrace their tactics. Among everyday Iraqis, some said they didn't trust their forces, saying they were sectarian and easily susceptible to corruption.

Most important, insurgents and militiamen had infiltrated the forces, using their power to carry out sectarian attacks.

In nearly every area where Iraqi forces were given control, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. The exceptions were areas dominated largely by one sect and policed by members of that sect.

// posted by montag @ 7:05 PM 0 Comments

A Decatur soldier with five months left on his enlistment tried unsuccessfully to get an extension on his two-week leave to stay with his dying mother, who is hospitalized on life-support.

Sgt. Tim Robinson requested another week in a letter faxed to his unit explaining that his mother, Kate Mae Jones, was dying of kidney and heart failure. His request included a note from his mother’s doctor concerning her condition, but his commanding officer denied the extension.

As his scheduled Tuesday departure neared, he went to Redstone Arsenal to get help from the Judge Advocate General Corps but was told he had to go through the American Red Cross first. Without time to go through the proper channels, he left to return to his unit.

“It’s either that or get arrested,” said Robinson, 39. “And I don’t want that. I don’t want to put any more stress on Mom.”

The Decatur Daily reported that his 62-year-old mother, on life-support machines and unable to speak, was tearful as she watched her son leave Tuesday afternoon.

// posted by montag @ 7:02 AM 0 Comments

April 17, 2007

Dear Colleague:

This week I intend to introduce Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney. Please have your staff contact my office . . . if you would like to receive a confidential copy of the document prior to its introduction in the House.

Sincerely,

/s/

Dennis J. Kucinich

Member of Congress

// posted by montag @ 6:57 PM 0 Comments

122 dead, 150 wounded in Sadriya market in central Baghdad;

• 28 dead, 44 wounded in an attack near an Iraqi Army checkpoint at one of the entrances to Sadr City, the official said;

• 11 civilians were killed and 13 others wounded when a parked car bomb detonated in central Baghdad's Karrada district. The car was parked near a hospital and a market;

• Four police officers were killed and 6 civilians wounded when a suicide car bomber exploded at an Iraqi police checkpoint in southern Baghdad;

• Four people were killed and eight were wounded by a bomber targeting a police patrol near a checkpoint in Saidiya, in southwestern Baghdad. Two of those killed were police and the other two were civilians;

• Two civilians were killed and 9 others wounded when a roadside bomb detonated at a busy intersection in central Baghdad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered the arrest of a top army officer after a string of bombings that killed more than 180 people Wednesday, the prime minister's office announced.

// posted by montag @ 6:42 PM 0 Comments

President Bush's lawyers told the Republican National Committee on Tuesday not to turn over to Congress any e-mails related to the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys before showing them to the White House.

// posted by montag @ 7:10 AM 0 Comments

It is time for the White House to drop this trumped-up crisis talk and get down to the truth.

Let's take a look at what the House and Senate bills will actually do. We will provide our troops with body armor and specialized armored vehicles, which the Administration has failed to do. We will strengthen and improve health care for our troops and veterans, which the Administration has not done. And Congress will craft a responsible strategy for the Iraqis to take control of their own nation. Congress will insist on accountability and responsibility both from the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government.

These priorities, the White House claims, are extraneous and wasteful. I simply cannot understand why the President is so eager to send endless billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild Baghdad, yet is unwilling to fund priorities here at home, such as rebuilding the Gulf Coast or providing first-class health care for our veterans and our troops returning home from war.

// posted by montag @ 7:58 PM 0 Comments

Young, an Alaska Republican in his 18th term, hired the D.C. legal team around March 12, as the U.S Attorney's office in Milwaukee was looking into campaign contributions by businessman Dennis Troha. Troha reportedly benefited from new truck-hauling rules that Young helped pass in 2005 as part of a major transportation spending bill.

Young, who received about $20,000 in campaign contributions from Troha, his family members and associates, has said he does not recall ever meeting the man. Nor did he know Troha would benefit from new rules Young favored allowing longer ``saddlemount" truck combinations.

Kevin A. Ring, a key associate of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff who spent many hours lobbying his old boss, Rep. John Doolittle, has abruptly resigned his job at a Washington law firm.

Ring's departure raises questions about whether Doolittle's former legislative director has become a Justice Department target in the investigation into the Abramoff lobbying scandal, to which Doolittle also has been linked.

