Abu Haider, as he called himself, and about 80 other mostly Sunni residents — some of them former members of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a fiercely nationalistic insurgent group — had arrived to register as security volunteers. An American soldier photographed and cataloged the recruits. The result: a neighborhood watch program with ammo.

Once he's finished rousting al Qaida from Baqouba, Abu Haider indicated, he and others will go back to fighting American troops. "Our aims," he said, "are to get the occupation forces out."

The closest historical analogue, he said, is America's tactical partnership with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s.

"The deal paid great dividends in the short run until the mujahedeen, in the form of Osama bin Laden's al Qaida, turned against us," he said. "I expect the same thing will happen in Iraq."

// posted by montag @ 7:36 PM 0 Comments

Despite President Bush's recent insistence that al Qaida in Iraq is the principal cause of this country's violence, senior American military officers here say Shiite Muslim militias are a bigger problem, and one that will persist even if al Qaida is defeated.

"The longer-term threat to Iraq is potentially the Shiite militias," one senior military officer said, echoing concerns that other American officials raised in recent interviews with McClatchy Newspapers.

Military officers hail the fact that violence is down as evidence that their campaign against al Qaida in Iraq is succeeding. But there's no sign of reconciliation between Sunni Muslims and Shiites, the rationale the Bush administration cites for increasing the number of U.S. troops in the country.

// posted by montag @ 6:10 PM 0 Comments

Stiff picked to run IRS

// posted by montag @ 7:53 PM 0 Comments

The judge overseeing a lawsuit against UnitedHealth extended his order barring former CEO William McGuire from exercising stock options, but he did allow the company to pay McGuire up to $3 million from an executive savings plan.

McGuire held stock options valued at $1.78 billion at the end of 2005, although that value has been hurt by a drop in the company's share price and repricing from the backdating controversy.

// posted by montag @ 7:49 PM 0 Comments

Pentagon and State Department officials will be under the gun on July 31 to explain the estimated $12 billion-a-month cost of continued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The House Budget Committee hearing on the cost of military operations and reconstruction costs comes after the Congressional Research Service, a bipartisan analytical arm of Congress, reports the that Congress has provided $610 billion already for the two operations and related costs for fighting terrorism, and will be spending an additional $147 billion in fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1.

// posted by montag @ 7:41 PM 0 Comments

U.S. generals expect to need a large contingent of troops in Iraq until the middle of 2009, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Monday.

Such a timeline would hand President George W. Bush's successor the task of bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq, more than six years after Bush dispatched them to topple Saddam Hussein.

// posted by montag @ 6:08 PM 0 Comments

There are arguments you can make against programs, like Social Security, that provide a safety net for adults. I can respect those arguments, even though I disagree. But denying basic health care to children whose parents lack the means to pay for it, simply because you’re afraid that success in insuring children might put big government in a good light, is just morally wrong.

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

'Eighty per cent of the injuries that we see here are to the extremities,' says Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Mosley, an orthopaedic surgeon at the military hospital in Mosul that treats US soldiers, Iraqi civilians and members of the Iraqi security forces, and runs a clinic for recent Iraqi amputees. 'We see a lot of open long bone injuries or vascular injuries that require amputation. We do a lot of amputations below the knee. It is difficult to know how many amputees there are in Iraq, but I would say it is probably the number one operation performed.'

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

But America's credibility in the region has plummeted. The U.S. has failed to stabilize Iraq, destroy al Qaida, pacify Lebanon, isolate Syria or bolster moderate Palestinians. Instead, its policies have fueled Sunni Muslim extremism and emboldened Shiite Iran, which America's moderate Arab allies consider the two greatest threats to their rule.

So far, its support for Israel's ill-fated war in Lebanon and its efforts to undermine popular radical groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon have borne little fruit. Along with its support for autocrats such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, such actions have undercut American claims that it's championing Muslim democracy.

More than what Rice and Gates say on the trip, “people are monitoring the debate in Washington. Everybody is watching that very closely and then will draw their own conclusions,” an Arab official in Washington said.

// posted by montag @ 1:36 PM 0 Comments

The corollary to Cheney's zealous embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability. I've never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress -- even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying -- it's almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.

Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.

// posted by montag @ 12:52 PM 0 Comments

"Those heroes have shown the real Iraq. They have done something useful for the people as opposed to the politicians and lawmakers who are stealing or killing each other," said Sabah Shaiyal, a 43-year-old policeman in Baghdad. "The players have made us proud, not the greedy politicians. Once again, our national team has shown that there is only one, united Iraq."

The Iraqi team, known as the "Lions of the Two Rivers" beat three-time champions Saudi Arabia 1-0 in its first appearance in the Asian Cup final.

The jubilation over the victorious run of the team has given Iraqis a rare respite from the daily sectarian attacks, with men of all ages cheering and dancing in the streets after each win.

