Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27lingo.html
May 27, 2006
White House Memo
With a Few Humble Words, Bush Silences His Texas Swagger
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [bush] [his joint newconference with blair] [texas swagger all but gone] [*************]
WASHINGTON, May 26 — What happened to the Texas swagger?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27lingo.html
May 27, 2006
White House Memo
With a Few Humble Words, Bush Silences His Texas Swagger
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [bush] [his joint newconference with blair] [texas swagger all but gone] [*************]
WASHINGTON, May 26 — What happened to the Texas swagger?
Maybe it went the way of his poll numbers. Maybe this is a newly reflective President Bush. Or maybe the first lady had her say.
Whatever the case, when Mr. Bush said at a news conference on Thursday night that he regretted some personal mistakes, like declaring "bring 'em on" in 2003, he seemed a little like the chastened husband who finally admitted he had done something wrong. Whether it worked or not depends on whom you ask. [*********]
"Sad day in Crawford, they're hanging their heads," said William J. Bennett, the former education secretary and conservative radio talk show host. Mr. Bennett said many of his listeners expressed dismay at what they considered Mr. Bush's groveling. [********]
“One of the attractive things about the president is that he talks Texas,” Mr. Bennett continued. “But what broke my heart is when he said, ‘I need to be more sophisticated.’ What is this, Kerry talk? Is he going to use ‘elan’ the next time he speaks?” [**********]
Hold on a minute, said Kenneth M. Duberstein, President Ronald Reagan's last chief of staff. "The country loves mea culpas from the president," Mr. Duberstein said. "It makes them human. This is part and parcel of the influence of Josh — making sure you don't go out there and thumb your nose at the entire world." [*********]
"Josh" is Joshua B. Bolten, the new White House chief of staff, who was reared inside the Beltway, educated at Princeton and has never uttered a Texas colloquialism that anyone has heard. [***********]
Mr. Bush’s Texas twang intensifies and recedes depending on the setting. But he has always prided himself on being plain spoken. When it comes to military and national security, he made the heaviest use of Texas talk in the first term, initially after the Sept. 11 attacks and then after the Iraq invasion.
On Sept. 15, 2001, Mr. Bush declared that he would go after the perpetrators of the World Trade Center attack and “smoke them out of their holes.” On Sept. 17, 2001, Mr. Bush declared that he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” On July 2, 2003, Mr. Bush taunted militants attacking American forces in Iraq with “bring ‘em on.” [********]
White House officials have defended his Texas talk as the kind of plain-spoken language Americans like to hear, but Laura Bush has at times tried to rein him in. In a widely reported comment at the time, Mrs. Bush sidled up to her husband after he said he wanted Mr. bin Laden "dead or alive" and asked, "Bushie, are you gonna git 'im?" [************]
On Thursday, in response to a question about what he thought was his biggest mistake, Mr. Bush termed his words "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people." He added that "I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner" and that "in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted."
White House officials would not say Thursday whether Mr. Bush's response had been planned, but they did say they had prepared for the question. In fact, they have prepared for the question ever since John Dickerson, then of Time magazine, asked Mr. Bush at a news conference in April 2004 if he could name the biggest mistake he had made, and Mr. Bush, struggling, said nothing popped into his head. [everything bush says has been planned] [who are they trying to fool] [************]
But Mr. Bush's comments were his most personal so far about mistakes he has made, and they mirrored, friends said, his private conversations. [*********]
“What he did last night, which was obviously thought out, was the most complete public expression of what’s happened,” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican with ties to the White House. “Anybody who has seen him talk about it privately has seen that he’s been consumed with this for three years.” [********]
Others were less impressed and said Mr. Bush had made far worse mistakes. "If there were decisive mistakes, these were not them," said Paul Burka, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly, who closely followed Mr. Bush when he was Texas governor. "It's easy to say that he was popping off. But then you get to issues like should the Iraqi army have been disbanded, did Bremer know what he was doing?" [*******]
But Mr. Burka, who was referring to L. Paul Bremer III, the former top American civilian administrator in Iraq, said Mr. Bush's Texas talk was popular in the state.
"I don't think he ever had a self-reflective moment in Texas," Mr. Burka said. "And let me tell you, even worse, we liked it that way."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:18 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600981.html
Time Ordered to Give Internal Documents to Libby
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A06 [courts] [libby case] [fitzgerald] [******] [ditto]
Time magazine must turn over some internal documents to former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's attorneys because the evidence could help his defense against perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges in the CIA leak case, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600981.html
Time Ordered to Give Internal Documents to Libby
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A06 [courts] [libby case] [fitzgerald] [******] [ditto]
Time magazine must turn over some internal documents to former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's attorneys because the evidence could help his defense against perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges in the CIA leak case, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said Libby is entitled to drafts of an article by Time reporter Matthew Cooper and accompanying intraoffice correspondence because they may help Libby challenge Cooper's testimony when he is called as a witness by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
In granting Libby's request for the Time documents, Walton delivered the latest in a string of court defeats for media efforts to shield news-gathering activities from the legal process.
Just as previous courts had ruled that reporters must testify to a grand jury about their confidential sources, Walton rejected claims by Time and other news organizations that the First Amendment or other federal law protects their internal documents from a defendant's pretrial subpoenas.
Walton's 40-page opinion noted that, in the CIA leak case, reporters "were not simply reporting on criminal activity; rather their conversations with the defendant form the predicate for several charges in the indictment."
Walton also said he might order the New York Times to surrender additional documents, depending on events at trial. But he rejected all requests for documents from NBC News and its journalists, saying that, even though they were not constitutionally protected, they were not relevant to the defense.
Libby is the only Bush administration official under indictment in the scandal over the White House's alleged leaking of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, accused officials of "outing" his wife as retaliation for his outspoken criticism of the administration's inaccurate claims, before the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein's government was developing nuclear weapons.
Under certain circumstances, leaking a covert CIA operative's identity is a federal crime. Libby is not accused of that, but he is accused of lying to Fitzgerald's investigators and a grand jury about when he first learned of Plame's CIA affiliation.
Fitzgerald has said -- based in part on the testimony of Cooper and other prominent Washington journalists -- that Libby knew about it well before it was first publicly mentioned by columnist Robert D. Novak in July 2003; Libby testified to a grand jury that he first heard the information from reporters.
Libby's defense team had issued subpoenas to Time, the New York Times and NBC News -- as well as individual subpoenas to Cooper, former Times reporter Judith Miller and NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell -- seeking documents that, according to the defense, would help show that Libby's version of events was true.
The Cooper documents include unpublished drafts of his July 25, 2005, article recounting Cooper's grand jury testimony and giving his version of the conversation with Libby upon which some of the indictment is based.
Time had argued there was no need to hand over the drafts, because they were essentially the same as the published article. But after reading them, Walton said, he "discerns a slight alteration between the several drafts of the articles, which the defense could arguably use to impeach Cooper" as a witness.
Because of pretrial confidentiality rules, Walton wrote, "the Court has purposefully excluded what the alteration was."
Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Time magazine, would not comment on Walton's ruling.
The judge, adopting a legal test first developed by the Supreme Court to decide whether President Richard M. Nixon should have to turn over his Watergate tapes to a special prosecutor, ruled that most of the items Libby sought were not relevant to the case, or would not be admissible in court.
Walton repeatedly used the phrase "fishing expedition" to explain why he rejected some of the Libby team's requests.
These included subpoenas for handwritten notes belonging to Miller and Mitchell, Miller's appointment calendar, and telephone records and NBC internal e-mails about "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert .
Walton did find relevant Libby's request for New York Times documents related to other topics, including Miller's requests to her editors to write about Wilson's trip to Niger in 2002, during which he investigated Iraq's purported efforts to buy uranium from that country.
But Walton said he would wait until Miller's testimony at trial to decide whether those documents were admissible and would have to be turned over to the defense. He also said he might reconsider his ruling on some of Mitchell's documents in what he said was the unlikely event she testifies at the trial.
NBC would not comment on the ruling, but Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said, "We are gratified that Judge Walton did not order the Times to produce any editorial materials to the defendant."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:18 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27libby.html
May 27, 2006
Judge Orders Private Drafts Turned Over in Leak Case
By NEIL A. LEWIS [courts] [libby case] [fitzgerald] [******]
WASHINGTON, May 26 — The judge overseeing the case against I. Lewis Libby Jr. ruled on Friday that Time magazine had to turn over drafts of articles so that Mr. Libby, the former White House aide, could defend himself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27libby.html
May 27, 2006
Judge Orders Private Drafts Turned Over in Leak Case
By NEIL A. LEWIS [courts] [libby case] [fitzgerald] [******]
WASHINGTON, May 26 — The judge overseeing the case against I. Lewis Libby Jr. ruled on Friday that Time magazine had to turn over drafts of articles so that Mr. Libby, the former White House aide, could defend himself.
The judge, Reggie B. Walton, of Federal District Court, said that because the interviews that Mr. Libby gave to some reporters were at the heart of the criminal case against him, news organizations had no privilege to withhold their confidential materials and drafts of articles from his lawyers.
Judge Walton said he had concluded that most of the documents sought from Time, part of Time Warner; NBC News; and The New York Times would not be relevant or help the defense.
He said lawyers for all the news media organizations had agreed to let him review the documents that were responsive to Mr. Libby's request. That allowed him, he said, to personally review those documents in reaching his decision.
Judge Walton called some of the defense requests nothing more than "a fishing expedition."
He took a different view of internal Time documents that he reviewed. Judge Walton said there were variations in the drafts of articles written by Matthew Cooper after he had testified before the grand jury that investigated and indicted Mr. Libby in the case involving the leaking of a C.I.A. operative's name.
"Upon reviewing the documents presented to it, the court discerns a slight alteration between the several drafts of the articles which the defense could arguably use to impeach Cooper," the judge wrote.
Judge Walton said that he was quashing the subpoena for documents sought from NBC News and two of its journalists, Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell, and that most documents sought from The Times did not have to be turned over.
But he said the court would hold some transcripts of interviews by Judith Miller, a former reporter for The Times, and the draft of an article that she wrote to see whether they should be turned over in the trial.
Mr. Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, faces charges of perjury and obstruction of justice over his testimony to a federal grand jury and to F.B.I. agents. A special prosecutor has charged that Mr. Libby lied when he said he did not disclose the identity of the operative, Valerie Wilson, in summer 2003 to Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper.
Judge Walton said some documents from The Times could be turned over to the defense lawyers at the trial if they proved useful in impeaching Ms. Miller's testimony.
The judge suggested that was unlikely because his review showed them to be consistent with Ms. Miller's account to a grand jury.
He reasoned that if her trial testimony, that Mr. Libby told her of Ms. Wilson's role, remained consistent, the documents would have no value for the defense lawyers.
Mr. Libby was indicted after he told a grand jury and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents on two occasions that he did not disclose Ms. Wilson's identity to Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller. The reporters testified otherwise to the grand jury.
Administration critics have said disclosing Ms. Wilson's identity was part of a campaign to discredit assertions made by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons.
Judge Walton repeated earlier rulings that nothing in the Constitution or law provided a privilege for reporters to refuse to provide information in a criminal case.
He said Mr. Libby's case provided a special reason for reporters to provide relevant testimony because they were not just reporting on events, but were also participants in the events that formed the basis of the criminal case.
"The reporters did not simply report on alleged criminal activity," he wrote, "but rather they were personally involved in the conversations with the defendant that form the predicate for several charges in the indictment."
The judge added, "Their testimony is crucial to the government's case, and challenging it will likely be critical for the defense."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:17 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601757.html
Filings in CIA Leak Case Paint Cheney as Determined to Counter Critic
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A06 [cheney on Wilson refutation] [court filings show him aggressively after Wilson] [**********]
A string of recent court filings in the CIA leak case provide new details of Vice President Cheney's role at the center of an administration effort to rebut an outspoken critic of the White House's rationale for the Iraq war in the summer of 2003. They include his repeated discussions of the issue with his top aide and his part in a counteroffensive that resulted in the unmasking of a CIA officer. [******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601757.html
Filings in CIA Leak Case Paint Cheney as Determined to Counter Critic
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A06 [cheney on Wilson refutation] [court filings show him aggressively after Wilson] [**********]
A string of recent court filings in the CIA leak case provide new details of Vice President Cheney's role at the center of an administration effort to rebut an outspoken critic of the White House's rationale for the Iraq war in the summer of 2003. They include his repeated discussions of the issue with his top aide and his part in a counteroffensive that resulted in the unmasking of a CIA officer. [******]
The court filings -- by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who charged Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, with lying in the CIA leak case -- provide a vivid portrait of the vice president's activity. Cheney repeatedly questioned Libby about the war critic, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV; wrote detailed notes about an op-ed article penned by Wilson; and raised questions about the CIA connections of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. [********]
Cheney -- who helped devise the White House argument that Iraq had an extensive program to build weapons of mass destruction before the war -- is described in the filings as upset by Wilson's criticism, which the vice president saw as a direct assault on his credibility.
Fitzgerald does not describe Cheney's actions as illegal or even improper. But the filings make it clear that Cheney had a larger role in the effort to rebut Wilson than was previously known and that his actions could put him in an uncomfortable place: on the witness stand as a sitting vice president. [*******]
Legal experts said Cheney would have a difficult time refusing to testify in court as part of a trial to determine whether Libby lied or obstructed justice in the leak probe.
There are, experts said, many precedents for his appearance. In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant voluntarily gave a deposition on behalf of an aide accused of corruption. President Ronald Reagan gave videotaped testimony in the Iran-contra prosecution of John M. Poindexter and testified himself. Most recently, President Bill Clinton agreed to testify before a grand jury investigating the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal. [*************]
One lawyer involved in the Libby case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has warned lawyers about speaking to the media, said Fitzgerald "is doing everything he can to avoid the sideshow of a constitutional fight over calling a sitting a vice president to testify."
But Carl W. Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, said Fitzgerald will call Cheney "if he believes it will be probative or helpful to the case." If he does, Tobias said, Cheney is likely to resist, arguing that he should not be forced to testify in a criminal case as a sitting vice president. The trial is expected to begin early next year.
Neither Libby nor Fitzgerald has asserted that Cheney directed Libby to leak Plame's name to the news media, and the details of what Cheney told the prosecutor's office in a June 2004 interview have not been disclosed.
But Fitzgerald went out of his way to say in an April filing that Bush played no role in the leak of Plame's name. He did not similarly exonerate Cheney.
So far, Fitzgerald's latest disclosures are not meant to implicate the vice president so much as they are intended to undermine a key aspect of Libby's defense -- that Libby was so preoccupied by other matters that he forgot, rather than lied about, what he told two journalists, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, regarding Plame. [*********]
Instead, Fitzgerald said in his filing on Wednesday night that Cheney's focus on an array of issues surrounding Wilson's July 2003 column, including the fact that Plame worked for the CIA, riveted Libby's attention on the same matters "and what should be done to respond to the accusations it contained." This was said to have been the context -- "the state of mind of the Vice President," as Fitzgerald put it -- in which Libby made statements to reporters at the time and later allegedly lied to investigators about what he had said in those statements. [*********]
"Fitzgerald has to rebut Libby's claim that this was not a big deal," said Randall D. Eliason, a former chief of the section on public corruption and government fraud at the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. "The best way for Fitzgerald to counter this is to show that the vice president himself was involved in responding to the Wilson article and directing Libby to respond. It highlights how implausible it is for Libby to say he just forgot about this incident when he testified."
Fitzgerald's filings also disclosed that part of the anti-Wilson campaign involved leaking previously classified information from an intelligence report about Iraq's alleged nuclear ambitions. [********] [this is how the administration worries about leaks of classified materials, nothwithstanding their public scoldings] [*******]
The spectacle of Cheney testifying in the leak case would be a major distraction for the White House, at the very least. The potential witness list is a who's who of the Bush White House, including Karl Rove and former spokesman Ari Fleischer, along with CIA officials and lesser-known State Department aides.
But Cheney would certainly attract the most attention. One of the most powerful vice presidents in history, Cheney has become, over the years, a symbol of the White House's argument on weapons of mass destruction.
A recent Fitzgerald filing shows that Cheney does not let go of things lightly, and the column by Wilson -- who was sent to Niger by the CIA to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons materials there -- was no exception. Cheney clipped it from the newspaper, placed it on his desk, wrote some sharply critical notes on it, and discussed it over and over with Libby for days. [***********]
Cheney was upset, according to Libby's account in newly disclosed grand jury testimony, by language in the column that Cheney saw as a direct attack on his personal credibility. [*******]
It was not an imagined slight: Wilson contrasted what Cheney had said about Iraqi nuclear weapons ambitions earlier that year with what Wilson had said in a 2002 classified report that he suggested had reached Cheney's office. Wilson also bluntly accused the administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Eight days later, columnist Robert D. Novak wrote that two senior administration officials told him that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA officer, had put him up to an investigation of Iraq's nuclear-related activities.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:16 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel27may27,1,6330836.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Senators Want Details on Reported CIA Prisons
The intelligence panel backs a bill mandating wider disclosure of secrets. The full Senate confirms Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA director.
By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [senate finally showing some backbone] [dana priest broke story last fall, either October or November] [now senators, with bush’s numbers in free fall, finding some spine] [*************]

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee is seeking to force the Bush administration to disclose details about secret overseas prisons thought to be run by the CIA, part of a broader effort by lawmakers to compel the White House to provide more information on sensitive intelligence programs. [SSCI] [*******]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel27may27,1,6330836.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Senators Want Details on Reported CIA Prisons
The intelligence panel backs a bill mandating wider disclosure of secrets. The full Senate confirms Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA director.
By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [senate finally showing some backbone] [dana priest broke story last fall, either October or November] [now senators, with bush’s numbers in free fall, finding some spine] [*************]

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee is seeking to force the Bush administration to disclose details about secret overseas prisons thought to be run by the CIA, part of a broader effort by lawmakers to compel the White House to provide more information on sensitive intelligence programs. [SSCI] [*******]

Legislation adopted by the committee this week would require the administration for the first time to submit reports to Congress on the treatment of terrorism suspects and the locations of the reported clandestine CIA holding cells scattered around the world.

The push for details on the secret prison sites is the latest sign of friction between Congress and the White House over access to classified information. The issue was also a focus of the confirmation process for Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was confirmed by the Senate on Friday, 78 to 15, as director of the CIA. [*********]

Hayden spent much of his confirmation hearing last week defending his role in a domestic eavesdropping operation authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but kept secret from all but a few members of Congress until several months ago.

The demand for fuller disclosure on the reported CIA prisons was among several provisions in an otherwise routine spending bill adopted by the Intelligence Committee this week that would make it harder for the White House to withhold information on highly classified programs. [******]

Another provision would require the White House to inform members of the Senate and House intelligence committees when they are being excluded from briefings on secret programs, as many of them were in the case of the domestic wiretapping operation.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who proposed that language, said in a written statement that the provision and others were designed "to send a message to the president that we will insist on the information needed to carry out our constitutional duties."

Most Republicans on the committee opposed the disclosure provisions, but Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) sided with Democrats to approve them.

The CIA has never publicly acknowledged the existence of secret overseas prisons, but current and former intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, have said they exist. [***********]

Details of the operations and locations of the prisons are among the most closely guarded secrets in the U.S. intelligence community. Even the number of prisoners in CIA custody is known only to a handful of senior U.S. officials, though it is widely acknowledged to be in the dozens.

Any demand by Congress for access to such information is likely to be fiercely resisted by the Bush administration. [********] [nssherlock]

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius declined to comment on the Senate bill, but he referred to the administration's position on a separate request from the House last month for an inventory of so-called "special access programs," or operations so secret that information on them is compartmentalized even within the upper ranks of the intelligence community. The White House issued a statement last month saying it opposed that section of the House intelligence authorization bill.

The Senate Intelligence Committee provisions seeking information on the overseas detention sites are likely to face opposition in the full Senate. Last year, Democratic amendments making similar requests prompted Republican opposition that prevented a vote on the bill.

Responding to questions about the detention sites could be a delicate matter for Hayden, who is expected to be sworn in at the White House next week. Hayden was a leading architect of the domestic eavesdropping program in which the National Security Agency — the spy service he previously led — intercepted, without court warrants, phone calls and e-mails into and out of the U.S. The Bush administration has said the surveillance program targets suspected terrorist affiliates.

During Thursday night's debate on Hayden's nomination, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the warrantless wiretapping program raised "serious questions about whether the general is the right person to lead the CIA, serious questions about whether the general will continue to be an administration cheerleader, serious questions about his credibility."

Wyden was among 14 Democrats who voted against Hayden's nomination. The only Republican to oppose the four-star general's confirmation was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has questioned the legality of the NSA eavesdropping program.

Feinstein voted for confirmation; California's other senator, Democrat Barbara Boxer, did not vote.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:15 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney27may27,1,2729818.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Cheney Says Terrorists `Still Lethal'
From the Baltimore Sun
May 27, 2006 [cheney] [unrepentant] [on nsa spying] [speaking to naval academy commencement] [see today’s individual-role for more personal on bush] [********] [remember 9/11] [*******] [use psci 469]

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to the first Naval Academy graduates to begin classes after the Sept. 11 attacks, laid out a grim picture Friday of enemies "still desperately trying to hit us again," as he defended President Bush's anti-terrorism policies. [*********]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney27may27,1,2729818.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Cheney Says Terrorists `Still Lethal'
From the Baltimore Sun
May 27, 2006 [cheney] [unrepentant] [on nsa spying] [speaking to naval academy commencement] [see today’s individual-role for more personal on bush] [********] [remember 9/11] [*******] [use psci 469]

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to the first Naval Academy graduates to begin classes after the Sept. 11 attacks, laid out a grim picture Friday of enemies "still desperately trying to hit us again," as he defended President Bush's anti-terrorism policies. [*********]

Addressing 980 midshipmen on a steamy day, Cheney said terrorists were working to "establish a totalitarian empire." They are hoping, he added, to acquire unconventional weapons, "to destroy Israel, to intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death here in the United States." [************]

Battling terrorism will "define much of your career," Cheney told the class. [my hydra thesis and even my nsc thesis to some extent] [***********]

Cheney defended the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program as "absolutely essential to the security of the United States" and as part of the government's "urgent duty" to track down terrorists. [*******]

He sought to stoke the graduates' enthusiasm for joining the anti-terrorism effort, saying that although "the enemies that struck us may be weakened and fractured, they are still lethal and still desperately trying to hit us again."

"They doubt our strength, and they believe that America will lose our nerve and let down our guard," Cheney said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:15 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601721.html
Eavesdropping to Go On, Cheney Tells Midshipmen
Naval Academy Revels Over Graduation, Reflects on War
By Ray Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A03 [cheney] [unrepentant] [on nsa spying] [speaking to naval academy commencement] [see today’s individual-role for more personal on cheney] [********]
Vice President Cheney highlighted America's intelligence efforts yesterday as critical tools in the fight against terrorists at home and abroad and vowed the administration would continue a controversial eavesdropping program that he said has been wrongly dubbed "domestic surveillance." [************]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601721.html
Eavesdropping to Go On, Cheney Tells Midshipmen
Naval Academy Revels Over Graduation, Reflects on War
By Ray Rivera
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A03 [cheney] [unrepentant] [on nsa spying] [speaking to naval academy commencement] [see today’s individual-role for more personal on cheney] [********]
Vice President Cheney highlighted America's intelligence efforts yesterday as critical tools in the fight against terrorists at home and abroad and vowed the administration would continue a controversial eavesdropping program that he said has been wrongly dubbed "domestic surveillance." [************]
“I want each one of you to know that the president will not relent in the effort to track the enemies of the United States with every legitimate tool in his command,” Cheney said during a graduation address at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. “This is not a war we can win on the defensive. Our only option against these enemies is to monitor them, to find them, to fight them and to destroy them.” [********]
Although support for the administration continues to sag nationally, Cheney found a receptive audience of close to 27,000 in the graduating midshipmen and their friends and families at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. [********]
Cheney said Bush authorized the National Security Agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. "If people in the United States are communicating with al-Qaeda, they are talking to the enemy -- and we need to know about it," [******] he said.
The administration has been under fire since the New York Times revealed in December the existence of warrantless NSA wiretaps of Americans' international calls. USA Today recently reported that the NSA also collected millions of phone records from U.S. businesses and homes. [*******]
The highly classified program was "improperly revealed to the news media, some of which now describe it as domestic surveillance," Cheney said. "That is not the case. We are talking about international communications, one end of which we have reason to believe is related to al-Qaeda or to terrorist networks. It's hard to think of any category of information that could be more important to the safety of the United States."
The future Navy and Marine officers, clad in white-and-black uniforms, sat in rows on the field as Cheney somberly listed terrorist attacks at home and abroad, starting with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and including the Sept. 11 attacks. He reminded the Class of 2006 that it was the first to enter the academy after the twin towers fell. [********]
“I’m guessing that more than a few of you were inspired to military service by the attack on our country,” he said. “In these four years, the war on terror has influenced the course of study at our service academies, and it will define much of your career leading American sailors and Marines.” [*******]
In lighter moments, Cheney singled out the only two graduates from his home state, Wyoming. "I would have expected more," he said, "considering Wyoming's maritime traditions and the breadth of our coastline."
And he drew loud applause when he reminded the class that the football team beat Army four years in a row.
The 3 1/2-hour ceremony under gray skies was filled with military pomp and ritual. A cannon boomed 19 times upon Cheney's arrival, and the Blue Angels thundered over the stadium in a single pass so low that remnants from their contrails drifted onto the field.
Keeping with tradition, the vice president, as keynote speaker, pardoned all midshipmen on restriction for minor conduct offenses, saying he had discussed the idea with President Bush. [**********]
"The president took the view that we should be lenient," he said. "Me, I could have gone either way. But he's the boss."
Cheney then shook the hands of each of the 980 graduates as they received their diplomas.
After the celebratory hat toss ending the ceremony, the stadium was a mix of tears and applause as family members descended onto the field in another ritual: pinning Marine second lieutenant bars and Navy ensign boards on their graduating loved ones.
"Oh, man," said Tristan Gerritsen of Baltimore, commissioned as a second lieutenant, as he hugged his comrades. Although his immediate plans are to go to graduate school, he hopes to fly. "I have an air contract, and, hopefully, I will be flying jets," he said.
For 23-year-old Marshall Pagaling of Sacramento, receiving his commission as an ensign was an extension of a family tradition.
"My other son graduated from the academy in 2003, and now he is flying and in the Marine Corps," said his mother, Sharon Hagan.
Theo Williams, 22, of Artesia, N.M., credited his parents and supportive relatives for his graduation and commission as a naval officer. "I couldn't have done this by myself," said Williams, his mother, Donna, at his side.
Staff writer Hamil R. Harris contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:14 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600270.html
Hayden Confirmed as CIA Chief
Objections to Role in Domestic Spying Fail to Derail Nomination
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A02 [hayden is new director CIA] [not DCI] [first reported yesterday] [look for new info on whether he has resigned his job as negroponte’s number 2] [then who Negroponte replaces Hayden with] [***************]
Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, a career intelligence officer who has overseen some of the government's most secret and controversial surveillance programs, was confirmed by the Senate yesterday to head the CIA as it tries to regain some of its lost luster. [*******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600270.html
Hayden Confirmed as CIA Chief
Objections to Role in Domestic Spying Fail to Derail Nomination
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A02 [hayden is new director CIA] [not DCI] [first reported yesterday] [look for new info on whether he has resigned his job as negroponte’s number 2] [then who Negroponte replaces Hayden with] [***************]
Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, a career intelligence officer who has overseen some of the government's most secret and controversial surveillance programs, was confirmed by the Senate yesterday to head the CIA as it tries to regain some of its lost luster. [*******]
Senators voted 78 to 15 to confirm [*******]Hayden to succeed Porter J. Goss, who steps down today after 18 stormy months.
The Senate endorsed President Bush's view that Hayden is the right person to take the helm of an agency still rocked by intelligence failures that preceded the 2001 terrorist attacks and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Bush first chose Goss, then a GOP House member from Florida, for the task. But the president lost confidence after Goss and his openly partisan aides clashed with veteran officials in the CIA and other agencies.
Hayden's nomination drew fire from some Democrats and civil liberties groups because he headed the National Security Agency when it began conducting warrantless wiretaps of Americans' international phone calls in a bid to find possible terrorists. Hayden and Bush, who acknowledged the program only after press reports outlined it, have said the effort is narrowly targeted at terrorism suspects. [*********]
But thousands of phone calls reportedly have been monitored without producing promising leads, and many lawmakers say Hayden and other officials have yet to explain adequately why they should not have to obtain court warrants for the wiretaps.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (Pa.), the only Republican to vote against confirmation, said he did so to protest “the administration’s policy of not informing the Congress . . . in a way which enables the Congress and the Judiciary Committee to do our constitutional job on oversight.” He called Hayden “a man with an outstanding record.” [*******]
Specter joined 14 Democrats in opposing confirmation. Supporting it were 52 Republicans, 25 Democrats and one independent. The senators from Maryland and Virginia voted to confirm Hayden.
Bush praised the vote for Hayden in a statement, saying: "Winning the war on terror requires that America have the best intelligence possible, and his strong leadership will ensure that we do. General Hayden is a patriot and a dedicated public servant whose broad experience, dedication, and expertise make him the right person to lead the CIA at this critical time."
When Bush nominated Hayden on May 8, several House Republicans and a few senators said they feared that his military background was inappropriate for a CIA director at a time when the Pentagon is aggressively trying to expand its role in intelligence matters. But Hayden, an engaging man who excels at briefing lawmakers, said in private meetings and open hearings that he has stood up to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when he disagreed with the secretary's policies and is willing to do so again. [***********]
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who raised questions about Hayden's active military status, said yesterday that the general "has convinced me that he can make the transition from the military side to the civilian side of the intelligence community while continuing to move the CIA in a positive direction of change and transition."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) voted against confirmation. She said in a statement that the CIA director should "show respect for the rule of law and recognition of the oversight role of Congress." She added: "General Michael Hayden has had a distinguished career serving our nation . . . However, I believe there are unanswered questions about whether he will exercise the independence and judgment necessary to be an effective CIA director in an administration that has rejected contrary views." [******]
Senate Democrats signaled from the start that they would not make a concerted effort to block the nomination. Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) voted for confirmation and said, "I am hopeful General Hayden will provide the CIA the kind of nonpartisan leadership it has sorely lacked for the past several years."[*******]
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:13 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/world/middleeast/27iran.html
May 27, 2006
U.S. Is Debating Talks With Iran on Nuclear Issue
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN [apparently internal bush white house discussions ongoing on iran] [whether or not to talk directly to them] [look for signs of factions] [********]
WASHINGTON, May 26 — The Bush administration is beginning to debate whether to set aside a longstanding policy taboo and open direct talks with Iran, to help avert a crisis over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program, [****] European officials and Americans close to the administration said Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/world/middleeast/27iran.html
May 27, 2006
U.S. Is Debating Talks With Iran on Nuclear Issue
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN [apparently internal bush white house discussions ongoing on iran] [whether or not to talk directly to them] [look for signs of factions] [********]
WASHINGTON, May 26 — The Bush administration is beginning to debate whether to set aside a longstanding policy taboo and open direct talks with Iran, to help avert a crisis over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program, [****] European officials and Americans close to the administration said Friday.
European officials who have been in contact with the administration in recent weeks said the discussion was heating up, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked with European foreign ministers to persuade Iran to suspend its efforts to enrich uranium. [**********]
European leaders make no secret of their desire for the United States to join in the talks with Iran, [********] if only to show that the Americans have gone the extra mile to avoid a confrontation that could spiral into a fight over sanctions or even military action.
But since the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the crisis over the seizure of American hostages in November that year, the United States has avoided direct talks with Iran. There were sporadic contacts during the war in Afghanistan, in the early stages of the Iraq war and in the days after the earthquake in Bam, Iran, at the end of 2003. [******]
European officials say Ms. Rice has begun discussing the issue with top aides at the State Department. Her belief, they say, is that ultimately the matter will have to be addressed by the administration's national security officials, whether talks with Iran remain at an impasse or even if there is some progress. [************]
But others who know her well say she is resisting on the ground that signaling a willingness to talk would show weakness and disrupt the delicate negotiations with Europe. [****] Ms. Rice is also said to fear that the administration might end up making too many concessions to Iran. [********]
Administration officials said President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have opposed direct talks, even through informal back channels. [*******] As a result, many European officials say they doubt that a decision to talk is likely soon.
The prospect of direct talks between the United States and Iran is so politically delicate within the Bush administration that the officials who described the emerging debate would discuss it only after being granted anonymity. [*******]
Those officials included representatives of several European countries, as well as Americans who said they had discussed the issue recently with people inside the Bush administration. Some of the officials made clear that they favored direct talks between the United States and Iran.
State Department officials refused to talk about the issue, even anonymously. But over the last week, administration spokesmen have been careful not to rule out talks. [*****]
Discussion about possible American contacts with Iran has been fueled not simply by the Europeans, but by a growing chorus of outsiders with ties to the administration who have spoken out in favor of talks. [*******]
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a recent column in The Washington Post, raised the possibility that the recent rambling letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush — dismissed by Ms. Rice as an offensive tirade— could be seen as an opportunity to open contacts. [Republican realist group] [the usual suspects] [scowcfot, bakers, and eagleberger likely among them] [*******]
Both Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state under Mr. Powell, have also advocated talks with Iran. [*******]
"Diplomacy is much more than just talking to your friends," Mr. Armitage said in a telephone interview. "You've got to talk to people who aren't our friends, and even people you dislike. Some people in the administration think that diplomacy is a sign of weakness. In fact, it can show that you're strong."
Mr. Armitage held the last high-level discussions with Iran, after the Bam earthquake. In November 2004, Mr. Powell sat next to the Iranian foreign minister at a dinner during a conference in Egypt on Iraq, but he said they engaged only in small talk. [*******]
The United States has stayed out of the talks with Iran, which began in late 2004 and got new life last summer when, with American endorsement, the Europeans offered to help Iran integrate politically and economically with the West if it ended its nuclear ambitions.
Also on the table were unspecified security guarantees suggesting that Iran would not have to worry about outside efforts to topple the government. [*******]
The Europeans are now working with the United States, Russia and China on a revised package of economic, political and nuclear energy incentives if Iran ended its nuclear enrichment activities. Also being sought, at least by the Europeans and the United States, is an agreement to take Iran to the United Nations Security Council if it continues to defy the demands for compliance on nuclear issues.
European officials say the discussions about possible American-Iranian contacts are not part of these talks, but would be a way to improve the atmosphere with Iran.
Among the European diplomats who have urged Ms. Rice to consider direct contacts with Iran are Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, raised the issue with President Bush when she visited Washington earlier this year. [*****] [merkel and bush seem to have close relationship]
"What's interesting about Rice is that she listens when you make your case," a European official said.
Another European diplomat said, "It's a European aspiration for talks to happen," but added, "Nothing is likely at the moment." Still another European diplomat said of the Americans that "everyone and their brother has been telling them to do it."
One reason senior administration officials do not like the idea of talking with Iran, many of them say, is that they are not certain Iranian leaders would respond positively. A rebuff from Iran, even to a back-channel query, is to be avoided at all costs, various officials agree.
The administration, for example, has been embarrassed by the on-again, off-again possibility of talks with Iran on Iraq, which were authorized by Ms. Rice late last year. [************]
The concern, some say, is that talking to Iran only about Iraq will anger Sunni dissidents in Iraq, reinforcing the Sunni-led insurgency while enhancing the status of Iraqi Shiites, whose strong ties to Iran make Washington uneasy.
On the other hand, the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was said to be eager to enlist Iran in helping to deal with Iranian-backed Shiite militias, which are accused of carrying out killings and kidnappings of Sunnis in Iraq. [*******]
Some Europeans favor American participation in the European-Iranian talks, at least down the road. Others raise the possibility of informal contacts through nongovernmental organizations or policy institutes.
Incentives and possible sanctions against Iran are to be the focus of negotiations between the United States and the European nations in coming days and weeks.
The United States is resisting the Europeans' desire to increase economic incentives for Iran, because that would involve a lifting of American sanctions on European businesses that helped Iran. At the same time, Russia and China are resisting the idea of seeking a new resolution at the United Nations Security Council that could be seen as clearing the way for sanctions or possible military action against Iran. [******]
David E. Sanger contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:13 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/nyregion/27muslim.html
May 27, 2006
Undercover Work Deepens Police-Muslim Tensions
By ANDREA ELLIOTT [undercover police work, state and federales] [causing tension in muslim communities in US] [**************]
It is no secret to the Muslim immigrants of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, that spies live among them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/nyregion/27muslim.html
May 27, 2006
Undercover Work Deepens Police-Muslim Tensions
By ANDREA ELLIOTT [undercover police work, state and federales] [causing tension in muslim communities in US] [**************]
It is no secret to the Muslim immigrants of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, that spies live among them.
Almost anyone can rattle off what they regard as the telltale signs of police informers: They like to talk politics. They have plenty of free time. They live in the neighborhood, but have no local relatives. [*******]
"They think we don't know, but we know who they are," said Linda Sarsour, 26, a community activist.
It is another thing for them to be officially revealed. Over the last several weeks, during the trial of a Pakistani immigrant who was convicted on Wednesday of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station, Muslims in Bay Ridge learned that two agents of the police had been planted in the neighborhood and were instrumental to the case. [*******]
They absorbed the testimony of an Egyptian-born police informer who had recorded the license plate numbers of worshipers at a mosque. They heard that an undercover detective, originally from Bangladesh, had been sent to Bay Ridge as a “walking camera.” [********]
The trial's revelations, and its outcome for the defendant, Shahawar Matin Siraj, have brought a bitter reckoning among Muslims in the city. Many see the police tactics unveiled in the case as proof that the authorities — both in New York and around the nation — have been aggressive, even underhanded in their approach to Muslims. [*******]
And despite the conviction of Mr. Siraj, who was found guilty on all four of the counts he faced, some Muslim leaders remain convinced that he was entrapped, including an imam who knew the informer and had found him to be suspicious.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly declared the verdict a milestone in the city's fight against terrorism. Muslim leaders say they support efforts to safeguard the country, but many believe that the Siraj case may have set back another battle that the police have been waging: to win their trust and cooperation. [***********]
In Bay Ridge, Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian immigrants have long engaged in their own form of surveillance, trying to discern the spies in their midst. [*****] It is a habit imported from the countries they left behind, where informers for the security services were common and political freedoms curtailed.
In the years since Sept. 11, as word of informers spread among the smoky sheesha cafes and tidy mosques of Bay Ridge, a familiar fear has fallen over the neighborhood. It asserts itself quietly, in the hush of conversation and the wary stares that pass between strangers. [*******]
"It's like a police state here," said Omar Maged, 34, an assistant teacher at a public high school. "We do not feel that we are living in the most free country in the world." [*********]
In the wake of the trial, police officials sought to dispel the notion that they are taking aim at the Muslim community.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said undercover officers were used only to investigate reports of possible criminal activity. This was the case, he said, with the detective involved in the investigation of Mr. Siraj. The officer had been sent to live in Bay Ridge for two years.
"The notion that he was in there gratuitously observing the Muslim community is false," Mr. Browne said.
The relationship between law enforcement and Muslims has long been fragile.
After Sept. 11, Muslims came under immediate and intense pressure by the authorities. Hundreds of men were detained for questioning and thousands nationwide were placed into deportation proceedings. [****] [******] [*****]
Over time, a necessary, if uncomfortable relationship emerged between Muslims and the police watching over them. Efforts were made by both camps to cultivate trust.
"We've been repairing the cracks steadily and gingerly," said Wael Mousfar, the president of the Arab Muslim American Federation.
These days, police officers introduce themselves at Ramadan dinners and town hall meetings. Federal agents sit on committees with Muslim activists and hold workshops with imams.
Last month, the Police Department hired a Turkish immigrant to work as a full-time liaison with the Muslim community. [********]
But the Herald Square case gave pause to some of the Muslims involved in the outreach.
"This is a real setback to the bridge building," said Michael Dibarro, a Jordanian immigrant who until recently worked as a clergy liaison with the Police Department. "We had meaningful meetings. We thought we were going somewhere with this."
Others complained of what they see as a two-tiered approach by the authorities: on one level it is public, and on another, it is hidden.
"They want to formally be introduced to the community but they don't need to be," Ms. Sarsour said. "They already have their informants among us." [*******]
On May 12, in the middle of the trial of Mr. Siraj, Mr. Kelly met with 150 Muslims at a youth center in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He showed them a 25-minute video that the Police Department created to train new officers to be sensitive toward Arabs and Muslims. He said he was there to hear their "concerns about issues of public safety," according to a transcript of his speech.
Only after several questions did anyone mention the trial. Debbie Almontaser, a board member of a Muslim women's organization, told Mr. Kelly that she was saddened that the police had resorted to "F.B.I. tactics," and that she thought this was polarizing the Muslim community. [********]
Applause swept the room. [*********]
Mr. Kelly told the audience he could not comment on the case.
Whether it will seriously hinder relations between the authorities and Muslims in New York remains to be seen. Some were doubtful.
“This is a chance to enhance our relationship with the police,” said Antoine Faisal, the publisher of Aramica, an Arabic and English language newspaper based in Bay Ridge. “These people are being paid to do their job.” [********]
An air of suspicion hung over Bay Ridge well before Mr. Siraj was arrested in August 2004. Some people stopped attending the neighborhood's two major mosques, preferring to pray at home. Others no longer idle on the street after work.
"The vibe is not the same anymore," said Omar, 22, a Yemeni immigrant who works at a bookstore and gave only his first name. "We're exposed."
Conversations are often carefully scripted. Several people interviewed said they no longer discussed politics in public.
"When you sit down and politics comes to your head, you think, 'Who's around?' " said Mohammad Gheith, 17, a high school senior who often visits the smoke-filled Meena House Cafe on Bay Ridge Avenue. [***********]
Several blocks away, at a grocery store along Fifth Avenue, Mahmoud Masoud said he sensed the presence of informers.
“Sometimes you look a person in the eye, there’s a feeling,” said Mr. Masoud, 65, a Palestinian immigrant. “You can say anything you want, but don’t curse the system. That’s what they care about.”
Others in the neighborhood said they understood the need for informers, and were not bothered by their presence.
“They have to watch the community,” said Osama Elsakka, 41, an Egyptian immigrant who drives a limousine. Mr. Elsakka said that he would readily inform the police if he heard something suspicious, even if some of his friends considered this a betrayal.
“I’m trying to defend the image of my religion,” he said, explaining that he thought that a person who entertains thoughts of terrorism is not a true Muslim. “If someone is doing that, they’ve been brainwashed.” [************]
On Wednesday afternoon, after Mr. Siraj's parents and uncle heard the verdict, they drove to the uncle's Islamic bookstore, on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge. It was there that their son first had encountered Osama Eldawoody, the informer, who lived on Staten Island and earned about $100,000 for his work with the police. [********]
They pulled down the metal gate and locked the front door. It was hours before the store's regular closing time.
"They hate us Muslims," said Mr. Siraj's mother, Shahina Parveen, steadying herself on her husband's arm. "My son is innocent. Eldawoody is criminal," she said, yelling out the last word.
After they drove off, several men gathered for the afternoon prayer at the mosque next door, the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge. Mr. Eldawoody had often prayed with them.
The imam of the mosque, Sheik Reda Shata, said that he became suspicious after Mr. Eldawoody tried to draw him into an illicit business deal in 2003 — what he now believes was an effort at entrapment. Police officials said this was false. [******]
When Mr. Siraj was arrested, Mr. Eldawoody disappeared from the neighborhood.
The imam said Mr. Siraj should have "cared more for the country he lived in," but did not deserve a lifetime prison term, which he could face at sentencing.
"He is a young man with very little experience in life and he was entrapped, and that's obvious," he said. "The informer tried to entrap me and it didn't work." [******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:12 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/opinion/27sat1.html
May 27, 2006
Editorial
An Immigration Victory
[editorial] [senate’s immigration bill] [a victory despite fact that house conferees have already said nonstarter] [***********]
Americans should be proud of what the United States Senate did this week. It passed an ambitious bill that could lead to the most far-reaching overhaul of immigration laws in the nation's history. It did so after months of thoughtful debate and through a bipartisan compromise, a creature that many thought had vanished from Capitol Hill. The bill has many flaws, but its framework is realistic and humane. At various low points in the debate, this outcome could scarcely have been imagined, but the near-impossible happened on Thursday, by a vote of 62 to 36. [*******]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/opinion/27sat1.html
May 27, 2006
Editorial
An Immigration Victory
[editorial] [senate’s immigration bill] [a victory despite fact that house conferees have already said nonstarter] [***********]
Americans should be proud of what the United States Senate did this week. It passed an ambitious bill that could lead to the most far-reaching overhaul of immigration laws in the nation's history. It did so after months of thoughtful debate and through a bipartisan compromise, a creature that many thought had vanished from Capitol Hill. The bill has many flaws, but its framework is realistic and humane. At various low points in the debate, this outcome could scarcely have been imagined, but the near-impossible happened on Thursday, by a vote of 62 to 36. [*******]
The Senate has given the cause of immigration reform a lot of momentum, which it will need since it is now heading for a brick wall: the House of Representatives.
The House Judiciary Committee chairman, James Sensenbrenner Jr., in the role of head brick, called the Senate bill "a nonstarter" the morning after it passed. Discussing the odds of reconciling the House and Senate legislation into one bill, Mr. Sensenbrenner struck a tone of deathly pessimism. The chambers had once been miles apart, but now they were "moons apart or oceans apart," he said, grasping for words to convey the vastness of his gloom, and the ferocity of his bargaining stance.
But why was he so down?
The House's immigration bill is tough on security. But so is the Senate's. The House wants 700 miles of new fencing on the Mexican border; the Senate wants 370, with another 500 miles of vehicle barriers. That looks like mere miles apart to us.
But when you add the real crux of the debate — the future flow of temporary workers and a path to citizenship for the nation's shadow population of 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants — things do get tricky. [********]
Many polls show that the American public has moved decisively toward favoring a comprehensive immigration solution: tightening security and giving illegal immigrants a chance to seek the burdens and benefits of citizenship. But those in the Sensenbrenner camp are clinging to a fantasy that only a clenched fist will set the nation's immigrant problems right. They have refused to treat illegal immigrants as anything but outlaws, and oppose the Senate bill's citizenship path. They speak with the sullen defeatism of those who have dug into their positions and can't climb out.
It is hard to understand what — besides election-year pandering and xenophobic hostility — motivates their unwillingness to bend toward the flexible, sensible policy that immigrants, their families and their advocates, many business organizations and labor unions, and a majority of the Senate are seeking. [**********]
Is it their fear that the United States as we know it is on the brink of disintegrating under a flood of poor people looking for work? That dread was expressed this month in a much-buzzed-about report from the Heritage Foundation. It warned that the Senate bill would increase the United States population by 103 million in 20 years. [*****] An uproar followed, and led to an amendment that shrank the bill's guest-worker quotas. The foundation then revised its estimate down to 66 million.
But that is still a staggeringly ridiculous sum, considering that Mexico's entire work force is only 43 million. We suppose it is possible that every last worker south of the border could move here, bringing family members and pets, but Mexico and Central America would have to be depopulated to make the conservatives' nightmare come true. To the reality-based community, thankfully, the Senate bill is not a nightmare. [*******]
It is a rough draft of what could end up as a profound achievement. There is a huge gap between the House and the Senate, but it can be bridged, and President Bush should bridge it. The coalition that passed the Senate bill has handed Mr. Bush an opportunity to lead the country to a better place. He should spend every last shred of his political capital and skill to take it.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:11 AM | Permalink