// posted by montag @ 6:53 AM 0 Comments

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

// posted by montag @ 7:21 AM 0 Comments

Two months into the U.S.-led Baghdad Security Plan, at least 289 people were killed and injured across Iraq on Saturday, including 36 dead in a car bomb attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala. The carnage of a crowd teeming with women and children set off an angry mob of hundreds against the governor and police.

The morning bombing outside a bus station and marketplace ripped through vendor stands near a Shiite shrine where the grandson of the prophet Mohammed is buried.

Bodies littered the street and body parts were found as far as 160 yards from the site of the explosion. Three buses of passengers were charred and storefronts lay in shambles.

At least 167 people were injured in the bombing, but the death toll was expected to increase because of still-unidentified bodies and serious injuries, said Saleem Kadhim, spokesman for the Karbala health directorate.

As police and ambulances approached to carry away victims, angry residents shot at them, witnesses said. The police responded, firing bullets into the air to dissipate the angry crowd. As the bullets rained down, a child and elderly man were killed, witnesses said.

Karim Hussein, 43, wept as he held his two dead sons. "Death to the governor," he shouted. "I can't understand. How did a car bomb get here to kill these people?"

An old man combed through the rubble searching for his wife.

"I can't find her," he cried. "I can't find her."

// posted by montag @ 7:14 PM 0 Comments

The timing of the announcement raising the standard length of active Army Iraq deployments to 15 months took the U.S. commanding general in Iraq by surprise, according to a senior U.S. military official here.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. military operation in Iraq, learned of the change in policy during a briefing from his staff the morning after the Defense Department announcement, according to the senior military official. However, the official added, he was “pretty confident” that the content of the announcement did not come as a shock to Petraeus.

// posted by montag @ 6:44 PM 0 Comments

Democrats are continuing to fight to fully fund our troops and give them a strategy for success worthy of their sacrifices. President Bush continues to insist that we follow his same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war.

"In the same week that we learned troops' tours will be extended, the White House admitted it can't manage the war and the Iraqi parliament was bombed in the most secure part of Iraq, all the President can offer the American people is a threat to veto funding for our troops and a stubborn refusal to change his failed policies.

// posted by montag @ 4:43 PM 0 Comments

While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people,

// posted by montag @ 1:31 PM 0 Comments

"I want to kill somebody today," Washbourne said, according to the three other men in the vehicle, who later recalled it as an offhand remark. Before the day was over, however, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, Washbourne allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement, according to interviews and statements from the three other guards.

// posted by montag @ 12:40 PM 0 Comments

It’s obvious why the Bush administration would edit those documents, but why the voting report? Because charges of voter fraud are a key component of the Republican electoral strategy. If the public believes there are rampant efforts to vote fraudulently, or to register voters improperly, it increases support for measures like special voter ID’s, which work against the poor, the elderly, minorities and other disenfranchised groups that tend to support Democrats. Claims of rampant voter fraud also give the administration an excuse to cut back prosecutions of the real problem: officials who block voters’ access to the polls.

It is vital that Congress get to the truth about these firings. Last week, the Republican National Committee threw up another roadblock, claiming it had lost four years’ worth of e-mail messages by Karl Rove that were sent on a Republican Party account. Those messages, officials admitted, could include some about the United States attorneys. It is virtually impossible to erase e-mail messages fully, and the claims that they are gone are not credible.

The only solution is to get these issues out into the open. It is good that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will finally testify in the Senate this week. But Mr. Rove, who seems to be at the heart of this affair, should also be required to testify under oath — and in public. Even the Wizard of Oz eventually came out from behind the curtain.

// posted by montag @ 10:18 PM 0 Comments

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told The Times he’d decided that “what we need is someone with a lot of stature within the government who can make things happen.” He said that top official would have the authority to “call any cabinet secretary and get problems resolved, fast.”

The immediate question, of course, is why Mr. Hadley and his team didn’t figure that out a long time ago, preferably when there was still some chance of fixing Iraq’s problems. For that matter, isn’t that what the president’s national security adviser is supposed to be doing in the first place?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates did Mr. Hadley no favor when he described the job as “what Steve Hadley would do if Steve Hadley had the time, but he doesn’t have the time to do it full time.” What could be more deserving of Mr. Hadley’s time than trying to figure out a way to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and extricate the country from Iraq?