// posted by montag @ 12:30 PM 0 Comments

Chorus:
Hey! George W. told the nation,
"This is not an escalation;
This is just a surge toward victory.
Just to win my little war,
I'm sending 20,000 more,
To help me save Iraq from Iraqis.

// posted by montag @ 12:18 AM 0 Comments

Now, let’s think about what’s going on in America right now. We are in a war. We are apparently not winning the war. The military is desperately shy of funds, to the point where our fighting men and women are being shortchanged in training and equipment.

We also need more money for our soldiers’ pay, so their families do not have to live like church mice while their spouses are deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. In these circumstances, is it fitting and morally right for the richest of the rich to be paying either very low taxes or no tax at all?

Is it right or even admissible in the human conscience that while teachers, emergency room technicians, police and firefighters are taxed at full earned-income rates — and often underpaid — that the highest-earning people in this country should pay at either very low tax rates or none at all?

Or, put it like this: do we dare send our men and women to fight for an America in which the very rich are so favored by the government that it amounts almost to an aristocracy?

Why don’t we just have a tax holiday for people who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for five years after they get back? This would be the tax code addressing real shortages, not an imaginary shortage of money mania (oops, I mean “entrepreneurship”).

Let’s keep it real: Congress can take notice of a mammoth inequity in taxation during wartime and make the tax on private equity and hedge funds approximate the treatment of other highly paid people — or it can continue down the road to the Bastille.

// posted by montag @ 12:17 AM 0 Comments

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

// posted by montag @ 12:16 AM 0 Comments

Police found 18 dead bodies today. 3 in Doura, 4 in Bayaa, 1 in Qadisiyah, 1 Ameriya, 2 in Hurriyah, 3 in Amil, 3 in Sleikh, 1 in Kadhemiya.

18 anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad today. 15 bodies were found in Karkh, the western side of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods ( 5 bodies in Bayaa, 3 bodies in Amil, 3 bodies in Saidiyah, 2 bodies in Shoala and 2 bodies in Elam). 3 bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern side of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (2 bodies in Sleikh and 1 body in Amin)

Police found 20 dead bodies thorough(sic) Baghdad.

Police found 7 dead bodies throughout Baghdad. 1 in Sleikh, 1 in Mashtal, 2 in Amil, 1 in Saidiyah, 2 in Bayaa.

Police found 20 dead bodies in Baghdad today in the following neighborhoods : 17 ( seventeen bodies in west Baghdad ( Karkh bank) ; 3 in Kadhimiya , 3 in Amil , 2 in Bayaa , 2 in Shulaa , 2 in Ghazaliya , 1 in Qadisiya , 1 in Doura , 1 in Amiriya , 1 in Risala and 1 in Huriyaa . While 3 bodies were found in east Baghdad ( Risafa bank) ; 2 in Zafaraniya and 1 in Shaab

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

Think: "Safe, clean and green."

One month after seizing the Gaza Strip in a military rout that shattered brittle Palestinian unity, Hamas is embarking on a radical marketing campaign to promote what it calls "the new face of Gaza."

They call it the "Gaza Riviera."

Lime-green Hamas banners flutter over Gaza City with a message in English for aid workers and journalists worried about being kidnapped: "No more threat for our foreign visitors and guests."

Bearded gunmen in blue-gray camouflage uniforms who helped seize control of Gaza now rush to settle routine neighborhood squabbles and family disputes.

Once-deserted Mediterranean beaches are now filled with dozens of families holding picnics to escape the summer heat until long after midnight.

On Monday, Hamas is planning to take journalists on a special tour of the Gaza Strip, from the packed beaches to the bullet-scarred security compounds its Islamist fighters overran last month when they ousted Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

// posted by montag @ 1:32 PM 0 Comments

What he says is that a big increase would be the "beginning of the salvo of the encroachment of the federal government on the health care system."

Huh?

This is the president whose proudest domestic achievement was extending Medicare to cover prescription drugs, one of the biggest "encroachments of the federal government on the health care system" in American history. Honestly, it is mind-boggling that the president could say this.

And I might add that this is the president who engineered the largest federal invasion of public education in history.

But it gets worse. It also gets a little complicated, so stick with me for a second.

House Democrats want to fund an increase for SCHIP by reducing the federal subsidy for a program called Medicare Advantage that pays tax dollars to HMOs to give health insurance to seniors. It's an alternative to Medicare. The idea behind Medicare Advantage was that since large private bureaucracies are so much smarter than large public bureaucracies, it would be cheaper to pay HMOs to cover some seniors than doing it through Medicare.

Wrong.

The government now pays HMOs between 112 and 119 percent of what it costs to cover a person on Medicare. So if it costs the government $100 to cover Sadie Sickly of Illness, Ohio, the government will pay Selfless HMO Inc. $119 to take Mrs. Sickly off their hands. Selfless HMO Inc. – and lots of real life HMOs – make a boatload of money off Medicare Advantage because of this government subsidy.