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/05/911_truth_i_dont_think_so.html
Early Warning
William A. Arkin
5/27/2006 8:47 AM
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
9/11 Truth? I Don't Think So
[arkin on 9/11 and homeland security] [****] [use psci 469] [**************]
Every day, I receive a half dozen e-mails and a score or more comments from 9/11 rejectionists. The 9/11 cover-up, according to these correspondents, is that the U.S. government was complicit, even responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. [*******] [stunning]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/05/911_truth_i_dont_think_so.html
Early Warning
William A. Arkin
5/27/2006 8:47 AM
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
9/11 Truth? I Don't Think So
[arkin on 9/11 and homeland security] [****] [use psci 469] [**************]
Every day, I receive a half dozen e-mails and a score or more comments from 9/11 rejectionists. The 9/11 cover-up, according to these correspondents, is that the U.S. government was complicit, even responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. [*******] [stunning]
Like those who often write to tell me that the Pentagon, the FBI and/or the intelligence agencies are following them, that they are mind control victims whose lives have been ruined by directed energy weapons in space or the transmitters implanted in their teeth, I have a special place for this mass of correspondence. It is called delete. [*******]
So, when the headline crossed my desktop on Monday that "Over 70 million American Adults Support New 9/11 Investigation," I admit that I fell for it and clicked on the link. [*************]
The tale is depressing. The 9/11 truth seekers, that self-declared movement who now count in their membership a number of high profile celebrities, turn out to be exactly what I thought they were: predatory and devious, seekers of polarization and not light, abusive of the political system, contemptuous of anything that even resembles the “truth.” [******************]
There was a moment in December, 2004, after President Bush nominated Bernard Kerik to be Secretary of Homeland Security, when I thought the national security paradigm had finally changed in America.
Kerik, to refresh flagging memories, led the New York City Police Department through 9/11.
I always interpreted the White House's selection of Kerik as a need and a desire to neutralize the 9/11 families. I don’t mean a specific organization, nor a specific cause. I mean the mass of civilians who had become a powerful political force. [*****] Lives torn apart by a diabolical terrorist attack, they demanded action, accountability and investigation, speaking out despite the "men working" signs guarding national security making.
Normal citizens found themselves compelled by loss and shock. These were not anti-war activists, nor a partisan special interest working on behalf of a single agenda. In the aftermath of 9/11, they were instantly conferred with respect and given voice: their very presence insured that the events of that day remained specific and devastating, that 9/11 would not become some political football or reality show for the administration or its opponents to abuse. [**********]
But national security is men's work, and by the end of 2004, the men in charge had had enough. By appointing Kerik, I thought the President was specifically someone who could represent a sanctioned view of 9/11. Kerik would turn the citizen's movement into just another constituency, a special interest that needed to be dealt with but one marginalized rather than revered. [*******]
Fast forward to 911Truth.org’s press release Monday. “Although the Bush administration continues to exploit September 11 to justify domestic spying, unprecedented spending and a permanent state of war,” it said, “a new Zogby poll reveals that less than half of the American public trusts the official 9/11 story or believes the attacks were adequately investigated.” [**********]
The poll, conducted from Friday, May 12 through Tuesday, May 16, shows, according to 911truth.org, that:
42% of Americans believe there has indeed been a cover up,
45% think "Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success" [*******] [frightening]
Janice Matthews, executive director of 911truth.org said that there was "mounting evidence for U.S. government involvement in 9/11."
911truth.org went on to quote poll co-author W. David Kubiak as saying that the 9/11 "myth" is "the administration's primary source of political and war-making power."
The organization then offered the view that if more Americans were exposed to "independent 9/11 research," that is, the mass of conspiracy theories that is being exploited by this Star Wars bar of "justice" activists, "about 90 percent would support a new investigation of the events of that fateful day." [*******]
Zogby then put out its own press release warning that 911truth.org was offering its opinions, and not Zogby's as to the "meaning of the poll results." It pointed out that Mr. Kubiak was not a "poll co-author" but a member of the organization. "Zogby International had no role in interpreting the survey results for the sponsor or in producing the news release," Zogby warned. [*******]
Zogby then gave its own narrative summary of the poll:
In the question, “Some people believe that the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks, saying there has been a cover-up. Others say that the 9/11 Commission was a bi-partisan group of honest and well-respected people and that there is no reason they would want to cover-up anything. Who are you more likely to agree with?” [*****] [italics as found]
US government and 9/11 Commission are NOT covering up (48%)
US government and 9/11 Commission are covering up (42%)
No sure (10%)
People are "completely divided" on whether they believe President Bush exploited the 9/11 attacks (44%).
People are "closely divided" on whether there should be another investigation, with a slight plurality (47%) saying the attacks were thoroughly investigated, while 45% feel the attacks should be reinvestigated. [italics as found]
9/11truth.org refers to 9/11 "crimes," of "motives" involved in the attacks, it asks "who profited."
Isn't the answer self-evident? The organization itself exploits the 9/11 families and the American public's confusion.
For a moment, the 9/11 families -- and again I don't mean a specific set of families or any organization -- recognized that 9/11 was the largest governmental failure in history, that if "we" the people were going to have security we were going to have to involve ourselves. 911truth.org might pretend that this is their goal as well, but in fact there is no amount of investigation, no amount of fact, no amount of government action, no amount of intelligence information, no amount of war, in fact no amount of security that is ever going to change anyone's mind here.
These are not typical Americans who just want better security and government and pray for successful prosecution of the war on terrorism. This is a purely partisan political and cynical anti-everything group looking to exploit 9/11, just as they accuse the administration of doing. [*************]
Though 9/11truth.org and the blogosphere continues to rail against the mainstream media for ignoring their issue and their cause, the only gratifying element of the story is the restraint so far shown by the media in ignoring the thinly masked craziness and the Internet hype. [********]
Oh, I know I'm giving them air time, and surely the "news" will cover the "growing" 9/11 rejectionist movement as we get closer to election time, but what is really interesting here is not some cover-up but the enormous disillusionment that exists not just with the war in Iraq but also the fight against terrorism. [**********]
By William M. Arkin | May 26, 2006; 8:19 AM ET | Category: War on Terrorism
Previous: America's New China War Plan |

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:10 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601548.html
An Affront To American Values
By Alberto J. Mora
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A25 [gsave] [bush administration’s implementationt thereof is an affront to america’s ethos] [********] [use psci]
In response to the 3,000 murders on Sept. 11, 2001, our nation went to war. In Afghanistan, our targets were the al-Qaeda perpetrators and the Taliban regime that aided and abetted them. In Iraq, the target was an unstable tyrant who had a history of using chemical weapons and who could be trusted to cheat on and retreat from his international commitments. I supported both engagements as Navy general counsel. I support them still as a private citizen. [*****] I regard each as a prudent and even necessary use of force. The terrorist threat, and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction in reckless hands, can never be underestimated. [*******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601548.html
An Affront To American Values
By Alberto J. Mora
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A25 [gsave] [bush administration’s implementationt thereof is an affront to america’s ethos] [********] [use psci]
In response to the 3,000 murders on Sept. 11, 2001, our nation went to war. In Afghanistan, our targets were the al-Qaeda perpetrators and the Taliban regime that aided and abetted them. In Iraq, the target was an unstable tyrant who had a history of using chemical weapons and who could be trusted to cheat on and retreat from his international commitments. I supported both engagements as Navy general counsel. I support them still as a private citizen. [*****] I regard each as a prudent and even necessary use of force. The terrorist threat, and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction in reckless hands, can never be underestimated. [*******]
And yet, there have been times in our nation's history when, in our quest for security, our fear momentarily overcomes our judgment and our power slips the discipline of the law and our national values. [*******]
One such moment occurred in 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In what will always be regarded as an act of national shame, military authorities rounded up 120,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry and incarcerated them on the presumption of disloyalty. These citizens were stripped of their rights and held in detention camps for the duration of the war. [*****] Many lost businesses and property. When we recall this event -- and it is relevant to our current situation -- we also recall with shame the Supreme Court's abdication of its judicial responsibilities in the notorious Korematsu decision, in which it endorsed the legality of the patently unconstitutional detention.
Korematsu reminds us that when threats and fear converge, our laws and principles can become fragile. They are fragile today. In the summer of 2002, at Guantanamo and elsewhere, U.S. authorities held in detention individuals thought to have information on other impending attacks against the United States. Unless this information was obtained, it was believed, more Americans -- perhaps many more -- would die. In this context, our government issued legal and policy documents providing, in effect, that for some detainees labeled as "unlawful combatants," interrogation methods constituting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment could be applied under the president's constitutional commander in chief authorities. [******]Although there is debate as to the details of how, when and why, we know such cruel treatment was applied at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other locations. We know the treatment may have reached the level of torture in some instances. And there are still questions as to whether these policies were related, if at all, to the deaths of several dozen detainees in custody.
It is astonishing to me, still, that I should be here today addressing the issue of American cruelty -- or that anyone would ever have to. Our forefathers, who permanently defined our civic values, drafted our Constitution inspired by the belief that law could not create but only recognize certain inalienable rights granted by God -- to every person, not just citizens, and not just here but everywhere. Those rights form a shield that protects core human dignity. Because this is so, the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel punishment. The constitutional jurisprudence of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments outlaws cruel treatment that shocks the conscience. The Geneva Conventions forbid the application of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to all captives, as do all of the major human rights treaties adopted and ratified by our country during the last century. [********]
Despite this, there was abuse. Not all were mistreated, but some were. For those mistreated, history will ultimately judge what the precise quantum of abuse inflicted was -- whether it was torture or some lesser cruelty -- and whether it resulted from official commission or omission, [****]or occurred despite every reasonable effort to prevent the abuse. Whatever the ultimate historical judgment, it is established fact that documents justifying and authorizing the abusive treatment of detainees during interrogation were approved and distributed. These authorizations rested on three beliefs: that no law prohibited the application of cruelty; that no law should be adopted that would do so; and that our government could choose to apply the cruelty -- or not -- as a matter of policy depending on the dictates of perceived military necessity.
The fact that we adopted this policy demonstrates that this war has tested more than our nation's ability to defend itself. It has tested our response to our fears and the measure of our courage. It has tested our commitment to our most fundamental values and our constitutional principles. [*********]
In this war, we have come to a crossroads -- much as we did in the events that led to Korematsu : Will we continue to regard the protection and promotion of human dignity as the essence of our national character and purpose, or will we bargain away human and national dignity in return for an additional possible measure of physical security?
Why should we still care about these issues? The Abu Ghraib abuses have been exposed; Justice Department memoranda justifying cruelty and even torture have been ridiculed and rescinded; the authorizations for the application of extreme interrogation techniques have been withdrawn; and, perhaps most critically, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, has been enacted, thanks to the courage and leadership of Sen. John McCain. [**********]
We should care because the issues raised by a policy of cruelty are too fundamental to be left unaddressed, unanswered or ambiguous. We should care because a tolerance of cruelty will corrode our values and our rights and degrade the world in which we live. It will corrupt our heritage, cheapen the valor of the soldiers upon whose past and present sacrifices our freedoms depend, and debase the legacy we will leave to our sons and daughters. We should care because it is intolerable to us that anyone should believe for a second that our nation is tolerant of cruelty. And we should care because each of us knows that this issue has not gone away. [**********]
The writer, who retired as Navy general counsel last year, wrote a memo to Pentagon officials two years before the Abu Ghraib scandal that warned against circumventing international agreements on torture and detainee treatment. This article is excerpted from remarks he made upon receiving a 2006 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:10 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html
May 27, 2006
News Analysis
Abbas Enlists Prisoners to Unsettle Hamas
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Palestine] [hamas govt vs. Fatah president abu mazen] [contenxt: abu mazen had given hamas 10 days to recognice negotiations with Israel] [at end of which he says he’ll present it as referendum to palistinians] [******]
JERUSALEM, May 26 — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, often castigated as weak and reactive, has put the Islamic group Hamas into a neat political bind while associating himself with prisoners jailed for resistance to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. [****]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html
May 27, 2006
News Analysis
Abbas Enlists Prisoners to Unsettle Hamas
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Palestine] [hamas govt vs. Fatah president abu mazen] [contenxt: abu mazen had given hamas 10 days to recognice negotiations with Israel] [at end of which he says he’ll present it as referendum to palistinians] [******]
JERUSALEM, May 26 — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, often castigated as weak and reactive, has put the Islamic group Hamas into a neat political bind while associating himself with prisoners jailed for resistance to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. [****]
Mr. Abbas threatened Thursday that unless Hamas agreed within 10 days to a call by Palestinian prisoners to accept the idea of a Palestinian state alongside an Israel that retreats to its pre-1967 boundaries, he would bring the matter to a referendum. [*****]
Hamas leaders reacted with confusion on Thursday and skepticism on Friday, as two days of talks between Hamas and Fatah on a joint political position ended without result.
Hamas has refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist as a permanent, sovereign state, insisting that all of the former Palestine is waqf — land given by God to Muslims, who can neither cede nor sell it. [*****]
But Mr. Abbas's proposal caught Hamas off guard, and embarrassed it. By siding with the prisoners, who hold great status in Palestinian society, Mr. Abbas is hoping to push Hamas either to alter its position and recognize Israel, thereby reducing the economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, or to confirm his position as the sole negotiator for the Palestinians as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated by Fatah. [*********]
When the prisoners' platform was first published, on May 11, Mr. Abbas immediately endorsed it, saying: "I adopt the position of those heroes," while Hamas spokesmen rejected it as containing an implicit recognition of Israel's right to exist. [barghouti et al. release it on May 11, 2006] [see may 11-12 external] [****]
Hamas faces a political dilemma, suggested Roni Shaked of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot: "Saying 'yes' would be betraying its principles, while saying 'no' would be going against the public," which generally supports a Palestinian state on 1967 lines alongside Israel.
A result, Mr. Shaked suggested, could be a unity government, with Fatah letting Mr. Abbas do the negotiating, which is likely to lead nowhere, while Hamas can "hold on to power and the government, enjoy the benefit of the removal of the siege and the support of the street, while continuing to adhere to fundamentalist ideas."
But the result could also be further confrontation.
On Friday, the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, said in Gaza that a referendum "is not a substitute for the political program of the government that was approved in Parliament." [*******]
In a sermon to worshipers at a Gaza mosque, Mr. Haniya said his government would stick to its program. "We will not recognize the legitimacy of the occupation, we will not renounce resistance and we will not recognize unjust agreements," [*****] he said.
Ziad Dia, a Hamas participant in the talks with Fatah, said in a statement that any document that even implied recognition of "the Zionist entity and ceding an inch of Palestine" would be rejected. That is also likely to be the view of the Hamas political leadership in exile, including central figures like Khaled Meshal and Mousa Abu Marzook. [*******]
The most Hamas has offered thus far is a long-term truce with Israel once it pulls back to 1967 boundaries, including abandoning East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed, and leaves the large settlement blocs in the West Bank, which Israel says it intends to keep, [******] with some kind of territorial compensation, in any final settlement. [****]
Israel has so far called the prisoners' proposal an internal Palestinian matter,[*****] but strongly objects to it as a basis for talks. The proposal does not explicitly recognize Israel's right to exist, insists on the right of return of refugees and their families to their pre-1948 homes and supports "resistance" against Israel in areas occupied in 1967 — in other words, attacks on Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as on the Israeli Army.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has just returned from Washington after telling President Bush of a plan to pull as many as 70,000 Israeli settlers out of the West Bank back to the route of the separation barrier. That would still keep some 8 to 10 percent of the West Bank in Israeli hands and 175,000 Israelis, plus 200,000 more in East Jerusalem, living on occupied territory in settlements that much of the world regards as illegal. Israel also wants to keep some kind of military presence in the Jordan Valley, inside the West Bank next to Jordan. [********]
In its own effort to decrease tensions in Gaza, Hamas on Friday ordered a new militia off the streets and into compounds, where it is less likely to clash with the Fatah-dominated security services. There have been at least a dozen serious clashes and assassination attempts in the last two weeks.
Said Siyam, the Hamas interior minister, had created the group, volunteers from Palestinian militant organizations but dominated by Hamas, ostensibly to help the demoralized police. Mr. Abbas ordered it disbanded, but was ignored.
Dressed in black T-shirts, the men, many with the beards associated with Hamas, seem better trained than the regular forces in their skirmishes. Their clashes raised the risk a larger civil war between Fatah and Hamas, which is trying to consolidate its power in Gaza. [******]
Prime Minister Haniya said the militia would remain and would be "a police force that will wear the uniform of the police." For its part, Israeli officials confirmed that they had agreed to allow more arms and ammunition to be passed to Mr. Abbas and his presidential security forces to support him. The weaponry is likely to come from Egypt. [**********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:09 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast27may27,1,2856297.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Hamas Steps Back in Gaza
The newly deployed militia is withdrawn to bases and barracks after a series of deadly clashes with security men from the rival Fatah faction.
By Laura King
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [Palestine] [hamas govt vs. Fatah president abu mazen] [contenxt: abu mazen had given hamas 10 days to recognice negotiations with Israel] [at end of which he says he’ll present it as referendum to palistinians] [******]

JERUSALEM — Nine days after sending a new militia into the streets of Gaza, the Hamas-led Palestinian government Friday withdrew the force to bases and barracks in an effort to cool down fighting with security men in the rival Fatah faction. [****]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast27may27,1,2856297.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Hamas Steps Back in Gaza
The newly deployed militia is withdrawn to bases and barracks after a series of deadly clashes with security men from the rival Fatah faction.
By Laura King
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [Palestine] [hamas govt vs. Fatah president abu mazen] [contenxt: abu mazen had given hamas 10 days to recognice negotiations with Israel] [at end of which he says he’ll present it as referendum to palistinians] [******]

JERUSALEM — Nine days after sending a new militia into the streets of Gaza, the Hamas-led Palestinian government Friday withdrew the force to bases and barracks in an effort to cool down fighting with security men in the rival Fatah faction. [****]

In the northern Gaza Strip, four Palestinians died in cross-border artillery fire from Israeli forces. Israel has fired thousands of shells into northern Gaza in recent months in an effort to quell rocket fire by Palestinian militants. [*******]

One of the dead was a farmer killed in his field by a shell, but Israeli officials said the other three, all men in their 20s, might have been handling explosives and been killed in an accidental blast.

The pullback of Hamas' 3,000-member police force came after a series of confrontations with Fatah fighters that have left at least 10 people dead over the last two weeks. [****] The militia was deployed in defiance of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, [****] who had vetoed its creation.

Hamas stressed that it was not disbanding the force, popularly dubbed the "black militia" for the color of the T-shirts worn by its members. [*********]

Yousef Zahar, one of the militia's commanders and the brother of Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, told reporters that the force would abandon its prominent positions in downtown Gaza City and "concentrate in particular locations." He added that the militia would "be prepared to rush to the scene when needed to confront chaos." [**********]

The gesture by Hamas came as the group debated how to respond to an initiative by Abbas for a referendum on Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Such a measure would amount to at least implicit recognition of Israel, [********] which Hamas has rejected.

Abbas said if Hamas did not endorse the proposal within 10 days, he would hold a referendum in the next two months. [******]

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, speaking at Friday prayers in a Gaza mosque, suggested that Hamas would not change its doctrine of rejecting Israel's right to exist and ignoring past agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

"We will not recognize the legitimacy of the occupation, we will not renounce [armed] resistance, and we will not recognize unjust agreements," said Haniyeh, a senior leader in the Hamas movement. [*******]

Since taking power in March, the Hamas-led government has been the target of an international aid cutoff that has left the Palestinian Authority close to collapse. [*****] Donors that include the U.S. and European nations demand that Hamas recognize Israel and renounce violence.

Abbas' referendum plan could give Hamas a face-saving means of modifying its position. But it could also set off new and more violent fighting between Hamas and Fatah.

Pollsters have predicted that a referendum in support of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, would win the backing of a solid majority of the Palestinian public. [*******]

Many pollsters and analysts attributed Hamas' victory in January parliamentary elections not to wide support for the militant group's rejection of Israel's right to exist, but to voters' anger over corruption and inefficiency in the long-ruling Fatah party. [****]

Hamas carried out a long campaign of suicide bombings against Israel but halted the attacks when it began running candidates in municipal and territory-wide elections.
Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:08 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/27/AR2006052700199.html
Taliban Leaders Killed, Military Says
Associated Press
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A18 [afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring offensive of Taliban] [************]
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 27 -- A U.S.-led coalition strike on a militant training facility in Afghanistan's borderlands with Pakistan killed five suspected extremists, including senior Taliban leaders, [*****] the U.S. military said Saturday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/27/AR2006052700199.html
Taliban Leaders Killed, Military Says
Associated Press
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A18 [afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring offensive of Taliban] [************]
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 27 -- A U.S.-led coalition strike on a militant training facility in Afghanistan's borderlands with Pakistan killed five suspected extremists, including senior Taliban leaders, [*****] the U.S. military said Saturday.
The military said that "key senior leaders of the Taliban network" were among the five dead in the strike late Friday on the site at the remote Qal'a Sak village in Helmand province. [*******]
No identities or precise numbers of the Taliban leaders killed were released. The military said the Taliban commanders have carried out attacks against coalition and Afghan army forces as well as Afghan officials and civilians. [******]
Nearly a dozen people were killed in fresh clashes Friday between police and Taliban fighters, while a rights group estimated that 34 civilians died this week in a U.S. airstrike on a southern village -- double the official toll. [******]
Abdul Qadar Noorzai, the director of the Kandahar office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said Afghans who had fled their small village of Azizi told him that about 25 family members died in one mud-brick home and that nine others perished in the village's religious school during the airstrike Monday. [********]
Earlier in the week, the governor of Kandahar and President Hamid Karzai said 16 people had died. [******]
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:08 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq27may27,1,4700524.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Iranian Foreign Minister Meets With Iraqi Leaders in Baghdad
Mottaki reaches out to both Shiites and Sunnis, in a show of Tehran's rising influence in its neighbor's politics since the U.S.-led invasion.
By Megan K. Stack
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [since dec 15, 2005, feb 22, 2006 and april 22, 2006] [followup] [politics and violence] [********] [first reported yesterday]
BAGHDAD — Iran's foreign minister arrived Friday in Baghdad for two days of high-profile meetings with Iraqi officials and visits to sacred Shiite cities that underline the Islamic Republic's pervasive new influence on its beleaguered western neighbor.

The competition between the United States and Iran has been one of the most complex, albeit slow-moving and subtle, power struggles in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. And as Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made the rounds Friday, the contrast between the two countries' profiles in Iraq was glaring.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq27may27,1,4700524.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Iranian Foreign Minister Meets With Iraqi Leaders in Baghdad
Mottaki reaches out to both Shiites and Sunnis, in a show of Tehran's rising influence in its neighbor's politics since the U.S.-led invasion.
By Megan K. Stack
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [since dec 15, 2005, feb 22, 2006 and april 22, 2006] [followup] [politics and violence] [********] [first reported yesterday]
BAGHDAD — Iran's foreign minister arrived Friday in Baghdad for two days of high-profile meetings with Iraqi officials and visits to sacred Shiite cities that underline the Islamic Republic's pervasive new influence on its beleaguered western neighbor.

The competition between the United States and Iran has been one of the most complex, albeit slow-moving and subtle, power struggles in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. And as Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made the rounds Friday, the contrast between the two countries' profiles in Iraq was glaring.

Unlike high-ranking U.S. officials, who often slip into Iraq for fleeting, unannounced appearances designed to give a quick boost to military or political morale, Mottaki's schedule was lengthy and well-publicized. He arrived with a large entourage, and displayed little preoccupation with security.

Arriving just days after the formation of post-war Iraq's first full-term government, Mottaki appeared determined to make a show of Iranian influence. Tehran's closest ties are unmistakably with Shiite parties here, but prominent Sunni Arabs also appeared with him at one venue.

"We are here in Iraq sending a … message that stresses unity of Muslims and says there is no reason for disagreements between the sons of the nation," said Mottaki, the highest-ranking Iranian official to visit Iraq.

Mottaki's schedule Friday included an intense a round of talks and appearances with top political and religious leaders. Today, he is scheduled to visit the Shiite sacred cities of Najaf and Karbala.

The foreign minister used the backdrop of the war-ravaged country in part to reject talks with the U.S. on Iraq.

Iranian officials first decided to meet with the Americans, but changed their minds, Mottaki said.

"Unfortunately, the American side tried to use this decision as propaganda to raise some other issues," said Mottaki, who spoke with reporters in English shortly after landing in Baghdad. "They tried to create a negative atmosphere and that's why the decision which was taken for the time being is suspended."

He taunted the U.S. about the possibility of an attack on Iran for pursuing its nuclear program.

"We do not think that America is now in a position to create a new crisis for the American taxpayers," Mottaki said. "The Americans know that in previous crises which they created, they were the first ones to be defeated."

The foreign minister also made a point of reaffirming his country's right to develop nuclear technology.

"The right of enriching uranium is a normal right of Iran," Mottaki said. "It doesn't need an agreement from any particular country."

Standing at his side, his Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari gave a carefully worded message of support for Iran's nuclear program. Although Zebari insisted that the nuclear research should not be used to make a bomb, his statement appeared to mark a serious cleavage with the U.S. on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The United States believes Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, and has been trying to win international support to shut down the research through diplomacy.

"We respect and confirm the right of the Islamic Republic and the right of any other state to have scientific and technological abilities to research in the field of nuclear energy for peaceful uses," Zebari told reporters in Baghdad. "We don't want any of our neighbors to have weapons of mass destruction."

During Hussein's rule, Iraq and Iran were bitter enemies: One a secular, Sunni Arab-ruled nation, the other a Shiite theocracy founded on a youth-driven revolution. They fought a fierce war during the 1980s.

Now both the United States and Iran have an enormous stake in Iraq's stability and have considerable influence on Baghdad's politics.

The U.S.-led invasion, which helped empower long-oppressed Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, has allowed the Islamic Republic to gain unprecedented sway by working through allies in the two communities.

Iraq's new prime minister, Nouri Maliki, spent time in Tehran and heads the Iranian-backed Islamic Dawa Party. After months of U.S. prodding behind the scenes, Maliki was chosen as premier and managed to cobble together a unity government last weekend that shares power among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

But the ultra-sensitive Interior and Defense ministerial positions remain empty. Unable to find candidates acceptable to all parties, Maliki left the posts vacant when he presented his Cabinet for parliament's approval. With the closed-door talks grinding on, Mottaki met with Zebari and Maliki. He also visited the parliament.

Despite his country's close ties to Iraq's Shiites, Mottaki seemed intent on encouraging unity among the sects. Sunni Arab leaders reciprocated, appearing with Mottaki for reporters at the home of prominent Shiite leader Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Sunni leader Adnan Dulaimi welcomed Mottaki to what he called the Iranian official's "second country."

"We hope that Iraq will not be a battlefield for war between the West and Iran," Dulaimi said.

Meanwhile, bloodshed continued throughout Iraq. At least 36 people were killed, five corpses bearing signs of torture were found and scores of civilians were wounded in assassinations and bombings.

A car bomb exploded at a used furniture market in Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 31. The bomb went off hours before midday prayers, a time when many Iraqis are shopping.

Later, a car bomb in a popular market in western Baghdad killed nine people.

And in a growing trend of violence against athletes, the coach and two top-seeded players on Iraq's national tennis team were followed from a sports club after practice this week and assassinated, a tennis union official said Friday.

Coach Hussein Ahmed Rasheed, top player Nassir Ali Hatim, 28, and Wisam Adil Awda, 24, left together after training at Baghdad's Hunting Club. Clad in track suits, the three men drove off through the streets of south Baghdad.

When they stopped to buy soft drinks, gunmen surrounded them and opened fire.

"They were killed, I think, just because they were athletes. Because as we know them, they are friendly with all the people, they have no enmity against anyone," said Manhal Kubba, a spokesman with the Iraqi tennis union. "They were always busy with the game they loved."