// posted by montag @ 4:40 PM 0 Comments

Riza remains on the World Bank’s payroll though she left the State Department job in 2006 and now works for Foundation for the Future, an international organization that gets some money from the department.

Asked what Riza does at the foundation, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said she is an adviser to the foundation’s board.

// posted by montag @ 12:41 PM 0 Comments

The president is not king, the president is the president of the United States. America is a democracy. We have to make decisions based on our judgment. Thus far, the president's judgment hasn't been good, in terms of say for example the war on Iraq.

// posted by montag @ 12:23 PM 0 Comments

The plane’s most widely cited design problem is that one of its propellers can get caught in its own turbulence as it comes in for a landing, and that can cause the V-22 to roll over and head into the ground.

For that reason, V-22 pilots are trained to steer clear of their own turbulence by rules prohibiting them from making the quick maneuvers used by helicopters to evade enemy fire. Instead, the V-22 must land at speeds as slow as nine miles an hour and in a fairly straight line....

...Should the V-22 lose power, it can not “autorotate” like a helicopter and allow the updraft of air to rotate its propellers for a hard, but survivable, landing. Because of this, according to the 2005 Pentagon report, emergency V-22 landings without power at altitudes below 1,600 feet “are not likely to be survivable.”

In preparation for deployment, the Pentagon ran tests last year in the New Mexico desert, similar to the climate of Iraq. In January, the Pentagon wrote about frequent failures with various parts and systems. The reason: “Extended exposure to the desert operating environment.”

// posted by montag @ 10:14 PM 0 Comments

"I am calling on all the candidates in this race to join me in clearly standing up to the president once and for all by stating their support for the Feingold-Reid legislation that sets a firm timetable to end this war by March 31st, 2008. After more than 3,200 lives lost, tens of thousands wounded and $400 billion spent, it is time to bring an end to a war that at every turn has failed to make America safer. The hour is late. It is time to begin putting our country on a more secure path."

// posted by montag @ 6:12 PM 0 Comments

It was the latest move by the Pentagon to cope with the strains of fighting two wars simultaneously and maintaining a higher troop level in Iraq as part of President Bush's revised strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.

"This policy is a difficult but necessary interim step," Gates told a Pentagon news conference, adding that the goal is to eventually return to 12 months as the standard length of tour in Iraq and Afghanistan.

// posted by montag @ 5:50 PM 0 Comments

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

// posted by montag @ 7:12 AM 0 Comments

"One new wrinkle under consideration by the White House would rewrite the law on legal immigration. Currently, family relations play a key role in obtaining visas that grant immigrants legal residency. Under proposals being discussed by Republicans in the Senate, business needs would take higher priority than family connections."

// posted by montag @ 7:14 PM 0 Comments

On one hand, Bush extended an offer to meet with lawmakers next Tuesday. On the other, the White House bluntly said it would not be a negotiating session.

"Congressional Democrats are willing to meet with the President at any time, but we believe that any discussion of an issue as critical as Iraq must be accomplished by conducting serious negotiations without any preconditions," they said in a joint statement.

"With his threat to veto such a plan for change in Iraq, President Bush is ignoring the clear message of the American people: We must protect our troops, hold the Iraqi government accountable, rebuild our military, provide for our veterans and bring our troops home. The president is demanding that we renew his blank check for a war without end."

// posted by montag @ 6:07 PM 0 Comments

A female suicide bomber wearing a black abaya detonated her explosives belt in a crowd of about 200 police recruits northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 16 people, police and hospital officials said....

....Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi army forces were engaged in fierce fighting with gunmen in two Sunni-dominated neighborhoods of the capital, Fadhil and Sheik Omar, police and witnesses said. Police said one person was killed and 14 wounded in the crossfire. Repeated artillery fire rang out across Baghdad at midday Tuesday, but the target was unclear...

...Also Tuesday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of four U.S. soldiers _ three killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and another killed in combat in western Anbar province.

// posted by montag @ 6:54 AM 0 Comments

Our troops need this funding, and they need it soon.

// posted by montag @ 7:45 PM 0 Comments

US. immigration policy is a sporting proposition.

