10 March 2006

When torture is not torture and Abu Ghraib is not Abu Ghraib...
U.S. to Abandon Abu Ghraib and Move Prisoners to a New Center
By ROBERT F. WORTH
NYT, 10 March 2006
The American military said Thursday that within the next several months it planned to relocate all its detainees from Abu Ghraib prison, the sprawling penal compound west of Baghdad that became notorious throughout the world after photographs were made public of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners there.
The prison will then be turned over to the Iraqi government, American military officials said.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked about the plan to leave Abu Ghraib after a Senate hearing in Washington. But General Pace and military officials in Baghdad said the exact timing of the move was unclear.
"We do have plans to, and are in the process of building other facilities to move the detainees who are under U.S. control out of Abu Ghraib," General Pace said.
The general said "it should be several more months" before the new American-run detention center is finished. "Then it'll be up to the Iraqi government as to what they want to do" with Abu Ghraib, he said.

Don't tell the enemy...
Rumsfeld: U.S. Will Rely on Iraqis If Civil War Occurs
By James Gerstenzang
LA Times, 10 March 2006
U.S. troops would leave it up to Iraqi security forces to quell a civil war in Iraq should one break out, and keep Americans out of the fray, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress today.
Rumsfeld told a Senate panel that U.S. military and diplomatic officials were working to prevent the outbreak of civil war and do not believe that all-out civil strife is imminent.
But Rumsfeld and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, acknowledged that ethnic tensions in Iraq were dangerously high.
"As you correctly suggested, there is a high level of tension in the country — sectarian tension and conflict," Rumsfeld said under questioning from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.). "As you also correctly said, it is not in a civil war at the present time by most experts' calculation."
In the aftermath of last month's destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a Shiite shrine, U.S. military officials had said they would recommend that American troops stay out of civil war battles.
Rumsfeld's comments to senators was the first time he advanced that stance as Pentagon policy.

Charles Battles L.L.C. is no Halliburton...
U.S. Contractor Found Guilty of $3 Million Fraud in Iraq
By ERIK ECKHOLM
NYT, 10 March 2006
In the first corporate whistle-blower case to emerge from Iraq, a federal jury in Virginia yesterday found a contractor, Custer Battles L.L.C., guilty of defrauding the United States by filing grossly inflated invoices for work in the chaotic year after the Iraqi invasion.
The civil case is expected to be the first of dozens under the Federal False Claims Act, which allows company insiders to bring suit on behalf of the government and share in damages awarded.
Two former associates accused Custer Battles of faking invoices from shell companies to overcharge the coalition authority, then governing Iraq, by tens of millions of dollars. But the current trial concerned billing of just $3 million under one of several contracts the company garnered in the post-invasion scramble.
After a three-week trial, the jury found that the entire $3 million was gained by fraud. According to the law, the company, which is based in McLean, Va., and its two owners and a former executive must now repay the government triple damages and also pay fines for 37 fraudulent acts.

Well, just so it's not the Lincoln Bedroom...
$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush
By PHILIP SHENON
NYT, 10 March 2006
The chief of an Indian tribe represented by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was admitted to a meeting with President Bush in 2001 days after the tribe paid a prominent conservative lobbying group $25,000 at Mr. Abramoff's direction, according to documents and interviews.
The payment was made to Americans for Tax Reform, a group run by Grover G. Norquist, one of the Republican Party's most influential policy strategists. Mr. Norquist was a friend and longtime associate of Mr. Abramoff.
The meeting with Mr. Bush took place on May 9, 2001, at a reception organized by Mr. Norquist to marshal support for the president's 2001 tax cuts, which were pending before Congress. About two dozen state legislators attended the session in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. The meeting was called to thank legislators for support of the tax-cut plan, an issue on which the tribal leader had no direct involvement.
Mr. Norquist attended the meeting, along with Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas.
...John Kartch, the group's communications director [Americans for Tax Reform], said, "No money was ever collected for admission to these events."
Mr. Kartch described the reception as one of several gatherings with President Bush sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform in support of his economic policies. "No lobbying occurred at these events, which were similar in nature to a bill-signing, with people listening to the president speak," he said.
Mr. Kartch said the anti-tax group "did not want liberals unfairly smearing tribes that supported the president's agenda."
There is only one other documented instance in which Mr. Abramoff was able to obtain a White House meeting for one of his tribal clients through Mr. Norquist, and it occurred the same day of the visit by the Kickapoo leader. On that day, a leader of a Louisiana tribe has said he attended a separate event by Americans for Tax Reform that was also attended by Mr. Bush.
...A White House spokesman, Dana Perino, said that White House officials were "absolutely not" aware of the Kickapoos' $25,000 payment to Americans for Tax Reform and that the May 2001 reception was an effort to thank "people who had expressed support for the president" on the tax cuts.
...In a letter dated May 10, 2001, the day after the White House reception, Americans for Tax Reform acknowledged the contribution from the Kickapoos, who had sought help from Mr. Abramoff in lobbying on behalf of its casino. "Thank you for your generous support of our work," wrote Jennifer Kuhn, the tax group's vice president for finance. "I have received your contribution for $25,000."
A copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by Isidro Garza and was then forwarded to Americans for Tax Reform for comment. The group did not comment on the document or explain the detailed circumstances of the Kickapoo's invitation to the White House.