Gunmen stormed a wedding in northeast Baghdad on Thursday, dragged the groom and four relatives out of the party and disappeared. Their bodies were found Friday morning, dumped on a farm. Their throats had been slashed.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:07 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601842.html
Iraq Backs Iran On Nuclear Goal
Foreign Minister Stresses Peaceful Use
By Nelson Hernandez and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A17 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [since dec 15, 2005, feb 22, 2006 and april 22, 2006] [followup] [politics and violence] [********] [first reported yesterday]
BAGHDAD, May 26 -- Iraq's foreign minister said Friday that Iran had the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses but that he hoped for a diplomatic solution to a crisis that has strained Iran's relations with the United States. [****]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601842.html
Iraq Backs Iran On Nuclear Goal
Foreign Minister Stresses Peaceful Use
By Nelson Hernandez and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 27, 2006; A17 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [since dec 15, 2005, feb 22, 2006 and april 22, 2006] [followup] [politics and violence] [********] [first reported yesterday]
BAGHDAD, May 26 -- Iraq's foreign minister said Friday that Iran had the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses but that he hoped for a diplomatic solution to a crisis that has strained Iran's relations with the United States. [****]
"We think there is a principle, which is that the Islamic Republic of Iran and other countries have the right to possess nuclear technology if it is for peaceful purposes," Hoshyar Zebari,[****] the Iraqi foreign minister, said at a televised news conference in Baghdad with his visiting Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki.
At the same news conference, Mottaki said Iran had changed its stance on holding direct talks with the United States on the Iraq situation. “The American side tried to use this decision as propaganda, and they raised some other issues,” he said. “They tried to create a negative atmosphere, and that’s why the decision which was taken is suspended for the time being.” [*****]
While trying to assuage fears that the United States and Iran are headed for war, Mottaki renewed Iranian vows that force would be met with force.[****]
"The risk of a confrontation is minimal," Mottaki said, "but in the event that Americans attack Iran from anywhere, Iran will respond by attacking them in the place that we were attacked from."
A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad declined to comment on the foreign ministers' statements.
The government of Iran, a Shiite Muslim theocracy on Iraq's eastern border, has said it is developing nuclear power for electricity. The U.S. government opposes the move on the grounds that Iran's hard-line leaders could use the technology to develop atomic weapons. [*****]
Zebari's statement was a surprising show of independence from the United States, the main backer of the newly formed Iraqi government. The United States has roughly 133,000 troops in Iraq and has poured more than $20 billion into reconstruction of the country's decrepit infrastructure. [*****] [tail wagging the us dog]
Nevertheless, the Iraqi government, dominated by a Shiite majority, also has close ties to Iran despite fighting a war with that country from 1980 to 1988 that left an estimated 1 million people dead. Many of Iraq's Shiite leaders spent time in exile in Iran during President Saddam Hussein's reign, returning to Iraq only after a U.S.-led coalition toppled Hussein's government in 2003.
There are, however, fissures in Iraq's support for Iran. [****]Secular Iraqis fear the creation of an Iranian-style theocracy, and Iraqi nationalists bitterly cite the ancient rivalry and the more recent war with their Persian neighbor. The Sunni Arab minority is particularly fearful of Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs and blames Iran for supporting attacks on Sunnis.
Such fighting between Shiites and Sunnis erupts almost daily in Iraq. At least 25 people were killed across the country in bombings and shootings Friday, including a car bombing that killed at least 10 people in eastern Baghdad. [*****]
The bomb, which exploded in a public market in the Nahdha district of the capital where furniture and household goods are sold, also wounded at least 30 people, police Capt. Nameer Hanoon of the Baghdad police command said.
A roadside bomb exploded near the motorcade of Ahmed Chalabi, a former deputy prime minister who was once a close U.S. ally. No one in his convoy was injured, Lt. Thulfiaqr Saif Aldin said, but three civilian bystanders were injured.
In Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, armed men wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped nine civilians from their houses late Thursday night, police and witnesses said.
Ali al-Khayam, the spokesman of the Joint Coordination Center in Diyala province, said four of the captives were security guards at the Diyala TV network, [****]a provincial television and radio station. The fifth was an interpreter for U.S. forces in the province, while the other four were government employees.
Khayam said all of the captives were Sunnis. [*****]
Armed men in two cars killed the coach of Iraq's national tennis team and two of his players when their car was attacked in western Baghdad, said Col. Sami Hassan, an Interior Ministry spokesman. Hassan said the men were probably followed after they finished training at a club. It was not clear why they were killed, but Muslim insurgent groups have threatened people for wearing workout clothes, and Iraqis associated with the government are frequently targeted in attacks.
The attack was the second on an Iraqi national sports team this month. The government is still trying to secure the release of 15 members of a martial arts squad who were kidnapped on the road between Fallujah and Ramadi last week.
Special correspondents Naseer Nouri, Salih Saif Aldin and Saad al-Izzi in Baghdad and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:06 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lebanon27may27,1,5089114.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Palestinian Militants Slain in Lebanon
From Reuters
May 27, 2006 [Lebanon] [middle east] [Islamic jihadi] [first reported yesterday] [followup] [use psci 469] [************]

SIDON, Lebanon — A car bomb killed a senior Islamic Jihad official and his brother Friday in southern Lebanon, and Israel denied the Palestinian militant group's charge that it was responsible.[****]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lebanon27may27,1,5089114.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Palestinian Militants Slain in Lebanon
From Reuters
May 27, 2006 [Lebanon] [middle east] [Islamic jihadi] [first reported yesterday] [followup] [use psci 469] [************]

SIDON, Lebanon — A car bomb killed a senior Islamic Jihad official and his brother Friday in southern Lebanon, and Israel denied the Palestinian militant group's charge that it was responsible.[****]

The bomb was planted in a parked car and exploded as Mahmoud Majzoub, known as Abu Hamza, and his brother Nidal, also an Islamic Jihad member, [*****] approached, security sources said. The blast reduced the vehicle to a charred, twisted mass of metal and showered the area with debris.

Nidal Majzoub was killed instantly, and Mahmoud died later during surgery, Islamic Jihad officials said.

"This is an Israeli attack and a dangerous escalation," Islamic Jihad official Ali Abu Shahine said in Beirut. [*********]

Islamic Jihad, the only main Palestinian faction to shun a 15-month-old truce with Israel, vowed revenge.

Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for the group's armed wing in the Gaza Strip, said there would be no retaliation outside Israel and the Palestinian territories, but warned of "violent and painful reactions inside the depth of the Zionist entity."

Islamic Jihad, dedicated to Israel's destruction, has killed more than 30 people in suicide bombings inside the Jewish state since the truce began, including an attack that left 11 people dead in Tel Aviv on April 17.

An Israeli government source said the Jewish state had "nothing to do" with Friday's attack.

Hamas, which won Palestinian elections and now controls the government, condemned the attack, which it also blamed on Israel.

"We consider this Zionist crime a dangerous escalation through the enemy's attempt to widen the circle of confrontation and avert the gaze from the crimes it continues to commit in the Palestinian territories," Hamas said in a statement. [*********]

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora indirectly blamed Israel for the attack, saying it was not interested in a calm Lebanon. [********]

Several other Palestinian militants and officials of Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group have been killed in Lebanon in recent years in attacks their organizations have blamed on Israel.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:05 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-beslan27may27,1,7252931.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Beslan Attacker Gets Life in Jail
The sentence for the defendant charged in the 2004 school siege angers some victims' relatives, who wanted him to be executed.
By David Holley
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [Russia] [former ussr] [beslan] [September 2004] [folloupw] [use psci 469 ][*******] [ditto]
MOSCOW — The only attacker known to have survived the 2004 Beslan school siege, which ended with the deaths of 331 hostages, was convicted of murder Friday and sentenced to life imprisonment. The sentence triggered anger among some victims' relatives who had demanded that the defendant be executed, but others supported the decision.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-beslan27may27,1,7252931.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Beslan Attacker Gets Life in Jail
The sentence for the defendant charged in the 2004 school siege angers some victims' relatives, who wanted him to be executed.
By David Holley
Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006 [Russia] [former ussr] [beslan] [September 2004] [folloupw] [use psci 469 ][*******] [ditto]
MOSCOW — The only attacker known to have survived the 2004 Beslan school siege, which ended with the deaths of 331 hostages, was convicted of murder Friday and sentenced to life imprisonment. The sentence triggered anger among some victims' relatives who had demanded that the defendant be executed, but others supported the decision.

A judge reading the verdict of the North Ossetian Supreme Court first pronounced a death sentence on the defendant, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, a Chechen carpenter in his mid-20s, who stood somberly in a glass and metal cage in the courtroom. But the judge immediately commuted the sentence to life imprisonment in line with a 10-year-old ban on the death penalty in Russia.

A top Chechen separatist guerrilla leader, Shamil Basayev, has claimed responsibility for the school takeover, in which a group of mainly Chechen and Ingush gunmen held more than 1,000 children, teachers and parents in a gymnasium for three days.

The standoff ended when a massive series of explosions and gunfire erupted. At least 371 people died, including hostages, 31 of the attackers and elite special-forces soldiers.

The verdict prompted displays of hostility toward Kulayev in the courtroom. Russian television news showed a woman trying to attack him as he was led away. Outside, victims' relatives who held differing views about the verdict scuffled angrily. An elderly woman struck Ella Kesayeva, a victims group leader opposed to the death penalty, on the face.

"The punishment should fit the crime," Aneta Gadzhiyeva, a leader of another victims group, the Mothers of Beslan Committee, said on state-run Channel One television. "Kulayev should be executed, because a life sentence gives him the chance to enjoy at least those small pleasures, which he will have, after all, during life in prison."

Kesayeva, of the Voice of Beslan group, has contended that Kulayev may provide more information about the incident if he stays alive, and that the opportunity would be lost if he were executed.

The Caucasus republic of Chechnya exercised self-rule after defeating Russian troops in a 1994-96 war, but Russian forces returned in 1999 and have fought guerrillas there since. The gunmen who took over the school had demanded that Moscow pull its troops out of Chechnya.

Many of the victims' relatives say authorities mishandled the crisis. They blame local police for failing to prevent the attack and federal security forces for allegedly botching the rescue effort.

A series of investigations has failed to establish conclusively how the final, chaotic clash began, with some critics charging that authorities initiated the battle and then used too much firepower while hostages were in the school.

"We want to see officials held accountable," Fatima Dudiyeva, a former hostage who was in the courtroom Friday, said from Beslan in a telephone interview. "But they can't investigate this case objectively, because high-placed people are involved. Not average people. Not Kulayevs."

Dudiyeva described the trial as a farce meant not to reveal the truth but to hide it.

"They did it the way they wanted to. This investigation can be crossed out and thrown in the trash," she said. "We will insist that there be further investigation."

Kulayev has claimed innocence. He testified that he was kidnapped by the rebels and taken to the school against his will, and that he fled from the building without firing a shot after the explosions and gunfire began.

But the court said Kulayev had detonated a bomb and shot children as they tried to escape. It found him guilty on all charges.

In response to the judge's question, "Is the verdict clear to you?" Kulayev said, "It's clear. All of this is made-up stories."

Kulayev's lawyer Albert Pliyev said on NTV that he would appeal the verdict. "Many of the crimes he was charged with were not corroborated objectively and not proved," Pliyev said.

Russia imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 1996, and three years later the Constitutional Court formally barred it. That background led some observers to question the North Ossetian court's decision to formally impose a death sentence before commuting it.

"I was surprised both that the prosecutor demanded the death sentence and that the wording of the court verdict referred to the death sentence, because this is unconstitutional, this has been forbidden by the Constitutional Court," Marat Baglai, a former Constitutional Court chairman, told NTV.

But Mikhail Barschevsky, the federal government's representative at the nation's three highest courts, told NTV that the verdict did "not contradict the criminal procedural code."

"I'd like to say that I completely understand why the judge did this," Barschevsky said. "From a purely human standpoint, when he's observed such tragedies, such witness testimony, when the mothers of Beslan are before him, of course he probably could not help but express his civic position."
Natasha Yefimova of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:05 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/world/europe/27beslan.html
May 27, 2006
Russia Gives Life Sentence to Man Convicted in School Siege
By C. J. CHIVERS [Russia] [former ussr] [beslan] [September 2004] [folloupw] [use psci 469 ][*******]
MOSCOW, May 26 — A Russian court on Friday sentenced a terrorist who participated in the siege of a public school in 2004 to life imprisonment, pointedly sparing the man execution only because of a moratorium on capital punishment in Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/world/europe/27beslan.html
May 27, 2006
Russia Gives Life Sentence to Man Convicted in School Siege
By C. J. CHIVERS [Russia] [former ussr] [beslan] [September 2004] [folloupw] [use psci 469 ][*******]
MOSCOW, May 26 — A Russian court on Friday sentenced a terrorist who participated in the siege of a public school in 2004 to life imprisonment, pointedly sparing the man execution only because of a moratorium on capital punishment in Russia.
The convicted man, Nurpashi Kulayev, a young Chechen carpenter, was caught during a final battle at School No. 1 in Beslan, in North Ossetia, near the Chechnya border. The 331 civilians and Russian servicemen who died in the siege included 186 children.
Mr. Kulayev was charged with several crimes, including terrorism and murder. He was first shown on Russian national television two days after the battle, looking overwhelmed and afraid as masked law enforcement officers handled him. [******]
The trial was emotionally charged and closely watched.
Survivors and bereaved family members followed its every move for details of the siege's inner workings, insights about the shortfalls of Russia's terrorism response and what many regard as whitewashes in official investigations. [****] Political analysts also looked for signs of Russia's commitment to its moratorium on the death penalty, which has been Kremlin policy since 1996.
Prosecutors had called for the death penalty to be imposed, saying Mr. Kulayev's role in the horrors of Beslan, especially crimes against children, warranted an exception. [*****]
Many bereaved families supported that call. Other former hostages and families who lost relatives, while agreeing that Mr. Kulayev was guilty, said he should not be executed. They said, among other things, that he had been a minor player in the siege, that capital punishment would debase the government and that secrets about the siege held by Mr. Kulayev would be lost with his death.
The judge, Tamurlan Aguzarov, largely sidestepped these issues in his verdict, incorporating the positions of both the prosecutor and the government into the sentence.
He said Mr. Kulayev deserved to die, but "because the Russian government has introduced a moratorium on carrying out death sentences, I sentence him to life imprisonment," according to wire service reports. [******]
After the sentence was handed down, several bereaved families tried to storm the cage where Mr. Kulayev was held. They were kept back by police officers. [******]
Emma Betrozova, whose husband was shot dead in the first minutes of the siege and whose two sons died in the last battle, said after the sentence that the judge had made the right decision. Mr. Kulayev, she said by telephone, could be valuable later.
"There is a hope that given different leadership in the prosecutor's office, we will be able to start a new investigation, and this terrorist, Kulayev, who survived, he will be useful as a witness," she said.
Many survivors have treated the trial as both fascination and distraction from what they regard as official culpability in the loss of life. Ms. Betrozova's comments reflected the widespread disillusionment in Beslan with Russia's handling of the siege, and with the official investigations that have followed. [*******]
Survivors accuse Russia of having failed to conduct effective or sincere negotiations with the terrorists, who, among other demands, had sought the withdrawal of Russian forces from nearby Chechnya.
They also say that official lies began to circulate from the first hours of the siege, and that police and military incompetence and the use of indiscriminate and heavy weapons, including tanks, killed many hostages unnecessarily.
Mr. Kulayev, who has a young daughter, had followed a strange and ultimately unsuccessful defense. First, he publicly admitted to being part of the armed group that seized the school, but insisted he had joined the group only days before the siege and had not known its plans.
He also insisted he had not killed anyone during the 52 hours that hostages were held, or in the last battle with Russian soldiers and police. [*******]
In his closing remarks before the judge began deliberating his fate, Mr. Kulayev added a new version, saying he had confessed only after being beaten for months.
The judge, and the families, were unconvinced. Although the case was complicated because few of the hostages who testified against him recalled seeing him, Mr. Kulayev was found guilty of all counts. [********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:04 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs27.3may27,1,1314394.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / EGYPT
Suspect in Fatal Attacks on Tourists Surrenders
From Times Wire Reports
May 27, 2006 [Egypt] [april’s attacks] [followup on perps] [********] [use psci 469]

An Islamic militant suspected of helping plot a string of bomb attacks that killed more than 120 people at Sinai tourist resorts turned himself in to police, [****] security officials said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs27.3may27,1,1314394.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / EGYPT
Suspect in Fatal Attacks on Tourists Surrenders
From Times Wire Reports
May 27, 2006 [Egypt] [april’s attacks] [followup on perps] [********] [use psci 469]

An Islamic militant suspected of helping plot a string of bomb attacks that killed more than 120 people at Sinai tourist resorts turned himself in to police, [****] security officials said.

Mohammed Shenoub, 26, also known as Abu Jihad, surrendered in the town of Arish, said Brig. Gen. Adel Fawzi, of the North Sinai police.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:03 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig26may26,1,301513.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Senate Passes Sweeping Bill on Immigration
Stage is set for a clash with the House, which opposes legalization and stresses enforcement.
By Nicole Gaouette
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [against odds] [Senate actually produced a immigration reform bill] [compromise] [however, it must go to conference with House bill which is diametrically opposed to most of Seante version] [likely stalemate ahead] [but bravo for senate for doing it during an election year] [*********] [ditto] [note: good info box at end]

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping bill that would upgrade border security and offer a path to citizenship to most illegal immigrants in the U.S., setting up a major — and probably bitter — confrontation over revamping immigration policy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig26may26,1,301513.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Senate Passes Sweeping Bill on Immigration
Stage is set for a clash with the House, which opposes legalization and stresses enforcement.
By Nicole Gaouette
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [against odds] [Senate actually produced a immigration reform bill] [compromise] [however, it must go to conference with House bill which is diametrically opposed to most of Seante version] [likely stalemate ahead] [but bravo for senate for doing it during an election year] [*********] [ditto] [note: good info box at end]

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping bill that would upgrade border security and offer a path to citizenship to most illegal immigrants in the U.S., setting up a major — and probably bitter — confrontation over revamping immigration policy.

The bill passed 62 to 36, moving Congress a significant step closer to the first overhaul of immigration law since 1986.

But key differences between the Senate measure and a bill the House passed late last year mean that the legislation's final contours — if an agreement can even be reached — remain uncertain.

The effort to reach a compromise, strongly endorsed by President Bush, now rests with House and Senate negotiators who will conduct their talks behind closed doors.

Staunch opposition to the Senate bill from House conservatives is a key hurdle to an accord. They view any provisions that would permit illegal immigrants to become citizens as a reward for criminal activity.

Still, passage of the Senate bill represents a victory for Bush, who began a push for a broad overhaul of immigration policy with a speech in January 2004. His proposals sparked an extended debate about border security, the role of immigrants in American life and how best to deal with the estimated 12 million people who are in the country illegally.

For many lawmakers, the challenge in rewriting immigration laws has been to find a middle ground between recognizing the nation's heritage as a nation of immigrants and planning for its future in an uncertain age of terrorism.

Resolving the immigration issue in a comprehensive way "is a national security issue," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the leaders of the bipartisan coalition that shepherded the Senate bill to passage.

Referring to the path to citizenship that the bill would create for illegal immigrants, McCain said: "Some Americans believe we must find all these millions, round them up and send them back. I don't know how you do that. I don't know why you would want to."

But some conservative senators roundly condemned the legalization provisions.

"This bill is going to make the problem of illegal immigrants much worse," said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), arguing that the legalization measures would simply draw more people across the border.

Like many of the Senate bill's opponents, Vitter said Congress needed to produce a measure that dealt solely with beefed-up security at the nation's borders and stricter enforcement of immigration law in the workplace.

The House bill adheres to that course.

The Senate roll call on its bill illustrated the GOP divide on the issue: 23 Republicans, 38 Democrats and one independent voted for the legislation; 32 Republicans and four Democrats opposed it.

California's senators, Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, supported the bill.

Immediately after the vote, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) offered his odds on the prospects for a compromise during the negotiations ahead.

"I want to warn people, it is a 50-50 proposition to get a bill on the president's desk," he said. "I would like to see us improve those odds, and I think we will."

As Senate passage neared this week, House Republican leaders signaled a willingness to consider a guest worker program. But they continued to draw the line at legalization measures.

Despite that position, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) insisted he was optimistic a compromise could be reached — with the help of Bush.

"I believe we can do it," he said. "The time has come for very active participation by the president."

A statement by Bush on Thursday night underscored his backing for the broader Senate approach rather than the narrower House version.

"An effective immigration reform bill will protect our borders, hold employers to account for the workers they hire, create a temporary worker program … address the issue of the millions of illegal immigrants already in our country and honor America's great tradition of the melting pot," he said.

The Senate legislation resembles the outline that Bush laid out in his 2004 speech.

Border security would get a boost, with 14,000 Border Patrol agents added to the existing 11,300 over the next five years. Extra detention facilities would be built to hold the illegal immigrants caught at the border. And the bill authorizes the construction of 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

Employers would have to start using an electronic verification system within 18 months to ensure that all new hires are legal. Companies that hired illegal workers would be fined up to $20,000, and repeat offenders would draw prison terms.

In its most controversial section, the bill creates a three-tiered system to determine the future status of illegal immigrants.

Those who arrived in the U.S. in the last two years would be required to leave. Those in the country more than two years but less than five years would have to leave the country and get a work visa before reentering, after which they could work toward legal status.

Those in the U.S. longer than five years could stay and eventually apply for permanent legal status, a step toward citizenship, as long as they paid back taxes and fines of at least $3,250, continued working, and learned English and U.S. civics.

A guest worker program would allow foreign workers to enter the country in the future and provide a way for them to gain permanent legal status.

The bill also declares English the national language.

In contrast, the House bill has no provisions for a guest worker program or for accommodating illegal immigrants. Instead, it would criminalize illegal presence in the U.S., a status that is now a civil offense.

It also provides for a 700-mile barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border and would require that employers verify the status of all employees within six years.

It is not clear how quickly the House and Senate will begin talks over a joint bill.

Mexican President Vicente Fox, visiting Sacramento, praised the Senate's approval of the immigration bill as a "monumental step forward."

"It is a moment that millions of families have been hoping for; this is the moment that millions of people have been working for," Fox said in a speech to the California Legislature.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said that by late Thursday, he and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would finish appointing senators to negotiate with House members in what is known as a conference committee. Frist added that he would urge the House to appoint negotiators "as soon as possible."

But at least some House Republicans argue that it might be better not to negotiate at all.

"There might be some strategic advantage in not calling the conference and just asking the Senate to pass the House bill as written," said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). "My fear is that the bills are so far apart that it may dissolve into chaos if conference is called."

Other House Republicans say the party will look incompetent if Congress doesn't send a bill to the president before November's midterm elections.

"We are better off with any bill than no bill," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). "This is our best shot, and for both political and strategic reasons, we're best off getting this done."

"The wrath of the voters will be upon" the GOP majorities in the House and Senate if no bill is produced, added Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). "I think you have to have something."

Scores of House Republicans, however, have stressed that they cannot support any form of legalization for those in the country illegally.

"I'm not opposed to a guest worker status. I'm opposed to illegals becoming legal," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). "I think it's better to have no bill than a bad bill," which he described as "any bill that has legalization."

Some Senate conservatives view negotiations with the House as a chance to correct the flaws they see in the bill. These senators oppose the legalization measures, and some prefer the House approach of addressing only security and enforcement issues.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who will take part in the conference talks, expressed conservatives' hopes for the closed-door sessions.

"We'll have the ability to craft something, in effect, from scratch," he said.

But in another example of the complicated task that faces the negotiators, a proposed compromise that lacks legalization provisions probably would spur opposition from most Senate Democrats and doom its chances in that chamber.

Times staff writers Maura Reynolds in Washington and Peter Nicholas in Sacramento contributed to this report.
(INFOBOX BELOW)
How the bills stack up
There are key differences between the Senate immigration bill passed Thursday and the House bill passed in December.
Issue: Legalization of undocumented immigrants
Senate bill: Allows illegal immigrants who have been in the country five years or more to remain, continue working and eventually become legal permanent residents and citizens after paying back taxes, paying at least $3,250 in fines and fees, and learning English.
Requires illegal immigrants in the U.S. more than two but less than five years to go to a point of entry at the border and file an application to return.
Requires those in the country less than two years to leave.
House bill: Contains no provisions providing a path to legal residency or citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Makes illegal presence in the country a felony.
Issue: Temporary worker program
Senate bill: Creates a special guest worker program for an estimated 1.5 million farm workers, who could also earn legal permanent residency.
House bill: Contains no new temporary guest worker program.
*
Issue: Enforcement
Senate bill: Orders deportation of illegal immigrants convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors, no matter how long they have been in the U.S.
Authorizes hiring an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents this year, for a total of 3,000 new agents in 2006.
Authorizes more detention facilities for apprehended illegal immigrants.
House bill: Makes it a felony to assist, encourage, direct or induce a person to enter or attempt to enter or remain in the United States illegally.
Establishes mandatory sentences for smuggling illegal immigrants and for reentering the U.S. illegally after deportation.
Makes a drunk driving conviction a deportable offense.
*
Issue: Employer sanctions
Senate bill: Requires employers and subcontractors to use an electronic system within 18 months to verify that new hires are legal.
Increases maximum fines on employers for hiring illegal workers to $20,000 for each worker and imposes jail time for repeat offenders.
House bill: Increases maximum fines for employers of illegal workers from the current $10,000 to $40,000 per violation and establishes prison sentences of up to 30 years for repeat offenders.
Beginning in six years, all employers would have to use a database to verify Social Security numbers of all employees.
*
Issue: Fences
Senate bill: Authorizes 370 miles of new triple-layered fencing plus 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the 2,000-mile-long Mexico border. Requires building two-layer fences along 700 miles of the Mexico border.
Issue: Other
Senate bill: Declares English the national language.
Source: Associated Press
Next steps
The Senate and House have passed immigration bills with key differences, so a committee with members from each chamber is expected to try to reach a compromise.
• House and Senate negotiators may hold public sessions, but the real work is usually conducted behind closed doors.
• Talks could begin shortly and wrap up quickly, or they could last for months.
• An unusually large Senate contingent of 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats is expected, probably led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
• The makeup of the House team is not yet known, though it is expected to be led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.).
• If negotiators fail to reconcile their differences, the legislation dies.
• A compromise would go to the floor of both houses for a vote. Usually, but not always, the compromise is approved and sent to the president, whose signature makes it law.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:51 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501548.html
Senate Approves Immigration Bill
Measure Faces Tough House Opposition
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; A01 [against odds] [Senate actually produced a immigration reform bill] [compromise] [however, it must go to conference with House bill which is diametrically opposed to most of Seante version] [likely stalemate ahead] [but bravo for senate for doing it during an election year] [*********]
The Senate yesterday approved legislation that would trigger the biggest changes to U.S. immigration policy in decades, by strengthening border security, establishing a guest-worker program, and providing the means for millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country and possibly become citizens.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501548.html
Senate Approves Immigration Bill
Measure Faces Tough House Opposition
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; A01 [against odds] [Senate actually produced a immigration reform bill] [compromise] [however, it must go to conference with House bill which is diametrically opposed to most of Seante version] [likely stalemate ahead] [but bravo for senate for doing it during an election year] [*********]
The Senate yesterday approved legislation that would trigger the biggest changes to U.S. immigration policy in decades, by strengthening border security, establishing a guest-worker program, and providing the means for millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country and possibly become citizens.
The product of a tenuous bipartisan coalition that faced tough conservative opposition, the measure calls for 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along the Mexican border, a complicated three-tiered system for determining who can stay and who must leave the country, and more jail cells for those awaiting deportation. It would declare English the country's national language, a gesture that many advocates found insulting but accepted in hopes of helping millions of undocumented workers achieve legal status.
But even as the Senate approved the bill 62 to 36, [*********]the measure’s backers acknowledged that it faces formidable opposition in the House, whose political dynamics differ markedly from the Senate’s. Numerous House members insist that Congress do nothing about legalizing immigrants until illegal border crossings are dramatically reduced.
Democrats and Republicans alike said a House-Senate accord will be nearly impossible without the vigorous involvement of President Bush, who favors an approach similar to the Senate’s. The White House has already begun lobbying efforts, but it faces resistance from more than 200 House Republicans seeking reelection this fall, many in districts where the sentiment against illegal immigrants runs high.
“This is the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a leader of the Senate effort, said of the bill’s passage. “It is a comprehensive and realistic attempt to solve the real-world problems that have festered for too long in our broken immigration system.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Kennedy’s partner in the effort, said more than 11 million illegal immigrants “harvest our crops, tend our gardens, work in our restaurants and clean our houses” and added: “Some Americans believe we must find all these millions, round them up and send them back to the countries they came from. I don’t know how you do that. And I don’t know why you would want to.” [**********]
But opponents called the bill fundamentally flawed and predicted that it will be completely rewritten by a House-Senate conference committee, which will try next month to craft a compromise version acceptable to both chambers.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) called the measure "a bad bill" that "puts more emphasis on amnesty than on border security."
The House in December passed a bill that dealt only with border and workplace enforcement. It would make illegal presence in the country a felony.
After mass demonstrations by immigrants in several cities and complaints by Roman Catholic officials -- plus Bush's recent televised speech calling for a comprehensive approach that would include pathways to legal status for undocumented aliens -- House GOP leaders signaled a willingness to modify their bill. But they said the Senate bill goes too far and would amount to "amnesty," a term that many dispute, for millions of foreigners who broke the law and jumped ahead of would-be immigrants waiting for legal entry.
A possible compromise, some lawmakers said, might start with tighter border security and then -- if there is measurable evidence the crackdown is working -- proceed to a mechanism for some illegal immigrants to achieve legal status. But lawmakers said it is far from clear whether such a plan would appeal to enough House Republicans, and enough Senate Democrats, to win passage in either chamber.
Further complicating matters is Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's policy of allowing votes on major issues only if most of the House's 231 Republicans back them. Theoretically, a compromise immigration bill could be supported by most of the House's Democrats and nearly half of its Republicans -- making up a clear majority in the 435-seat chamber -- only to be thwarted by Hastert's dictum.
If the Senate had embraced the same policy, the bill would have died. Twenty-three Republicans, 38 Democrats and one independent voted for the immigration bill; 32 Republicans and four Democrats voted against it. Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) voted for the bill. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) voted against it. [***********]
The Senate bill calls for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents and thousands of National Guard troops to support them, plus 500 miles of vehicle barriers on the Mexican border. Several such provisions, added during two weeks of debate, were designed to appease Senate conservatives who threatened to kill the entire bill. But senators repeatedly rejected conservatives' bids to strip or weaken the provisions allowing legal status for undocumented immigrants. [red meat toughness] [********]
The Senate bill would provide 200,000 new temporary guest-worker visas a year, while creating a separate guest-worker program for immigrant farm laborers. Its key compromise would divide the nation's estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants into three groups. [practical offset] [*****]
Those here five years or longer would be allowed to stay and apply for citizenship, provided they pay back taxes, learn English and have no serious criminal records. Those here two to five years would eventually have to return to another country and apply for a green card, which could allow their immediate return. The roughly 2 million immigrants who have been in the United States illegally for less than two years would be ordered home and be subject to deportation. Illegal immigrants convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors would be deported no matter how long they have been in the United States. [compassionate offset] [***********]
Critics on the left and right call the bill -- and especially its three-tiered formulation -- unworkable. The notion of apprehending and deporting 2 million illegal immigrants who have been in the United States less than two years defies logic, some say. They add that the task would be six times as great under the House proposal to empty the nation of all illegal immigrants.
Immigrants who have lived largely underground for more than five years might have trouble proving their length of stay, advocacy groups say, while those who arrived less than five years ago might try to convince officials that they have been here longer. The bill would obligate immigrants to prove their length of residency, and fraudulent claims would be a crime.
Those claiming five years of residency or more would have to prove they were employed for at least three years to qualify for a citizenship application.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:50 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html
May 26, 2006
Military to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. [-ir] [activities that occurred there] [namely pow abuse and murder have been floating around for some time] [apparently now adjudicated] [sadly, atrocities did occur] [this can only hurt other US uniformed military who don’t behave thusly] [see placeholder in today’s externa] [but detailed stories here in govt, today] [***********]
WASHINGTON, May 25 — A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday. [**********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html
May 26, 2006
Military to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians
By THOM SHANKER, ERIC SCHMITT and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. [-ir] [activities that occurred there] [namely pow abuse and murder have been floating around for some time] [apparently now adjudicated] [sadly, atrocities did occur] [this can only hurt other US uniformed military who don’t behave thusly] [see placeholder in today’s externa] [but detailed stories here in govt, today] [***********]
WASHINGTON, May 25 — A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday. [**********]
Two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines' defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.
Officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha, [*******] a lawless, insurgent-plagued city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up. [will Haditha become the my lai of –ir] [hope not] [*******]
Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.
That evidence, described by Congressional, Pentagon and military officials briefed on the inquiry, suggested to one Congressional official that the killings were "methodical in nature."
Congressional and military officials say the Naval Criminal Investigative Service inquiry is focusing on the actions of a Marine Corps staff sergeant serving as squad leader at the time, but that Marine officials have told members of Congress that up to a dozen other marines in the unit are also under investigation. Officials briefed on the inquiry said that most of the bullets that killed the civilians were now thought to have been "fired by a couple of rifles," as one of them put it.
The killings were first reported by Time magazine in March, based on accounts from survivors and human rights groups, and members of Congress have spoken publicly about the episode in recent days. But the new accounts from Congressional, military and Pentagon officials added significant new details to the picture. All of those who discussed the case had to be granted anonymity before they would talk about the findings emerging from the investigation. [************]
A second, parallel inquiry was ordered by the second-ranking general in Iraq to examine whether any marines on the ground at Haditha, or any of their superior officers, tried to cover up the killings by filing false reports up the chain of command. That inquiry, conducted by an Army officer assigned to the Multinational Corps headquarters in Iraq, is expected to report its findings in coming days. [*************]
In an unusual sign of high-level concern, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, [******] flew from Washington to Iraq on Thursday to give a series of speeches to his forces re-emphasizing compliance with international laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and the American military's own rules of engagement.
"Recent serious allegations concerning actions of marines in combat have caused me concern," General Hagee said in a statement issued upon his departure. The statement did not mention any specific incident.
The first official report from the military, issued on Nov. 20, said that "a U.S. marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb" and that "immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire."
Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said.
One senior Defense Department official who has been briefed on the initial findings, when asked how many of the 24 dead Iraqis were killed by the improvised bomb as initially reported, paused and said, "Zero."
While Haditha was rife with violence and gunfire that day, the marines, who were assigned to the Third Battalion, First Marines, and are now back at Camp Pendleton, Calif., "never took what would constitute hostile fire of a seriously threatening nature," one Pentagon official said.
Women and children were among those killed, as well as five men who had been traveling in a taxi near the bomb, which killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso. [**************]
Although investigators are still piecing together the string of deaths, Congressional and Pentagon officials said the five men in the taxi either were pulled out or got out at a Marine checkpoint and were shot. [************]
The deaths of those in the taxi, and inside two nearby houses, were not the result of a quick and violent firefight, according to officials who had been briefed on the inquiry. [*******]
"This was not a burst of fire, but a sustained operation over several hours, maybe five hours," [******] one official said. Forensic evidence gathered from the houses where Iraqi civilians died is also said to contradict reports that the marines had to overcome hostile fire to storm the homes.
Members of the House and Senate briefed on the Haditha shootings by senior Marine officers, including General Hagee and Brig. Gen. John F. Kelly, the Marine legislative liaison, voiced concerns Thursday about the seriousness of the accusations.
Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that "this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians." He added, "This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity."
The deaths, and the role of the marines in those deaths, is being viewed with such alarm that senior Marine Corps officers briefed members of Congress last week and again on Wednesday and Thursday. [***********]
The briefings were in part an effort to prevent the kind of angry explosion from Capitol Hill that followed news of detainee abuse by American military jailers at Abu Ghraib prison, which had been quietly under investigation for months before the details of the abuse were leaked to the news media. "If the accounts as they have been alleged are true, the Haditha incident is likely the most serious war crime that has been reported in Iraq since the beginning of the war," said John Sifton, of Human Rights Watch. "Here we have two dozen civilians being killed — apparently intentionally. This isn't a gray area. This is a massacre."
Three Marine officers — the battalion commander and two company commanders in Haditha at the time — have been relieved of duty, although official statements have declined to link that action to the investigation.
Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said he expected senators would review investigators' evidence, including photographs by military photographers that Mr. Warner said were "taken as a matter of routine in Iraq on operations of this nature when there's loss of life."
Lawyers who have been in conversations with the marines under investigation stressed the chaotic situation in Haditha at the time of the killings. And they expect that the defense will stress that insurgents often hide among civilians, that Haditha on the day of the shootings was suffering a wave of fluid insurgent attacks and that the marines responded to high levels of hostile action aimed at them.
Much of the area around Haditha is controlled by Sunni Arab insurgents who have made the city one of the deadliest in Iraq for American troops. On Aug. 1, three months before the massacre, insurgents ambushed and killed six Marine snipers moving through Haditha on foot. Insurgents released a video after the ambush that appeared to show the attack, and the mangled and burned body of a dead serviceman. Then, two days later, 14 marines were killed when their armored vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb near the southern edge of the city.
The Marines also disclosed this week that a preliminary inquiry had found "sufficient information" to recommend a criminal probe into the killing of an Iraqi civilian on April 26 near Hamandiyah, a village west of Baghdad. [*********]
Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad, Iraq. [very bad news] [*********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:49 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bushblair26may26,1,1267371.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Bush Says Early Iraq Troop Cuts Unlikely
The president and Blair say they still see huge risks for the war-torn nation, despite the formation of a new government there.
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [blair and bush give joint newsconference and take questions] [bush admitted mistakes for first time in substantive way] [some say it was all spin and canned] [while I admit that it was certainly vetted and calculated, it seemed genuine to me] [Bush genuinely seemed chagrined at his own behavior and at abu grhaib] [next to blair, the normally inarticulate bush, appeared downright obtuse] [***************]

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Thursday that the formation of a new government in Iraq marked a turning point for the war-torn country, but not one that would allow for an earlier drawdown of U.S. and coalition forces.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bushblair26may26,1,1267371.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Bush Says Early Iraq Troop Cuts Unlikely
The president and Blair say they still see huge risks for the war-torn nation, despite the formation of a new government there.
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [blair and bush give joint newsconference and take questions] [bush admitted mistakes for first time in substantive way] [some say it was all spin and canned] [while I admit that it was certainly vetted and calculated, it seemed genuine to me] [Bush genuinely seemed chagrined at his own behavior and at abu grhaib] [next to blair, the normally inarticulate bush, appeared downright obtuse] [***************]

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Thursday that the formation of a new government in Iraq marked a turning point for the war-torn country, but not one that would allow for an earlier drawdown of U.S. and coalition forces.

After a White House meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush repeated his position that he would order a reduction in forces only after military commanders told him that the country could be defended by the growing Iraqi military and police forces.

"The American people need to know that we'll keep the forces there necessary to win," Bush told an evening news conference. "It's important for the American people to know that politics isn't going to make the decision as to the size of our force level."

He dismissed reports that the administration intended to reduce the number of troops in Iraq to 100,000 from 131,000 by year's end as no more than "speculation in the press."

The meeting of the two wartime allies had given rise to hope that they might signal the beginning of a troop drawdown long sought on both sides of the Atlantic. But the leaders instead indicated that they still saw huge risks for Iraq, where a Sunni Arab-driven insurgency rages on and sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims is on the rise.

Bush said his commanders would recommend only a troop reduction "based on conditions on the ground."

"I know I keep saying that," he said. "And it probably bores you that I keep giving you the same answer. But I haven't changed my opinion."

Blair suggested that the leaders might make no decision on troop levels for several months while they waited to see how effectively Iraqi forces stood up to their attackers.

"You will find probably, over the next few months, there will be a real attempt by the anti-democratic forces to test them very, very strongly," Blair said, responding to a question about potential troop withdrawals. [*******]

Iraq's new leader, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, said this week that he wanted Iraqi troops to take over responsibility for the nation's security as soon as possible. Maliki said he believed Iraqis could assume a lead role by the end of 2007. [*******]

Blair cast some skepticism on Maliki's prediction, saying it was possible, but insisting that Iraqi control was contingent on the new government quickly establishing a strong grip on the country, and on the ability of the Iraqi troops to crack down on insurgents. [******]

A decision to maintain troop levels at their current size may be unwelcome news for Republicans, who face midterm elections in November with their party's poll numbers sagging. Delaying the decision on troop withdrawals also poses difficulty for Bush and Blair, whose political fortunes have been badly damaged by the war.

The meeting of the two weakened leaders drew ridicule from some parts of the British press; the Economist magazine referred to the pair as an "axis of feeble." Blair is expected to leave office by next summer and is widely viewed as a lame duck. Some observers have noted that this visit could be Blair's last to the White House as prime minister.

Bush and Blair were asked pointedly about "missteps and mistakes" that they most regretted during the war.

Bush said he considered the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to be the biggest U.S. mistake in Iraq. "We've been paying for that for a long time," he said.