The Congressional Budget Office thinks that 119 percent subsidy could be cut, and HMOs would still make money and patients would still get good services. So House Democrats want to reduce the government subsidy for HMOs to help pay for an increase in SCHIP funding. Pretty straightforward.

HMOs – surprise, surprise – do not want that Medicare Advantage subsidy to be cut. Neither does President Bush. He thinks the free market is so cool that it should be subsidized by the government.

You see, he doesn't want the government encroaching on the health care system, so he's going take your tax dollars and give them to HMOs so they can encroach on the health care system.

// posted by montag @ 12:35 PM 0 Comments

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda.

One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general's signature strategy to be scrapped. "He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias," said the official. "Bush told Maliki to calm down."

At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: "I can't deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you."

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

The process of transferring projects to Iraq “worked for a while,” Mr. Bowen said. But then the new government took over and installed its finance minister, Bayan Jabr, who has been a continuing center of controversy in his various government posts and is formally in charge of the transfers. “After Mr. Jabr took over, that process ceased to function,” Mr. Bowen said.

Because the Iraqi government will not formally accept projects ....the United States is “finding someone at the local level to handle the project, handing them the keys and saying, ‘Operate and maintain it,’ ” another official in the inspector general’s office said.

In one of the most recent cases, a $90 million project to overhaul two giant turbines at the Dora power plant in Baghdad failed after completion because employees at the plant did not know how to operate the turbines properly and the wrong fuel was used. The additional power is critically needed in Baghdad, where residents often have only a few hours of electricity a day.

So far, the United States has declared that $5.8 billion in American taxpayer-financed projects have been completed, but most of the rest of the projects within a $21 billion rebuilding program that Mr. Bowen examined in the report are expected to be finished by the end of this year. Some of that money is also being used to train and equip Iraqi security forces rather than finance construction projects.

// posted by montag @ 10:36 PM 0 Comments

Juvencio Lopez of San Antonio, a former project director at the embassy construction site, said he doubted the United States would ever abandon the compound.

"If the U.S. military leaves, we'd have to blow it up" to keep security secrets from falling into the wrong hands, Lopez said. "There's certain key designs for those buildings that we just don't want everybody to know. The Baghdad Embassy was the prototype of all future embassies."

// posted by montag @ 7:53 PM 2 Comments

The Bush administration has decided to supply billions of dollars in advanced new weapons to Saudi Arabia, other Arab allies of the United States and to Israel, senior State Department officials and congressional aides said Friday.

The arms and aid package, which the officials said is to be announced on Monday, is part of a U.S. initiative to reassure worried allies in the Middle East that despite its troubles in Iraq, the United States remains committed to the region. It also is meant to send a signal of resolve to Iran's increasingly confident leaders.

// posted by montag @ 6:13 PM 0 Comments

Talk about a close call.

A 172-ton diesel engine destined for a Navy cargo ship under construction rolled off the back of a trailer early Thursday and crushed three cars parked outside a shipyard entrance, authorities said.

A woman waiting in one of the crushed vehicles narrowly escaped serious injury, police said.

“She’s awful lucky,” Sgt. Jeff Fellows of the San Diego Police Department’s traffic division said Thursday.

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

“The president’s call today to pressure Congress to quickly complete a defense spending bill that does not take effect until October is simply the latest example of the president shamelessly hiding behind our brave troops in an effort to distract attention from his failed national security record and failed conduct of this war,” Reid said in a written statement. “It is time for the president and the Republicans to do more than just say the right thing. It is time they worked with us for the good of the country and our security.

“If the President and Republicans were as committed to this priority as they profess to be, they would not have placed our troops in harm’s way without a strategy for success or the equipment and support they need to do their mission,” Reid said. “Throughout this war, Democrats have had to force the President and Congressional Republicans to provide our troops adequate body armor, well-earned pay raises, and the health care they deserve when they return home. Just as importantly, we have repeatedly put forward a strategy for success in Iraq that will enhance our security.”

// posted by montag @ 7:39 PM 0 Comments

At least twice, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a flight-safety risk, an aviation weekly reported Thursday, citing a special panel studying astronaut health.

The independent panel also found “heavy use of alcohol” before launch that was within the standard 12-hour “bottle-to-throttle” rule, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology, which reported the finding on its Web site.

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

Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents underscore questions about Gonzales' credibility as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.

// posted by montag @ 6:57 AM 1 Comments

Street celebrations following the Iraqi national soccer team's Asia Cup semifinals victory turned into another cruel tragedy Wednesday when two suicide car bombs exploded amid throngs of revelers, killing 50 and injuring more than 130 in Baghdad, police said.

The attacks broke the wave of euphoria that swept the capital and other parts of the nation after the Iraqi team beat South Korea 4-3 in a close-fought game in Malaysia.