Some boat people get locked up. Some boat people get to play ball.

Jean-Ferdinand Monestime, who landed on Hallandale Beach on March 28, is in government custody awaiting an asylum hearing that will likely result in his deportation.

Francisely Bueno, who landed on Big Pine Key in August 2004, is pitching for the Atlanta Braves' AA farm team in Pearl, Miss. The lefty is here to stay.

Defense attorneys for the sports agent said he's innocent. They said he was acting out of compassion, not greed.

// posted by montag @ 7:01 PM 0 Comments

Hicks's US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, has said his client could be sent back to Guantanamo if he talks to reporters.

But Ruddock said Canberra could not extradite Hicks back to the United States if he spoke to the media because he would not be breaking Australian law.

"In Australia, we have a position about freedom of speech," Ruddock told ABC television late on Tuesday.

// posted by montag @ 6:28 PM 0 Comments

He looked to be 50-ish, and a resident of Orlando's streets, judging by the moldy jacket. And he'd been bludgeoned - so badly bludgeoned that he could hardly move.

Before being rushed to the hospital, where he died of his head injuries, the man, August Felix, described his attackers. Young fellows did it, he whispered to the officers who got to him first. Kids.

Within three months, two 16-year-olds and three 15-year-olds had been charged with second-degree homicide in the March 26, 2006, attack. The motive? "I don't think there was a motive," Sgt. Barbara Jones, a police spokeswoman, said, "other than, 'Let's beat someone up.'"...

....An overwhelming majority of the attackers - 88 percent - were 25 or younger; 95 percent were male. No less than 68 percent of those accused and convicted in attacks were between the ages of 13 and 19....

....-In Toms River, N.J., five high-school students were charged with beating a 50-year-old homeless man nearly to death with pipes and baseball bats - throwing hockey pucks at him for good measure - as he slept in the woods.

-In Butte, Mont., a 53-year-old homeless man was killed at a Greyhound bus depot because he refused to give another man a cigarette, according to court records. The victim's skull was fractured. The 22-year-old assailant received a 50-year prison sentence.

-In Spokane, Wash., a one-legged, 50-year-old homeless man was set on fire in his wheelchair on a downtown street; he died of his burns. Police charged a 22-year-old man with first-degree murder.

-In Nashville, Tenn., a 32-year-old homeless woman sleeping on a boat ramp was shoved into the Cumberland River, according to witnesses. Two men, ages 21 and 22, were charged with homicide in her drowning; authorities say the attack was unprovoked.

"Kids are even starting to videotape themselves hurting homeless people. That's something we never saw before."

// posted by montag @ 5:53 PM 0 Comments

President Bush, worshipping at an Army post, prayed for peace Sunday in an Easter service about avoiding the forces of sin and doing what is right.

"I had a chance to reflect on the great sacrifice that our military and their families are making," Bush said outside the chapel at Fort Hood after the service. "I prayed for their safety, I prayed for their strength and comfort, and I pray for peace."

At the point in the service when people greeted those next to them, Bush walked around the chapel so he could shake hands with more worshippers.

"I'm breaking the rule, I know," Bush said, figuring no one would mind.

the Easter menu included fire-glazed ham, green chili cheese grits souffle, roasted orange molasses sweet potatoes, roasted asparagus, coconut cake and ice cream....

...In Iraq, a new day brought more violence.

A pickup truck packed with artillery shells was detonated Sunday near a hospital south of Baghdad, killing at least 15 people. Separately, the U.S. military announced the weekend deaths of 10 American soldiers, including six killed on Sunday.

At least 3,280 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

// posted by montag @ 5:28 PM 0 Comments

Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.

In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people's civil rights.

"When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the question," wrote the Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division's housing section -- the only employment offer he received after graduation, he said.

// posted by montag @ 3:39 PM 0 Comments

MY WIFE came into the living room wearing a Kevlar vest, helmet and night-vision goggles.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Have you completely forgotten, silly head? We're going to the market."

I placed my hand at my head. I'd been so caught up in stitching a minor wound I'd received earlier in the day after going to an outdoor fruit stand that I had completely forgotten.

"I'm a dope, aren't I?" I said, chuckling, slowly shaking my head back and forth. She chuckled too, also shaking her head. We both chuckled. Then I winced from where a stitch popped.