The president also said he regretted some of his own "tough talk," including the very phraseology that initially endeared him to Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He said he regretted responding to early reports of the rising Iraqi insurgency by saying, "Bring it on." He also lamented his use of the phrase "dead or alive" in describing how he would one day capture Osama bin Laden and others. Bush has mentioned those regrets before.

For his part, Blair said the expulsion of members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from the Iraqi government could have been handled better. Many people argue that expelling low- and mid-level party members alienated Sunni Arabs and fueled the insurgency.

Bush has in the past derided opponents of the war as isolationists, but he was more conciliatory Thursday. "No question that the Iraq war has, you know, created a sense of consternation here in America," he said.

But even with surveys showing greater support for a withdrawal or reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, Bush said that most Americans would not support pulling out.

Military commanders and other U.S. officials have said privately that they hope for a substantial troop withdrawal this year. Some suggested that the U.S. troop level could drop to about 100,000 by year's end.

But in recent months, as sectarian divisions have become more deadly, such talk has appeared to subside.

Blair, who met with Army Gen. George W. Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, during a surprise visit to Baghdad this week, said commanders were concerned that the new Iraqi government could face a surge in violence as Iraqi forces began to take over more territory from U.S., British and other coalition troops.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said this month that he expected a recommendation on troop levels from Casey once Maliki's government was in place. However, Bush said Casey was awaiting the installation of a new Iraqi defense minister, who has yet to be selected. The president said any reductions might not come until the new ministry had developed capabilities "to enable the Iraqis to take more of the fight."
Times staff writers Peter Spiegel, Julian E. Barnes and Peter Wallsten in Washington contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:49 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-052606hayden_wr,0,2651673.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
Senate Approves Hayden Nomination as CIA Chief
From Associated Press
7:48 AM PDT, May 26, 2006 [general Michael V. hayden confrmed by senate on vote of 78-15] [General Hayden shall now become America’s second director of CIA] [the question shall be how much he keeps his roots in the principal deputy DNI role] [must see how Negroponte handles this] [if Negroponte nominates a strong replacement for Hayden, that will likely be illustrative of cutting tether] [in that case Negroponte shall count on Hayden to implement Negroponte’s will at CIA while rebuilding morale and HUMINT capabilities] [**************] [use nsc ms] [all three the same ap story]

WASHINGTON — After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate today easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-052606hayden_wr,0,2651673.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
Senate Approves Hayden Nomination as CIA Chief
From Associated Press
7:48 AM PDT, May 26, 2006 [general Michael V. hayden confrmed by senate on vote of 78-15] [General Hayden shall now become America’s second director of CIA] [the question shall be how much he keeps his roots in the principal deputy DNI role] [must see how Negroponte handles this] [if Negroponte nominates a strong replacement for Hayden, that will likely be illustrative of cutting tether] [in that case Negroponte shall count on Hayden to implement Negroponte’s will at CIA while rebuilding morale and HUMINT capabilities] [**************] [use nsc ms] [all three the same ap story]

WASHINGTON — After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate today easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA.

Hayden, a four-star general, currently is the top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Hayden, 61, would be the first active-duty or retired military officer to run the spy agency in 25 years. He was approved by a vote of 78-15.

President Bush, in a written statement, applauded Hayden's confirmation.

"Winning the war on terror requires that America have the best intelligence possible, and his strong leadership will ensure that we do," he said. "Gen. Hayden is a patriot and a dedicated public servant whose broad experience, dedication and expertise make him the right person to lead the CIA at this critical time."

At his confirmation hearing, Hayden sought to assure lawmakers he would be independent from his military superiors but said he would consider how his uniform affects his relationship with CIA personnel. If it were to get in the way, he said, "I'll make the right decision."

Hayden, who headed the National Security Agency for several years, became a lightning rod for the debate about the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. Some Democrats and civil-liberties advocates argue the monitoring was illegal.

As head of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, Hayden oversaw the program. His defenders say he was relying on the advice of top government lawyers.

The White House hurried Hayden's nomination through in only 17 days, in part by heeding Congress' 5-month-old requests for more information on the classified operations.

During Thursday night's debate, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the warrentless wiretapping program raised "serious questions about whether the general is the right person to lead the CIA, serious questions about whether the general will continue to be an administration cheerleader, serious questions about his credibility."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., countered that Hayden "is eminently qualified" to lead the agency and that "he is the right choice to lead the CIA.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:48 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600270.html
Senate Confirms Hayden As CIA Director
By KATHERINE SHRADER
The Associated Press
Friday, May 26, 2006; 10:37 AM [general Michael V. hayden confrmed by senate on vote of 78-15] [General Hayden shall now become America’s second director of CIA] [the question shall be how much he keeps his roots in the principal deputy DNI role] [must see how Negroponte handles this] [if Negroponte nominates a strong replacement for Hayden, that will likely be illustrative of cutting tether] [in that case Negroponte shall count on Hayden to implement Negroponte’s will at CIA while rebuilding morale and HUMINT capabilities] [**************] [use nsc ms] [ditto]
WASHINGTON -- After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate on Friday easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA. [*********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600270.html
Senate Confirms Hayden As CIA Director
By KATHERINE SHRADER
The Associated Press
Friday, May 26, 2006; 10:37 AM [general Michael V. hayden confrmed by senate on vote of 78-15] [General Hayden shall now become America’s second director of CIA] [the question shall be how much he keeps his roots in the principal deputy DNI role] [must see how Negroponte handles this] [if Negroponte nominates a strong replacement for Hayden, that will likely be illustrative of cutting tether] [in that case Negroponte shall count on Hayden to implement Negroponte’s will at CIA while rebuilding morale and HUMINT capabilities] [**************] [use nsc ms] [ditto]
WASHINGTON -- After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate on Friday easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA. [*********]
Hayden, a four-star general, currently is the top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
Hayden, 61, would be the first active-duty or retired military officer to run the spy agency in 25 years. He was approved by a vote of 78-15.
President Bush, in a written statement, applauded Hayden's confirmation.
"Winning the war on terror requires that America have the best intelligence possible, and his strong leadership will ensure that we do," he said. "Gen. Hayden is a patriot and a dedicated public servant whose broad experience, dedication and expertise make him the right person to lead the CIA at this critical time."
At his confirmation hearing, Hayden sought to assure lawmakers he would be independent from his military superiors but said he would consider how his uniform affects his relationship with CIA personnel. If it were to get in the way, he said, "I'll make the right decision."
Hayden, who headed the National Security Agency for several years, became a lightning rod for the debate about the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. Some Democrats and civil-liberties advocates argue the monitoring was illegal.
As head of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, Hayden oversaw the program. His defenders say he was relying on the advice of top government lawyers.
The White House hurried Hayden's nomination through in only 17 days, in part by heeding Congress' 5-month-old requests for more information on the classified operations.
During Thursday night's debate, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the warrentless wiretapping program raised "serious questions about whether the general is the right person to lead the CIA, serious questions about whether the general will continue to be an administration cheerleader, serious questions about his credibility."
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., countered that Hayden "is eminently qualified" to lead the agency and that "he is the right choice to lead the CIA."
© 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:47 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-CIA-Chief.html
May 26, 2006
Senate Confirms Hayden as C.I.A. Chief
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:37 a.m. ET [general Michael V. hayden confrmed by senate on vote of 78-15] [General Hayden shall now become America’s second director of CIA] [the question shall be how much he keeps his roots in the principal deputy DNI role] [must see how Negroponte handles this] [if Negroponte nominates a strong replacement for Hayden, that will likely be illustrative of cutting tether] [in that case Negroponte shall count on Hayden to implement Negroponte’s will at CIA while rebuilding morale and HUMINT capabilities] [**************] [use nsc ms]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate on Friday easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-CIA-Chief.html
May 26, 2006
Senate Confirms Hayden as C.I.A. Chief
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:37 a.m. ET [general Michael V. hayden confrmed by senate on vote of 78-15] [General Hayden shall now become America’s second director of CIA] [the question shall be how much he keeps his roots in the principal deputy DNI role] [must see how Negroponte handles this] [if Negroponte nominates a strong replacement for Hayden, that will likely be illustrative of cutting tether] [in that case Negroponte shall count on Hayden to implement Negroponte’s will at CIA while rebuilding morale and HUMINT capabilities] [**************] [use nsc ms]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- After hearing assurances he will be independent of the Pentagon, the Senate on Friday easily confirmed Gen. Michael Hayden, a career Air Force man, to head the CIA.
Hayden, a four-star general, currently is the top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. [**************]
Hayden, 61, would be the first active-duty or retired military officer to run the spy agency in 25 years. He was approved by a vote of 78-15. [******]
President Bush, in a written statement, applauded Hayden’s confirmation.
‘’Winning the war on terror requires that America have the best intelligence possible, and his strong leadership will ensure that we do,’’ he said. ‘’Gen. Hayden is a patriot and a dedicated public servant whose broad experience, dedication and expertise make him the right person to lead the CIA at this critical time.’’
At his confirmation hearing, Hayden sought to assure lawmakers he would be independent from his military superiors but said he would consider how his uniform affects his relationship with CIA personnel. If it were to get in the way, he said, ‘’I’ll make the right decision.’’ [************]
Hayden, who headed the National Security Agency for several years, became a lightning rod for the debate about the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program. Some Democrats and civil-liberties advocates argue the monitoring was illegal.
As head of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, Hayden oversaw the program. His defenders say he was relying on the advice of top government lawyers. [*********]
The White House hurried Hayden's nomination through in only 17 days, in part by heeding Congress' 5-month-old requests for more information on the classified operations. [************]
During Thursday night's debate, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the warrentless wiretapping program raised ''serious questions about whether the general is the right person to lead the CIA, serious questions about whether the general will continue to be an administration cheerleader, serious questions about his credibility.''
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., countered that Hayden ''is eminently qualified'' to lead the agency and that ''he is the right choice to lead the CIA.''
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:46 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/opinion/26fri1.html
May 26, 2006
Editorial
One Man's Constitutional Crisis ...
[editorial] [on democrat jefferson’s being caught with bag money in his freezer] [I am not interested in it] [however, piece raises some issues of separation of powers that our policymakers seem to have forgotten] [perhaps they should be forced to read the constitution each time they re-up] [*******]
Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives have achieved an almost unprecedented level of bipartisanship in denouncing the F.B.I.'s search of a congressman's office. They talk angrily about the separation of powers and the implications of having an executive branch agency make a foray into a lawmaker's official space. Our first question is where all these concerned constitutionalists have been for the last five years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/opinion/26fri1.html
May 26, 2006
Editorial
One Man's Constitutional Crisis ...
[editorial] [on democrat jefferson’s being caught with bag money in his freezer] [I am not interested in it] [however, piece raises some issues of separation of powers that our policymakers seem to have forgotten] [perhaps they should be forced to read the constitution each time they re-up] [*******]
Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives have achieved an almost unprecedented level of bipartisanship in denouncing the F.B.I.'s search of a congressman's office. They talk angrily about the separation of powers and the implications of having an executive branch agency make a foray into a lawmaker's official space. Our first question is where all these concerned constitutionalists have been for the last five years.
Time and time again, Congress has played dead when the executive branch refused to provide it with information, answer questions or follow laws that the legislative branch has passed. Currently, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has not been the worst offender, is tinkering dangerously with the laws covering domestic wiretapping by the National Security Agency. It could end up endorsing a program that the White House won't even fully describe to a vast majority of lawmakers.
Compared with the enormous issues at hand, the matter of Representative William Jefferson is small potatoes. The F.B.I. says that it videotaped the congressman accepting $100,000 to grease the way for some business deals in Africa, and that agents found most of the money in his freezer. The Justice Department obtained a warrant, entered Mr. Jefferson's office and removed files that it says are related to that investigation.
Mr. Jefferson says there are two sides to every story, although he has not yet offered his. That does not make him guilty — indeed, he is yet to be charged. The House leaders demanded that the seized documents be returned, and the White House ordered them sealed for 45 days to buy time.
The F.B.I. is going to have to show some very good reasons for having precipitated this showdown. Federal investigators have managed to prosecute many other officials for corruption over the last 200-odd years without ever barging into Congressional offices in the process. The danger of abuse with this kind of activity is enormous, especially with a president and an attorney general whose grasp for power seems to have no limits. They cannot be trusted to keep legitimate police activity from turning into political persecution. Just yesterday, administration officials were talking about having the F.B.I. interrogate lawmakers in an attempt to find the sources of the Times article disclosing Mr. Bush's domestic spying operation. That would certainly represent a major breach of the separation of powers principle.
The constitutional claims made by the Congressional leadership on the Jefferson case seem overblown. House and Senate members are protected from arrest while going about their official business to shield them from intimidation and meddling by the executive branch in the affairs of state, not to deter law enforcement officials from doing their lawful duty to investigate possible felonies.
But members of Congress who have been politically comatose or complicit as the Bush administration built itself an imperial presidency, immune from the historical powers of the legislative branch, are up in arms. The House Judiciary Committee, which has been in the forefront of the long-running cave-in, has scheduled a hearing that the chairman has titled "Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?"
It seems like a phony approach to a real problem.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:46 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501987.html
Say No to Tehran's Gambit
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 26, 2006; A21 [oped] [the rarely reasonable drk is against us talking to iran and testing their willingness] [counterpoint: today’s oped by david Ignatius, above] [normally relatively reasonable] [****************]
All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait. [*******]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501987.html
Say No to Tehran's Gambit
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 26, 2006; A21 [oped] [the rarely reasonable drk is against us talking to iran and testing their willingness] [counterpoint: today’s oped by david Ignatius, above] [normally relatively reasonable] [****************]
All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait. [*******]
It is not rare to see a regime such as Iran's -- despotic, internally weak, feeling the world closing in -- attempt so transparent a ploy to relieve pressure on itself. What is rare is to see the craven alacrity with which such a ploy is taken up by others. [*********]
Mark my words. The momentum for U.S.-Iran negotiations has only begun. The focus of the entire Iranian crisis will begin to shift from the question of whether Tehran will stop its nuclear program to whether Washington will sit down alone at the table with Tehran. [*********] [almost certainly true and hardly a scoop] [that was the point] [that does not mean doom however] [it means deft and agile diplomacy shall be needed by us to keep its allies from going wobbly] [***********]
To this cynical bait-and-switch, there can be no American response other than No. Absolutely not.
Just yesterday the world was excoriating the Bush administration for its unilateralism -- on Kyoto, the ABM Treaty and, most especially, Iraq -- and demanding that Washington act in concert with the "international community." Just yesterday the Democratic nominee for president attacked President Bush's foreign policy precisely for refusing to consult with, listen to and work with "the allies." [yes. So what] [is this suppose to be heresy?]
Another day, another principle. Bush is now being pressured to abandon multilateralism and go it alone with Iran. [****] [non seqiuter] [no one is asking him to go it alone] [they are asking him to speak to iran, a govt to whom the us has refused to speak directly since 1979] [dr chuck should know better] [talk about bait and swithch] Remember: In September 2003, after Iran was discovered cheating on its nuclear program, the United States wanted immediate U.N. action. The allies argued for a softer approach. Britain, France and Germany wanted to negotiate with Tehran and offer diplomatic and economic carrots in return for Iran's giving up its nuclear weapons program. The United States acquiesced. [I was much more convince a couple fo weeks ago with his piece on iran that argue iran is irretribably bent on destroying Israel] [*********]
After 2 1/2 years of utter futility, the E.U. Three had to admit failure and acknowledge the obvious: Iran had no intention of giving up its nuclear ambitions. Iran made the point irrefutable when it broke International Atomic Energy Agency seals and brazenly resumed uranium enrichment.
The full understanding we had with our allies was that if the E.U. Three process failed, we would go to the Security Council together and get sanctions imposed on Iran. Yes, Russia and China might still stand in the way. But even so, concerted sanctions by America, Europe and other economic powers could have devastating effects on Iran and its shaky clerical dictatorship.
Which is why the mullahs launched this recent initiative. They know, and fear, that if the West persists on its present and agreed course, they face sanctions so serious that their rule, already unpopular, might be in jeopardy. The very fact that Iran is desperately trying to change the subject, change the venue and shift the burden onto the United States shows how close the mullahs believe we are to achieving major international pressure on them.
Pushing Washington to abandon the multilateral process and enter negotiations alone is more than rank hypocrisy. It is a pernicious folly. [this strawman he’s constructed IS pernicious folly] [**********] It would short-circuit the process that, after years of dithering, is about to yield its first fruits: sanctions that Tehran fears. It would undo the allied consensus, produce endless new delays and give Iran more time to reach the point of no return, after which its nuclear status would be a fait accompli .
Entering negotiations carries with it the responsibility to do something if they fail. The E.U. Three understood that when they took on the mullahs a couple of years ago. Bilateral U.S.-Iran talks are the perfect way to get Europe off the hook. They would preempt all the current discussions about sanctions, place all responsibility for success on the negotiations and set America up to take the blame for their inevitable failure.
It is an obvious trap. We should resolutely say no.
Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.
You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there, but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail. The mullahs already fear economic sanctions; they will fear European-backed U.S. military action infinitely more. Such negotiations might actually accomplish something.
That's our condition. Otherwise, the entire suggestion of bilateral talks is a ploy that should be rejected with the same contempt with which it was proposed.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:45 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501986.html
It's Time to Engage With Iran
By David Ignatius
Friday, May 26, 2006; A21 [oped] [usually reasonable david Ignatius is for us talking to iran and testing their willingness] [counterpoint: today’s oped by drk] [normally far from reasonable] [****************]
"Only connect." That was the trademark line of E.M. Forster's great novel "Howards End." And it's a useful injunction in thinking about U.S. strategy toward Iran and the wider conflicts between the West and the Muslim world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501986.html
It's Time to Engage With Iran
By David Ignatius
Friday, May 26, 2006; A21 [oped] [usually reasonable david Ignatius is for us talking to iran and testing their willingness] [counterpoint: today’s oped by drk] [normally far from reasonable] [****************]
"Only connect." That was the trademark line of E.M. Forster's great novel "Howards End." And it's a useful injunction in thinking about U.S. strategy toward Iran and the wider conflicts between the West and the Muslim world.
We are in the early stages of what the Centcom commander, Gen. John Abizaid, calls "the first war of globalization, between openness and closed societies." One key to winning that war, Abizaid told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon yesterday, is to expand openness and connection. [*****] He called al-Qaeda "the military arm of the closed order." The same could be said of the extremist mullahs in Tehran who are pushing for nuclear weapons. [********]
America's best strategy is to play to its strengths -- which are the open exchange of ideas, backed up by unmatched military power. The need for connection is especially clear in the case of Iran, which in isolation has remained frozen in revolutionary zealotry like an exotic fruit in aspic. Yet some in the Bush administration cling to the idea that isolation is a good thing and that connectivity will somehow weaken the West's position. That ignores the obvious lesson of the past 40 years, which is that isolation has usually failed (as in the cases of Cuba and North Korea), while connectivity has usually succeeded (as in the cases of the Soviet Union and China).
A telling example was the decision to engage the Soviet Union in 1973 through the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe. At the time, some conservatives argued that it was a dangerous concession that the Soviets might interpret as a symbol of weakness. [*****] But the CSCE provided a crucial forum for dissidents in Russia and Eastern Europe, and with astonishing speed the mighty edifice of Soviet power began to crumble. Similar warnings about showing weakness in the face of an aggressive adversary were voiced when President Richard Nixon went to China in February 1972. [*****]
I cite this Cold War history because the moment has come for America to attempt to engage revolutionary Iran. The invitation for such a dialogue came this month in a letter to President Bush from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – a man whose rabble-rousing, Israel-baiting career gave him the credentials, if that’s the right word, to break a 27-year Iranian taboo on contacts with the Great Satan.
Ahmadinejad’s letter clearly had the backing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In the American context, that’s like having the support of Vice President Cheney for a peace feeler. My own Iranian sources say there is broad consensus in Tehran that it is time for talks with the United States. “Iran wants to start discussions the same way the Chinese wanted discussions” with Nixon, an Iranian businessman named Ali Ettefagh told me in an e-mail this week. “Great Satan doesn’t sell anymore. More than half the population was not born 27 years ago, and the broken record does not play well.” The Iranian offer of dialogue, he says, “ought to be taken as an opportunity, if only to air out grievances and amplify differences.” [test them] [*********]
I suspect Iran wants dialogue now partly because it perceives America's position in Iraq as weak and its own as strong. That may be true, but so what? Washington should still take yes for an answer. [*******] The United States and its European allies this week are crafting a package that, one hopes, will include everything the Iranian people could want -- except nuclear weapons. The bundle of goodies should stress connectivity -- more air travel to Iran, more scholarships for students, more exchanges, Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization. The mullahs may well reject these incentives as threatening, but that's the point. Their retrograde theocracy can't last long in an open world. This very week, about 40 police officers were injured in a clash with demonstrators at two Tehran universities. One of the hand-lettered protest signs captured in an Iranian photo said: "This is not a seminary, it is a university."
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian analyst with the International Crisis Group, noted in Senate testimony last week that opinion polls show 75 percent of Iranians favor relations with the United States. "Embarking on a comprehensive dialogue with Iran would provide the U.S. with the opportunity to match its rhetorical commitment to Iranian democracy and human rights with action," Sadjadpour said. He's right.
There's no guarantee that a policy of engagement will work. The Iranian regime's desire to acquire nuclear weapons may be so unyielding that Tehran and Washington will remain on a collision course. But America and its allies will be in a stronger position for responding to Iranian calls for dialogue. Openness isn't a concession by America, it's a strategic weapon. [********]
davidignatius@washpost.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:44 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501863.html
Israel's 'Realignment'
Ehud Olmert's hope to win U.S. support for a new Israeli border offers President Bush both opportunity and peril.
Friday, May 26, 2006; A20 [oped] [Israel] [PM olmert, Kadima’s plan] [to define israel’s borders by 2010 with or without a partner] [***********]
THOUGH THEY paid lip service to continued Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in effect inaugurated an entirely different process at their White House meeting Tuesday -- one in which Israel will parley with the United States about the new borders it intends to draw for itself. Despite his promise to pursue talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Olmert has made clear that he doesn't believe Israel will be able to work with the Palestinian Authority anytime soon. [*******] Even if a credible partner appeared, Mr. Olmert might prove reluctant. Like his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, he opposes some of the compromises Israel would have to make to achieve a peace settlement. [**********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501863.html
Israel's 'Realignment'
Ehud Olmert's hope to win U.S. support for a new Israeli border offers President Bush both opportunity and peril.
Friday, May 26, 2006; A20 [oped] [Israel] [PM olmert, Kadima’s plan] [to define israel’s borders by 2010 with or without a partner] [***********]
THOUGH THEY paid lip service to continued Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in effect inaugurated an entirely different process at their White House meeting Tuesday -- one in which Israel will parley with the United States about the new borders it intends to draw for itself. Despite his promise to pursue talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Olmert has made clear that he doesn't believe Israel will be able to work with the Palestinian Authority anytime soon. [*******] Even if a credible partner appeared, Mr. Olmert might prove reluctant. Like his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, he opposes some of the compromises Israel would have to make to achieve a peace settlement. [**********]
Mr. Olmert has now won Mr. Bush's de facto consent to pursue a unilateral "realignment," in which Israel would draw a border of its own choosing in the West Bank, dismantle some of the settlements that lie beyond it and thereby "guarantee Israel's security as a Jewish state with the borders it desires," [******] as the prime minister put it. Mr. Bush called these ideas "bold," adding that they "could lead to a two-state solution." But as Mr. Olmert acknowledged, there is one crucial condition: Israel cannot successfully impose its plan on the Palestinians unless it has "the comprehensive support of the United States and the international community."
That means that in the remainder of his term, Mr. Bush will have the opportunity to encourage an Israeli redeployment that would open the way toward the Palestinian state he called for four years ago. [******] But he could also cripple the prospects for that settlement if he provides a U.S. imprimatur for a realignment that disregards essential Palestinian interests. [*******] Left to his own calculations, Mr. Olmert probably would settle on such a strategy. According to reports in the Israeli press, he is thinking of dismantling only a small fraction of the West Bank settlements that lie beyond the boundary fence Israel is constructing, [******] which means that settlers and the army would remain in the Palestinian territory indefinitely. [*****] He also intends to annex all of Jerusalem's Old City and most of its Arab neighborhoods, even though a previous Israeli government recognized that a peace settlement will require divided sovereignty in the city. [***********]
Mr. Bush has already accepted the idea that large settlement blocks near the present border will be incorporated into Israel. But U.S. officials in the past have expressed skepticism about parts of the emerging Israeli plan, including the extent of West Bank territory to be taken. Those points should be pressed: The closer Mr. Olmert comes to adopting the territorial map that was negotiated by Israelis and Palestinians after the Camp David talks of 2000, the better will be the chances that the realignment will lead to a real peace. Mr. Bush said Tuesday that an Israeli-Palestinian peace "will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes, and no party should prejudice the outcome of negotiations." As his administration plunges into what will probably be months of detailed discussions with Israel about the realignment plan, it will be imperative to defend those principles.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:44 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-pletka26may26,0,2244707.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
From the Los Angeles Times
The tyranny doctrine
From Tripoli to Beijing, President Bush has abandoned his bold pledge to support democracy.
By Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin
DANIELLE PLETKA and MICHAEL RUBIN are, respectively, vice president for defense and foreign policy and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
May 26, 2006 [oped] [bush’s promotion of democracy] [usfp] [has it really changed as I argued in my book] [or is it windown dressing as these two authors and max boot recently asserted] [use nsc ms] [************]

LAST WEEK, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced resumption of full U.S. diplomatic relations with Libya, citing Tripoli's renunciation of terrorism and intelligence cooperation. This ends a quarter-century diplomatic freeze. It also marks an effective end to the Bush doctrine. [***************]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-pletka26may26,0,2244707.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
From the Los Angeles Times
The tyranny doctrine
From Tripoli to Beijing, President Bush has abandoned his bold pledge to support democracy.
By Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin
DANIELLE PLETKA and MICHAEL RUBIN are, respectively, vice president for defense and foreign policy and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
May 26, 2006 [oped] [bush’s promotion of democracy] [usfp] [has it really changed as I argued in my book] [or is it windown dressing as these two authors and max boot recently asserted] [use nsc ms] [************]

LAST WEEK, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced resumption of full U.S. diplomatic relations with Libya, citing Tripoli's renunciation of terrorism and intelligence cooperation. This ends a quarter-century diplomatic freeze. It also marks an effective end to the Bush doctrine. [***************]

At his second inauguration, President Bush declared: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." [*********]

Since that soaring pronouncement, the Bush administration has watched Egypt abrogate elections, ignored the collapse of the so-called Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and abandoned imprisoned Chinese dissidents; now Washington is mulling a peace treaty with Stalinist North Korea. [*********]

The rhetoric of democracy, it turns out, comes more easily than its implementation. [*********] [no one every thought otherwise] [thus it has always been] [****] Washington worries that Egypt will bow out of the fight against Al Qaeda if the U.S. presses for reform. It worries that China will bar investment if Bush presses for the release of political prisoners. Are these fears realistic? No. These countries still have interests that parallel ours. But that won't be clear unless the president forces the tyrants to make a choice: reform or face isolation.

The case of Fathi El Jahmi, Libya's foremost democracy activist, is among the most poignant. When El Jahmi was briefly furloughed from prison in 2004, Bush hailed his release as a sign of change in Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi. But El Jahmi's freedom lasted just two weeks, and his name hasn't passed the president's lips again. Rice's announcement welcoming Libya back into the fold of civilized nations mentioned neither democracy nor El Jahmi.

In Egypt, where only last year Rice made herself a heroine to reformers by demanding competitive elections, the government has accelerated repression. It has imprisoned Ayman Nour, the leading opposition leader, on spurious charges. Where once the Bush administration threatened to withhold aid and won the release of a prominent democracy advocate, it is now silent. In early May, Egyptian police rounded up hundreds of demonstrators rallying in support of two judges who said that parliamentary elections were rigged. Yet Washington does not seek to reduce Egypt's $1.8 billion in annual aid. Instead, this month it hosted President Hosni Mubarak's son (and anointed successor).

Pressure for changes also has lessened in Syria and Lebanon. In March 2005, in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese people rose up to demand democracy and reform. The Bush administration cheered, but it soon lost interest. A July visit to Beirut by Rice, replete with the "obligatory" meeting with the puppet president installed by Syria, sowed doubt about the U.S. commitment to Lebanese independence. Washington's blunders have ensured that a Syrian stooge will likely govern Lebanon for another year.

The same devotion to form over substance has been apparent in our China policy. Before his 2005 visit, Bush asked for the release of several political prisoners, including a New York Times researcher, Zhao Yan. The Chinese government ignored the request. The same polite query went to Beijing before President Hu Jintao's April visit to Washington. This time, Zhao was released, only to be indicted again once Hu's world tour was complete. Signs of White House displeasure? Not one.

Is it possible that the administration is questioning the wisdom of promoting democracy as a long-term solution to U.S. national security woes? "Realists" suggest that the president has finally woken up and smelled the coffee. They say democracy gave us an Islamist government in Iraq and Hamas in Palestine. It could give us the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Heaven knows what it would spawn in China or Libya. Better the devil you know.

But there is no sign the White House has done any strategic rethinking. The president continues to believe his own preaching, but his administration has become incapable of making the hard choices those beliefs require. Instead, it has been quick to embrace the showy, if transitory, political advantages that come from welcoming Kadafi into the family of nations and China's president on a tour of Boeing.

The many foreign dissidents and reformers who took Bush at his word are the first to pay the price for Washington's lack of backbone. They were told that if they took risks for freedom, the U.S. would stand with them. Letting them down will make it all the more difficult to find democratic allies. [******] Brave individuals are the real building blocks for transitions to democracy. Without them, as we have learned in Iraq, there are few alternatives to the tyranny that threatens us all.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:43 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia26may26,1,3499007.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Putin Blasts Cheney Criticism, But Calls U.S. 'Major Partner'
From the Associated Press
May 26, 2006 [Russia] [former ussr] [putin still smarting over cheney’s remarks when latter was in baltics and Ukraine couple of weeks ago] [putin has responded to them at least 2 or 3 times] [russia’s ethos] [use psci 350]

SOCHI, Russia — President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday that Russia wanted good relations with the United States, but he objected vigorously to Vice President Dick Cheney's recent comments alleging democratic backtracking by the Kremlin. [******]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia26may26,1,3499007.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Putin Blasts Cheney Criticism, But Calls U.S. 'Major Partner'
From the Associated Press
May 26, 2006 [Russia] [former ussr] [putin still smarting over cheney’s remarks when latter was in baltics and Ukraine couple of weeks ago] [putin has responded to them at least 2 or 3 times] [russia’s ethos] [use psci 350]

SOCHI, Russia — President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday that Russia wanted good relations with the United States, but he objected vigorously to Vice President Dick Cheney's recent comments alleging democratic backtracking by the Kremlin. [******]

"We see how the United States defends its interests; we see what methods and means they use for this," Putin said at a news conference after a summit with the European Union.

In a speech this month in Lithuania, Cheney accused the Kremlin of rolling back democracy and strong-arming its ex-Soviet neighbors. [*******]

Even before Cheney's speech, relations had been sliding. In March, Putin alleged that the United States had put up obstacles to slow Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, and the Pentagon accused Moscow of giving intelligence on U.S. troop movements in Iraq to Saddam Hussein in 2003. [**********]

The two countries, which proclaimed themselves "strategic partners" just a few years ago, are in opposing camps on how to deal with Iran's nuclear program.

Putin said that despite the friction, the U.S. remained "one of our major partners." But he suggested that no nation had the right to interfere in Russia's relations with other countries.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:42 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast26may26,1,2397543.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Abbas Calls for a Referendum on Statehood
The uncharacteristically bold move by the Palestinian president may be an effort to force Hamas to moderate its views on Israel.
By Laura King
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [Palestine] [abbas’ rather risky gamble] [force hamas’ hand on negotiating peace with Israel; short of hamas’ endorsement, take the matter to the Palestinian people by way of referendum] [followup from yesterday’s external] [*****************] [ditto]
JERUSALEM — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Thursday for a referendum on creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast26may26,1,2397543.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Abbas Calls for a Referendum on Statehood
The uncharacteristically bold move by the Palestinian president may be an effort to force Hamas to moderate its views on Israel.
By Laura King
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [Palestine] [abbas’ rather risky gamble] [force hamas’ hand on negotiating peace with Israel; short of hamas’ endorsement, take the matter to the Palestinian people by way of referendum] [followup from yesterday’s external] [*****************] [ditto]
JERUSALEM — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Thursday for a referendum on creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

The bold and unexpected move by Abbas, a leader considered colorless and cautious by many, was an apparent bid to force Hamas to moderate its views on Israel.

Hamas, which won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January, advocates the destruction of Israel and creation of an Islamic state in all of historical Palestine.

But Abbas, who was elected separately a year ago, said a state encompassing lands conquered by Israel in 1967 was a far more realistic aspiration.

"What we have to ask is what is possible, what is facing us and what do we want," he said. "We cannot say no to everything — what can we say yes to?"

Abbas said he would give Hamas 10 days to accept the idea of statehood within the 1967 borders, a move that would amount to at least implicit recognition of the Jewish state, a position opposed by the militant Islamist group since its founding. If Hamas did not agree, the referendum would be held within 40 days, Abbas said. It would be the first vote on the issue.

Since Hamas took power, direct international aid to the Palestinian Authority has fallen off dramatically, and the Palestinian territories are in the grip of an economic crisis.

Hamas has rejected calls for it to renounce violence or acknowledge past agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Such steps, as well as recognition of Israel, have been demanded by Western nations as conditions for direct aid.

The announcement by Abbas came at a Palestinian political conference Thursday in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The meeting was linked to the Gaza Strip by live video, as are all Palestinian parliamentary sessions and Cabinet meetings because most Hamas representatives are based in Gaza and Israel prohibits them from traveling to the West Bank.

The Palestinian referendum would be based on an unusual jailhouse document drawn up by Palestinians in Israeli custody. The prisoners, including members of both Hamas and Abbas' Fatah faction, proposed the popular vote as a way of ending the political stalemate between the two groups.

Prisoners wield considerable moral authority in Palestinian society, because they are seen as heroes in the struggle against Israel.

Among the framers of the five-page document was Marwan Barghouti, who is serving a life sentence for playing a role in the killings of five people during the Palestinian uprising. He is among the most popular Palestinian politicians and was once considered the likeliest heir to longtime leader Yasser Arafat.

The Hamas-led government reacted cautiously to Abbas' idea, but did not voice immediate objections to holding a popular vote.

"We are not against a referendum, and we will respect the choice of the Palestinian people," said government spokesman Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas member.

Sami abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Hamas movement, was more negative, saying that "there is no need to exert pressure" on Hamas. But he did not reject the idea either.

A referendum could offer a face-saving way for Hamas to change its views without appearing to have bowed to pressure from the United States and Israel. Public opinion polls have indicated a substantial majority of Palestinians support the idea of a state of their own alongside Israel.

Yet in some ways, putting the statehood question to a referendum would be a step backward for the Palestinian Authority, which has long since formally accepted Israel and pledged itself to a series of accords with the Jewish state.

The vote would give Abbas a much-needed mandate to proffer to Israel, which has expressed strong doubts about his ability to implement any agreement reached in currently stalled peace negotiations.

Israel had no official response to Abbas' referendum call. Officials described it as an internal Palestinian affair.

But some Israeli commentators said the plan could be a way to break the deadlock between the Islamist group and Abbas, who is known as Abu Mazen.

"On the diplomatic level, the gaps between Hamas and Abu Mazen are not that large," Danny Rubenstein, who writes about Israeli-Palestinian affairs for the Haaretz daily newspaper, told Israel Radio.

"The direction [of talks] seems to be the 1967 borders, and the ideological gap concerning the recognition of Israel can be bridged," he said.

Palestinians have held only three territory-wide elections in the last 10 years, and the mechanics of a referendum are unclear.

Palestinian election officials said that Abbas would have to issue a presidential decree for the vote, or the Hamas-dominated parliament would need to endorse the balloting.

Abbas' move may have been spurred by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit this week to Washington, where he secured conditional American approval for a plan to uproot remote Jewish settlements in the West Bank and consolidate them into several large blocks within the disputed territory.

Palestinians have denounced Olmert's plan as a land grab.

Israel promised to attempt negotiations with Abbas before moving ahead, but Olmert told Bush that Israel would proceed unilaterally if it could not secure an agreement with the Palestinians.

The Palestinian conference was convened not only to try to agree on a joint political program, but also to quell growing violence in the Gaza Strip between rival Hamas and Fatah security forces.