Thousands of overjoyed Iraqis poured into the streets of Baghdad, firing their guns in the air and waving huge flags. Iraqis danced and cheered for their mixed-sect soccer team, one of the last national symbols in a country that's disintegrating along strictly drawn lines of Sunni and Shiite Muslim and Kurd.

Witnesses said the first blast at 7 p.m. tore through a crowd that was chanting, "Today is your day, heroes!" in a public square of the once-upscale Mansour district. Iraqi police blamed a suicide car bomber; at least 30 people died and 75 were wounded.

"We were out celebrating in our neighborhood, standing, singing, shouting and clapping, with all the youths cruising in their cars," said Laith Abdul Rahman, 27, who survived the bombing. "What is the matter with these people? Can't they bear it that we Iraqis have something to rejoice in and be proud of?"

Less than half an hour later, a second explosion ripped through another crowd of soccer fans near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Ghadeer. It was unclear whether the festivities or the military post was the intended target. Iraqi authorities said 20 people, including several Iraqi soldiers, were killed. At least 60 were wounded.

// posted by montag @ 7:42 PM 0 Comments

The compromises were necessary because of a veto threat from President Bush and opposition by Republican members of Congress. The bill, expected to come up for final votes next week, had cleared the House in January and the Senate in March but had been stalled until recently. Republicans claimed that some of the initiatives being pushed by Democrats, such as a requirement that all ship containers headed to the United States from overseas be checked for nuclear threats, were impractical and would disrupt global trade.

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

Prolonging the war for another two years will not bring victory. It will mean more lives lost, more damage to America’s international standing and fewer resources to fight the real fight against terrorists.

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

President Bush's nominee to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was himself the subject of at least one complaint of employee abuse in his supervisory role at the Justice Department, eight former department civil rights employees charged Monday.

In a letter asking key senators to block the nomination, the former employees also charged that David Palmer's work in the department's employment litigation section was of poor quality and that he was reprimanded for one performance lapse.

The former employees, including three ex-deputy chiefs of the section, charged that Palmer's "work performance was well below the high standards expected of Department of Justice attorneys."

// posted by montag @ 7:57 PM 0 Comments

And Mr. Gonzales, besides promising that he “will not tolerate any improper politicization of this department,”

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

Is It Safe to Eat?

President Bush took a potentially useful step last week, appointing a cabinet-level committee to find ways to ensure the safety of imported food and other products. But his actions would be a lot more credible if the administration had not been cutting the staff and budget of food safety programs at the Food and Drug Administration while also planning to eliminate half of the agency’s laboratories.

Hearings before a House oversight subcommittee raised serious questions about the F.D.A.’s ability to protect the public against contaminated or adulterated foods. William Hubbard, a former top agency official who consults for a coalition of industry and consumer groups, told the committee that the F.D.A. has lost some 200 food scientists and 700 field inspectors over five years, exactly the wrong direction when food imports are skyrocketing. He also noted that the small budget increase the White House has proposed for food safety next year would be a decrease after accounting for inflation.

As if that weren’t discouraging enough, the committee’s chief investigator described how porous the current safety shield is. Agency personnel, he said, inspect less than 1 percent of all imported foods and conduct laboratory analyses on only a tiny fraction of those. Overwhelmed entry reviewers at one field office have so many items to screen that they typically have less than 30 seconds to decide whether an import needs closer scrutiny. Importers also learn to game the system by sending goods to lax entry points or mislabeling them. And they are allowed to take possession of suspect goods and arrange testing by private laboratories whose work is often shoddy or driven by financial concerns.

The F.D.A. insists that its plan to close 7 of the agency’s 13 laboratories will actually improve its capabilities, by allowing greater investment in modern equipment and training at the six remaining laboratories. That could conceivably be true, but the House investigator worries that there could be a tremendous loss of talent when laboratory analysts resign rather than be relocated. Congress and its research arm, the Government Accountability Office, will need to determine if this is a genuine move toward modernizing some aging laboratories, or a step that could further weaken the F.D.A.

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

It was just another car bomb, this time an old, blue Volkswagen Passat that blew up in a busy shopping district of Baghdad, one of four that killed and maimed Iraqi civilians Monday.

But the array of first responders who descended on the smoke-filled scene exemplified how militants aren't the only force that's undermining the plan to restore order to the violent Iraqi capital.

After the blast near a busy shrine in the mostly Shiite Muslim area of Karrada, Iraqi firefighters, medical workers, Iraqi police, traffic police, Iraqi soldiers, American troops, members of two powerful Shiite militias and ordinary residents jostled for control. With so many forces picking through the charred, bloody wreckage, no single group emerged as the one in charge, and the already frenzied scene spiraled into pandemonium.

// posted by montag @ 7:53 PM 0 Comments

Republicans on the House Veterans Affairs Committee are trying to scuttle a committee-passed plan to provide pensions for World War II-era Filipino Scouts by getting a major veterans’ service organization to question whether this is the highest priority for improved benefits.