Carol helped the boys get ready, putting on their sneakers and body armor. I phoned the Indiana National Guard so that they could radio the 434th Special Air Wing at Grissom Air Force Base, which in turn scrambled two F-14 Tomcats. Then we hopped in the wagon.

// posted by montag @ 4:50 PM 0 Comments

Call it a Baghdad housewarming.

In the week since the soldiers of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment from Fort Riley, Kan., moved into an abandoned seminary in southern Baghdad's volatile Mekanik neighborhood, they've been peppered with small-arms fire, three mortar attacks and a rocket-propelled grenade.

The grenade was launched from 150 yards away and hit the windshield of a parked Humvee, but it didn't detonate. An Army sniper equipped with a .240-caliber machine gun had a clear bead on the attacker but didn't pull the trigger because there was a gaggle of children around.

// posted by montag @ 7:51 PM 0 Comments

Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June,” Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. “As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.”

// posted by montag @ 7:05 AM 0 Comments

John McCain has lost his maverick magic.

The Arizona senator lags behind rivals in fundraising for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. He's lost ground in public opinion polls.

And in this state where he claimed his biggest victory the last time he ran, many Republicans see him as old, tired or too willing to bow down to an unpopular president or to his onetime foils, such as Christian conservative leaders.

// posted by montag @ 7:29 PM 0 Comments

President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress where Democrats had derailed Fox's nomination.

// posted by montag @ 6:11 PM 0 Comments

Soldiers who operate unmanned aerial vehicles now are eligible for award of the Aviation Badge, Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal.

The policy change will be included in an upcoming revision of Army Regulation 600-8-22 (Military Awards).

Under the new policy, approved last month, unmanned aerial vehicle system warrant officers and enlisted operators may be awarded the DFC or AM “if they are physically located on the aircraft (system) during the cited period, and all criteria for the decorations have been met.”

The Distinguished Flying Cross is a prestigious decoration that ranks just behind the Silver Star as a valor medal. It is awarded for heroism or extraordinary achievement.

The Air Medal is awarded for heroism, outstanding achievement or meritorious service. It ranks behind the Bronze Star, but in front of the Army Commendation Medal.

// posted by montag @ 7:18 AM 0 Comments

President Bush and his advisers have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they’re unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don’t support the troops, to cite just a few. But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush’s latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too “emotional” to see things clearly....

...This form of attack is especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free: the Iraqis would welcome America with open arms, the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues — and the all-volunteer military would concentrate the sacrifice on only a portion of the nation’s families.

Mr. Bush’s comments about Mr. Dowd are a reflection of the otherworldliness that permeates his public appearances these days. Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated, clinging to a fantasy version of Iraq that is more and more disconnected from reality. He gives a frightening impression that he has never heard any voice from any quarter that gave him pause, much less led him to rethink a position.

Mr. Bush’s former campaign aide showed an open-mindedness and willingness to adapt to reality that is sorely lacking in the commander in chief.

// posted by montag @ 6:54 AM 0 Comments

Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. If the President vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure.

// posted by montag @ 6:06 PM 0 Comments

The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hour long visit.

During their visit on Sunday, the Americans were buttonholed by merchants and customers who wanted to talk about how unsafe they felt and the urgent need for more security in the markets and throughout the city, witnesses said.

“They asked about our conditions, and we told them the situation was bad,” said Aboud Sharif Kadhoury, 63, who peddles prayer rugs at a sidewalk stand...Ali Youssef, 39, who sells glassware from a sidewalk stand down the block from Mr. Kadhoury, recalled: “Everybody complained to them. We told them we were harmed.”

Mr. McCain was asked about a comment he made on a radio program in which he said that he could walk freely through certain areas of Baghdad.

“I just came from one,” he replied sharply. “Things are better and there are encouraging signs.”

He added, “Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today.”

// posted by montag @ 7:09 AM 0 Comments

President Bush is losing his top day-to-day adviser on Iraq, the White House confirmed Monday.

Meghan L. O'Sullivan, who has played a key behind-the-scenes role in implementing Bush's controversial Iraq policies over the past four years, will leave later this spring.

Her departure, which follows that of her deputy, could leave the White House with a vacuum of long-term experience on Iraq policy,

// posted by montag @ 7:28 PM 0 Comments