But even as Abbas and the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, were urging that weapons not be used to resolve disputes, a policeman with a Fatah-allied force was killed in new fighting Thursday.
Special correspondents Maher Abukhater in Ramallah and Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:41 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052500357.html
Abbas Urges Hamas To Back 2-State Plan
Palestinian Leader Says He May Call Referendum
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 26, 2006; A14 [Palestine] [abbas’ rather risky gamble] [force hamas’ hand on negotiating peace with Israel; short of hamas’ endorsement, take the matter to the Palestinian people by way of referendum] [followup from yesterday’s external] [*****************] [ditto]
JERUSALEM, May 25 -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas on Thursday to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state on territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. If the radical Islamic movement refuses, he said, he will put the proposal to a referendum within two months.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052500357.html
Abbas Urges Hamas To Back 2-State Plan
Palestinian Leader Says He May Call Referendum
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 26, 2006; A14 [Palestine] [abbas’ rather risky gamble] [force hamas’ hand on negotiating peace with Israel; short of hamas’ endorsement, take the matter to the Palestinian people by way of referendum] [followup from yesterday’s external] [*****************] [ditto]
JERUSALEM, May 25 -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas on Thursday to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state on territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. If the radical Islamic movement refuses, he said, he will put the proposal to a referendum within two months.
Abbas gave leaders of Hamas, the principal political rival of his Fatah movement, 10 days to accept a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel, something the group has rejected since its founding nearly two decades ago. Hamas envisions the creation of a Palestinian state across territory that now includes Israel.
If Hamas does not change its position, Abbas said, he will measure public support for a two-state solution within 40 days through a popular referendum. Although it would not be binding, the result would help clarify for recalcitrant Hamas leaders, the Israeli government and the world what course Palestinians favor to resolve the conflict with Israel.
"We must stop with the slogans and start dealing with reality," said Abbas, Fatah's leader. "We must stop dreaming and accept what we can take now. Let us not speak of dreams. Let us take the Palestinian state on the '67 borders. There is a national consensus for this."
Abbas delivered his ultimatum during a meeting of Fatah and Hamas leaders in the West Bank city of Ramallah that was intended to reduce mounting tensions. His comments reflect frustration over Hamas's refusal to soften its views at a time of deepening economic hardship in the Palestinian territories and sporadic armed conflict between the two movements.
Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire Thursday in Gaza City following the funeral of a senior Fatah security official killed this week in a car bombing. The gunfire killed a member of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian security services and wounded several others.
When Abbas asked Hamas to form the Palestinian cabinet after its January election victory, he urged its leaders to accept agreements backed by Fatah that call for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Israel has occupied those territories since the 1967 war, although it evacuated Jewish settlements in Gaza last year.
Since Hamas took control of the Palestinian government ministries, international donors have frozen foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, and Israel has suspended the transfer of tax revenue it collects on the government's behalf. The Palestinian Authority has not paid its more than 150,000 employees for nearly three months.
Advisers and allies of Abbas said his comments Thursday were calculated to force Hamas to moderate its position, which international donors have demanded in return for a renewal of aid, or else face a vote that he expects will endorse the two-state solution. The referendum would be based on an 18-point document drafted this month by Fatah and Hamas leaders in Israeli prisons. The Hamas prison leadership is an important element of the movement's decision-making body, along with Hamas members in exile and those in the territories.
"We're escalating the tension a little bit to try to corner them and show them as rejectionists," said a political adviser to Abbas who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. "The idea is to bring Hamas back inside the national dialogue or to go to the people for a reminder of what the national consensus is."
As president, Abbas has the authority to fire Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a member of Hamas, and disband the cabinet. He has chosen instead to give Hamas an opportunity to govern the poor and often lawless occupied territories, betting that his rivals will suffer politically in the attempt.
But the economic sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority have given Hamas something to blame for any perceived political shortcomings. Israel's top general warned this week that the economic squeeze would not topple the Hamas government, citing opinion polls that show its support has not declined.
"We do not fear conducting a referendum, as we know that the Palestinian people support us and support our program," said Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas legislator from Gaza.
The prisoners' plan, as the document has come to be known, endorses a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Among other items, it also calls for the release of all Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to Israel and reforms of the Palestinian security services and political institutions.
The more radical Hamas leaders in exile immediately rejected the document when it was made public this month. But Haniyeh and other party figures in the territories -- including Masri, who called the document "positive" -- said it could serve as a starting point for further discussion. Polls conducted since show that roughly 80 percent of Palestinians support it.
"If Hamas says democracy, democracy, democracy -- okay. The president is going back to the people," said Saeb Erekat, a Fatah member of parliament and the chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel. "He could not continue to have the government defy the guidelines he gave it, and he didn't want to sack it."
Abbas's gambit could also strengthen his hand with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who told President Bush in Washington this week that he would explore the possibility of reviving peace talks before taking any unilateral steps to define the Jewish state's final borders. [*******]
Abbas, who as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization manages peace policy, has asked Olmert to restart negotiations under the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "road map." Formal negotiations between the two sides have been moribund since January 2001.
Olmert told a joint meeting of Congress, "If there is to be a just, fair and lasting peace, we need a partner who rejects violence and who values life more than death." Some Israeli politicians said Thursday that a Palestinian vote in favor of a two-state solution along the 1967 border would increase pressure on Olmert to pursue a peace process with Abbas. [*********]
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:40 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26mideast.html
May 26, 2006
Abbas Says Hamas Must Accept Peace Plan or Face Referendum
By GREG MYRE [Palestine] [abbas’ rather risky gamble] [force hamas’ hand on negotiating peace with Israel; short of hamas’ endorsement, take the matter to the Palestinian people by way of referendum] [followup from yesterday’s external] [*****************]
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 25 — The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said Thursday that he would call a referendum on a proposal for a Palestinian state that would recognize Israel, if the governing Hamas party failed to accept the plan within 10 days. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26mideast.html
May 26, 2006
Abbas Says Hamas Must Accept Peace Plan or Face Referendum
By GREG MYRE [Palestine] [abbas’ rather risky gamble] [force hamas’ hand on negotiating peace with Israel; short of hamas’ endorsement, take the matter to the Palestinian people by way of referendum] [followup from yesterday’s external] [*****************]
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 25 — The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said Thursday that he would call a referendum on a proposal for a Palestinian state that would recognize Israel, if the governing Hamas party failed to accept the plan within 10 days. [*********]
In laying down his challenge, Mr. Abbas seems to be gambling that he can force his Fatah party, Hamas and some smaller factions to agree on a broad framework for dealing with Israel, which Hamas now refuses to recognize. But he runs the risk of provoking a political showdown at a moment when the Palestinians are already plagued by infighting and a worsening financial crisis. [*************]
"We differ, it is true," Mr. Abbas said in Ramallah at a conference intended to put an end to internal Palestinian quarreling. "We see things differently, but we need to find middle-of-the-road solutions."
Several Hamas figures said Thursday that they did not object to a referendum, at least in principle. [*******]
"We are not afraid of a referendum," said a Hamas legislator, Salah Bardawil. "The election was a referendum, and the majority of the people chose us." He was referring to the vote in January in which Fatah, which previously dominated Palestinian politics, lost its parliamentary majority and Hamas, [***********] a radical Islamic group, came to power.
Like the Palestinians, Israel appeared caught off guard by Mr. Abbas's announcement and had little to say about it. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, described it as an internal Palestinian matter. [*********]
In the past Israel has strongly rejected two of the plan's provisions: returning to pre-1967 borders and giving Palestinian refugees the right to return to lands they left in 1948. [********]
The proposal, based on a plan drafted earlier this month by prominent Palestinian prisoners from Hamas and Fatah, calls for a Palestinian state and a negotiated peace settlement with Israel, if it withdraws to the borders that existed before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. The Palestinian state would include all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem. [see in external] [I don’t think it was may however] [it may have been late april] [check]
Marwan Barghouti, a leading Fatah figure serving five life terms in Israel's Hadarim Prison, is credited as the driving force behind the prisoners' document, though imprisoned members of Hamas also endorsed it.
"We must rise to the level of responsibility," said Mr. Abbas, whose Fatah movement has supported plans along those lines for years. "If within 10 days you don't reach results through dialogue, I will take the prisoners' document to a popular referendum" within 40 days.
The referendum can be authorized either by a decree from Mr. Abbas or by Parliament, Amar Dwik, the head of the Palestinian election commission, told The Associated Press.
In recent years Palestinian polls have generally shown strong public support for a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders. But Hamas has refused to moderate its hard-line policies despite a cutoff in Western assistance that has left the Palestinian government financially crippled.
The Palestinian conference was held simultaneously in Ramallah and Gaza City and connected by video because Israel does not permit Hamas members to travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Until Mr. Abbas spoke, the talks were expected to focus on the almost daily clashes in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah.
"Our meeting today aims to cement our national unity," said Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister and a Hamas leader, who spoke in Gaza City before Mr. Abbas's remarks in Ramallah. "Our difference is with the Israeli occupation."
The factional violence in Gaza continued Thursday with a shootout involving Fatah and Hamas forces in Gaza City. About a dozen people were wounded, the Palestinian security forces said. Amid growing concerns about Mr. Abbas's safety, Israel took the unusual step of allowing his presidential guard to receive additional weapons and ammunition from abroad, Reuters reported. Israel's Defense Ministry did not say which countries would be sending the weapons.
Even if the Palestinian factions agree on the prisoners' plan, or if it is approved in a referendum, it will not necessarily lead to peace talks with Israel. Full-fledged negotiations collapsed in 2001, shortly after the Palestinian uprising known as the second intifada began.
But Ephraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, told Israel radio, "I think this is a signal we must carefully examine, as we all know Hamas gained power in a sudden manner and neither the Hamas nor others expected to see them come to power."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was in Washington this week, has said he is willing to have diplomatic contacts with the Palestinians. But if there is no progress, he says, he is prepared to act unilaterally to set Israel's borders within four years.
Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, met with Mr. Abbas on Sunday at a conference in Egypt, the highest-level contact between the sides since Hamas's election victory. Mr. Olmert is considering a meeting with Mr. Abbas, though it could be a month or more away, according to an Israeli official who traveled with the prime minister.
But Israel refuses to deal with Hamas, which it labels a terrorist group. Israel says Hamas must recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous agreements before there can be a possibility of dialogue.
Mr. Olmert has said he wants to keep the large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank, where most settlers live. Without saying precisely where he wants to set a border, he said the basis would be the separation barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank. The current route would put about 10 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side.
The Palestinian prisoners' plan says that resistance to Israeli occupation, while "a Palestinian right," should be "limited only to land occupied by Israel since 1967." That effectively endorses attacks against Israelis in the West Bank, where Israeli soldiers and settlers are present, but not inside the borders Israel had before the 1967 war.
The document was signed by Mr. Barghouti, who was convicted in 2004 of orchestrating the killings of five people, and a prominent Hamas prisoner, Abdel Khaleq Natche.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:40 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/asia/26afghan.html
May 26, 2006
Karzai Visits Site of Battle Where Many Civilians Died
By CARLOTTA GALL [afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring offensive] [recent American-coalition attack against insurgents who subsequently took cover in non-combatants homes] [karzai spoke out against it] [************]
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 25 — President Hamid Karzai made a surprise visit on Thursday to Kandahar, his hometown in the south, to visit civilians wounded in an American bombing nearby on Sunday. [******]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/asia/26afghan.html
May 26, 2006
Karzai Visits Site of Battle Where Many Civilians Died
By CARLOTTA GALL [afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring offensive] [recent American-coalition attack against insurgents who subsequently took cover in non-combatants homes] [karzai spoke out against it] [************]
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 25 — President Hamid Karzai made a surprise visit on Thursday to Kandahar, his hometown in the south, to visit civilians wounded in an American bombing nearby on Sunday. [******]
Thousands of villagers have fled their homes and sought refuge in Kandahar because of the airstrikes and some of the most intense fighting in Afghanistan since the American invasion in 2001. [*************]
The president's visit was fleeting, and security was heavy. (He narrowly survived an assassination attempt there in 2002.) Speaking to a gathering of Pashtun tribal elders, he promised he would bring security to the region. [**********]
“He told us not to be worried about the situation, that let’s wait and see, and that we will bring security,” said Hajji Agha Lalai Dastagiri, a member of the newly elected provincial council in Kandahar who was present at the meeting.
“He promised the people that he would build Afghanistan, that God would rebuild it, that the international community was with us, and they would build Afghanistan and bring security to this region,” Mr. Dastagiri said. “People were telling him we really need security, but that we do not need foreign troops and helicopters and tanks anymore: we Afghans should take care of it.” [************]
Taliban insurgents have appeared in force in recent weeks across southern Afghanistan, apparently in an effort to derail the deployment by NATO as it prepares to take over from American forces in the region. Some of the heaviest fighting has taken place in Kandahar Province and neighboring Helmand, [*******] and scores of Taliban fighters and police officers have been killed.
But it was the bombing on Sunday night in which civilians were killed that has turned the fighting into a political crisis for Mr. Karzai and caused thousands of civilians to flee.
Two thousand to 3,000 people have left a ring of five villages where the fighting has been raging this week and have arrived in trucks and tractors in Kandahar City, said Rahilla Zafar, a press officer for the International Organization for Migration. "The Taliban are taking over village communities, and the people are scared," she said.
Her office, which is closing down its operations for displaced people this week for lack of funds, has suddenly found 156 families in a refugee camp nearby who are appealing for urgent assistance to move out of the region, she said.
Fighting continued Wednesday in the Panjwai district, just west of Kandahar, and coalition forces bombed the area again, the United States-led force in Kandahar said in a statement. Two suspected Taliban insurgents were detained.
In the evening, troops clashed with a "sizable force of Taliban, who retreated into a house and continued fighting," the statement said. "Artillery and air support was used to destroy the enemy. Sporadic fighting continued through the night. We have no assessment of Taliban killed or wounded."
The estimate of the civilian casualties Sunday continued to rise. [*******]
Abdul Qadar Noorzai, the head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar, who has been compiling numbers from families arriving at his office, said at least 33 civilians were killed when American planes bombarded Tolokan on Sunday. That would be double the number first reported. [*******]
According to the villagers' accounts, 24 members of one family who lived in a large mud-walled compound died and 8 were wounded in the first bombing attack, Mr. Noorzai said. In a second bombing, of a religious school, nine civilians were killed and three wounded, he said.
Villagers also reported that they had buried 35 Taliban fighters who were killed in the attack, he said.
The broader humanitarian crisis also seems to be worsening.
The United Nations World Food Program warned Thursday that 2.5 million Afghans would go hungry this winter if donors did not finance a program for the most vulnerable communities suffering from poor harvests and drought. A lack of funds has already forced the organization to cut some supplies, and it may have to close its winter program entirely, ending food assistance to 450,000 schoolchildren and their families, said Anthony Banbury, the regional director for Asia.
He warned at a news briefing that failure to keep the program could turn the people against the government and the international community, and push them into the arms of insurgents. [**********]
"If people are going hungry, if parents cannot feed their children, they obviously are going to be very dissatisfied with the current situation," he said. "And they may be tempted or even forced to take extreme measures."
Sultan M. Munadi and Ruhullah Khapalwak contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:39 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-marines26may26,0,7085174.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
Probe Finds Marines Killed Unarmed Iraqi Civilians
By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********] [this story has been floating around for some time] [apparently it has been ajducated now] [see NYTs piece in today’s govt] [this LATs piece here as chronological placeholder]

SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-marines26may26,0,7085174.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
Probe Finds Marines Killed Unarmed Iraqi Civilians
By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********] [this story has been floating around for some time] [apparently it has been ajducated now] [see NYTs piece in today’s govt] [this LATs piece here as chronological placeholder]

SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.

Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq.

An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either failed to stop them or filed misleading or blatantly false reports.

The report concludes that a dozen Marines acted improperly after a roadside bomb explosion killed a fellow Marine, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas.

Looking for insurgents, the Marines entered several homes and began firing their weapons, according to the report.

In its initial statement to the media, the Marine Corps said the Iraqi civilians were killed either by an insurgent bomb or by crossfire between Marines and insurgents.

But after Time magazine obtained pictures showing dead women and children and quoted Iraqis who said the attack was unprovoked, the Marine Corps backtracked on its explanation and called for an investigation.

The Marines, many of whom were on their third deployment to Iraq, are part of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of the 1st Marine Division.

The battalion commander and two company commanders were relieved of duty last month because, a spokesman said, Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the division, had lost confidence in their leadership.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducted a separate investigation, is expected to call for criminal charges, including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and filing a false report.

After the roadside bomb killed Terrazas, the Marines conducted a sweep of the area, a common military tactic. But instead of following the Geneva Convention rules about identifying combatants, the Marines killed Iraqis in homes and five sitting in a vehicle, reportedly without provocation, the investigation found.

Bargewell's report is to be given soon to Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the top operational commander in Baghdad. Chiarelli will make recommendations involving leadership, training and filing reports. Compensation has already been paid to families of some of the slain Iraqis.

Marine officials also confirmed Thursday that an investigation had been opened into an April 26 incident in which troops allegedly killed a civilian in the town of Hamandiya, west of Baghdad.

Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee flew to Iraq on Thursday to talk to Marines and remind them of long-standing orders to protect Iraqi civilians and follow the Geneva Convention.

Hagee is emphasizing "the importance of our core values" and reminding troops about the laws of war, a Marine Corps statement said.

The Marine commandant planned to read to officers and enlisted personnel a statement reminding them: "We must regulate force and violence, we only damage property that must be damaged, and we protect the noncombatants we find on the battlefield."

Hagee last week briefed key congressional leaders on the upcoming report. One of those, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel, said later that Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, held a news conference last Friday to plead with reporters, politicians and the public not to judge U.S. troops by the action "of one squad, in one city, on one morning."

The Marines have had more than 700 personnel killed in Iraq.

In his statement, Hagee said that Marines should overcome the tendency "of becoming indifferent to the loss of a human life" in their dealings with Iraqi civilians.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:38 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq26may26,1,4241770.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Iraqi Suburb Is More Secure, but Hemmed In
A U.S. cordon has kept insurgents out of the Sunni Arab town of Tarmiya. But residents are also cut off from the capital by Shiite militias.
By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********] [daily life for Iraqis]
TARMIYA, Iraq — Before the U.S. military moved into this suburb north of Baghdad and cordoned it off with six miles of concertina wire, insurgents had the run of the place.

They launched nearly daily attacks on the police that whittled down the 40-member force by half. U.S. patrols often were targeted by car bombs and roadside explosives. In one week in March, a bomb killed four Iraqi soldiers and a sniper killed a police officer inside Tarmiya's bullet-pocked police headquarters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq26may26,1,4241770.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Iraqi Suburb Is More Secure, but Hemmed In
A U.S. cordon has kept insurgents out of the Sunni Arab town of Tarmiya. But residents are also cut off from the capital by Shiite militias.
By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********] [daily life for Iraqis]
TARMIYA, Iraq — Before the U.S. military moved into this suburb north of Baghdad and cordoned it off with six miles of concertina wire, insurgents had the run of the place.

They launched nearly daily attacks on the police that whittled down the 40-member force by half. U.S. patrols often were targeted by car bombs and roadside explosives. In one week in March, a bomb killed four Iraqi soldiers and a sniper killed a police officer inside Tarmiya's bullet-pocked police headquarters.

On Thursday, during a short, highly choreographed gathering at Tarmiya's town center arranged by the U.S. military, residents of the predominantly Sunni Arab town expressed gratitude to U.S. troops for driving out insurgents and beginning rebuilding projects that included water services, a hospital renovation, road construction and refurbishment of a youth center. [***********]

Local politicians and other residents say security has improved dramatically. [**********]

Tarmiya is an example of a cordon strategy [****] used in towns in Al Anbar province, including Tall Afar and Fallouja, in which U.S. troops clear areas of guerrillas, form a perimeter and develop Iraqi security forces in the hope that they will be strong enough to hold off the insurgency once American soldiers leave. [but big internal pentagon debate on whether cordon strategy is feasible] [to apply it to entire country would necessitate myriad more troops] [*************]

The military presented Tarmiya, a verdant, palm-shaded village along the Tigris River, as a good news story: a Sunni Arab community that welcomes American troops and dislikes the Sunni Arab-driven insurgency.

But townspeople also said that although active insurgents are no longer in their midst, they are unable to live normal lives because their freedom of movement is limited. Shiite militias have in effect cut them off from the capital.

"My 2-year-old son has hemophilia, but there is no medicine here," said Ahmad Abdullah, a construction worker. "Sometimes I try to go to Baghdad, but I am afraid because gunmen kill and kidnap those who try to go there."

Taxi driver Qusay Abdel Hussein said that a woman who was trying to go to Baghdad to shop for food last week was killed on the way, and that he knew a man who was kidnapped while headed to the capital and was being held for ransom.

"This is a rural place, and we have many farmers who can't take their harvests to Baghdad. We can't take documents to the government or see our relatives in Baghdad," Hussein said. "I haven't been to Baghdad for eight months now because of the bad situation. I need money, but I can't get it because all the banks are in Baghdad."

Hussein said that he and friends and relatives had gone into debt to avoid making the dangerous trek into the capital.

Sheik Jassim Said, head of Tarmiya's local government council, said the town had become a haven for Sunni Arabs driven out of predominantly Shiite areas. The number of families that have arrived from places such as Baghdad, Nasiriya and Basra has reached 1,300, he said.

"These families [often] come a great distance because they have been displaced from their homes by armed militias that belong to the political parties," the sheik said. [***********]

He acknowledged that security had improved. But his son was recently slain by insurgents, and he said he did not feel safe. Council leaders still receive death threats from insurgents who oppose their cooperation with the U.S. military. [***********]

"We don't want the American occupation," the sheik said. "But if the Americans leave, we will be raided by armed groups." [***************]

U.S. Army Col. James Pasquarette, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said that Tarmiya had been an "intellectual sanctuary" for high-level insurgent leaders planning attacks in Baghdad, and that the Army had expected stiff resistance when it swept in two months ago.

"We were under the assumption that the population here was giving active and passive support to the insurgents," he said. "I'm glad to say that we were wrong. The people here didn't like the insurgents any more than we did."

The insurgents left town without any significant resistance and haven't been back, Pasquarette said.

The decrease in violence has enabled Iraqi and U.S. officials to start reconstruction. A division of the Iraqi army has helped secure the area, and 450 volunteers have reestablished the police force. Many of them will soon undergo eight weeks of training at a police academy in Jordan.

Pasquarette's unit has spent $4.5 million on reconstruction projects and plans to spend at least $7.5 million more. The town now depends on water from the Tigris. A five-mile water line that will bring fresh water from a nearby treatment plant is half completed.

U.S. funds also are paying for new surgery and birthing rooms at a medical clinic.

"The majority of our contractors are Iraqis," Pasquarette said. U.S. soldiers said that creating jobs in Tarmiya was part of the strategy to break the grip of the insurgency.

Iraqi contractor Nabil Mohammed Yaseen said he had employed 20 men to work on Tarmiya's youth center. "It was an unstable situation before. When the Americans came through here there would be a lot of explosions," he said. "Lately, it's been a lot better. There's a lot of reconstruction here."

But local leaders said that although the U.S. military had funded reconstruction efforts and helped to develop the security forces, national government leaders in Baghdad had not been so helpful. "They don't know anything," Said, the council leader, said.

In other news, the U.S. military announced that two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq. They were not immediately identified and few details were given.

In Mosul, gunmen killed a local council member and his driver Thursday near a downtown mosque. In Baghdad, an assassination attempt seriously injured a high-ranking Defense Ministry official.

And U.S. military officials said they were not allowing journalists to travel with military units in Ramadi, an insurgent hot spot that has become one of the most deadly battlegrounds in Iraq, for an indefinite period. Military officials would not explain why they were stopping the practice.
Special correspondents in Baghdad and Mosul contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:38 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26cnd-iraq.html
May 26, 2006
Iraqi Minister Backs Iran on Nuclear Research
By JOHN O'NEIL [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********] [here –ir’s foreign minister endorsed iran’s nuclear energy plan] [this is exactly what us feared] [an –ir-iran axis hastened by shitte majority rule] [*************]
Iraq supports Iran's right to pursue nuclear research, its new foreign minister said today, taking a position at odds with that of the Bush administration. [**********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26cnd-iraq.html
May 26, 2006
Iraqi Minister Backs Iran on Nuclear Research
By JOHN O'NEIL [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********] [here –ir’s foreign minister endorsed iran’s nuclear energy plan] [this is exactly what us feared] [an –ir-iran axis hastened by shitte majority rule] [*************]
Iraq supports Iran's right to pursue nuclear research, its new foreign minister said today, taking a position at odds with that of the Bush administration. [**********]
The foreign minister, Hoshiyar Zebari, spoke during a visit to Baghdad by Iran's foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, that marked the reconciliation of two countries that fought a long and bloody war two decades ago. [******]
According to news service accounts, Mr. Zebari said that Iraq does not want "any of our neighbors to have weapons of mass destruction." [*********]
But he also confirmed “the right of the republic of Iran and the right of any other state to have scientific and technological abilities to research in the field of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” [**********]
The United States and Europe have insisted that Iran give up its program of nuclear research. Iran says the program is meant only to give it the ability to generate nuclear energy and denies it is seeking weapons. [*****]
President Bush, speaking Thursday night at a news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that dropping its research would be a precondition for a new package of incentives being prepared by European countries.
"If they would like to see an enhanced package, the first thing they've got to do is suspend their operations, for the good of the world," Mr. Bush said.
In Baghdad, Mr. Mottaki also confirmed that Iran has withdrawn its call for direct talks with the United States on the stability of Iraq. "Unfortunately, the American side tried to use this decision as propaganda," he said, news services reported.
Mr. Zebari said that he and Mr. Mottaki had discussed security arrangements between the two countries. "We want to activate those mechanisms to overcome any interference or infringement, let's say of our sovreignity," [*****] he said.
While Iran and Iraq had historically been rivals in the region, Tehran has close ties to the religious parties that make up the Shiite coalition that is dominant force in the new government. Nevertheless, the United States has accused Iran of fomenting violence and instability by sending weapons and fighters into Iraq. [************]
On Thursday, according to Reuters, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in an interview with Arab television accused organizations and charitable groups based in neighboring countries of funding armed groups within Iraq. [**************]
Mr. Maliki's Dawa party was long based in Iran during its years of struggle against the regime of Saddam Hussein. [****] But the leaders of the other main Shiite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, are considered even closer to the government in Tehran, which helped fund and train its milita, the Badr Brigade. [************]
Meanwhile today, eight people died and another 33 were wounded by a busy place under a car in a bus service garage in central Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.
Reuters also reported that the Interior Ministry announced today that the coach of the national tennis team and two of his players had been shot to death on Tuesday as they drove through Baghdad.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:37 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600340.html
Car Bomb Kills at Least 10 in Baghdad
By Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; 6:24 AM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********]
BAGHDAD, May 26 -- A car bomb exploded Friday in a public market in eastern Baghdad, killing at least ten people and wounding 30, police said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600340.html
Car Bomb Kills at Least 10 in Baghdad
By Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; 6:24 AM [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [violence and politics since 12-15-05, 2-22-06, and 4-22-06] [since then govt formed, albeit without interior minister, defense minister, and one other] [follwoup: latests] [********]
BAGHDAD, May 26 -- A car bomb exploded Friday in a public market in eastern Baghdad, killing at least ten people and wounding 30, police said.
The attack took place in the Nahdha district, according to police Capt. Nameer Hanoon of the Baghdad police command. The market, which sells old furniture pieces, household goods and appliances to lower income people, would have been especially busy on Friday, the Islamic weekend.
Also Friday, Iraqi police found the bodies of two men shot dead in Dora district in southern Baghdad. Hanoon said the bodies where handcuffed, blindfolded and shot dead and were left near a farm in the area.
Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb missed a U-S convoy, but injured three Iraqis on a minibus. In the upscale neighborhood of Mansour, a roadside bomb exploded near the motorcade of Ahmed al-Chalabi, a former deputy prime minister who is currently head of the De-Baathification committee. Chalabi, who was not injured, was once a favorite of the Bush administration and the CIA.
In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, armed men wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped nine civilians from their houses Thursday night, according to police and witnesses.
Ali al-Khayam, the spokesman of the Joint Coordination Center in Diyala Province, said four of the kidnapped were security guards at the Diyala TV network, a TV and radio station in the province. The fifth was a translator for the US forces while the other four were government employees. He confirmed that all the hostages were Sunnis.
Sami Yasin was kidnapped with the hostages but released Friday. He said the kidnappers were not Iraqi army soldiers. "They were Mujahideen," he said without explaining any further details of the incident.
In the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 160 miles north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near a police convoy, killing one policeman and seriously wounding two others, according to Gen. Farhad Qadir of the Kirkuk police. The explosion came shortly after gunmen killed two police officers late last night in the city.
Special correspondents Salih Saif Aldin in Baghdad, Hasan Shammari in Baqubah, and other Washington Post employees in Baghdad and Kirkuk contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:36 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501316.html
Bush, Blair Concede Missteps on Iraq
But Leaders Say War Was Justified
By Glenn Kessler and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 26, 2006; A01 [bush and blair] [blair just recently in –ir] [now coordinating with his couterpart in us, pres Bush] [two held joint news conference last night] [it was relatively impressive] [both appeared earnest and blair articulated good reasons why west cannot abandon –ir now] [********] [see white house transcript in today’s govt] [**********] [ditto]
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last night acknowledged a series of errors in managing the occupation of Iraq that have made the conflict more difficult and more damaging to the U.S. image abroad, even as they insisted that enough progress has been made that other nations should support the nascent Iraqi government. [**********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501316.html
Bush, Blair Concede Missteps on Iraq
But Leaders Say War Was Justified
By Glenn Kessler and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 26, 2006; A01 [bush and blair] [blair just recently in –ir] [now coordinating with his couterpart in us, pres Bush] [two held joint news conference last night] [it was relatively impressive] [both appeared earnest and blair articulated good reasons why west cannot abandon –ir now] [********] [see white house transcript in today’s govt] [**********] [ditto]
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last night acknowledged a series of errors in managing the occupation of Iraq that have made the conflict more difficult and more damaging to the U.S. image abroad, even as they insisted that enough progress has been made that other nations should support the nascent Iraqi government. [**********]
In a joint news conference, Bush said he had used inappropriate "tough talk" -- such as saying "bring 'em on" in reference to insurgents -- that he said "sent the wrong signal to people." He also said the "biggest mistake" for the United States was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, in which guards photographed themselves sexually tormenting Iraqi prisoners, spawning revulsion worldwide. "We've been paying for that for a long period of time," he said. [seemingly plaintively] [********]
Blair, who visited Baghdad this week, said he and Bush should have recognized that the fall of president Saddam Hussein would not "be the rise of a democratic Iraq, that it was going to be a more difficult process" because "you're talking about literally building the institutions of a state from scratch."
While Bush increasingly has begun to acknowledge missteps in handling the war, his comments last night -- together with Blair's -- represent his most explicit acknowledgment that the administration underestimated the difficulty of the central project of his presidency.
The hour-long news conference came at a moment of acute political weakness for both men, who repeatedly emphasized that Iraq is finally turning a corner and that, whatever their other misjudgments, the decision to attack Iraq remains justified. Blair appeared dour and exhausted during much of the news conference, and both leaders became most animated when talking about their sagging political fortunes. [***********]
“No question that the Iraq war has, you know, created a sense of consternation here in America,” Bush said. “I mean, when you turn on your TV screen and see innocent people die day in and day out, it affects the mentality of our country.” He added: “I can understand why the American people are troubled by the war in Iraq. I understand that. But I also believe the sacrifice is worth it and it’s necessary.” [**********]
In his own recital of errors -- which came in response to a British reporter on the last question of the evening -- Blair cited the process of "de-Baathification" that immediately followed the overthrow of the old government. Many analysts say that decision to remove all of Hussein's loyalists fueled the insurgency because it threw tens of thousands of Iraqis out of work and left an administrative vacuum, and Blair agreed that it should have been done "in a more differentiated way." [***************]
The prime minister's examples appeared to be a direct rebuke of both the Pentagon's insistence that a detailed "nation-building" plan was unnecessary before the invasion and the push by key members of Bush's administration for broad de-Baathification. [blair took swipe not at bush but at Donald Rumsfeld and his yes men] [***************] [interesting: yesterday’s societal had piece on Douglas Feith’s rather chilly reception as an adjunct at Georgetown] [*******]
Bush's approval ratings have sunk to some of the lowest numbers for any president in decades, while Blair's Labor Party took a beating in recent elections. Iraq has played a role in both their troubles as American and British voters tire of the war. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 32 percent of Americans approved of Bush's handling of the war and 37 percent said it has been worth the cost.
Bush, and especially Blair, made the case that because Iraq now has a permanent government, other nations and international organizations -- such as the United Nations -- that have been reluctant to assist in rebuilding the country now have an obligation to step forward. Speaking of his trip to Baghdad, Blair said, "I came away thinking that the challenge is still immense, but I also came away more certain than ever that we should rise to it.
"What is important now is to say that after three years, which have been very, very difficult, indeed, and when at times it looked impossible for the democratic process to work . . . then it is our duty, but it is also the duty of the whole of the international community, to get behind this government and support it," he added.
Both governments have previously signaled desires to draw down troops in Iraq. Britain in the next week or so will have reduced its deployment from 8,000 to 7,200, and officials in London have talked about making greater progress toward withdrawals in the next year. Pentagon officials have suggested they would like to withdraw about 30,000 troops by the end of the year, leaving 100,000 there.
At the same time, both governments have made it clear that they envision some troops remaining for years. Bush at a previous news conference said it will be up to future presidents to decide when the last U.S. forces will leave, and an aide to Blair told British reporters this week that London hopes to pull out its last troops by 2010.
Bush brushed away questions about reducing troop levels, saying it depends on discussions with the Iraqi government and the judgment of U.S. commanders. "I have said to the American people, 'As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down,' " he said. "But I've also said that our commanders on the ground will make that decision.
"I want our troops out, don't get me wrong," Bush added, saying that he said U.S. troops would not leave the country until Iraq is able to sustain, defend and govern itself.
Blair's singling out the handling of "de-Baathification" -- that is, the effort to remove members of Hussein's ruling Baath Party from positions of power in post-invasion Iraq -- is noteworthy because Bush administration officials have been reluctant to revisit the controversy surrounding that decision publicly. Blair's raising of the issue may signal a greater willingness to acknowledge such debates, which have raged among policy analysts.
The de-Baathification program was issued as Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1 on May 16, 2003, by L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the U.S. occupation in 2003-2004.
It purged all Baath Party members with rank, a number estimated at 30,000 to 85,000. It was opposed by many other U.S. civilian and military officials, including the CIA station chief at the time, who thought it would drive tens of thousands of influential Iraqis into the arms of those violently opposed to the U.S. presence. On the other hand, it was consistent with the Bush administration's policy of transforming Iraq as a way of changing Middle Eastern politics.
In 2005, a joint study by the inspectors general of the Pentagon and State Department concluded that de-Baathification had indeed helped destabilize post-invasion Iraq. "The CPA decision to cleanse the political system of Hussein sympathizers -- notably, the 'de-Baathification' effort -- effectively decapitated" the Iraqi police services, they wrote.
While Blair singled out the de-Baathification policy, he did not mention the other major program that was started just after it, Bremer's order on May 23, 2003, that dissolved the Iraqi military and the Interior Ministry's national police force. That move added to the group of disaffected Iraqis and also lessened the ability of the occupation authority to control post-invasion Iraq. It was a move that surprised generals at U.S. Central Command, the nation's military headquarters for Iraq and the Middle East, where plans had been developed to use Iraqi army troops in reconstruction tasks.
Bremer and his allies have argued that the Iraqi military already had disbanded itself, but other officials said it could have easily been called back to bases and supported by U.S. logistics. [*************]
Regarding Iran, Bush said he would consider providing incentives if it agreed to abandon nuclear enrichment activities. "If they would like to see an enhanced package, the first thing they've got to do is suspend their operations, for the good of the world," Bush said. He also said that a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was "interesting," but it skirted the nuclear issue.
Blair earlier in the day tried to defuse talk of military confrontation with Iran. "We don't want a conflict with Iran, we have got enough on our plate doing other things," he told al-Jazeera television. "Nobody is targeting Iran. People are simply worried because they appear to be in breach of their nuclear obligations and because they are supporting terrorism around the Middle East."
Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks and Peter Baker contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:35 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26prexy.html
May 26, 2006
Politics
Bush and Blair Concede Errors, but Defend War
By DAVID E. SANGER and JIM RUTENBERG [bush and blair] [blair just recently in –ir] [now coordinating with his couterpart in us, pres Bush] [two held joint news conference last night] [it was relatively impressive] [both appeared earnest and blair articulated good reasons why west cannot abandon –ir now] [********] [see white house transcript in today’s govt] [**********]
WASHINGTON, May 25 — President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, two leaders badly weakened by the continuing violence in Iraq, acknowledged major misjudgments in the execution of the Iraq war on Thursday night even while insisting that the election of a constitutional government in Baghdad justified their decision to go to war three years ago. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26prexy.html
May 26, 2006
Politics
Bush and Blair Concede Errors, but Defend War
By DAVID E. SANGER and JIM RUTENBERG [bush and blair] [blair just recently in –ir] [now coordinating with his couterpart in us, pres Bush] [two held joint news conference last night] [it was relatively impressive] [both appeared earnest and blair articulated good reasons why west cannot abandon –ir now] [********] [see white house transcript in today’s govt] [**********]
WASHINGTON, May 25 — President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, two leaders badly weakened by the continuing violence in Iraq, acknowledged major misjudgments in the execution of the Iraq war on Thursday night even while insisting that the election of a constitutional government in Baghdad justified their decision to go to war three years ago. [*********]
Speaking in subdued, almost chastened, tones at a joint news conference in the East Room, the two leaders steadfastly refused to talk about a schedule for pulling troops out of Iraq — a pressure both men are feeling intently. They stuck to a common formulation that they would pull troops out only as properly trained Iraqi troops progressively took control over more and more territory in the country. [*********]
But in an unusual admission of a personal mistake, Mr. Bush said he regretted challenging insurgents in Iraq to "bring it on" in 2003, and said the same about his statement that he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Those two statements quickly came to reinforce his image around the world as a cowboy commander in chief. "Kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people," Mr. Bush said. "I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner." He went on to say that the American military's biggest mistake was the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs of detainees showed them in degrading and abusive conditions. "We've been paying for that for a long period of time," Mr. Bush said, his voice heavy with regret. [*********************] [some commentators said it was canned] [it certainly was calculated] [on the other hand it struck me as genuine] [*************]
Mr. Blair, whose approval levels have sunk even lower than Mr. Bush's, said he particularly regretted the broad decision to strip most members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party of their positions in government and civic life in 2003, leaving most institutions in Iraq shorn of expertise and leadership.
The news conference, in the formal setting of the East Room, was notable for the contrite tone of both leaders. Mr. Bush acknowledged "a sense of consternation" among the American people, driven by the steady drumbeat of American casualties.
The meeting came at a low moment in Mr. Bush's presidency and Mr. Blair's prime ministership, at a time when the decisions that they made to invade Iraq and that they have defended ever since have proved a political albatross for both. [*****]
Just as they joined in the drive to war in 2003, the two leaders on Thursday evening seemed joined by a common interest in arguing that things had finally turned around in Iraq. [******] Mr. Blair, who was in Iraq earlier this week, ventured the closest to a prediction about a timetable for disengagement, saying that he thought it was possible that Iraq's new prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was accurate in his prediction that Iraqi forces could control security in all of the country's provinces within 18 months.
But Mr. Bush quickly fell back to his familiar insistence that he would not begin a drawdown until his commanders said it was possible, and he noted that troops were recently called up from Kuwait to help stabilize Baghdad. He said that in the end he would insist on victory over both insurgents and terrorists linked to Al Qaeda, and he dismissed as "press speculation" reports of tentative Pentagon plans to bring American troop levels to about 100,000 by the end of this year. "A loss in Iraq would make this world an incredibly dangerous place," [******] Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Bush said he and Mr. Blair had spent "a great deal of time" discussing their next challenge: how to put together the right mix of penalties and incentives to force Iran to suspend the production of uranium and give up a program that both men had said clearly pointed to a desire to build a nuclear bomb.
Mr. Bush bristled at a question about whether he had "ignored back-channel overtures" from the Iranians over possible talks about their nuclear program. Mr. Bush said that "the Iranians walked away from the table" in discussions with three European nations, and that a letter sent to him by Iran's president "didn't address the issue of whether or not they're going to continue to press for a nuclear weapon." [*****] Some in the State Department and even some of Mr. Bush's outside foreign policy advisers have said that Mr. Bush missed a diplomatic opening by deciding not to respond to the letter, [*****] though others say it is still not too late.
But the overwhelming sense from the news conference was of two battered leaders who, once confident in their judgments on Iraq, now understood that misjudgments had not only affected their approval ratings, but perhaps their legacies. The British news magazine The Economist pictured the two on a recent cover under the headline "Axis of Feeble."
And while both men sidestepped questions about how their approval ratings were linked to Iraq, at one point Mr. Bush seemed to try to buck up his most loyal ally, who is expected to leave office soon and may be in the midst of his last official visit to Washington, by telling a British reporter, "Don't count him out."
Outside the White House gates, a smattering of protesters gathered, blowing whistles and chanting, "Troops out now."
Mr. Bush called the terrorists in Iraq "totalitarians" and "Islamic fascists," a phrase he has used periodically to give the current struggle a tinge of the last great American-British alliance, [*****] during World War II. But he acknowledged that the war in Iraq had taken a significant toll in public opinion. "I mean, when you turn on your TV screen and see innocent people die day in and day out, it affects the mentality of our country," Mr. Bush said. [america’s ethos: president’s feel compelled to analogize to past wars that were seen as wars America was dragged into] [use psci 350] [******]
Mr. Blair tried to focus on the current moment, saying that he had heard the complaint that "you went in with this Western concept of democracy, and you didn't understand that their whole culture was different." With a weak smile, he suggested to Mr. Bush that those who voted in Iraq had amounted to "a higher turnout, I have to say — I'm afraid to say I think — than either your election or mine."
Mr. Bush did not budge from his long-stated position that conditions in Iraq and the ability of Iraqi security forces to assume greater responsibilities would dictate whether the United States reduced the 133,000 American forces there. He said he would rely on the recommendations of Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq. In an effort to cajole the new government even while he was praising it, Mr. Bush twice mentioned that it had yet to appoint a defense minister with whom to discuss troop cuts, one of the glaring gaps in the Iraqi cabinet that is symbolic of the continuing struggle over power. "We'll keep the force level there necessary to win," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Blair acknowledged that some of the 260,000 Iraqi security forces, especially the police, suffered from corruption and the influence of militias. But he said a new Iraqi government would be more able than allied officials to cope with these problems.
For those who trace Mr. Bush's own reluctance to acknowledge errors in Iraq, his statements on Thursday night seemed to mark a crossing of a major threshold. In an interview with The New York Times in August 2004, Mr. Bush said that his biggest mistake in Iraq had been underestimating the speed of initial victory over Mr. Hussein's forces, which allowed Iraqi troops to melt back into the cities and towns. When pressed, he said he could think of no other errors.
Over the winter, as public support for the war eroded, he acknowledged other mistakes — failing to plan sufficiently for the occupation and rebuilding of the country, or to execute the plans that had been made. But he described these as tactical mistakes that had been fixed. [*********]
His answer on Thursday evening, though, harked back to the two statements — "bring them on" and "dead or alive" — that his wife, Laura, had been particularly critical about. [****] While he had apologized before for the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib, his statement on Thursday was his starkest admission to date of the damage that the episode did to the image of the United States. [**********]
But Mr. Bush emphasized that American soldiers had been punished for the abuses. “Unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice,” he said. Mr. Bush’s critics have noted that the prosecutions have focused on low-level soldiers and have not held senior officers accountable.
Mr. Blair, while saying that the coalition had misjudged the de-Baathification process, added: “It’s easy to go back over mistakes that we may have made. But the biggest reason why Iraq has been difficult is the determination of our opponents to defeat us. And I don’t think we should be surprised at that.” [*********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:35 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26briefs-brief-005.html
May 26, 2006
World Briefing | Middle East
Iran: Clashes at University Over Clampdown
NAZILA FATHI (NYT) [iran] [recent announcements from guardian council and president ahmedinejad regarding modesty and so forth] [per ususal, college students are the ones resisting] [they support, generally, iran’s right to have nuclear enrichment for power] [nationalism] [but they have demonstrated repeatedly they’ve grown tired of the Islamic republic’s demands] [****************]
Students clashed with the police in Tehran at protests over restrictions since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected last June. Students threw stones and set fires outside a Tehran University dormitory, [******]the student news agency ISNA reported. Paramilitary forces entered the dormitory around 5 a.m. and detained some protestors. Nearly 40 students were injured and at least seven were arrested, students said. The daily Etemad Melli reported that 40 police officers were injured. [*******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26briefs-brief-005.html
May 26, 2006
World Briefing | Middle East
Iran: Clashes at University Over Clampdown
NAZILA FATHI (NYT) [iran] [recent announcements from guardian council and president ahmedinejad regarding modesty and so forth] [per ususal, college students are the ones resisting] [they support, generally, iran’s right to have nuclear enrichment for power] [nationalism] [but they have demonstrated repeatedly they’ve grown tired of the Islamic republic’s demands] [****************]
Students clashed with the police in Tehran at protests over restrictions since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected last June. Students threw stones and set fires outside a Tehran University dormitory, [******]the student news agency ISNA reported. Paramilitary forces entered the dormitory around 5 a.m. and detained some protestors. Nearly 40 students were injured and at least seven were arrested, students said. The daily Etemad Melli reported that 40 police officers were injured. [*******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:34 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-norkor26may26,1,1860611.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
U.S. Envoy Meets Partners in N. Korea Negotiations
Hill holds talks in Beijing and Seoul, and may stop in Tokyo, to keep parties engaged.
By Mark Magnier
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [DPRK] [north korea] [wmd] [[long-stalled 6-way talks] [came to a deal last fall] [after deal charges and countercharges between Kim’s govt and Bush admin] [counterfeiting us currency among issues] [signs of renewal?] [**********]