In a letter, the 13 Republicans on the committee complain about being blocked on July 17 from offering amendments that would have redirected the $875 million being spent on disability pay and pensions for Filipino veterans, including those who are not American citizens and who don’t even live in the U.S.

“Each amendment proposed alternative ways to spend the money going to Filipino veterans,” the letter says. Two amendments would have reduced the pensions, which would total up to $8,400 a year for a married veteran, and shifted the rest of the money to programs that Republicans see as higher priorities.

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

I decided that the best course of action was to remain here and fix the problems."

// posted by montag @ 6:14 PM 0 Comments

He was 18.

He was a newlywed.

He was killed on July 14, eight months after he arrived in Iraq on a deployment that made him nervous from the start, as one fellow soldier remembered. Back at his home station, Fort Carson, Colorado, he drew attention for being so young, so short, so slight and so cheerful.

"When I saw him I asked, `How old are you, 10?"' recalled his platoon sergeant, Staff Sgt. Eugenie Byron-Griffin. "`What are you doing here? You're a baby.' He looked me straight in my eye, with his chest poked out like he does, and he said, `I'm 17, and I ain't no baby. I'm a man."'

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

Two months ago, President Bush enthusiastically accepted an invitation to visit Singapore in September. But he abruptly changed plans, and his summit with Southeast Asian leaders is off. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is skipping an Asian meeting, too, and tossed out plans to visit Africa this week. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' mission to Latin America? Postponed.

The reason is Iraq.

As the White House struggles to show progress in the 52-month-old war, other important global issues increasingly are getting pushed to the side, according to U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts.

// posted by montag @ 1:49 PM 0 Comments

"Our [Iraqi staff members] work under extremely difficult conditions, and are targets for violence including murder and kidnapping," Crocker wrote Undersecretary of State Henrietta H. Fore. "Unless they know that there is some hope of an [immigrant visa] in the future, many will continue to seek asylum, leaving our Mission lacking in one of our most valuable assets."...

....A 43-year-old former engineer for the U.S. Embassy who gave his name as Abu Ali said Iraqis working with Americans at any level must trust no one, use fake names, conceal their travel and telephone use, and withhold their employment even from family members. Despite such extreme precautions, he said they are viewed as traitors by some countrymen and are still mistrusted by the U.S. government.

"We have no good end or finish for us," said Ali, who quit the embassy in June and moved to Dubai with his four children.

With Iraqi immigration to the United States stuck at a trickle, however, it appears that humanitarian concerns have been trumped so far by fears that terrorists may infiltrate through refugee channels. Bureaucratic delays at the departments of State and Homeland Security have also bogged down the processing of immigration requests by Iraqis fleeing violence.

Skeptics contend another reason the administration has been slow to resettle Iraqis in large numbers is that doing so could be seen as admitting that its efforts to secure Iraq have failed. The intense pressure for visas "reflects the fact that the situation is pretty dire,"

// posted by montag @ 1:27 PM 0 Comments

Last week the distance came into focus as West Hollywood officials made their city the first in Southern California to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

West Hollywood was the 80th city or township in the nation to pass such a declaration, following similar actions in Michigan, Ohio and Vermont as well as six cities in Northern California, including Arcada and Eureka.

Citing perceived abuses of power and constitutional transgressions, such as domestic wiretapping and torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the City Council passed the resolution unanimously Monday.

// posted by montag @ 1:18 PM 0 Comments

For more than a decade, leftist guerrilla and right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia have kidnapped or killed civilians, trade union leaders, police and soldiers by the hundreds and profited by shipping cocaine and heroin to the United States.

In that time, several American multinational corporations have been accused of essentially underwriting those criminal activities — in violation of U.S. law — by providing cash, vehicles and other financial assistance as insurance against attacks on their employees and facilities in the South American nation.

But only one such company — Chiquita Brands International Inc. — has been charged criminally in the United States. Now, a showdown is looming that pits some members of Congress against the Justice Department and the multinationals — including an American coal-mining company and Coca-Cola bottlers.

// posted by montag @ 12:42 PM 0 Comments

The U.S. military said the dead were insurgents and the homes in the Husseiniya district probably served as weapons depots; troops observed seven or more secondary explosions after the air assault. By the military's tally, six fighters were killed and five wounded.

the dead came from two Shiite Muslim families who lived in an area controlled by the powerful Mahdi Army militia. The bodies pulled from the rubble, locals say, were ordinary parents killed with their children in the middle of the night. Locals counted 11 corpses - two men, two women, and seven children. Another 10 were injured. Some Iraqi authorities put the death toll as high as 18.

// posted by montag @ 7:42 PM 0 Comments

Police danced at checkpoints and gunmen fired their weapons in celebration Saturday as thousands of jubilant Iraqis poured into the streets of Baghdad after their national soccer team's 2-0 victory over Vietnam in a quarterfinal match of the Asia Cup in Bangkok, Thailand.