Bush buying a constituency...
Bush Urges More Money for Religious Charities
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
NYT, 10 March 2006
President Bush said Thursday that his administration had made progress by awarding more than $2.1 billion last year to social programs operated by churches, synagogues and mosques, a modest increase over 2004.
But Mr. Bush said that corporate foundations were not doing enough and that they should give more money to religious charities.
Mr. Bush made his comments at a conference in Washington organized by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives before leaving for a state Republican Party fund-raiser in Georgia.
"I am confident that the faith community is achieving unbelievable successes throughout our country," Mr. Bush said at the Washington Hilton. "And therefore I would urge our corporate foundations to reach beyond the norm, to look for those social entrepreneurs who haven't been recognized heretofore, to continue to find people who are running programs that are making a significant difference in people's lives."
Mr. Bush said that the White House had looked closely at 50 large foundations — he did not say which ones — and that one in five had charters that prohibited them from giving money to religious institutions for social service programs.
"I would hope they would revisit their charters," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Bush has made his religion-based initiative a central part of his "compassionate conservative" agenda since his first year in the White House, but has run into hurdles trying to carry it out.
Legislation that would have made it easier for religious charities to seek government money for social programs sputtered in Congress in Mr. Bush's first term. He bypassed Capitol Hill and signed executive orders that created religion-based offices in 10 agencies.
Mr. Bush signed an executive order this week to establish a religion-based office in an 11th agency, the Homeland Security Department.
Mr. Bush has long said the directives, which removed barriers for religious groups that sought federal money for programs that help prisoners, the homeless, addicts and others, were necessary because religious charities have been denied government money simply because they were religious.
His critics have said Mr. Bush was using taxpayer money to promote organized religion and breaking down barriers between church and state.

In praise of intellectual prostitutes...
The Conservative Epiphany
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NYT, 10 March 2006
Bruce Bartlett, the author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," is an angry man. At a recent book forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."
It's no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that "if he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears."
Oh, wait. That's not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It's what Mr. Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much what he's saying now.
Human nature being what it is, I don't expect Mr. Bartlett to acknowledge his about-face. Nor do I expect any expressions of remorse from Andrew Sullivan, the conservative Time.com blogger who also spoke at the Cato forum. Mr. Sullivan used to specialize in denouncing the patriotism and character of anyone who dared to criticize President Bush, whom he lionized. Now he himself has become a critic, not just of Mr. Bush's policies, but of his personal qualities, too.
Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning.
According to this view, if you're a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that "the administration lies about budget numbers," you're a brave truth-teller. But if you've been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill.
Similarly, if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that "the people in this administration have no principles," you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.
And if you're a former hawk who now concedes that the administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq, you're to be applauded for your open-mindedness. But if you warned three years ago that the administration was hyping the case for war, you were a conspiracy theorist.
The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts.
...Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back. And reporters understandably consider it newsworthy that some conservative voices are now echoing longstanding liberal critiques of the Bush administration.
It's still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious question: What took you so long?

Here, teach to this...
Company's Errors on SAT Scores Raise New Qualms About Testing
By KAREN W. ARENSON
and DIANA B. HENRIQUES
NYT, 10 March 2006
The scoring errors disclosed this week on thousands of the College Board's SAT tests were made by a company that is one of the largest players in the exploding standardized testing business, handling millions of tests each year.
The mistakes, which the company, Pearson Educational Measurement, acknowledged yesterday, raised fresh questions about the reliability of the kinds of high-stakes tests that increasingly dominate education at all levels. Neither Pearson, which handles state testing across the country, nor the College Board detected the scoring problems until two students came forward with complaints.
"The story here is not that they made a mistake in the scanning and scoring but that they seem to have no fail-safe to alert them directly and immediately of a mistake," said Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "To depend on test-takers who challenge the scores to learn about system failure is not good."
These were not the first major scoring problems that Pearson has experienced. The company agreed in 2002 to settle a large lawsuit over errors in scoring 8,000 tests in Minnesota that prevented several hundred high school seniors from graduating. It also has made significant scoring errors in Washington and Virginia.
After those problems, company officials had assured clients that they had vastly improved their quality control. But the new problems on the October SAT turned out to be the most significant scoring errors that the College Board had experienced.
...Some testing critics, like FairTest, a nonprofit organization that opposes most uses of standardized testing, also raised questions about the College Board's selection of Pearson to handle scoring given its history of problems. "Looks like we have a scoring recidivist to deal with," said Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest.
For now, college officials, who were caught by surprise by the mistakes at the height of the admission season, said they were working to take the revised scores into account so that students are not disadvantaged by the errors, almost all of which lowered student scores. Although some of the mistakes cost students more than 300 points, the College Board said that 83 percent of the score errors were from 10 to 40 points.