BEIJING — North Korea's continued unwillingness to come to the negotiating table remains the major stumbling block in efforts to curtail its nuclear weapons program, a top U.S. envoy said Thursday. [******]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-norkor26may26,1,1860611.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
U.S. Envoy Meets Partners in N. Korea Negotiations
Hill holds talks in Beijing and Seoul, and may stop in Tokyo, to keep parties engaged.
By Mark Magnier
Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2006 [DPRK] [north korea] [wmd] [[long-stalled 6-way talks] [came to a deal last fall] [after deal charges and countercharges between Kim’s govt and Bush admin] [counterfeiting us currency among issues] [signs of renewal?] [**********]

BEIJING — North Korea's continued unwillingness to come to the negotiating table remains the major stumbling block in efforts to curtail its nuclear weapons program, a top U.S. envoy said Thursday. [******]

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said he had discussed with Chinese officials the possibility of future negotiations with North Korea on a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War. [*****] He did not elaborate.

The Korean peninsula is the last Cold War hot spot without a permanent peace and North Korea has expressed interest in replacing the cease-fire negotiated after the 1950-53 conflict with a formal treaty. [********]

Hill flew to Seoul later Thursday and said he also might stop in Tokyo on his way back to Washington. Analysts said his swing through the region was aimed at keeping negotiating partners engaged.

The U.S. envoy told reporters in a Beijing hotel lobby that China and the United States agreed on the need to resume talks on dismantling isolated North Korea's nuclear program. [*********]

"It's not helping that [North Korea] continues to boycott the talks," Hill said. "You do have to ask yourself why they're not coming back."

Some analysts say the imposition of financial restrictions on North Korea by the United States has not helped. The U.S. has accused the regime in Pyongyang, the capital, of money laundering and counterfeiting U.S. currency using high-quality printing presses. Washington recently imposed sanctions on North Korean companies and froze $20 million in assets held at a bank in Macao, [***] China. Pyongyang has denied any wrongdoing. [*********]

Hill denied that this was the main stumbling block, and said that if North Korea was willing, the process could move forward. Although the Chinese previously have urged the U.S. to show flexibility on the financial issues, [*****]Hill said they didn't do so Thursday.

"I am not sure this is about the U.S. economic measures," Hill told reporters in Seoul a few hours after leaving Beijing, according to the Associated Press. "I think this is about a country that just has trouble making up its mind." [*********]

An agreement in September under which Pyongyang would dismantle its nuclear program in return for aid, security assurances and diplomatic ties appeared to offer a glimmer of hope. [****] But follow-up talks in November ended inconclusively and hope for negotiations this year dissipated.

In addition to North Korea, China and the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia are party to the negotiations. Hill said the U.S. remains committed to the process. [6-way talks] [*****]

That commitment may be a bit wobbly, however, after recent reports that Vice President Dick Cheney has all but given up on the talks. But analysts said the fact that Hill had traveled to the region suggests that either Cheney has relented somewhat, or that he was not as close to pulling the plug on the talks as had been suggested.

"Not knowing what the U.S. is willing to put on the table or how much leeway Hill has, it's hard to know what's really going on," said Banning Garrett, director of Asian programs at the Atlantic Council in Washington. "But I don't think Hill is in Asia just for smoke and mirrors."

Liu Jianchao, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the meeting Thursday between Hill and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei lasted four hours.

He said all sides had an interest in a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and emphasized the importance of implementing the terms of the September agreement as soon as possible.

China, which has played host to the talks held over several years, is North Korea's closest ally. But it also appears increasingly frustrated with its mercurial Communist neighbor.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:33 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/africa/26chad.html
May 26, 2006
Raiders From Sudan Killed 118 in Chad, Rights Watch Reports
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [sudan] [raiders from sudan enter chad] [chad has its own insurgency ongoing] [links between the Sudanese and Chadian insurgents] [silamoic jihadis, hydra] [janjaweed] [*********] [use psci 469]
LONDON, May 25 (AP) — Raiders from Sudan have killed more than 100 villagers in Chad, Human Rights Watch reported Thursday, [*****] and the group expressed concern that the violence in Darfur was spreading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/africa/26chad.html
May 26, 2006
Raiders From Sudan Killed 118 in Chad, Rights Watch Reports
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [sudan] [raiders from sudan enter chad] [chad has its own insurgency ongoing] [links between the Sudanese and Chadian insurgents] [silamoic jihadis, hydra] [janjaweed] [*********] [use psci 469]
LONDON, May 25 (AP) — Raiders from Sudan have killed more than 100 villagers in Chad, Human Rights Watch reported Thursday, [*****] and the group expressed concern that the violence in Darfur was spreading.
Survivors told Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, that the massacre was carried out last month by the janjaweed, an Arab militia that Sudan has been accused of unleashing on African villages where Darfur rebels might find support.
The Sudanese government denies backing the janjaweed but agreed to rein them in under a May 5 peace agreement. [****] Violence, though, has increased since the government and the main rebel movement signed the accord. More than 180,000 people have died in Darfur, in western Sudan, since 2003. [*******]
"Sudanese militiamen are moving further and further into Chad, and are looting and killing Chadian villagers," [*****] Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
The Darfur war has destabilized the region where Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic meet. Some 200,000 Darfur refugees have sought shelter in Chad.
Chadian rebels have bases along the border and Chad's government accuses Sudan of backing them, while Sudan accuses Chad of backing Darfur rebels. There are also reports that opponents of the Central African Republic's government are gathering in the area to prepare an attack on their government. [******]
The massacre denounced by Human Rights Watch on Thursday occurred April 12-13, when Chadian security forces were preoccupied with an abortive attack by Chadian rebels on the capital. [*********]
Human Rights Watch, quoting witnesses, said 118 people were killed in four neighboring villages. Survivors said attackers shot or hacked to death unarmed villagers. The United Nations refugee agency has reported cross-border attacks on Darfur refugee camps in Chad as well as on nearby Chadian villages.
But attackers struck far from the camps in April, "in an area where there's almost no international presence ... very little government presence," [*****] a Human Rights Watch researcher, Leslie Lefkow, said in a telephone interview from Amsterdam.
Chadian officials had no immediate comment.
Human Rights Watch researchers learned of the massacres weeks later during a rare visit to the southern border area, Ms. Lefkow said.
The rivalry over resources and the complex ethnic dimension of the recent fighting in Chad is reminiscent of the roots of the conflict in Darfur. [********]
The western Sudanese region saw decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water before members of its African tribes rose in revolt in 2003, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglecting their impoverished region. [****] Besides the 180,000 dead, 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes since the widespread fighting erupted. [******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:33 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600318.html
Islamic Jihad Figure Killed in Lebanon
By BASSEM MROUE
The Associated Press
Friday, May 26, 2006; 8:41 AM [Lebanon] [middle east] [redoubt for Islamic jihad and hezbollah] [both dedicated to israel’s destruction] [*********] [use psci 469]
SIDON, Lebanon -- Security officials said a car bomb Friday killed a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad _ the Iran-backed militant group that continues to attack Israel. [*****] His brother was also killed in the explosion, which the group blamed on Israeli intelligence. [*****]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052600318.html
Islamic Jihad Figure Killed in Lebanon
By BASSEM MROUE
The Associated Press
Friday, May 26, 2006; 8:41 AM [Lebanon] [middle east] [redoubt for Islamic jihad and hezbollah] [both dedicated to israel’s destruction] [*********] [use psci 469]
SIDON, Lebanon -- Security officials said a car bomb Friday killed a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad _ the Iran-backed militant group that continues to attack Israel. [*****] His brother was also killed in the explosion, which the group blamed on Israeli intelligence. [*****]
Mahmoud Majzoub, [*****] a member of the group's policy-making Shura Council body and its leader in Sidon, 24 miles south of Beirut, was walking with his brother, Nidal, near the central square of this coastal city when a parked car was detonated by remote control, security officials said.
The group has continued to launch attacks on Israel since a February 2005 truce that the main militant group Hamas, which swept Palestinian legislative elections, [*****] has respected.
© 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:32 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-somalia26may26,1,557933.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Battles Among Militias Spread in Somalian Capital
The fighting for control of Mogadishu kills at least 48. Thousands of civilians flee on foot.
From the Associated Press
May 26, 2006 [Somalia] [Africa: horn] [followup] [alqaeda and other jihadis] [vs. us-backed warlords] [intraIslamic battle for failed state] [*********] [use psci 469]
NAIROBI, Kenya — Dozens of people were killed Thursday as Islamic and secular militias battled in Somalia's capital, and thousands fled the fighting. The violence spread from northern Mogadishu, recent scene of fierce battles, into the southern and eastern parts of the city, witnesses said.

Islamic Court Union militiamen captured a strategic road junction and seized the historic Sahafi Hotel, owned by a member of the rival Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-somalia26may26,1,557933.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Battles Among Militias Spread in Somalian Capital
The fighting for control of Mogadishu kills at least 48. Thousands of civilians flee on foot.
From the Associated Press
May 26, 2006 [Somalia] [Africa: horn] [followup] [alqaeda and other jihadis] [vs. us-backed warlords] [intraIslamic battle for failed state] [*********] [use psci 469]
NAIROBI, Kenya — Dozens of people were killed Thursday as Islamic and secular militias battled in Somalia's capital, and thousands fled the fighting. The violence spread from northern Mogadishu, recent scene of fierce battles, into the southern and eastern parts of the city, witnesses said.

Islamic Court Union militiamen captured a strategic road junction and seized the historic Sahafi Hotel, owned by a member of the rival Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.

The fight for control of Mogadishu comes despite a May 14 cease-fire. The alliance says the self-appointed Islamic Court Union leaders have links to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, whereas the Islamic militants accuse the alliance of working for the CIA. U.S. officials refuse to confirm any association with the secular militia.

The Islamic fundamentalists portray themselves as an alternative force capable of bringing order to Somalia, which has been without a real government since largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

A United Nations-backed transitional government based in the southern city of Baidoa, 150 miles northwest of Mogadishu, has been unable to assert authority.

Renewed fighting erupted Wednesday in northern Mogadishu and killed at least six people. More than 140 people were killed in eight days of fighting this month.

No public transportation was operating in the city Thursday, and schools were closed for a second day. As night fell, the city center was largely empty, with just a few people hiding in buildings from sporadic mortar fire. Militias set up roadblocks on many streets using sandbags or old cars.

At least 48 people were killed and about 90 injured, said Abdi Ibrahim Jiya of the Somali Doctors Assn., citing information collected from Mogadishu's main hospitals. But he said casualty tolls probably would increase because many civilians were unable to make it to a hospital.

Thousands of civilians fled their homes on foot, some carrying children, trying to avoid the crossfire or stray rockets, mortar shells and bullets. Among those leaving southern and eastern Mogadishu were residents who had sought refuge there after fleeing the north.

Sadumo Imaam, whose youngest child was killed Thursday by mortar fire, said: "I have fled from northern Mogadishu. Now the fighting has affected me in the south. So I would prefer to go back to home since there is no safe place in the city."

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:31 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501730.html
Militia Fighting Intensifies In Mogadishu
Islamic Fighters Seize Road, Hotel From Rivals
By Tom Maliti
Associated Press
Friday, May 26, 2006; A15 [Somalia] [Africa: horn] [followup] [alqaeda and other jihadis] [vs. us-backed warlords] [intraIslamic battle for failed state] [*********] [use psci 469] [ditto]
NAIROBI, May 25 -- Islamic and secular militias battled in Somalia's capital Thursday, the most widespread and some of the deadliest fighting in Mogadishu in 14 years. [*****] Dozens of people were killed and thousands fled their homes on foot. [*****]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501730.html
Militia Fighting Intensifies In Mogadishu
Islamic Fighters Seize Road, Hotel From Rivals
By Tom Maliti
Associated Press
Friday, May 26, 2006; A15 [Somalia] [Africa: horn] [followup] [alqaeda and other jihadis] [vs. us-backed warlords] [intraIslamic battle for failed state] [*********] [use psci 469] [ditto]
NAIROBI, May 25 -- Islamic and secular militias battled in Somalia's capital Thursday, the most widespread and some of the deadliest fighting in Mogadishu in 14 years. [*****] Dozens of people were killed and thousands fled their homes on foot. [*****]
The fighting spread from northern Mogadishu, the scene of fierce battles in recent weeks, into the southern and eastern parts of the city, where the Islamic Court Union militia made a rare foray, [*****] witnesses said.
Islamic militiamen captured a strategic road junction, known as K4, and seized the historic Sahafi Hotel, owned by a member of the rival secular militia, the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. [********]
The fight for control of Mogadishu comes despite a May 14 cease-fire agreement. [****] The alliance says the self-appointed Islamic Court leaders, who have their own militias, have links to al-Qaeda, while the Islamic militia accuses the alliance of working for the CIA. U.S. officials [******]decline to confirm any association with the secular militia.
More than 140 people were killed in eight days of fighting earlier this month, and at least six people were killed in battles that erupted Wednesday in north Mogadishu. [****] But residents said that Thursday marked the first time since 1992 -- when international forces came to Somalia, [****] resulting in the failed U.S. military operation described in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down" -- that battles had broken out in different parts of Mogadishu on the same day.
At least 48 people were killed and about 90 injured, said Abdi Ibrahim Jiya of the Somali Doctors Association, citing information collected from the main hospitals in Mogadishu. He said the death toll would probably rise because many civilians were unable to make it to a hospital.[*****]
Thousands of civilians fled their homes on foot, some carrying children on their backs, trying to avoid the crossfire or stray rockets, shells and bullets.
Among those fleeing southern and eastern Mogadishu were residents who had sought refuge there after leaving the north.
"I have fled from northern Mogadishu. Now the fighting has affected me in the south. So I would prefer to go back to home since there is no safe place in the city," said Sadumo Imaam, whose youngest child was killed Thursday by mortar fire. [*****]
The Islamic militiamen portray themselves as an alternative force capable of bringing order to Somalia, [*****] which has been without a real government since largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
A U.N.-backed government based in the central city of Baidoa, 155 miles northwest of Mogadishu, [*****] has been unable to assert authority. Islamic leaders reject the government because it is not based on Islam. [*******]
The battle for Mogadishu has further complicated relations within the transitional government. Transitional Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi gave an ultimatum to cabinet ministers involved with the secular alliance -- which operates independently -- telling them to join the administration in Baidoa or resign.
Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, an alliance leader and the national security minister, said Thursday that he and three other alliance leaders in the cabinet had not resigned despite widespread reports they had, raising questions about the viability of the already weak government. [******]
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:31 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/africa/26briefs-brief-003.html
May 26, 2006
World Briefing | Africa
Somalia: Militias Battle Islamist Forces
[Somalia] [Africa: horn] [followup] [alqaeda and other jihadis] [vs. us-backed warlords] [intraIslamic battle for failed state] [*********] [use psci 469]
MARC LACEY (NYT)
Residents of Mogadishu, the capital, took cover as fighting raged between militias allied with traditional warlords and those defending rival Islamic leaders. [***Despite a cease-fire reached in recent days, civilian deaths from the latest upsurge in violence reached into the dozens, officials said, and the wounded lined the hallways in hospitals. [***] "We are sorry the fighting is continuing," Mohamed Abdi Hayir, the information minister, said in Baidoa, which the transitional government is using as the temporary capital. "Civilians are dying, and we have many times asked both sides to stop fighting." [******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/africa/26briefs-brief-003.html
May 26, 2006
World Briefing | Africa
Somalia: Militias Battle Islamist Forces
[Somalia] [Africa: horn] [followup] [alqaeda and other jihadis] [vs. us-backed warlords] [intraIslamic battle for failed state] [*********] [use psci 469]
MARC LACEY (NYT)
Residents of Mogadishu, the capital, took cover as fighting raged between militias allied with traditional warlords and those defending rival Islamic leaders. [***Despite a cease-fire reached in recent days, civilian deaths from the latest upsurge in violence reached into the dozens, officials said, and the wounded lined the hallways in hospitals. [***] "We are sorry the fighting is continuing," Mohamed Abdi Hayir, the information minister, said in Baidoa, which the transitional government is using as the temporary capital. "Civilians are dying, and we have many times asked both sides to stop fighting." [******]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:30 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney25may25,0,7684182.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
Cheney Might Testify in Libby Case
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2006 [libby obstruction-perjury trial] [may call veep cheney] [that would be entertaining] [in any case, cheney is mentioned in court papers filed by Fitzgerald] [libby’s lawyers have dangled cheney as tactic] [must wait to see where this goes] [trail is to start next January] [*********] [ditto]

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney may be called as a government witness in the perjury and obstruction case against his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a special prosecutor indicated Wednesday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney25may25,0,7684182.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
Cheney Might Testify in Libby Case
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2006 [libby obstruction-perjury trial] [may call veep cheney] [that would be entertaining] [in any case, cheney is mentioned in court papers filed by Fitzgerald] [libby’s lawyers have dangled cheney as tactic] [must wait to see where this goes] [trail is to start next January] [*********] [ditto]

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney may be called as a government witness in the perjury and obstruction case against his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a special prosecutor indicated Wednesday.

Then again, he may not.

In a court filing, Patrick J. Fitzgerald held open the possibility that during Libby's trial, set for January, he might ask Cheney to authenticate the handwritten notations in the margins of a July 2003 newspaper column critical of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq.

The column, published July 6, 2003, in the New York Times, was written by Joseph C. Wilson IV, the husband of then CIA operative Valerie Plame. Cheney's notations, which refer to Plame without identifying her by name, are evidence that the vice president — and his top aide — were focused on Wilson and intent on responding to his claims that the administration twisted prewar intelligence, Fitzgerald has said.

Plame's identity as a CIA official was revealed eight days later in an article by columnist Robert Novak. The disclosure led to the nearly three-year investigation into whether administration officials illegally identified a covert agent. Fitzgerald is continuing to study possible charges against senior Bush advisor Karl Rove.

Fitzgerald said in the court filing Wednesday that the annotated article "could be authenticated through the testimony of the vice president." He also said the document could be admitted into evidence in other ways, without Cheney's testimony.

"Contrary to defendant's assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial," the prosecutor said in a footnote.

The court filing dealt mostly with an ongoing fight over access to government documents, unrelated to Cheney, that Libby's lawyers have said are crucial to their client getting a fair trial.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:30 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402597.html
Libby Told Grand Jury Cheney Spoke of Plame
Vice President May Be Called as Witness
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A01 [libby obstruction-perjury trial] [may call veep cheney] [that would be entertaining] [in any case, cheney is mentioned in court papers filed by Fitzgerald] [libby’s lawyers have dangled cheney as tactic] [must wait to see where this goes] [trail is to start next January] [*********] [ditto]
Vice President Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then his chief of staff, to "get all the facts out" related to the critique, according to excerpts from Libby's 2004 grand jury testimony released late yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402597.html
Libby Told Grand Jury Cheney Spoke of Plame
Vice President May Be Called as Witness
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A01 [libby obstruction-perjury trial] [may call veep cheney] [that would be entertaining] [in any case, cheney is mentioned in court papers filed by Fitzgerald] [libby’s lawyers have dangled cheney as tactic] [must wait to see where this goes] [trail is to start next January] [*********] [ditto]
Vice President Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then his chief of staff, to "get all the facts out" related to the critique, according to excerpts from Libby's 2004 grand jury testimony released late yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
Libby also told the grand jury that Cheney raised as an issue that the former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA and that she allegedly played a role in sending him to investigate the Iraqi government's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons materials. That issue formed the basis of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's published critique.
In the court filing that included the formerly secret testimony, Fitzgerald did not assert that Cheney instructed Libby to tell reporters the name and role of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. But he said Cheney's interactions with Libby on that topic were a key part of the reason Libby allegedly made false statements to the FBI about his conversations with reporters around the time her name was disclosed in news accounts.
"The state of mind of the Vice President as communicated to defendant is directly relevant to the issue of whether defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury regarding when and how he learned about Ms. Wilson's employment and what he said to reporters regarding this issue," he said.
The prosecutor also left open the possibility that Cheney will be called as a witness at Libby's trial, scheduled to begin next year, and denied an assertion last week by Libby's lawyers that Cheney would not be called.
Fitzgerald was appointed in late 2003 to investigate the disclosure of Plame's name to the media after the CIA complained that it was an illegal act because she was an undercover officer. His probe has led to a series of disclosures about efforts by the White House to rebut Wilson's published critique, but no official has been directly charged with leaking Plame's name.
Instead, Libby was accused of making false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury, mostly based on his statements that he did not confirm Plame's employment at the CIA and alleged involvement in Wilson's trip when he was talking with two journalists. Libby has denied wrongdoing and said in court filings that he may have forgotten what he said to the journalists because of the press of other business.
Fitzgerald, in contrast, has sought to build a case that Libby was preoccupied with the task of rebutting Wilson's July 2003 column, which accused the White House of twisting intelligence to support its invasion of Iraq -- and that this preoccupation stemmed from Cheney's intense focus on Wilson's assertions. While yesterday's filing largely concerned a side issue -- whether Libby's attorneys are entitled to see more government documents -- it provided the first detailed look at what Libby told investigators about his interactions with Cheney on this issue.
According to the excerpts from testimony on March 5, 2004, Libby recalled that he and Cheney discussed Wilson's article on multiple occasions each day after it appeared. Cheney, Libby said, "often will cut out from a newspaper an article using a little penknife that he has" and "look at it, think about it."
That's what Cheney did with the column, Libby said, because Cheney saw it as attacking his credibility. "He wanted to get all the facts out about what he had or hadn't done, what the facts were or were not. He was very keen about that and said it repeatedly. Let's get everything out," Libby testified.
A previous court filing by Fitzgerald revealed that Cheney had annotated his copy of the column with this question about Wilson: "Did his wife send him on a junket?" Cheney's defense lawyers said in a subsequent filing that Libby had testified he never saw those annotations until the FBI showed him a copy. In Libby's actual testimony, as released by Fitzgerald, he said, "It's possible if it was sitting on his desk that, you know, my eye went across it."
An apparently key issue to be contested at trial is precisely when these conversations took place: Did they occur before or after Libby's discussions with reporters that included Plame's name? And did Libby have reason -- as his attorneys have asserted -- to forget some of what Cheney said about Plame and her employment at the CIA?
The grand jury excerpts record Libby as saying at one point that he did not recall Cheney asking about the Plame connection "early on . . . although he may well have." Libby also said that he did not recall such a discussion with Cheney before he heard Plame's name from reporter Tim Russert -- a conversation that Russert has disputed in his own testimony.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:30 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/washington/25cheney.html
May 25, 2006
Counsel Says He May Use Cheney in Libby Trial
By DAVID JOHNSTON [libby obstruction-perjury trial] [may call veep cheney] [that would be entertaining] [in any case, cheney is mentioned in court papers filed by Fitzgerald] [libby’s lawyers have dangled cheney as tactic] [must wait to see where this goes] [trail is to start next January] [*********]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — A court filing on Wednesday by the special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case suggested that Vice President Dick Cheney would testify as a government witness in the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/washington/25cheney.html
May 25, 2006
Counsel Says He May Use Cheney in Libby Trial
By DAVID JOHNSTON [libby obstruction-perjury trial] [may call veep cheney] [that would be entertaining] [in any case, cheney is mentioned in court papers filed by Fitzgerald] [libby’s lawyers have dangled cheney as tactic] [must wait to see where this goes] [trail is to start next January] [*********]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — A court filing on Wednesday by the special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case suggested that Vice President Dick Cheney would testify as a government witness in the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr. [*********]
The legal brief did not say with certainty that Mr. Cheney would be called as a witness. But the latest filing, like earlier court papers, underscored the prosecutor’s contention that the vice president’s role was critical to understanding Mr. Libby’s wrongdoing. But the new filing was the first to indicate that Mr. Cheney himself might be called as a government witness.
On the issue of whether Mr. Cheney will testify, the brief said, “Contrary to defendant’s assertion, the government has not represented that it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial.” [********]
The prosecution brief, signed by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, added, "To the best of government's counsel's recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness." [**********]
Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury in the case that Mr. Cheney had been "upset" by the OpEd article in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, written by Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, according to the papers, filed in Federal District Court in the District of Columbia.
The article criticized the Bush administration Iraq policy, voicing serious doubts about assertions in the months before the war that Iraq had sought uranium fuel from Africa as part of a suspected program to develop unconventional weapons. Mr. Cheney, according to Mr. Libby's grand jury testimony, believed that the article falsely attacked his credibility because it said his office instigated a trip in 2002 that Mr. Wilson took to Niger to explore reports of possible nuclear purchases.
It was on a copy of the article that Mr. Cheney made handwritten entries asking whether it was Mr. Wilson's wife who sent him on the trip. Mr. Wilson is married to Valerie Plame Wilson, the C.I.A. office, whose name was disclosed in a syndicated column on July 14, 2003. The column by Robert D. Novak led to the inquiry that ended with the perjury and obstruction of justice indictment against Mr. Libby last October. Mr. Libby has pleaded not guilty. The trial is to begin early next year. [through his lawyers libby has denied ever seeing these margin notes] [see a week or two ago, govt] [*********]
The government wants to use Mr. Cheney's notes as evidence, saying they show the state of mind in Mr. Cheney's office and the importance that aides like Mr. Libby attached to rebutting the article.
The prosecution has said that after Mr. Cheney expressed concern, Mr. Libby informed reporters that Mr. Cheney's office did not send Mr. Wilson and that he might have traveled on what was little more than a junket arranged by Ms. Wilson. [******]
Later, the prosecution has said, Mr. Libby misled investigators about his actions, saying the reporters had told him about Ms. Wilson. [********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:29 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/us/25list.html
May 25, 2006
Names of the Dead [dod’s stats on KIA] [now at 2452 and counting] [***********]
The Department of Defense has identified 2,452 American service members [KIA] [*****] who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this week: [I remember getting to 2400 seemed slow] [the casualties werer lower] [once past 2400 the casualties have really picked up demonstrably] [*********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/us/25list.html
May 25, 2006
Names of the Dead [dod’s stats on KIA] [now at 2452 and counting] [***********]
The Department of Defense has identified 2,452 American service members [KIA] [*****] who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this week: [I remember getting to 2400 seemed slow] [the casualties werer lower] [once past 2400 the casualties have really picked up demonstrably] [*********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:29 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/middleeast/25olmert.html
May 25, 2006
News Analysis
2 Cheers for Olmert in Washington
By STEVEN ERLANGER [bush’s conditional endorsement of Israel’s PM Olmert’s and kadima’s plan to withdrawal from west bank] [bush admin has taken position that it’s the right thing to do—but that it must be negotiated with Palestinians] [*********]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — The new prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, left Washington for home late Wednesday a pretty happy man. He was embraced by President Bush and reassured about Iran, and he received 16 standing ovations from a joint meeting of Congress for a speech that was strong on emotion and rhetorically tough on terrorism and Iran. [**********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/middleeast/25olmert.html
May 25, 2006
News Analysis
2 Cheers for Olmert in Washington
By STEVEN ERLANGER [bush’s conditional endorsement of Israel’s PM Olmert’s and kadima’s plan to withdrawal from west bank] [bush admin has taken position that it’s the right thing to do—but that it must be negotiated with Palestinians] [*********]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — The new prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, left Washington for home late Wednesday a pretty happy man. He was embraced by President Bush and reassured about Iran, and he received 16 standing ovations from a joint meeting of Congress for a speech that was strong on emotion and rhetorically tough on terrorism and Iran. [**********]
More important, Mr. Olmert received just enough presidential support for his main initiative — another unilateral pullback of Israeli settlers, from a large portion of the West Bank — to satisfy an Israeli public that craves American approval and respect. [*********]
Mr. Bush hailed Mr. Olmert's "bold ideas" and said they "could be an important step toward the peace we both support." [***********]
But those around Mr. Olmert were a little disappointed, too, that the American embrace of what Mr. Olmert is calling realignment was so tepid and conditional, especially given that the task of pulling some 70,000 Israeli settlers out of the West Bank will dwarf, in emotional cost as well as numbers, the much-praised withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer. [**********]
Mr. Bush insisted first on a sincere effort to restart serious negotiations toward peace with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and of course Mr. Olmert said that was what he wanted, too.
Mr. Olmert had praise in Washington for Mr. Abbas, in sharp contrast to his earlier descriptions of the Palestinian as powerless, helpless and "unable to take charge of his own government," as he told CNN last week. Mr. Olmert's deputy and foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, has gone so far as to call Mr. Abbas irrelevant now that Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel or forswear violence, is running the Palestinian Authority.
With "no partner" for peace, Israel has argued, it has no choice but to move ahead unilaterally to set its own borders and pull its settlers back within them. [********]
But here Mr. Olmert got caught in one of the newer paradoxes of the Middle East. The victory of Hamas, considered a terrorist group, has complicated Israel's ability to carry out its plans, not simplified it. [*******] [see today’s external] [abu mazen may hold referendum on two-state solution] [**********]
The United States and the European Union, unable and unwilling to deal with Hamas, have a vital interest in preserving an alternative to Hamas, maintaining their contacts with the Palestinian people and assuring them that the world remains committed, despite Hamas, to an independent, viable, contiguous Palestinian state in negotiated borders.
The impossibility of dealing with Hamas has made Mr. Abbas, however weak, indispensable to the West. He is duly elected, recognizes Israel and opposes terrorism. So the United States wants to boost Mr. Abbas, not diminish him, and is therefore insisting that Mr. Olmert treat him with respect, as a negotiating partner, rather than treat him with the indifference and contempt shown by the former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. [************]
Even many in Israel wonder if Hamas would have won the legislative elections in January had Mr. Sharon coordinated the transfer of Gaza publicly with Mr. Abbas, to make it seem to be his accomplishment, instead of tossing the keys to Gaza into the street.
At the same time, though, senior American officials have few expectations that Mr. Abbas can deliver, so there is an element of hypocrisy on both sides. [******] And both the Americans and the Israelis are concerned about getting deep into negotiations, on final-status issues like Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees, that are unlikely to succeed, possibly prompting another round of violence like the intifada, or uprising, that followed the failure of President Clinton's peace efforts in 2000.
As Mr. Olmert told Congress, trying to set the bar high, he will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority if it "renounces terrorism, dismantles its terrorist infrastructure, accepts previous agreements and recognizes Israel's right to exist." If not, "we will not give a terrorist regime a veto over progress," he said.
"The United States has a pretty keen understanding of what Abbas can and can't deliver," said David Makovsky, director of a project on Middle East peace efforts at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "But Olmert's timeline is finite and Abbas's ability to deliver is very finite, so there's a kind of Middle Eastern two-step. Everyone will pay lip service to negotiations, but the reality will be more like coordination."
The Palestinians, through Mr. Abbas, must at least be "given a voice and even a vote" in the Israeli withdrawal plan, Mr. Makovsky said, "but not a veto."
Robert Malley, a former Clinton negotiator who is now the Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group, noted that calendars coincide in Washington and Jerusalem. The Israelis need at least until the end of the year, consulting with Washington, to turn their ideas into a workable plan, allowing a period for talks. [********]
"For the United States it's important not to let Israel jump into unilateralism and to give negotiations a try," Mr. Malley said. "Something good could come from them. They may help Abbas in struggles with Hamas, and they could help the Americans in the region." [***********]
At the same time, he said, if talks fail, then Washington can endorse Mr. Olmert's refined withdrawal plan.
The big question, Mr. Malley said, is what the talks with Mr. Abbas will be about. The Israelis want to discuss security and dismantling militant groups, "issues on which Mr. Abbas is least capable now of delivering," Mr. Malley said.
Mr. Abbas wants to talk about final-status issues, on which he can deliver his signature, but the Israelis do not want to start such talks until the Palestinians have dismantled militant groups.
"So can they find something where Abbas can show he can deliver and the Israelis feel it's a benefit?" Mr. Malley asked. "It's not clear."
Given the short shelf life of Israeli governments, and the amount of time left in Mr. Bush's second term, Mr. Olmert returns from his successful first trip to Washington with a sense of urgency.
He gained a strong but provisional vote of confidence and a major challenge: to turn his "bold ideas" into a workable plan in coordination with Washington and Mr. Abbas without getting sucked into a meandering negotiation that leads into the sand.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:28 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush25may25,1,2545903.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Expand Nuclear Power, Bush Says
Visiting a Pennsylvania plant, he praises the industry as safe and environmentally sound.
By James Gerstenzang
Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2006 [bush’s solution for america’s addiction to oil] [nukes] [while it may make more sense today that 20 years ago, still big problems] [what to do with the waste] [ironic: a) bush is an oil man; b) bush is prohibiting iran from same] [*************] [ditto]

LIMERICK, Pa. — President Bush, the first president to visit a nuclear power plant since Jimmy Carter inspected the stricken Three Mile Island facility in 1979, said Wednesday that the United States "must aggressively move forward" in the expansion of nuclear power.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush25may25,1,2545903.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
Expand Nuclear Power, Bush Says
Visiting a Pennsylvania plant, he praises the industry as safe and environmentally sound.
By James Gerstenzang
Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2006 [bush’s solution for america’s addiction to oil] [nukes] [while it may make more sense today that 20 years ago, still big problems] [what to do with the waste] [ironic: a) bush is an oil man; b) bush is prohibiting iran from same] [*************] [ditto]

LIMERICK, Pa. — President Bush, the first president to visit a nuclear power plant since Jimmy Carter inspected the stricken Three Mile Island facility in 1979, said Wednesday that the United States "must aggressively move forward" in the expansion of nuclear power.

Presenting his pitch in terms of economic and national security, Bush described nuclear power as a safe, environmentally clean alternative to natural gas and coal for generating electricity.

Bush's brief tour of the Limerick Generating Station, about 35 miles west of Philadelphia, reflected his stepped-up effort to encourage the nation to move forcefully into the construction of nuclear power generating facilities, on hold since the Three Mile Island incident.

"Nuclear power is abundant and affordable," Bush told plant workers gathered in a tent at the base of two giant cooling towers, which emitted plumes of steam while he spoke.

As the price of gasoline has passed $3 a gallon in many parts of the country, Bush is putting a spotlight on one of the most controversial elements of the environmental and energy equation.