The impromptu citywide parade lifted the capital's wartime gloom and let Iraqis forget momentarily the daily frustrations of their lives.

Families spent precious gasoline cruising up and down the main street in the central neighborhood of Karada. Taxi drivers honked their horns and blasted patriotic music. Children, typically shut indoors for their protection, whooped and jumped in the middle of intersections. Iraqi women trilled from balconies, while throngs of ecstatic young men peeled off their shirts and waved them in the air.

// posted by montag @ 7:32 PM 0 Comments

This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in — and could increase — the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats' razor-thin win in last year's election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans' exile to the minority.

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 "cloture" votes aimed at shutting off extended debate — filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one — and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation....

....This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

// posted by montag @ 7:17 PM 0 Comments

Those “cities” — from al-Asad Air Base in the west, population 17,000, to the Anaconda base farther east, with 25,000 — hold more than the thousands of tanks, other armored vehicles, artillery pieces and Humvees assigned to combat units. They’re also home to airfields laden with high-tech gear, complexes of offices filled with computers, furniture and air conditioners, systems of generators and water plants, PXs full of merchandise, gyms packed with equipment, big prefab latrines and ranks of small portable toilets, even Burger Kings and Subway sandwich shops.

“What stays? What goes? And if it goes, where does it go?” asked Mintzlaff.

When it goes, most will go by sea. But it won’t be a simple matter of tagging, packing and loading.

Ever since U.S. authorities found plague-infected rats in cargo returning from the Vietnam War, the decontamination process has been demanding: water blasting of equipment, treatment with insecticide and rodenticide, inspections, certifications.

“I can’t overemphasize how difficult it is to meet U.S. Agriculture Department standards,” said Pagonis, whose 22nd Support Command supplied, fueled, transported and finally sent home the half-million U.S. troops of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-91.

But perhaps the biggest question on planners’ minds is a more immediate one: Will it be a “fighting withdrawal”? Will some in Iraq’s wide array of armed groups attack the hundreds of convoys needed to move U.S. equipment south?

// posted by montag @ 6:48 PM 0 Comments

The data, obtained by Reuters from the Defense Department, showed an upward trend in daily attacks over the past four months, when U.S. and Iraqi forces were ramping up operations against insurgents and militants, including al Qaeda, in Iraq.

Pentagon officials were not immediately available to comment on the statistics.

The June numbers showed 5,335 attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces, civilians and infrastructure.

June's total was 2.5 percent below an October 2006 peak of 5,472 attacks and slightly lower than the 5,365 attacks in May.

But because June has only 30 days, the average daily number of attacks was 177.8, higher than the 176.5 last October and 173.1 in May...

....The June 2007 statistics confirmed a significant decline in the targeting of Iraqi civilians, with such attacks falling 18 percent to 763 from a 2007 high of 932 in May.

Attacks on Iraqi security forces fell to 889 in June from 987 in May, while attacks on coalition forces rose about 7 percent to 3,671 from 3,423.

// posted by montag @ 4:34 PM 0 Comments

If ever there were a moment for serious discussion about the Iraq war, this is it. Americans want President Bush to explain how he will extract the troops and contain the bloodletting and chaos the war has unleashed. Washington’s dwindling band of allies and Iraq’s neighbors are also waiting to hear. Pretty much everyone in the world wants answers except the president.

With the White House refusing to lead, lawmakers in both parties have begun to talk about the best way to end the war. But instead of seizing the opening, Mr. Bush and his team continue to spout disinformation and vacuous slogans about victory and, of course, more character assassination.

// posted by montag @ 12:54 PM 0 Comments

In the advertising world, brand identity is everything. Volvo means safety. Colgate means clean. IPod means cool. But since the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003, its "show of force" brand has proved to have limited appeal to Iraqi consumers, according to a recent study commissioned by the U.S. military.

The key to boosting the image and effectiveness of U.S. military operations around the world involves "shaping" both the product and the marketplace, and then establishing a brand identity that places what you are selling in a positive light, said clinical psychologist Todd C. Helmus, the author of "Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation." The 211-page study, for which the U.S. Joint Forces Command paid the Rand Corp. $400,000, was released this week.

Helmus and his co-authors concluded that the "force" brand, which the United States peddled for the first few years of the occupation, was doomed from the start and lost ground to enemies' competing brands. While not abandoning the more aggressive elements of warfare, the report suggested, a more attractive brand for the Iraqi people might have been "We will help you." That is what President Bush's new Iraq strategy is striving for as it focuses on establishing a protective U.S. troop presence in Baghdad neighborhoods, training Iraq's security forces, and encouraging the central and local governments to take the lead in making things better.