On March 28, 1979, a malfunctioning valve at Three Mile Island, about 50 miles west of here, led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core and releases of radioactive gases into the air. Coming within days of the release of the movie "The China Syndrome," a fictional version of a similar incident, the accident at Three Mile Island made the facility — now run by Exelon Corp., which also operates the Limerick site — synonymous with the risk of contamination posed by nuclear power plants.

No deaths or injuries of workers or area residents were reported, but the incident, which allowed what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called "only small off-site releases of radioactivity," led to widespread concerns about the safety of nuclear power — and a halt to the construction of new plants.

Against that history, and with the rise of oil prices and the growing worldwide demand for carbon-based fuels and electricity, Bush has embarked on an effort to ease the obstacles to reviving nuclear power. On Wednesday, he called it "an over-regulated industry."

Citing the search for replacements for carbon-based fuels, Bush said that "nuclear power will help us deal with this issue." Without the existing nuclear power plants, the United States' electric plants would have emitted 28% more carbon dioxide in 2004, Bush said — equivalent to the emissions of 136 million passenger cars.

Carbon dioxide is a key ingredient in the greenhouse gases that are blamed by many scientists for global warming.

"Nuclear power helps us protect the environment," Bush said, drawing applause from the workers. The applause grew, and some employees whistled, when he added: "And nuclear power is safe. It is safe because of advances in science and engineering and plant design."

Even before he spoke, his anticipated comments drew fire from environmentalists.

Thomas B. Cochran, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's nuclear program, said that as the nation resumed the debate over nuclear power, it needed to consider the cost of building new facilities, the potential that spent fuel could be used for nuclear weapons and the problems of radioactive waste disposal.

But Bush, presenting the broadest reasons for developing nuclear power, said, "For the sake of economic security and national security, the United States of America must aggressively move forward with the construction of nuclear power plants."

Bush also visited a nuclear plant in Lusby, Md., last June.

The Limerick plant has received favorable reports from federal regulators, but has been involved in a controversy of another sort: With Pennsylvania contemplating opening casinos in two locations, a gaming company has expressed interest in a site nearly at the foot of the plant's two giant cooling towers.

The plan has raised objections in the community, and it is facing competition from several other sites in the state's eastern quarters.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:27 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402072.html
Bush Calls For New Nuclear Plants
President Talks Of Environmental Benefits, Safety
By Peter Baker and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A04 [bush’s solution for america’s addiction to oil] [nukes] [while it may make more sense today that 20 years ago, still big problems] [what to do with the waste] [ironic: a) bush is an oil man; b) bush is prohibiting iran from same] [*************]
LIMERICK, Pa., May 24 -- President Bush promoted nuclear power Wednesday as part of his answer to energy and environmental problems as more companies consider taking advantage of government incentives to build the nation's first new nuclear plant in decades. [**********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402072.html
Bush Calls For New Nuclear Plants
President Talks Of Environmental Benefits, Safety
By Peter Baker and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A04 [bush’s solution for america’s addiction to oil] [nukes] [while it may make more sense today that 20 years ago, still big problems] [what to do with the waste] [ironic: a) bush is an oil man; b) bush is prohibiting iran from same] [*************]
LIMERICK, Pa., May 24 -- President Bush promoted nuclear power Wednesday as part of his answer to energy and environmental problems as more companies consider taking advantage of government incentives to build the nation's first new nuclear plant in decades. [**********]
In the shadow of twin giant cooling towers, Bush said that his plan to expand nuclear power would curb emissions contributing to global warming and would provide an "abundant and plentiful" alternative to limited energy sources. Bush called the nuclear sector an "overregulated industry" and pledged to work to make it more feasible to build reactors. [*************]
"Nuclear power helps us protect the environment. And nuclear power is safe," he said to loud applause from workers at the Limerick Generating Station, about 40 miles from Philadelphia. He added: "For the sake of economic security and national security, the United States must aggressively move forward with construction of nuclear power plants. Other nations are."
Bush has been an ardent advocate of nuclear power since taking office, and he was introduced Wednesday as the industry's most supportive president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. [*******] The energy legislation he pushed through Congress last year offered a menu of benefits to industry to build new reactors; 16 companies have expressed interest this year, compared with two last year, although none has filed an application.
No new reactor has been commissioned in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 about 60 miles west of here, and no president since Jimmy Carter had visited a nuclear plant until Bush traveled to the Calvert Cliffs station in Maryland last year. [*****] He donned a white hard hat Wednesday for his second reactor tour, inspecting the No. 2 turbine amid a powerful hum that made it hard to hear.
Opinion polls suggest public attitudes toward nuclear power are shifting. Support for expanding the use of nuclear energy has grown from 43 percent to 55 percent in the past three years, according to surveys by the Gallup Organization. The Pew Research Center found rising support in the past few months as gasoline prices have soared, from 39 percent last September to 44 percent in February. Still, 49 percent remain against expanding nuclear energy. [******] [but bush of course wouldn’t know this since bush doesn’t make decisions based on poll numbers] [right]
"It's still a controversial issue," said Pew Executive Director Andrew Kohut, "but it might have a little wind in its sails, given people's concerns about energy prices."
Some environmentalists, including Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, have changed their minds as well, seeing nuclear energy as clean compared with fossil fuels that pollute the environment. Other environmentalists complain that Bush is overselling any benefits from nuclear power and underestimating the risks.
"Despite the billions of dollars in subsidies and a new public relations campaign, the Bush administration cannot change reality: Nuclear power remains a dangerous, uneconomical and polluting energy source," said Michele Boyd, an energy specialist for Public Citizen.
Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst with Greenpeace, noted that nuclear plants are vulnerable to airborne attack by terrorists. Bush's visit meant that the airspace over Limerick was restricted, prompting Riccio to comment, "Unfortunately, for the millions of people at risk during a meltdown, that no-fly zone will expire shortly after the president leaves Pennsylvania."
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, championed by Bush, provides a generous package of subsidies to build new reactors, including loan guarantees, federal risk insurance and tax credits. [******] Among the companies analysts consider most likely to file a formal application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Exelon Corp., which owns the Limerick plant as well as Three Mile Island and a dozen others.
"There seems that there's every reason to do this," said Kevin Book, an energy policy analyst at the Arlington-based investment firm Friedman Billings Ramsey Group Inc. But he said many administration officials and lawmakers believe power companies are holding out for even bigger subsidies.
The subsidies for nuclear power continued to draw criticism. "All these very profitable companies are chasing these federal subsidies and that's because they're all reading off the same song sheet: that building a new nuclear plant is not economically competitive in the United States," said Thomas B. Cochran, director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "You've got to ask why some working stiff has to use his tax money to put into these kinds of companies to subsidize an unprofitable plant."
As generous as the subsidies are, they might not be enough. The tax credits last eight years, but nuclear plants are licensed to operate from 30 to 60 years. Moreover, the legislation did not solve the problem of nuclear waste. A plan to store spent fuel rods in Nevada's Yucca Mountain has been bogged down in disputes over cost, safety and transportation security.
Exelon President John W. Rowe, who hosted Bush on Wednesday, said at the company's annual shareholders meeting last year that "Exelon has no intention of building a nuclear plant until there is a solution to the spent-fuel problem. . . . Most companies share our view."
Mufson reported from Washington.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:26 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran25may25,1,2210149.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
U.S. Says No Talks Unless Iran Halts Its Nuclear Work
From the Associated Press
May 25, 2006 [bush admin] [says no to talks with iran] [unless and until iran ceases its enrichment program] [predicatable] [see today’s societal for oped on iran’s ethos] [***********]

WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Wednesday ruled out direct talks between the United States and Iran at least until Tehran ended uranium enrichment, which it has refused to do, and allowed international inspections. [*******]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran25may25,1,2210149.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
U.S. Says No Talks Unless Iran Halts Its Nuclear Work
From the Associated Press
May 25, 2006 [bush admin] [says no to talks with iran] [unless and until iran ceases its enrichment program] [predicatable] [see today’s societal for oped on iran’s ethos] [***********]

WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Wednesday ruled out direct talks between the United States and Iran at least until Tehran ended uranium enrichment, which it has refused to do, and allowed international inspections. [*******]

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Iran had been showing interest in talks through intermediaries but that the U.S. had not replied.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, met with Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani several days ago. He is among a long list of diplomats and leaders who have said U.S.-Iranian talks could defuse the standoff. [******]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said talks held Wednesday on perks and penalties meant to stop Iran from pursuing nuclear activities had made "good progress."

Iran says it has a right to enrich uranium as fuel for power generators. The West fears that Tehran is secretly developing material for a bomb.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:26 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/americas/25zoellick.html
May 25, 2006
Rice's Deputy Intends to Resign, Aides Say
By JOEL BRINKLEY [deputy secretary of state, Robert zoellick ] [apparently disgruntled under rice state department] [does not meet his importance level as perceived by mr. zoellick] [also demonstrated troubled relations still] [*********] [use nsc] [**********]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — Robert B. Zoellick intends to resign as deputy secretary of state, the department's second in command, after barely 15 months in the job, aides and associates said Wednesday. [*******]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/americas/25zoellick.html
May 25, 2006
Rice's Deputy Intends to Resign, Aides Say
By JOEL BRINKLEY [deputy secretary of state, Robert zoellick ] [apparently disgruntled under rice state department] [does not meet his importance level as perceived by mr. zoellick] [also demonstrated troubled relations still] [*********] [use nsc] [**********]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — Robert B. Zoellick intends to resign as deputy secretary of state, the department's second in command, after barely 15 months in the job, aides and associates said Wednesday. [*******]
From his first days at the State Department, Mr. Zoellick has chafed at his subordinate position, [*****] frequently remarking that he was finding the adjustment difficult after running his own office during four years as United States trade representative, which is a cabinet position.
In addition, friends said, Mr. Zoellick had at times felt marginalized at the State Department, where his subordinates, including R. Nicholas Burns, an under secretary of state, manage most of the major issues, including matters related to Iran, Iraq, the rest of the Middle East and North Korea. [*********]
Mr. Burns would be the logical front-runner to take Mr. Zoellick's job, but State Department aides said Robert M. Kimmitt, the deputy Treasury secretary, was also under consideration. [******] Still, a senior State Department official said there had been no serious discussions about finding a replacement for Mr. Zoellick because he had not officially resigned. [*************]
Mr. Zoellick declined to comment. Those close to him would speak only anonymously because no announcement had been made about his future. [*******]
When asked about Mr. Zoellick during a news conference on Wednesday, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said Mr. Zoellick had taken part in morning meetings on Wednesday "and has a long to-do list." [**********]
"He has a full schedule," he added.
Aides noted that Mr. Zoellick could still change his mind. He has told associates he would like to be Treasury secretary and would probably stay in the administration if given that job — if Treasury Secretary John W. Snow resigns. [*********]
Within the State Department, however, it is common knowledge that Mr. Zoellick has been talking to investment banks on Wall Street in recent weeks and is expected to take a job there. [******] He worked for Goldman Sachs during the Clinton administration.
The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Bloomberg News Service first reported Tuesday night that Mr. Zoellick was looking for a new job.
A State Department official noted that Mr. Zoellick was one of the last senior officials still in office among a group that had served in the Bush administration for the past six years, so it should not be surprising that he is leaving now. [******]
Early last year, Mr. Zoellick was a front-runner to become president of the World Bank, but senior officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, pressed him to take the deputy's job under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. [*****] [explains, perhaps, why he is disgruntled under rice] [rice isn’t part of the cheney-rummy-cambone nexus] [*******] Mr. Zoellick agreed, but expressed misgivings from the start about leaving the cabinet.
As deputy secretary, Mr. Zoellick has been the primary architect of the administration's policy toward Sudan, and particularly the response to the carnage in Darfur. [where he did a superb job] [*****] He was instrumental in pushing Darfur's rebel leaders to sign a peace accord two weeks ago.
Mr. Zoellick was also asked last year to be the American representative at what China and the United States called "strategic dialogue" meetings. He publicly urged China in September to become a "responsible stakeholder" in its business dealings around the world. [*********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:25 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs25.2may25,1,5638629.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / NEW YORK
Man Convicted of Plot to Bomb Subway Station
From Times Wire Reports
May 25, 2006 [new york paki immigrant] [allegedly plotted to blow up subway station] [****** ] [use psci 469] [ditto]

A high school dropout who drew the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after Sept. 11 was convicted of plotting to blow up one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs25.2may25,1,5638629.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / NEW YORK
Man Convicted of Plot to Bomb Subway Station
From Times Wire Reports
May 25, 2006 [new york paki immigrant] [allegedly plotted to blow up subway station] [****** ] [use psci 469] [ditto]

A high school dropout who drew the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after Sept. 11 was convicted of plotting to blow up one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

A federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before convicting Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, of conspiracy and other charges. He faces up to life in prison.

The defense had sought to portray him as an impressionable simpleton who was lured into a phony plot by a paid informant eager to earn his keep.

Prosecutors disputed that claim.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:24 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402423.html
Officials Tout U.S. Anti-Terrorism Record
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A08 [new york paki immigrant] [allegedly plotted to blow up subway station] [****** ] [use psci 469] [ditto]
Two senior Bush administration officials defended the government's anti-terrorism record in separate venues yesterday, saying that the Justice Department and other agencies have been highly successful in thwarting terrorist attacks at home and abroad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402423.html
Officials Tout U.S. Anti-Terrorism Record
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A08 [new york paki immigrant] [allegedly plotted to blow up subway station] [****** ] [use psci 469] [ditto]
Two senior Bush administration officials defended the government's anti-terrorism record in separate venues yesterday, saying that the Justice Department and other agencies have been highly successful in thwarting terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, in a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said the Justice Department has "developed a strong record of success in the war against terrorism" -- citing prosecutions against admitted al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and other defendants around the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In a separate meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Post, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government has made "a significant amount of progress" in guarding against cataclysmic attacks and more limited operations, such as the Madrid commuter train bombings.
But Chertoff added that it "would be very, very hard to detect" a "lone wolf" terrorist, who trains and plans alone before carrying out an attack.
"The hardest thing to determine is the purely domestic, self-motivated, self-initiating threat from the guy who never talks to anybody, just gets himself wound up over the Internet," Chertoff said.
The comments from Chertoff and McNulty came during a period of renewed debate over the efficacy of the criminal justice system in prosecuting and preventing terrorism.
Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda, was sentenced to life in prison this month after a jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria declined to sentence him to death. The Supreme Court is also expected to issue an opinion on the legality of the military commissions set up to try terrorism suspects.
McNulty said in response to a question from the audience that "I'm not here to signal anything one way or the other" on whether the Justice Department has plans to conduct criminal trials for al-Qaeda suspects in U.S. military custody, such as Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
But McNulty made clear in his other remarks that he believes the criminal courts have been a useful tool for federal prosecutors and the FBI in preventing suspected terrorists from furthering their plans, even if many cases have ended with mixed results or acquittals.
"This higher risk of acquittals is one we acknowledge and accept," McNulty said.
McNulty also revived the use of terrorism statistics compiled by the Justice Department that have been called into question in the past. He said prosecutors have secured 253 convictions against 435 defendants in terrorism-related cases with a "clear international connection."
The Post reported in June 2005 that, according to a computer analysis of an earlier version of the same Justice records, most defendants were charged with minor crimes unrelated to terrorism and nearly half had no demonstrated connection to terrorism or terrorists.
McNulty said prosecutors often needed to use minor crimes, such as immigration violations or fraud charges, as a way to charge suspects who posed a potential threat.
Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:24 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/nyregion/25herald.html
May 25, 2006
Guilty Verdict in Plot to Bomb Subway Station
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM [new york paki immigrant] [allegedly plotted to blow up subway station] [****** ] [use psci 469]
A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted a Pakistani immigrant yesterday in the plot to blow up the Herald Square subway station in 2004. [*****] The jurors rejected his defense that a paid police informer had entrapped him by stoking his rage with images of Muslims abused at the hands of Americans. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/nyregion/25herald.html
May 25, 2006
Guilty Verdict in Plot to Bomb Subway Station
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM [new york paki immigrant] [allegedly plotted to blow up subway station] [****** ] [use psci 469]
A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted a Pakistani immigrant yesterday in the plot to blow up the Herald Square subway station in 2004. [*****] The jurors rejected his defense that a paid police informer had entrapped him by stoking his rage with images of Muslims abused at the hands of Americans. [*********]
The man, Shahawar Matin Siraj, [*****] who will turn 24 tomorrow, appeared pallid and downcast as the jury forewoman delivered the verdict. He tilted his head forward slightly and closed his eyes for a moment as she repeated the word guilty four times, once for each of the bombing conspiracy counts against him. [******]The jurors had deliberated for 10 hours over two days after a four-week trial in United States District Court in Brooklyn.
The most serious charge, plotting to bomb a public transportation system, can carry a life sentence, although lawyers and prosecutors said Mr. Siraj would most likely face a term of 20 to 30 years under federal guidelines. [*****] He turned down a plea deal that would have given him a 10-year sentence. [*******]
While the case was a victory for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, it was also one for the New York Police Department, which has retooled since the Sept. 11 attacks, with the aim of preventing new ones. [****] The trial was the first time that a federal terrorism investigation was largely conducted by the department's Intelligence Division, rather than the F.B.I. [*******] The testimony provided a glimpse of how the police have used informers and deep undercover officers within the city's Muslim communities since 2001.
"The verdict is an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist plotters, whether homegrown or foreign," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement. He singled out the officers, saying they "stopped the worst from happening," and the prosecutors, saying they "made certain justice was pursued." [****]
The United States attorney in Brooklyn, Roslynn R. Mauskopf, whose office prosecuted the case, said: "Siraj conspired to plant a bomb in one of the most active transportation hubs in America. Thanks to the diligent work of law enforcement, the plot never developed beyond the planning stage, and the public was never at risk."
The defense in the case argued that Mr. Siraj had been entrapped by the paid informer, Osama Eldawoody, a 50-year-old Egyptian-born nuclear engineer who, Mr. Siraj's lawyers contended, sought to draw their client into the plot for the money. Evidence showed he was paid about $100,000 over two years and nine months [*****] — $25,000 during the 13 months he worked as an informer and the rest in relocation and living expenses over the 20 months between the arrests and the trial.
Mr. Siraj's lead lawyer, Martin R. Stolar, had sought to portray his client as a hapless dullard ripe for manipulation. [******] He said Mr. Eldawoody, posing as a father figure and religious guide, had cajoled and inflamed the younger man, in part by showing him images of abuses, some of them at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Mr. Stolar said the government had manufactured the crime, noting that the informer had told Mr. Siraj and another man that he was part of a terrorist group that did not exist and that he would supply the explosives, though there never was a bomb.
But the prosecutors, Todd Harrison and Marshall L. Miller, played hours of digital recordings Mr. Eldawoody had secretly made of his conversations with Mr. Siraj. And when the young man testified in his own defense, they attacked any credibility he might have had by bringing to light violent statements from long before he met Mr. Eldawoody. [********]
"Obviously, he's disappointed," Mr. Stolar said outside the courthouse, adding that he would appeal. He said that he was unsure if his client "gets all the consequences of what this means for him, other than the fact that he remains in jail."
But Mr. Stolar praised the jury system and said that, based on notes jurors sent out, he felt it had worked. "They did not convict my client merely because he's a Muslim accused of terrorism," he said. "They believed that the evidence did not make out the defense of entrapment, and they followed the law."
In fact, two jurors said that nearly half the panel credited the entrapment defense as they began weighing the case, but as they sifted through the evidence there was not enough to support it, and by yesterday, the final holdout had been convinced that Mr. Siraj was guilty.
Judge Nina Gershon announced at 3:30 p.m. that the jury had sent out a note indicating that they had reached a verdict. Mr. Siraj, his family, the lawyers in the case and spectators in the crowded courtroom gallery sat quietly through a tense 15 minutes until the panel members, with solemn faces, filed into the jury box. During the brief wait, Mr. Siraj, who appeared shaken and was dressed in a zippered sweatshirt, waved to his mother, who sat in the back row next to his uncle, clutching a white tissue in both hands. [*************]
After the verdict, Mr. Siraj's mother, Shahina Parveen, 52, who testified in her son's defense and sat in the courtroom hallway throughout the trial, often praying and reading the Koran, appeared upset. [*****] She declined to speak to reporters.
Khurrum B. Wahid, who defended Mr. Siraj along with Mr. Stolar and Sean M. Maher, said that before the verdict his client asked if he would be required to say anything. Afterward, he said, Mr. Siraj asked him to “look after his mother.”
Mr. Stolar had harsh words for the Police Department and the tactics that led to the conviction of his client. Referring to him by the name Mr. Siraj uses, Matin, the lawyer said he wanted to specifically address “any claims that are made by the Police Department that they have made the citizens of the city of New York safer by convicting Shahawar Matin — they have not.” [********]
"This was a manufactured crime," [*****] he said. "What we should worry about are sleeper cells, not somebody like Matin who they can send a confidential informant out to whip up and convince him, as predisposed or non-predisposed as he was, that he should commit a crime."
Mr. Eldawoody was the prosecution's central witness in the four-week trial and was on the stand for eight days, an unusually long stretch for a cooperating witness in a criminal trial in federal court. [*******]
His rambling discourse at times appeared to frustrate even the prosecutor who called him, and his disjointed, heavily accented English also seemed to wear on the jury. [*****] He often turned in the witness chair to address his answers directly to the jurors, frequently gesturing with his hands, or stabbing the air in front of him with a ballpoint pen to emphasize a point.
He testified that he volunteered to troll the city's mosques and Muslim communities out of patriotism and a desire to show that violent extremists are the exception rather than the rule in Islam. [*********]
Before the trial, Mr. Stolar said several times that he would seek to put the police tactics on trial, and during his cross-examination of Mr. Eldawoody, he sought to raise questions about the propriety of the department's insertion of informers into mosques around the city. But government lawyers complained to Judge Gershon that he was seeking to use the trial to build a civil case against the department.
Mr. Stolar argued that some of Mr. Eldawoody's conduct was "presumptively violative" of a 1985 consent decree governing the department's Intelligence Division, where the detective overseeing the informer was assigned. Mr. Stolar was one of the lawyers who brought the original civil case in 1971.
Judge Gershon shut down Mr. Stolar's efforts to focus on the department a day into his four-day cross-examination. "The issue here, as the defense itself has framed it, is whether the defendant was entrapped," the judge ruled on May 3. It was not, she said, about "the legality or illegality of police conduct" but whether the police caused Mr. Siraj to commit a crime.
In the end, the defense case rested squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Siraj himself.[*****] He testified for two and a half days in an effort to persuade the jury that he would never have even considered plotting violence, let alone a terrorist act, if he had not had the ideas planted in his head.
But prosecutors called a surprise witness to rebut his testimony, an undercover detective who had had frequent conversations with Mr. Siraj long before he met Mr. Eldawoody. The conversations, the detective said, were filled with Mr. Siraj's approval of suicide bombings and Osama bin Laden. [********]
Mr. Siraj, and another man, James Elshafay, who later pleaded guilty and testified against him, were arrested several days before the 2004 Republican National Convention on charges they plotted to blow up the Herald Square subway station, [*****] the third busiest hub in the city's transit system, serving 110,000 riders a day
After the sentencing date was set for Oct. 5, a quiet Mr. Stolar carefully folded some of the clothes his client had worn in court during the trial — a pinstriped suit, the zippered sweatshirt in which he was sentenced, and several other garments — and packed them into a black garbage bag he had rested on a courtroom bench.
Michael Wilson contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:23 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/asia/25briefs-brief-005.ready.html
May 25, 2006
World Briefing | ASIA
Japan: U.S. Embassy Warns of Threat
By REUTERS [us emnassy warns Americans in Japan] [must have collected “chatter”] [use psci 469] [**********]
The United States Embassy in Tokyo said it had received a possible threat against American facilities in Japan and urged Americans citizens "to exercise caution." Saying the credibility of the threat has yet to be determined, [******]the embassy urged American citizens to be cautious during the Memorial Day holiday, May 29.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/asia/25briefs-brief-005.ready.html
May 25, 2006
World Briefing | ASIA
Japan: U.S. Embassy Warns of Threat
By REUTERS [us emnassy warns Americans in Japan] [must have collected “chatter”] [use psci 469] [**********]
The United States Embassy in Tokyo said it had received a possible threat against American facilities in Japan and urged Americans citizens "to exercise caution." Saying the credibility of the threat has yet to be determined, [******]the embassy urged American citizens to be cautious during the Memorial Day holiday, May 29.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:22 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25Amanat.html
May 25, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The Persian Complex
By ABBAS AMANAT
New Haven [oped] [Persia complex] [why iran wants nukes] [**********]
IT is easy to label Iran's quest for nuclear energy a dangerous adventure with grave regional and international repercussions. It is also comforting to heap scorn on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his earlier denial of the Holocaust and his odious call for the obliteration of the state of Israel. The rambling intransigence expressed in his recent letter to President Bush offers ample insight into this twisted mindset. [******] Yet there is something deeper in Iran's story than the extremist utterances of a messianic president and the calculated maneuvering of the hard-line clerical leadership that stands behind him. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25Amanat.html
May 25, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
The Persian Complex
By ABBAS AMANAT
New Haven [oped] [Persia complex] [why iran wants nukes] [**********]
IT is easy to label Iran's quest for nuclear energy a dangerous adventure with grave regional and international repercussions. It is also comforting to heap scorn on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his earlier denial of the Holocaust and his odious call for the obliteration of the state of Israel. The rambling intransigence expressed in his recent letter to President Bush offers ample insight into this twisted mindset. [******] Yet there is something deeper in Iran's story than the extremist utterances of a messianic president and the calculated maneuvering of the hard-line clerical leadership that stands behind him. [*********]
We tend to forget that Iran's insistence on its sovereign right to develop nuclear power is in effect a national pursuit for empowerment, a pursuit informed by at least two centuries of military aggression, domestic meddling, skullduggery and, not least, technological denial by the West. [********] Every schoolchild in Iran knows about the C.I.A.-sponsored 1953 coup that toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. [******] Even an Iranian with little interest in his or her past is conscious of how Iran throughout the 19th and 20th centuries served as a playground for the Great Game. [*******]
Iranians also know that, hard as it may be for latter-day Americans and Europeans to believe, from the 1870's to the 1920's Russia and Britain deprived Iran of even basic technology like the railroad, which was then a key to economic development. [****] At various times, both powers jealously opposed a trans-Iranian railroad because they thought it would threaten their ever-expanding imperial frontiers. When it was finally built, the British, Russian (and American) occupying forces during the Second World War made full use of it (free of charge), calling Iran a "bridge of victory" over Nazi Germany. They did so, of course, after Winston Churchill forced the man who built the railroad, Reza Shah Pahlavi, to abdicate and unceremoniously kicked him out of the country.
Not long after, a similar Western denial of Iran's economic sovereignty resulted in a dramatic showdown that had fatal consequences for the country's fragile democracy and left lasting scars on its national consciousness. The oil nationalization movement of 1951 to 1953 under Mossadegh was opposed by Britain, [******] and eventually by its partner in profit, the United States, with the same self-righteousness that today colors their views of the Iranian yearning for nuclear energy.
Mossadegh was tried and sent into internal exile and Mohammed Reza Shah was reinstalled largely to safeguard American geopolitical interests and with little regard for the wishes of the Iranian people. A quarter-century later, Americans were "taken by surprise" when an Islamic revolution toppled the shah and transformed a country that seemed so friendly to the United States.[*****] But if Americans suffered from historical amnesia, for many Iranians, among them Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the thread of memory led clearly from the Great Game to the Great Satan.
For a country like the United States that is built on paradigms of progress and pragmatism, grasping the mythical and psychological dimensions of defeat and deprivation at the hands of foreigners is difficult. Yet the Iranian collective memory is infused with such themes. [*****] Since the early 18th century, Iran has been involved in four devastating civil wars. America's own highly traumatic Civil War was, notwithstanding Britain's sympathy for the South, a largely domestic affair. In the civil wars that Iran endured, however, the Turks, Afghans, Russians and British played major parts. And before the arrival of Western powers, Iranians held bitter memories of the Ottomans, the Mongols and the Arabs. [************]
These intrusions punctuated the Iranians' modern historical narrative with conspiratorial fears and have helped to nurture a cult of the fallen hero, from the 1910's guerrilla leader Mirza Kuchak Khan to Amir Kabir, a 19th-century reformist prime minister, and later Mossadegh. Such painful collective memories have made Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy a national symbol of defiance that has transcended the motives of the current Islamic regime. [************]
If the United States resorts to sanctions, or worse, to some military response, the outcome would be not only disastrous but, in the long run, transient. Just as the West did with Iran's railroad and oil industry, it can for a time deny Iran nuclear technology, but it cannot wipe out Iranians' haunting memories. [*********] And no doubt the Islamic regime will amply exploit these collective memories to advance its nuclear program even as it stifles voices of domestic dissent. Even more than before, Iranians will blame outside powers for their misfortunes and choose not to focus on their own troubled road to modernity.
If that course continues, Iran will most likely succeed, for ill or for good, in finding its own nuclear holy grail. Legend has it that the Persian king Hushang, an equivalent of Prometheus, introduced fire to the Iranians. But unlike his Greek mythological counterpart, who stole it from gods, he accidentally discovered it while fighting with a dragon. [***************]
Abbas Amanat is a professor of history at Yale and author of the forthcoming "In Search of Modern Iran."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:21 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25thu1.html
May 25, 2006
Editorial
A Viable Palestinian State
[editorial] [Palestine] [and Israel] [how to fix it] [***********]
It's long been clear that getting a workable, feasible Palestinian state out of two geographically separate masses of land in the desert will be an uphill battle. Now, because of two culprits and one enabler — Hamas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and President Bush — that hill is becoming a mountain. [*************]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/opinion/25thu1.html
May 25, 2006
Editorial
A Viable Palestinian State
[editorial] [Palestine] [and Israel] [how to fix it] [***********]
It's long been clear that getting a workable, feasible Palestinian state out of two geographically separate masses of land in the desert will be an uphill battle. Now, because of two culprits and one enabler — Hamas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and President Bush — that hill is becoming a mountain. [*************]
Mr. Bush handed Mr. Olmert the perfect welcome-to-Washington gift on Tuesday: conditional support for Israel's plans. [******] Mr. Olmert wants to go ahead with Ariel Sharon's misbegotten plan to unilaterally redraw the borders of what could eventually be Palestine. The key word here is unilaterally, because the Israelis are prepared to do this without any input from the Palestinians. They would be left to try to cobble together a country out of whatever remained behind. [***********]
To a significant degree, the Palestinians put themselves in this spot by electing Hamas to run their government, and the Bush administration is right to refuse to legitimize a government dedicated to the destruction of Israel. [******] But Mr. Bush should not punish the Palestinian people by endorsing any unilateral proposal — doing that would punish them for exercising their democratic right to vote. [******] [a agree in theory but in practice the reality on the ground is such that Olmert has only short window of opportunity] [he ran on that very thing] [what did the NYTs think he wa going to do once in office?]
Mr. Olmert's proposal has two parts, and the first one is fine: to withdraw Israeli settlers and troops from vast areas of the occupied West Bank. That's a worthy goal, and one that has been way too long in coming. [*************]
The problem is with the second part of the proposal: to retain several large settlement blocs in the Palestinian West Bank. That's a recipe for disaster. [********] [I agree] [that’s why US should never have supported settlements with its money; but it did and we are all stuck with the consequences] [*****************]
Anyone who has ever really looked at a map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza can see how hard it will be to form a Palestinian state. Even a future Palestine that includes all of the West Bank and Gaza is still going to be in two pieces with Israel in the middle, separating Gaza from the West Bank. [**********]
To get an idea of this, imagine a map of Manhattan. The West Bank would be, very roughly, East Harlem and the Upper East Side. Gaza would be Battery Park City, far to the southwest. Now imagine trying to create a fully functioning city with its own economy out of those pieces while an entirely independent, antagonistic city remained in between. [*************]
Yet that is what the Palestinians will have to do if they even manage to get back to the 1967 borders. (If the Sharon-Olmert plan, now tentatively blessed by Mr. Bush, goes into effect, they won’t achieve that.) If Mr. Olmert moves forward with his plan to retain large settlement blocs in the West Bank, the Palestinians may well lose huge parts of their “Upper East Side” and be left trying to form a country out of what’s left, and their “Battery Park City.” [************]
Speaking to Congress yesterday, Mr. Olmert said Israel was willing "to negotiate with a Palestinian Authority." He added, "In a few years they could be living in a Palestinian state, side by side in peace and security with Israel." [********]
We'd like to see that, too. We only hope that Mr. Olmert and Mr. Bush realize that there will not be peace in the Middle East unless the Palestinians have a say in creating a state that can function.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:21 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402431.html
Get Serious About China's Rising Military
By Dan Blumenthal
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A29 [important oped] [calling for us to get serious about china’s militarty rise and lack of transparency] [the N in hydraTNT] [though I’m especially concerned about transnational, non-state actors such as al qaeda—since US have no experience fighting them] [the us must be able to do both things at same time] [**********]
The Pentagon's annual report to Congress on China's military power, released this week, reveals that Beijing's buildup has advanced well beyond what most analysts considered likely just 10 years ago. Some highlights: The new arsenal of the People's Liberation Army includes more than 700 missiles deployed opposite Taiwan, a fleet of sophisticated diesel electric submarines, a growing nuclear submarine capability and advanced destroyers armed with lethal anti-ship cruise missiles. By making the potential cost of any U.S. intervention in the Taiwan Strait extraordinarily high, Beijing has accomplished its decade-long goal of establishing a credible military threat to Taiwan -- as well as a deterrent to the United States. The question is, what next?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402431.html
Get Serious About China's Rising Military
By Dan Blumenthal
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A29 [important oped] [calling for us to get serious about china’s militarty rise and lack of transparency] [the N in hydraTNT] [though I’m especially concerned about transnational, non-state actors such as al qaeda—since US have no experience fighting them] [the us must be able to do both things at same time] [**********]
The Pentagon's annual report to Congress on China's military power, released this week, reveals that Beijing's buildup has advanced well beyond what most analysts considered likely just 10 years ago. Some highlights: The new arsenal of the People's Liberation Army includes more than 700 missiles deployed opposite Taiwan, a fleet of sophisticated diesel electric submarines, a growing nuclear submarine capability and advanced destroyers armed with lethal anti-ship cruise missiles. By making the potential cost of any U.S. intervention in the Taiwan Strait extraordinarily high, Beijing has accomplished its decade-long goal of establishing a credible military threat to Taiwan -- as well as a deterrent to the United States. The question is, what next?
The report points to some answers. With a growing dependence on oil imported from the Middle East and Africa, Chinese strategists are talking about creating a blue-water navy to secure Beijing's energy supply lines. The military may be reconsidering its nuclear "no-first-use policy" and examining ways to secure China's territorial claims in the South China and East China seas. Simply stated, as China's military power has grown, so too, it appears, have the strategic tasks that it may be assigned. This shouldn't be surprising. Our own history teaches that as a nation's power grows so do its ambitions.
As if to underscore this point, an official Chinese military journal recently published an article arguing that Beijing should develop a military "commensurate with its international status." Since Beijing's economic and diplomatic interests span the globe, such strategic thinking can take the People's Liberation Army in some troubling directions. For example, Beijing may conclude that relying on the U.S. Navy for the safety of its energy supplies is too risky, and decide to increase its naval presence along the expanse between the Persian Gulf and East Asia. This would make the Chinese navy the first since the Cold War to compete for sea control with the United States. [******] In addition, there are numerous disputed territorial claims in the East China and South China seas that China could settle by military means. Japan and China already have come close to skirmishing over energy resources in nearby disputed waters.
Of course, given the opaque character of Chinese military planning and government decision making, analysts can only speculate as to what turns the Chinese military buildup will take. [*****] It would help if China were to open up its political system so that we and other regional powers could get a better handle on the country's long-term ambitions. But this seems unlikely, at least anytime soon. Indeed, the Pentagon report notes that secrecy, deception and surprise remain key components of Chinese strategic practice.
China has already changed Asia's balance of power. It is past time for America to get serious about deterring the potentially worst sorts of Chinese behavior and to provide allies in the region with reason for renewed confidence in the U.S. security umbrella. [******] Unfortunately, we are only just beginning to grapple with this daunting strategic task. [*******]
The latest Quadrennial Defense Review [**********] states that China "has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States." The Pentagon seeks to "shape [China's] strategic choices" and to "dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony." The Bush administration has taken some concrete action toward these ends. An upgraded alliance with Japan will improve our deterrent posture. The opening of a strategic relationship with India reflects in part an American desire to ensure that China does not gain hegemony over South or Central Asia. An increase in the size of the U.S. Navy's attack submarine fleet in Guam also brings more American capability into the Pacific. A nascent defense relationship with Vietnam may over time provide the American military with what it needs most in Asia -- more bases.
But our China policy leaves us a day late and a dollar short when it comes to the challenge posed by the speed of Beijing's military buildup. We still have restrictions on relations with Taiwan dating to the Carter era that make the island more difficult to defend. A stronger commitment by the Pentagon to developing long-range surveillance and strike capabilities would make Beijing less confident that it could use its vast territory as a sanctuary for its missile and other "disruptive" forces. Upgrading our undersea warfare capabilities will improve our regional freedom of action.
Washington's largely reactive and tepid response to China's growing military power is understandable given what is on America's plate at the moment. And policymakers are still hoping that they can gain China's cooperation on pressing international security crises. But as the Pentagon report says, China has been less than cooperative on those supposed common interests: denuclearizing North Korea and Iran, for example. A policy seeking to shape China into a responsible global actor works only if you are willing to recognize when it is not working. That time may be fast approaching.
The writer is resident fellow in Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He formerly was senior country director for China and Taiwan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:20 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-somalia25may25,0,5941167.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
From the Los Angeles Times
EDITORIAL
A dangerous game in Somalia
Supporting warlords against Islamists won't stop terror.
May 25, 2006 [editorial] [Somalia] [us dangerous game there] [us should be in horn of Africa countering alqaeda and other jihadis] [however the enemy of my enemy is my friend strategy has got the us in trouble time and again] [go back to first principles] [marcus . . . . ] [*************]
IN SOMALIA, IT'S NOT MERELY STUPID to assume that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. It's liable to get you killed. Yet the United States appears to be supporting one group of Somali warlords, who have repackaged themselves as secular anti-terrorists, to fight another group of equally brutal Islamist Somali warlords. [*******]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-somalia25may25,0,5941167.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
From the Los Angeles Times
EDITORIAL
A dangerous game in Somalia
Supporting warlords against Islamists won't stop terror.
May 25, 2006 [editorial] [Somalia] [us dangerous game there] [us should be in horn of Africa countering alqaeda and other jihadis] [however the enemy of my enemy is my friend strategy has got the us in trouble time and again] [go back to first principles] [marcus . . . . ] [*************]
IN SOMALIA, IT'S NOT MERELY STUPID to assume that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. It's liable to get you killed. Yet the United States appears to be supporting one group of Somali warlords, who have repackaged themselves as secular anti-terrorists, to fight another group of equally brutal Islamist Somali warlords. [*******]

The U.S. involvement, an open secret since 2002, became undeniable this month after fighting between the two sides killed at least 140 people in Mogadishu. Last week, White House and State Department spokesmen didn't bother, even when asked, to shoot down reports that the U.S. is backing one of the warring militias — thus backhandedly confirming that the Somalia operation had White House approval. [******] (John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, did deny that the United States had violated a U.N. embargo on sending arms to Somalia. Cynics say that means the U.S. gave the warlords cash instead of guns.)

The Bush administration fears that Al Qaeda operatives and "foreign fighters" are profiting from Somalia's chaos to establish a beachhead in the strategic Horn of Africa. Even if these concerns are valid, arming thugs to fight a proxy war against Islamists is a clumsy game the U.S. is likely to lose. [**********]

It's one thing to offer rewards for the capture of terrorists in Somalia, as the United States has done elsewhere with Osama bin Laden. It's quite another to shower coldblooded killers with cash in hopes of inducing them to hand over terrorist suspects. [******] Yet the Nation newspaper in Nairobi published an article about a "clandestine trip" by U.S. agents to Mogadishu, where they reportedly handed out millions to warlords to help identify members of Al Qaeda said to be involved in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and hiding in Somalia. [*****] The money presumably comes from the $100 million the U.S. has earmarked for counterterrorism efforts in East Africa. [*******]

Ideology, Islamic or otherwise, has never been much of a factor in Somalia's ugly conflicts. But with $100 million up for grabs, opportunistic warlords have been only too happy to give themselves a name to appeal to American deep pockets: the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. Do their hapless U.S. sponsors hope to find an Ahmad Chalabi hiding under a technical, ready to lead a united Somalia?

Not likely. The emergence of a suddenly well-armed force with overt links to Uncle Sam has had the predictable effect of uniting the heretofore fractious Islamists against their common enemies. Now they are more dangerous than before. [*******]

National security advisor Stephen Hadley, a veteran of decades of mostly failed Third World proxy battles with the Soviet Union, should put a stop to this silliness now. Instead, the U.S. should stick to its policy of trying to help create a government that can finally end the anarchy in Somalia.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:20 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/education/25georgetown.html
May 25, 2006
Washington Memo
Faculty's Chilly Welcome for Ex-Pentagon Official
By JASON DePARLE [Douglas j. Fieth goes to work] [his new job at Georgetown University, probably a mistake by the dean] [prestigious program] [students apparently don’t care for mr. feith whom they know was an architect of Iraq War, manufactured or cherry picked intell, and worse] [societal as no longer in govt] [he left in mid 2005] [**************]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — Douglas J. Feith's table at the Georgetown University faculty club is shaping up as a lonely one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/education/25georgetown.html
May 25, 2006
Washington Memo
Faculty's Chilly Welcome for Ex-Pentagon Official
By JASON DePARLE [Douglas j. Fieth goes to work] [his new job at Georgetown University, probably a mistake by the dean] [prestigious program] [students apparently don’t care for mr. feith whom they know was an architect of Iraq War, manufactured or cherry picked intell, and worse] [societal as no longer in govt] [he left in mid 2005] [**************]
WASHINGTON, May 24 — Douglas J. Feith's table at the Georgetown University faculty club is shaping up as a lonely one.
The move to a teaching position at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown by Mr. Feith, a former Pentagon official, set off a faculty kerfuffle, with 72 professors, administrators and graduate students signing a letter of protest, some going as far as to accuse him of war crimes. [*************]
Some critics complain about the process. (He was hired without a faculty vote.) [*********]
Some complain about the war in Iraq. (Mr. Feith has been accused of promoting it with skewed intelligence.) [***********]
All say the open protest is unusual at a place that embraces former officials as part of its panache. A former secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright; a former national security adviser, Anthony Lake; and a former director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, have joined the faculty without event. [***************]
But Mr. Feith, a former under secretary of defense for policy planning and analysis, is another story. [*********]
"I'm not going to shake hands with the guy if he's introduced to me," said Mark N. Lance, a philosophy professor who teaches nonviolence in the program on Justice and Peace and who organized the protest. "And if he asks why, I'll say because in my view you're a war criminal and you have no place on this campus." [*********]
The dispute can be read as — take your pick — an explosion of fury at a disastrous war, an illustration of the pettiness of academic politics or evidence of Mr. Feith's talent for attracting invective.
Gen. Tommy R. Franks of the Army, the top commander of the Iraq invasion, once referred to him as "the stupidest guy on the face of the earth."[sanitized quote from woodwards plan of attack] [***********]
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Feith said he welcomed debate "in a proper, civil and rigorous way." But he called the accusations that he had politicized intelligence, advocated torture and attacked the Geneva Conventions as "false," "flatly false" and "outrageous." [**********************]
A graduate of Harvard and the Georgetown Law School, Mr. Feith served in the Reagan administration and joined other neoconservatives in 1998 in calling on President Bill Clinton to overthrow President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. [*******]
Joining the Bush administration in 2001, [*****] he set up two Defense Department units that have drawn scrutiny. [*******] One was the Office of Special Plans,[*******] which took the lead in the Pentagon's preparation for a postwar Iraq, planning that has been widely faulted. [which recent rumors say still exists] [**********]
Mr. Feith also oversaw the Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, a small unit of intelligence analysts who examined possible links between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda. [*******] Although the Central Intelligence Agency disputed such ties, Mr. Feith's group produced a classified report that argued that the links were clear. [********]
Two investigations have discredited that thesis, and Mr. Feith's critics have argued that he purposefully skewed the intelligence to justify the war, an accusation that he firmly denies. A third investigation, by the Pentagon inspector general, is examining whether the intelligence was deliberately slanted. [**********]
Preparing to leave government, Mr. Feith approached the dean of the School of Foreign Service, Robert L. Gallucci, about a teaching position. Mr. Gallucci has authority to recommend practitioners, who are not eligible for tenure, without a faculty vote. [*******] He recommended a two-year appointment, which the Georgetown provost approved. Mr. Feith will teach a course on the Bush administration's antiterrorism policy.
"I think the war in Iraq is a terrible mistake," Mr. Gallucci said. "But that is not the criteria for whom I bring to campus." [**********]
He said Mr. Feith, as an architect and advocate of the Iraq war, would "bring to campus something we do not have."
Professors in the school were widely opposed. But most who signed the letter came from other disciplines, where the differences from the Pentagon in bureaucratic culture may be especially pronounced. [************]
One is Susan Terrio, who has appointments in anthropology and French and whose résumé lists several writings about French chocolate makers. ("From Master Chocolatiers Today: Bayonne and the Basque Coast.") She complained that Mr. Feith's appointment was "presented as a fait accompli." She did, however, say she would shake hands with him. [**********]
Professor Terrio said Mr. Feith had "defended the use of torture in public lectures," though she acknowledged, "I can't point to a specific document," and said that characterization came from Professor Lance, the protest organizer. [*******]
Professor Lance said he was relying on a Newsweek article that said Mr. Feith had advocated "new and tougher interrogation techniques." [********]
"I should be more careful," Professor Lance said. "He hasn't specifically advocated torture. He's supported legal changes that make the use of torture easier." [*******]
Mr. Feith, who denies defending torture, said unfounded accusations against him "echo and get repeated."
Charles E. King, a professor at the foreign policy school, objected to the appointment but declined to sign the protest letter, because "I thought there were a lot of inaccuracies." [************]
Still, he added: “I hope this story does not play out as ‘pointy-headed academics diss Republicans,’ because that is not what’s going on at all. The stakes are who gets to teach for credit in what is still one of the top 25 universities in the U.S.”
Mr. Gallucci called the dispute potentially enlightening. “This is what I want,” he said. “The debate has begun. The debate, the disagreement — all that is good news.” [********]
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:19 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/americas/25mexico.html
May 25, 2006
Some in Mexico See Border Wall as Opportunity
By GINGER THOMPSON [presidente vincente fox] [his candidate is leading in the polls for upcoming presidential elections] [yesterday’s external had a piece about elites in mexico city fearing the leftist obrador] [election seems to be coming down to referendum on fox’s presidency rather than and election on future of mexico] [if so, the issue of immigration reform with US shall loom large] [**********]
SEATTLE, May 24 — To build, or not to build, a border of walls? The debate in the United States has started some Mexicans thinking it is not such a bad idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/americas/25mexico.html
May 25, 2006
Some in Mexico See Border Wall as Opportunity
By GINGER THOMPSON [presidente vincente fox] [his candidate is leading in the polls for upcoming presidential elections] [yesterday’s external had a piece about elites in mexico city fearing the leftist obrador] [election seems to be coming down to referendum on fox’s presidency rather than and election on future of mexico] [if so, the issue of immigration reform with US shall loom large] [**********]
SEATTLE, May 24 — To build, or not to build, a border of walls? The debate in the United States has started some Mexicans thinking it is not such a bad idea.
Nationalist outrage and accusations of hypocrisy over the prospect have filled airwaves and front pages in Mexico, as expected, fueled by presidential campaigns in which appeals to national pride are in no short supply. But, surprisingly, another view is gaining traction: that good fences can make good neighbors.
The clamorous debate over a border wall has confronted President Vicente Fox of Mexico at every stop during a visit to the United States that began Tuesday. While he did not publicly endorse the idea, he made clear that his government was prepared to live with increased border security as long as it comes with measures that opened legal channels for the migration of Mexican workers.
Outside his government, several immigration experts have even begun floating the idea that real walls, not the porous ones that stand today, could be more an opportunity than an attack.
A wall could dissuade illegal immigrants from their perilous journeys across the Sonora Desert and force societies on both sides to confront their dependence on an industry characterized by exploitation, they say.
The old blame game — in which Mexico attributed illegal migration to the voracious American demand for labor and accused lawmakers of xenophobia — has given way to a far more soul-searching discussion, at least in quarters where policies are made and influenced, about how little Mexico has done to try to keep its people home.
"For too long, Mexico has boasted about immigrants leaving, calling them national heroes, instead of describing them as actors in a national tragedy," said Jorge Santibáñez, president of the College of the Northern Border. "And it has boasted about the growth in remittances" — the money immigrants send home — "as an indicator of success, when it is really an indicator of failure."
Indeed, Mr. Fox — who five years ago challenged the United States to follow Europe's example and open the borders and then barely protested when President Bush announced plans to deploy troops — personifies Mexico's evolving, often contradictory attitudes on illegal immigration.
Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst, said the presidential election in July and the negotiations over immigration reform in Washington have put Mr. Fox on unsteady political terrain.
Toning down his country's opposition to a wall might be the best way for Mr. Fox to convince conservatives in Congress to adopt reforms to legalize the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States and expand guest worker programs.
On the other hand, bowing to what critics have described as a "militarization of the border," without winning legalization programs, could open Mr. Fox to criticism that he surrenders to the will of the United States. It could also hurt the aspirations of Felipe Calderón, the candidate Mr. Fox supports to succeed him in the July 2 election.
"This is a very risky trip," Mr. Guerra said. "If he comes out too strong, he will rattle the conservatives up there. And if he is not strong enough, he will be clobbered by his opponents here."
"Whatever the discourse, it's going to be hard to get it right," Mr. Guerra said. "I think we might be better served by quiet diplomacy."
Deputy Foreign Relations Minister Gerónimo Gutiérrez acknowledged the challenge facing the president. "We are in the middle of a Ping-Pong of reactions that reflect valid concerns on both sides of the border, as well as an unusually complex moment in the bilateral relationship," he said.
Mr. Fox stepped into the middle of the game on Tuesday, beginning a sweep through Utah, Washington and California, states that have become important trading partners to Mexico and that have experienced both the pains and benefits of illegal immigration.
In Utah, where officials estimate that the illegal immigrant population has tripled since 1990, to 90,000, smatterings of protesters followed Mr. Fox's visit to Salt Lake City. "Take care of your own people, so they don't have to come here," some shouted.
Wary of inflaming the passions of American conservatives as the United States Senate winds down debate over immigration reform, Mr. Fox did not respond directly to the attacks. But he did have his say.
In his public remarks in Utah, he recognized that Mexico must do more to create jobs "so migration becomes a decision and not a necessity," and he conceded that it was the right of the United States to take steps to fortify its borders.
But, he said, it would take more than police enforcement to really resolve the challenges of illegal immigration. "A comprehensive reform," Mr. Fox said, "will help both our countries concentrate our forces and resources in tending to our security and prosperity concerns."
Analysts said it was unlikely that Mr. Fox would ever speak publicly in favor of a wall. But in recent communications to Washington, his government, as well as leaders of all Mexican political parties, have hinted about building walls of their own.
Last March, in a document published in three of America's largest daily newspapers, including The New York Times, the Mexican government, along with leaders of the political establishment and business community, explained its position on immigration reform.
In that document, the Fox government said that if the United States committed itself to establishing legal channels for the flow of immigrant workers, Mexico would take new steps to keep its people from leaving illegally.
"If a guest country offers a sufficient number of appropriate visas to cover the largest possible number of workers and their families," the document read, "Mexico should be responsible for guaranteeing that each person who decides to leave does so following legal channels."
In a column in the Mexican newspaper Reforma, Jorge G. Castañeda, a former foreign minister, suggested a "series of incentives," rather than law enforcement strategies to keep Mexicans from migrating. They included welfare benefits to mothers whose husbands remained in Mexico, scholarships for high school students with both parents at home, and the loss of land rights for people who were absent from their property for extended periods of time.
"None of this is inevitable or desirable," Mr. Castañeda wrote. "Nor is it written that this would necessarily produce a quid pro quo with the United States.
"But the elites here should reflect on this matter," he went on, "whether we want something in exchange for nothing?"
There are, of course, still many people in Mexico who staunchly oppose the idea of walls. Senator Sylvia Hernández, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Commission for North America, summed up those feelings, saying: "Walls do not speak of dialogue. They speak of closure." Rafael Fernández de Castro, editor of the magazine Foreign Affairs en Español, said, "We are getting the stick, but not the carrot."
The presidential candidates have also hewed closely to the old script.
"The more walls they build," said Mr. Calderón, of the conservative National Action Party, "the more walls we will jump." Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party, called Mr. Fox a "puppet" of the United States for his tepid response to the planned deployment of troops along the border.
Still, signs of a slow but steady change in attitudes emerge in the most improbable places.
"It's fantastic," said Primitivo Rodríguez, an immigrant activist in Mexico, when asked about plans to build walls. "It's the best thing that could happen for migrants, and for Mexico."
Mr. Rodríguez, who has served as an adviser to the Mexican government and an organizer in the United States for the American Friends Service Committee, said the porous border had for years been an important safety valve of stability for Mexico's economy, allowing elected officials to avoid creating jobs and even taking legal measures to stop the migration of an estimated 500,000 or more Mexicans a year.
Government reports indicate that the Mexican economy has created about one-tenth of the one million jobs it needs to accommodate that country's growing labor force. Meanwhile, remittances from immigrants — estimated last year at about $20 billion — have grown larger than some state and municipal budgets.
If Mexicans were really shut inside their country, Mr. Rodríguez said, Mexico might be forced to get its own house in order.
And if illegal workers were shut inside the United States, Mr. Rodríguez said, the United States might be forced to give them greater legal rights and pay the real value of their labor.
"Until now," Mr. Rodríguez said, "the policy of the United States has not been to close the border to illegal migration, but to detour it. And by detouring it they have caused unprecedented levels of death, abuse and organized crime."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:18 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast25may25,1,1938789.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Ramallah Erupts After a Long Lull
Four people die as violence spreads to the West Bank city, where Israeli troops and Palestinians trade fire. Gaza conflict intensifies.
By Laura King and Maher Abukhater
Special to The Times
May 25, 2006 [palestine] [israelis’s secret police, shein bet, in disguise as Palestinians raid ramallah] [feces flies a the flabelum] [***********]

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Violence spread Wednesday from the volatile Gaza Strip to the West Bank, where Israeli troops shot and killed four Palestinians in this usually placid city after a riot broke out during an Israeli arrest raid. [*********]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mideast25may25,1,1938789.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
Ramallah Erupts After a Long Lull
Four people die as violence spreads to the West Bank city, where Israeli troops and Palestinians trade fire. Gaza conflict intensifies.
By Laura King and Maher Abukhater
Special to The Times
May 25, 2006 [palestine] [israelis’s secret police, shein bet, in disguise as Palestinians raid ramallah] [feces flies a the flabelum] [***********]

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Violence spread Wednesday from the volatile Gaza Strip to the West Bank, where Israeli troops shot and killed four Palestinians in this usually placid city after a riot broke out during an Israeli arrest raid. [*********]

The fighting in Ramallah, the Palestinians' administrative and commercial capital, was the most intense in the city since the Israelis launched a massive military incursion into the West Bank four years ago, when they laid siege to the late Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat's compound. Forays by Israeli troops into the city center now are rare, particularly in daylight.

As bullets whizzed over the main Manara Square and an adjacent shopping mall, Palestinians dropped their bags and scrambled for cover. The acrid scent of tear gas hung in the air.

For Palestinians already anxious about lawlessness and infighting in Gaza, the spread of violence into Ramallah represents a further erosion of security in daily life. Unlike Gaza, which is a deeply impoverished and devoutly religious stronghold of militants, Ramallah is a secular and cosmopolitan city. It is home to a large middle class, including many intellectuals and Palestinians who hold U.S. citizenship.

Israel's army said undercover troops had entered the city to arrest Mohammed Shoubaki, who is believed to be a financier for the militant group Islamic Jihad. Israeli arrests of militant figures are common, but they almost always take place late at night or before dawn to avoid sparking a confrontation with residents.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, addressing a joint session of Congress in Washington, thanked President Bush for his support of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and portions of the West Bank.

Olmert said the next step in his plan to redraw the borders of the West Bank — removing some Jewish settlers while absorbing large settlements into Israel — "is even more vital to our future and to the prospect of finally bringing peace to the Middle East."

Witnesses in Ramallah said the trouble began when youths spotted the troops, who were in plainclothes and driving a battered car with Palestinian plates.

After the Israelis entered a building in search of Shoubaki, the youths surrounded the structure, disabled the undercover squad's vehicle and began throwing stones. In response, regular army units were sent in.

The melee, which began as a hail of bricks and concrete, quickly escalated into gunfire, at an hour when the city center was crowded with people leaving work and school.

Shopkeepers hurriedly pulled down the heavy metal grates on their storefronts when the shooting began. An army spokeswoman, Capt. Noa Meir, said soldiers at first used tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to contain the crowd but switched to live ammunition after gunmen mixed in with the stone-throwers began firing on them.

The Israeli raid, in which Shoubaki was taken into custody, drew a sharp response from senior aides to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose headquarters is only a short distance from the scene of the fighting.

"Israel is determined to stage provocations in a manner that will take us back to a cycle of violence," said Nabil abu Rudaineh, an Abbas advisor.

At the same time, factional strife intensified Wednesday in Gaza, where an officer in a key security force loyal to Abbas was killed in an explosion that ripped through his car. Hours earlier, three Hamas militants were grabbed by gunmen lying in wait outside a mosque. All three were shot, and one died of his wounds.

The mood is angry these days in most Palestinian cities and towns, where tens of thousands of government workers have gone unpaid for more than two months. More than a third of the Palestinian population is sustained by those salaries.

After the confrontation in Ramallah, streets in the city center were littered with bricks and rocks that youths had hurled at Israeli army jeeps, a scene reminiscent of those from the height of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada.

The four Palestinians who were slain were believed to have been armed and taking part in the riot, the Israeli military said. Hospital officials said more than a dozen of the 30 or more injured were passersby.

Weeping family members hurried to the nearest hospital, where the wounded were laid out on the floor for lack of space. "I would have tied you up at home if I had known what you were doing!" a woman shouted at her son, a young stone-thrower who had been shot in the foot.

It was unclear why the army chose this time and place to arrest Shoubaki, who is based in the northern West Bank town of Kalkilya. He is suspected of funneling money to Islamic Jihad, which has carried out eight suicide bombings in Israel over the last 18 months.

Wednesday marked the first time in more than a year that Israeli troops had entered Ramallah in such large numbers at a time of day when many civilians would be out in public. Early Tuesday, Israeli forces staged a raid in the city that resulted in the arrest of Ibrahim Hamed, a Hamas leader accused of masterminding attacks that led to dozens of Israeli deaths. But the operation was on the outskirts of the city and was carried out before dawn. The troops were gone before most people were awake.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion that killed Nabil Hodhoud, a captain in the Preventive Security Service force, as his car was traveling in Gaza City. A bodyguard was badly wounded.

Hodhoud's security branch has been at the center of a deadly feud between forces loyal to Abbas' Fatah movement and those with allegiance to the Hamas-dominated government. Hamas last week sent a new police force into the streets, which engaged in a shootout Monday with Fatah-allied police.

Hamas, a militant group that took power in March after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections, and Fatah, its defeated foe, have been locked in escalating reprisal attacks over the last two weeks. Two Fatah security chiefs were the target of would-be killers last week; one was gravely injured.

Hamas blamed gunmen from the Preventive Security Service for abducting and shooting three members of its armed wing earlier Wednesday in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis. The three, bundled into a car by armed men as they emerged from morning prayers, were found a short time later lying by the roadside, one of them fatally wounded.

In a sign of the tangled loyalties in Gaza, yet another militia took to the streets Wednesday: a force of about 1,000 men who pledged fealty to a onetime Fatah chieftain, but also to Hamas.

The men, wearing black T-shirts and scarves knotted on their heads pirate-style, marched in formation through Gaza City.

Their commander, Khaled abu Hilal, now serves as a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, and Fatah has disowned him.

In Washington, Olmert said Israel was counting on American help to sell his plan for redrawing the West Bank borders.

"Success will only be possible with America as an active participant, leading the support of Europe and across the world," Olmert said.

Israel is expected to ask the Bush administration to help pay for the so-called convergence plan, offer political support for the redrawn boundaries and help persuade other countries to accept the undertaking. On Tuesday, Bush gave a preliminary nod to the plan, though he said he still had to study the details.

As he did Tuesday, Olmert said he would try to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, but would move ahead unilaterally if it balked.
Times staff writer King reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Abukhater from Ramallah. Staff writer Paul Richter in Washington and special correspondent Fayed abu Shammaleh in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:17 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Palestinians-Hamas-Talks.html
May 25, 2006
Palestinian Leader Plans a Vote on Accepting Israel
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:06 a.m. ET [abu mazen] [plan to call a referendum] [ big gamble especiallty given the tension now] [however, presumably he wishes to force the hand of hamas] [if he gets a mandate to negotiate with Israel—a possibility—he shall then be albe to marginalize hamas despite January elections] [***********]
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he will call a national referendum on accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel if Hamas does not agree to the idea within 10 days. [*********]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Palestinians-Hamas-Talks.html
May 25, 2006
Palestinian Leader Plans a Vote on Accepting Israel
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:06 a.m. ET [abu mazen] [plan to call a referendum] [ big gamble especiallty given the tension now] [however, presumably he wishes to force the hand of hamas] [if he gets a mandate to negotiate with Israel—a possibility—he shall then be albe to marginalize hamas despite January elections] [***********]
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he will call a national referendum on accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel if Hamas does not agree to the idea within 10 days. [*********]
Abbas' surprise announcement was a political gamble that could either help resolve the Palestinians' internal deadlock or lead them into a deeper crisis with the militant Hamas group. [********]
Such a vote would effectively ask Palestinians to give implicit recognition to Israel by accepting a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in 1967. Approval of the 18-point plan would provide a way out of the impasse over acceptance of Israel, which has led to an international freeze on aid to the Hamas-led government. [**********]
Hamas officials were divided over the idea of a referendum, with several giving their blessing, but others dismissing it as an attempt to undercut the Hamas-led government. [*********]
A referendum, which Palestinian pollsters expect to pass, could provide cover for the militants to moderate without appearing to succumb to Western pressure. Such a vote could also renew pressure on Israel to return to the negotiating table rather than imposing borders on the Palestinians.
Abbas' proposal came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert returned from a trip to Washington, where he presented President Bush with a West Bank pullout plan. Olmert said if there is no breakthrough in long-stalled peace efforts in the coming months, Israel would withdraw from much of the West Bank, solidify its control of large settlement blocs and unilaterally draw its border with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians reject Olmert's unilateral plan, and Abbas' announcement Thursday appeared part of a hurried effort to show the world there is a willing Palestinian partner for negotiations with Israel. [*******]
Abbas said that if 10 days of dialogue between Hamas and his Fatah movement did not lead to a joint political platform, he would call a referendum 40 days after that. The dialogue began Thursday. [**********]
The referendum would ask Palestinians to either accept or reject a document that had been drafted earlier this month by senior Palestinian militants jailed in Israel. The five-page document calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. [**************************************************] [see early may, external] [by imprisoned leaders who had the political will, despite being in israel’s prisons, to come up with a plan] [***********************************]
The draft was negotiated by leading prisoners from Hamas and Fatah over the period of four weeks at Israel's Hadarim Prison, where top Fatah prisoner Marwan Barghouti is being held. [**********]
The talks took place in a wing for Palestinian security prisoners, where 120 inmates are held, said Barghouti's lawyer, Khader Shkirat. After the factions' political leaders gave their blessing, Barghouti drafted an outline that was revised in the negotiations, Shkirat said. Many of the sessions took place in the prison yard.
Hamas is pledged to Israel's destruction and has rejected international demands that it recognize the Jewish state or renounce violence. The group appeared to soften its position since taking power in March, [*******] but has refused to explicitly give up its demands for an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine, which includes Israel.
It was not clear whether Abbas had briefed Hamas before the announcement on the referendum. Some Hamas officials said they had been taken by surprise, but said they support the idea.
''Returning to the people is one of the most important principles in democracy,'' said Parliament Speaker Abdel Aziz Duaik, of Hamas, who added that the prisoners' document was a good basis for dialogue.
However, Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri said that a referendum was a ''coup against the democratic choice'' of the Palestinians who swept Hamas into power in January parliament elections. [*******] [clearly worried]
The smaller Islamic Jihad group, which also rejects the existence of Israel, said it opposed the referendum proposal. [******]
Israeli officials declined to comment.
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Abbas said he did not mean his proposal to be a game of brinkmanship, but said a national consensus was needed urgently.
''The situation is getting more dangerous. The whole nation is in danger. We can't wait for the rest of our lives,'' he said.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a close adviser to Abbas, said Hamas and the other Palestinian groups had to make a choice, ''either to accept the prisoners' document as it is or to go to a referendum.''
''Both solutions are satisfactory and can get us out of the impasse,'' he said. ''All that the international community needs is there in this document and we think that they will accept it.''
Palestinian pollster Nader Said of Bir Zeit University in Ramallah said he expected the referendum to pass because most Palestinians support a two-state solution. [****************]
''I think it has a very good chance to pass, I think it will get high support,'' he said, estimating it could pass by as much as two-thirds. [***********]
Abbas made his proposal at the start of a national conference of Palestinian factions intended to hammer out a joint Palestinian platform. The meeting was held by video conference between the West Bank city of Ramallah and the parliament building in Gaza City.
Abbas, usually a restrained speaker, spoke with unusual enthusiasm, repeatedly gesturing as he implored the gathered leaders to work together.
He said that Hamas backed the proposal to call for a state in what are known as the 1967 borders. [****] [*****]
''All the Palestinians, from Hamas to the Communists, all of us agree we want a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,'' he said. ''This is what we have, we cannot talk about dreams.''
In an earlier speech to the gathering Thursday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said his group would not moderate its positions to get the economic boycott imposed by the West after Hamas' election victory lifted.
''I want to assure here, and make it clear for all parties, that the Palestinian government and the Palestinian people will not make any compromise that harms the Palestinian goals and rights,'' he said.
Abbas has said that Hamas must moderate to regain international support for the Palestinian cause.
''The Arab countries are waiting for this realistic position, to work in harmony, to push the Palestinian cause ahead. They cannot do anything for the Palestinian cause if the (Palestinians) are rejecting everything,'' he said.
Both Abbas and Haniyeh called for an end to internal tensions that have repeatedly exploded into violence in recent days, leaving at least nine people dead. [*****]
''We are not going to engage in a Palestinian-Palestinian conflict,'' Haniyeh said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:17 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052401405.html
Israeli Troops Kill 4 Palestinians
About 30 Injured as Undercover Squad Responds to Gunfire, Stone-Throwing
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A21 [Israel] [PM Olmert urges Palestinians to prepare for final talks soon] [surely both sides know the stakes and the timing realities] [Israel, like it or not, shall decide its final borders by end of Olmert’s prescribed term, 2010] [if he has partner with who to negotiate, negotiations will occur] [***********] [ditto]
JERUSALEM, May 24 -- Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinians, including at least two armed men, after an undercover squad on an arrest operation in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday encountered gunfire and a hail of stones.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052401405.html
Israeli Troops Kill 4 Palestinians
About 30 Injured as Undercover Squad Responds to Gunfire, Stone-Throwing
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A21 [Israel] [PM Olmert urges Palestinians to prepare for final talks soon] [surely both sides know the stakes and the timing realities] [Israel, like it or not, shall decide its final borders by end of Olmert’s prescribed term, 2010] [if he has partner with who to negotiate, negotiations will occur] [***********] [ditto]
JERUSALEM, May 24 -- Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinians, including at least two armed men, after an undercover squad on an arrest operation in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday encountered gunfire and a hail of stones.
The clash occurred about 3:30 p.m. when Israeli troops entered downtown Ramallah in support of the undercover unit, which had come under attack after arresting Mohammed Shubaki. Israeli military officials identified Shubaki as the leader of the radical Islamic Jihad group in the West Bank city of Qalqiliyah.
The undercover team arrested Shubaki in an Internet cafe and, after emerging to find a crowd of Palestinians outside, called for backup. The column of armed jeeps was bombarded with rocks thrown by young Palestinians in the streets around Manara Square, the city's main shopping district. Sporadic gunfire also rang out.
Israeli soldiers fired live rounds, some of them rubber-coated bullets, to disperse the crowd. Palestinian hospital officials said about 30 Palestinians were wounded, many of them by the rubber-coated bullets. An Israeli soldier was lightly injured after being hit in the head by a rock.
In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, an explosion killed a senior officer of the Palestinian Preventative Security branch, which is aligned with the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The violence came at a time of heightened tensions with gunmen from Hamas, the Islamic party that now runs the government.
Palestinian officials said Nabil Hodhod, the Preventative Security chief in central Gaza, died when his car blew up Wednesday evening. Palestinian officials said an initial review indicated the explosion inside Hodhod's car was the result of a bomb. But there was no immediate claim of responsibility, and Fatah officials did not cast blame on Hamas.
Over the weekend, the Palestinian intelligence chief and the head of the Preventative Security Service, both aligned with Fatah, were targets of unsuccessful assassination attempts.
Gunmen from Fatah and Hamas have engaged in several deadly clashes since the Hamas-run Interior Ministry deployed a new 3,000-member security force last week across the Gaza Strip. The force is made up almost entirely of foot soldiers from Hamas's armed wing.
The deployment was part of the ongoing struggle between Abbas, who heads Fatah, and leaders of Hamas, for control of the security services.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:16 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/middleeast/25mideast.html
May 25, 2006
Israeli Raid in West Bank Kills 4 Palestinians
By GREG MYRE [Israel] [PM Olmert urges Palestinians to prepare for final talks soon] [surely both sides know the stakes and the timing realities] [Israel, like it or not, shall decide its final borders by end of Olmert’s prescribed term, 2010] [if he has partner with who to negotiate, negotiations will occur] [***********] [continued violence between Israel and Palestinian groups]
JERUSALEM, May 24 — An Israeli undercover arrest operation on Wednesday turned into a chaotic gun battle in the center of Ramallah, leaving 4 Palestinians dead and about 50 wounded. [********]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/world/middleeast/25mideast.html
May 25, 2006
Israeli Raid in West Bank Kills 4 Palestinians
By GREG MYRE [Israel] [PM Olmert urges Palestinians to prepare for final talks soon] [surely both sides know the stakes and the timing realities] [Israel, like it or not, shall decide its final borders by end of Olmert’s prescribed term, 2010] [if he has partner with who to negotiate, negotiations will occur] [***********] [continued violence between Israel and Palestinian groups]
JERUSALEM, May 24 — An Israeli undercover arrest operation on Wednesday turned into a chaotic gun battle in the center of Ramallah, leaving 4 Palestinians dead and about 50 wounded. [********]
It was the second time in two days that the Israeli military had raided Ramallah, the Palestinian political headquarters in the West Bank, to seize a Palestinian high on its most-wanted list. [*****] However, unlike the operation on Tuesday, which had led to the arrest of Ibrahim Hamed, a long-sought Hamas leader, and caused no casualties, the action on Wednesday quickly degenerated into a shootout around the main traffic circle in the congested city.
Palestinian leaders said the timing of the raid, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was visiting Washington, showed bad faith. [*******]
"Israel is trying its best to block any effort to calm the situation," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an aide to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. [*******]
The Israeli military described Muhammad Shubaki, the target of the raid on Wednesday, as a senior figure in Islamic Jihad, [*****] the group responsible for almost all of the suicide bombings against Israel in the past year.
An Israeli undercover unit, disguised as Palestinian civilians, seized Mr. Shubaki in a building on Manara Square in the center of Ramallah, [*******] Palestinian security officials said.
But word quickly spread that the Israeli forces were in the area, and youths began throwing rocks. A civilian car used by the Israelis was set ablaze, and gun battles broke out. Shortly afterward, uniformed Israeli soldiers in jeeps arrived, and the conflict escalated, [********] the Israeli military and the Palestinian security forces said.
Four Palestinians, including one member of the Palestinian security forces, were killed, and about 50 Palestinians were injured, hospital officials in Ramallah said. One Israeli soldier was hit in the head by a rock, the Israeli military said.
The military reported that it had used rubber bullets, tear gas and live fire against the Palestinians, but that it had no information on Palestinian casualties.
The Israeli military has carried out arrest raids in the West Bank almost nightly for the past four years, and thousands of Palestinians accused of militant activity have been imprisoned.
However, it is highly unusual for a large contingent to enter the center of Ramallah during the day. The undercover unit presumably sought to slip in and out unnoticed, though the military declined to comment on the specifics of the operation.
In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian security chief was killed Wednesday when his car blew up, Palestinian security officials said. The security chief, Nabil Hodhod, chief of the Preventive Security forces in central Gaza, was considered loyal to Mr. Abbas, The Associated Press reported.
No one claimed responsibility immediately, though rival Palestinian factions have been fighting almost daily in Gaza in the past few weeks. Most of the fighting has involved Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that leads the government, and Fatah, which Mr. Abbas leads.
In Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, men shot three members of Hamas on Wednesday, killing one, Palestinian security officials said.
Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian factions plan to open a "national dialogue" on Thursday to try to stop the infighting.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:15 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052400357.html
Olmert Urges Palestinians To Qualify For Talks
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A21 [Israel] [PM Olmert urges Palestinians to prepare for final talks soon] [surely both sides know the stakes and the timing realities] [Israel, like it or not, shall decide its final borders by end of Olmert’s prescribed term, 2010] [if he has partner with who to negotiate, negotiations will occur] [***********]
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday urged the Palestinian Authority to meet his terms for peace talks or face a unilaterally imposed settlement in the West Bank, and he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would constitute "an intolerable threat" that he said "cannot be permitted to materialize." [**********]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052400357.html
Olmert Urges Palestinians To Qualify For Talks
By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; A21 [Israel] [PM Olmert urges Palestinians to prepare for final talks soon] [surely both sides know the stakes and the timing realities] [Israel, like it or not, shall decide its final borders by end of Olmert’s prescribed term, 2010] [if he has partner with who to negotiate, negotiations will occur] [***********]
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday urged the Palestinian Authority to meet his terms for peace talks or face a unilaterally imposed settlement in the West Bank, and he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would constitute "an intolerable threat" that he said "cannot be permitted to materialize." [**********]
In an address to a joint meeting of Congress a day after talks at the White House with President Bush, Olmert acknowledged Palestinians' "national aspirations" and asserted that Israel has no desire to rule or oppress them. [********]
But he said Israel cannot wait indefinitely for the Palestinians to become acceptable negotiating partners, and he outlined a plan for unilateral "disengagement" from the West Bank that would involve redrawing Israel's final borders to include major West Bank settlements and a "united Jerusalem" as the capital. [********]
After their talks on Tuesday, Bush offered a qualified endorsement of Olmert's approach, saying the Israeli leader had proposed "bold ideas" that could be an important step toward peace. But White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters yesterday that Washington still prefers a "negotiated settlement" between the Israelis and Palestinians. [*********]
Olmert, making his first visit to Washington since being elected in March, was repeatedly interrupted by ovations as he addressed lawmakers from both houses and top Bush administration officials in the House chamber of the Capitol. He stressed common ideals and said the United States and Israel share resolve to confront "the scourge of suicide terrorism."
But he noted that, as a result of elections in January, the Palestinian Authority is run by the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which he called "an organization committed to vehement anti-Semitism, the glorification of terror and the total destruction of Israel." [**************]
Olmert added: “As long as these are their guiding principles, they can never be a partner. Therefore, while Israel works to ensure that the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian populations are met, we can never capitulate to terrorists or terrorism.” [**********]
At the same time, he said, echoing the sentiments of ailing former prime minister Ariel Sharon, "the Palestinians will forever be our neighbors; they are an inseparable part of this land, as are we. Israel has no desire to rule over them nor to oppress them. They, too, have a right for freedom and national aspirations."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:15 AM | Permalink

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs25.1may25,1,7348301.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / AFGHANISTAN
Two Dozen Militants Killed in Fighting
From Times Wire Reports
May 25, 2006 [afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring offensive] [continuation ][followup and latest] [**********] [ditto]
Fighting in rugged southern Afghan mountains killed at least 24 militants and five Afghan soldiers and police officers.

The fighting in Oruzgan province erupted when militants fired guns, grenade launchers and mortars at a joint Afghan-coalition patrol late Tuesday, according to two U.S. military statements. Coalition forces called in air support.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-briefs25.1may25,1,7348301.story?coll=la-headlines-world
From the Los Angeles Times
IN BRIEF / AFGHANISTAN
Two Dozen Militants Killed in Fighting
From Times Wire Reports
May 25, 2006 [afghan] [hydra] [insurgency] [spring offensive] [continuation ][followup and latest] [**********] [ditto]
Fighting in rugged southern Afghan mountains killed at least 24 militants and five Afghan soldiers and police officers.

The fighting in Oruzgan province erupted when militants fired guns, grenade launchers and mortars at a joint Afghan-coalition patrol late Tuesday, according to two U.S. military statements. Coalition forces called in air support.

A U.S. military spokesman acknowledged that the Taliban had grown in strength and influence in the area.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:14 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402445.html
U.S. Voices Regret for Deaths of 16 Afghans
Taliban Is Blamed By Officials, Elders
B