// posted by montag @ 11:55 AM 0 Comments

The Rolls Royce that drew so much attention early in the investigation was not the only car that Cunningham made the contractors buy for him. In only two days in early 2002, the congressman bought a $43,000 Thunderbird and a $41,000 BMW from Bob Baker Ford in San Diego with $63,000 of his payment coming from bribes. That was three months before Wade gave him $10,000 toward the used Rolls Royce.

In mid-2004 when Cunningham needed to make repairs to his boat, he called Wade and demanded $6,500 cash. Wade took the money out of his petty cash, stuffed the cash into a bulging envelope and rushed it over to a Cunningham fundraiser at a Washington restaurant, giving it to a Cunningham staffer.

In his prison interviews with investigators, as summarized by the FBI, the former congressman is reported to have:

Insisted there were no prostitutes at Wilkes' Washington poker games, but said Wilkes hired prostitutes for him during a Hawaii vacation. Cunningham was miffed that Wilkes got the “younger and cuter” prostitute and said he was “somewhat embarrassed on this occasion because he had some difficulty in completing intercourse.” On the next night, Cunningham again had a prostitute but said he “did not have sex” with her “because he felt guilty about his behavior.”

// posted by montag @ 10:26 PM 0 Comments

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. Officials pointed to a Justice Department legal opinion during the Reagan administration, which made the same argument in a case that was never resolved by the courts.

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

"We hear an awful lot about — and you have said it — we have to buy time. We buy time for what? For a political reconciliation process that is not occurring, that is not working."

// posted by montag @ 7:44 PM 0 Comments

The Army’s top enlisted soldier told troops serving in Iraq that war zone rotations will not exceed 15 months, according to an article in Dog Face Daily, a newsletter of the 3rd Infantry Division.

Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston visited soldiers from 3rd ID and Task Force Marne in Baghdad on Monday.

“Preston clarified the deployment extension, saying tours will not exceed 15 months,” the article said.

// posted by montag @ 7:06 PM 0 Comments

Lately, the senator has been dividing his time between the American mission in Iraq and his presidential campaign, and they are going equally well.

// posted by montag @ 7:08 AM 0 Comments

To cover the cost, the military proposes drawing money from various accounts used to support nondeployed troops, including $100 million for Air Force depot maintenance. However, the biggest chunk — $663 million — will be taken from the Army program that refurbishes equipment for units between deployments.

According to the Pentagon document, the maintenance workload for this particular effort has decreased because combat tours increased this year from 12 to 15 months.

// posted by montag @ 7:33 PM 0 Comments

It had to happen. President Bush’s bungling of the war in Iraq has been the talk of the summer. On Capitol Hill, some of the more reliable Republicans are writing proposals to force Mr. Bush to change course. A showdown vote is looming in the Senate.

Enter, stage right, the fear of terrorism....

....This administration has never hesitated to play on fear for political gain, starting with the first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, and his Popsicle-coded threat charts. It is a breathtakingly cynical ploy, but in the past it has worked to cow Democrats into silence, if not always submission, and herd Republicans back onto the party line.

That must not happen this time. By now, Congress surely can see through the president’s fear-mongering and show Mr. Bush the exit from Iraq that he refuses to find for himself.

// posted by montag @ 6:24 PM 0 Comments

They have seen the folly of our course in Iraq. The mission, they understand, cannot be accomplished. The Iraqi government, they discern, is hopelessly sectarian.

In wisdom, they are paragons. In action, they are nullities.

Perhaps they are simply farsighted. They have seen the problem with Nouri al-Maliki's administration in faraway Baghdad. They seem unable to see the problem with the Bush administration at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

// posted by montag @ 6:14 PM 0 Comments

If W. were a real cowboy, instead of somebody who just plays one on TV, he would have cleaned up Dodge by now.

// posted by montag @ 7:12 AM 1 Comments

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN AN ARMORED CAR

Levels of nonmilitary armor protection typically are rated on a scale from two to six, with six being the best. The tradeoff is agility and speed. Testudo Security Consultants of Amman, Jordan, recommends level six protection in Iraq, "where the likelihood of attack is extremely high." But even the most robust vehicles are vulnerable to armor-piercing roadside bombs.

Testudo recommends that armored-car vendors replace standard fittings with heavy-duty:

— Suspensions.

— Door hinges.

— Brakes.

— Cooling and air-conditioning systems, particularly in the Middle East.

— Reinforced chassis.

— Resealing gas tanks.

— "Run-flat" tires.

The vehicle itself should look like a standard model, "to avoid drawing attention."

// posted by montag @ 7:53 PM 0 Comments

American soldiers backed by tanks, helicopters and at least one F-16 jetfighter rolled into the eastern part of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province.

Gunfire could be heard in the main market district, and Sunni imams in four mosques used loudspeakers to call on their followers to fight the Americans, residents said by telephone. They spoke on condition of anonymity over fears for their safety...

...Elsewhere in Diyala, police Col. Ragheb Radhi al-Omairi said 29 members of a Shiite tribe were massacred overnight when dozens of suspected Sunni gunmen raided their village near Muqdadiyah, about 20 miles northeast of Baqouba. The dead included four women, al-Omairi said....

...In Baghdad, Tuesday’s deadliest car bombing occurred when a suicide driver detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi army patrol in Zayouna, a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad. The attack killed 10 people, including six civilians, and wounded three civilians, police said.

Elsewhere in the capital, a car bomb exploded across the street from the Iranian Embassy, killing four civilians. The late morning blast took place a few hundred yards north of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone and sent a huge cloud of black smoke over the city.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hailed the progress achieved in Ramadi, where violence was once commonplace, saying “what I’m hearing now is a sea change that is taking place in many places here.”

Kathleen Hicks of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies acknowledged that parts of Iraq had seen improved security but she “wouldn’t describe it as a sea change at all.”

“The bigger question is whether any kind of security progress at the pace we’re likely to see is going to translate into a political settlement,” Hicks said. “I think the answer is no.”

Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution saw no evidence of any lasting security improvements anywhere in Iraq. He said Pace’s comment “strains your credibility,” especially on a day when a National Intelligence Estimate predicted that al-Qaida would likely “leverage” its contacts in Iraq to mount an attack on American soil.

// posted by montag @ 7:37 PM 0 Comments

If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold. Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.

That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. "I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."

White, speaking at a recent symposium on Iraq, addressed the possibility of unpalatable withdrawal consequences by paraphrasing Winston Churchill's famous statement about democracy. "I posit that withdrawal from Iraq is the worst possible option, except for all the others."

// posted by montag @ 6:08 PM 0 Comments

U.S. touts progress as Baghdad bomb kills 10

// posted by montag @ 6:19 PM 0 Comments

Penny Preszler, 46, a furniture refurbisher in Phoenix, said she had stopped wearing red on Fridays as she had done for the past year to honor the war effort. “It was when my son started saying he wished he could be injured so he could come home,” Ms. Preszler said.

“There was no pride left in his voice, just this robotic sense of despair,” she said, describing a telephone conversation with her son, Skyler, 24, an infantryman on his second tour of duty in Iraq. “Mom, we killed women on the street today. We killed kids on bikes. We had no choice,” she recounted his saying.

The same week, she said, her son told her he thought he had seen the worst when he had to pick up the body parts of his dead buddy, but then he saw an Iraqi boy picking up what was left of his dead father.

“He started telling me that he doesn’t want me to go and do the things he has been doing,” said Corporal Ponce De Leon, 22, speaking by telephone as she boxed up her belongings in their apartment near Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He said that ‘we have all decided that it’s time for us to go home.’ I said, ‘You mean go home and rest?’ And he said, ‘I mean go home and not go back.’

“This is from someone who has been training for the past nine years to go to combat and who has spent his whole life wanting to be a marine,” she continued. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t support the war anymore, even though I will follow my orders.”

// posted by montag @ 5:39 PM 0 Comments

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home...

....Askari also alleged that imams at Saudi mosques call for jihad, or holy war, against Iraq's Shiites and that the government had funded groups causing unrest in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sunni extremists regard Shiites as unbelievers.

// posted by montag @ 1:10 PM 0 Comments

The dress code at the Blue Star restaurant inside Baghdad’s Green Zone now calls for vest and hat.

Flak vest and Kevlar helmet, to be precise. And it’s a good thing.

At least four mortar rounds hit inside the Green Zone about 1:30 p.m. Saturday, killing two Iraqi civilians, according to a U.S. soldier who could not speak for attribution because he’s not authorized to talk to reporters.

Meanwhile, a State Department official, after initially denying that State had ordered its 1,000 Baghdad personnel to wear protective gear, said that a copy of the order obtained by McClatchy was an undiscussable security breach.

Saturday’s attack followed a barrage of up to 35 mortars and rockets that slammed into the Green Zone _ considered the safest place in Baghdad _ on Wednesday.

The embassy issued its memo later that day.

// posted by montag @ 6:47 PM 0 Comments

George Walker Bush will leave his successor a mess of astonishing proportions to clean up. Our moral capital is diminished. Our leadership on the world stage is distrusted. Our health care system is broken. Our people are dispirited. Our planet is sick. Our children are dying in a stupid, useless war.

And I’m supposed to give a rat’s hairy hiney about Barack Obama’s middle name? Give me a break! I wouldn’t care if his middle name was Ignatz. I wouldn’t care if it was Shirley.

// posted by montag @ 5:10 PM 0 Comments

"We are not talking about a government in a stable political environment but one in the shadow of huge challenges," al-Maliki said. "So when we talk about the presence of some negative points in the political process, that's fairly natural."

Al-Maliki said his government needs "time and effort" to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks - "particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference."

But he said if necessary, Iraqi police and soldiers could fill the void left by the departure of coalition forces.

"We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want," he said.

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