Federal Plan for Changes in Child Care Draws Protest
By ERIK ECKHOLM
NYT, 10 March 2006
A Bush administration plan to reorganize programs for low-income families has brought protests by service agencies around the country, which fear it signals a waning in the federal commitment to child care assistance for working mothers.
Some 240 agencies and advocacy groups have signed a letter to the secretary of health and human services, Michael O. Leavitt, asking him not to downgrade the Child Care Bureau, a unit created by the Clinton administration to oversee subsidies for low-income mothers and improve the quality of child care.
The proposed change, the letter says, "minimizes the importance of child care assistance in supporting working families, particularly low-income parents."
The letter was delivered yesterday to the Department of Health and Human Services and to Congressional leaders, said Helen Blank of the National Women's Law Center, which collected the signatures. Signers included the Child Welfare League of America, the Y.W.C.A. and Easter Seals.
The apparent downgrading of the Child Care Bureau has also stirred concern in Congress, where Democrats and Republicans are discussing an appeal to the administration.
The plan, which requires no Congressional approval, was made known to lawmakers in a letter from Mr. Leavitt on Feb. 22. Among other changes to improve "efficiency and effectiveness," he wrote, the bureau, which now stands alone, is to be folded into the Office of Family Assistance, which oversees the drive to put welfare mothers into jobs.
All sides agree that child care subsidies are needed to help welfare recipients, the poorest of the poor, go to work. But by law, federal aid is also given more widely to mothers in low-paying jobs, who may be struggling to stay off welfare in the first place.
The Child Care Bureau will send some $5 billion to the states this year for child care programs and oversee the spending of billions more in state funds. It also sponsors research and promotes using day care as an educational opportunity. Placing it in the family assistance office, critics fear, will limit its vision and impact.

Another giant step for Tom, but Dick and Donald both need a makeover...
Mr. Nasty, Brutish and Short-Tempered
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYT, 10 March 2006
I have a job for Dick Cheney.
No, no, really. This is not another hunting joke. It's serious: Iraq is drifting aimlessly, if not toward civil war then toward a violent political stalemate. If Iraqis can't produce a minimally effective national unity government now, America can look forward to baby-sitting this violent stalemate far into the future.
If we want to avoid that, it's time for some dramatic new thinking and acting. To put it in a nutshell: It is not time for the U.S. to leave Iraq, but it is time for the U.S. to start threatening to leave Iraq.
...The Bush team needs to stop telling itself that the news media are not reporting the good news in Iraq. That's utter nonsense. And it needs to stop acting like a spectator as events there unfold, with the secretaries of state and defense making one-day stopovers and then disappearing. It is time for this administration to start taking responsibility for the outcome of this war, and not just dump it all on the military.
There is no military solution. There is only a political solution, and it will require some big-time diplomacy to pull off.
We need to bring together all the newly elected Iraqi leaders for a national reconciliation conference — outside Baghdad. We should lock them in a room and not let them out until they either produce a national unity government, so Americans will want to stay in Iraq, or fail to produce that government, which would signal that it's time to warm up the bus.
Those choices need to be put to the Iraqis in the most frank, tough-minded way by the most nasty, brutish and short-tempered senior official we've got — and that is Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney. Mr. Veep, this Bud's for you.

9 March 2006

Violence Said to Slow Rights Effort in Iraq
Report Lauds Steps Toward Democracy
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post, 9 March 2006
The State Department yesterday depicted efforts to guard human rights in Iraq as badly hampered by a climate of "extreme violence" and by sectarian militias that often act "independently of governmental authority."
The critical assessment came in the department's annual review of the human rights records of nations around the world. Although balanced by a positive appraisal of Iraq's moves toward democracy and development of an army that has remained generally free of allegations of abuse, the section on Iraq marked a bleaker view than the one a year ago of the government's ability to protect basic rights.
"A climate of extreme violence in which people were killed for political and other reasons continued," the report said. "Reports increased of killings by the Iraqi government or its agents that may have been politically motivated. Additionally, common criminals, insurgents and terrorists undermined public confidence in the security apparatus by sometimes masking their identity in police and army uniforms."
The survey singled out seven countries as the "most systematic" rights violators: North Korea, Burma, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus and China. It also faulted the records of a number of key allies -- citing Pakistan for restricting freedom of expression and association, Saudi Arabia for making arbitrary arrests and Egypt for torturing prisoners.
The report, issued annually since 1977, has frequently put the U.S. government in the position of cataloguing the abuses not only of adversaries but also of allies. But in recent years the report has become especially problematic for the Bush administration, as it has faced international criticism for its treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post, 9 March 2006
Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.
The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.
A statement this week by the U.N. human rights department in Baghdad appeared to support the account of the Health Ministry official. The agency said it had received information about Baghdad's main morgue -- where victims of fatal shootings are taken -- that indicated "the current acting director is under pressure by the Interior Ministry in order not to reveal such information and to minimize the number of casualties."

Negative Perception Of Islam Increasing
Poll Numbers in U.S. Higher Than in 2001
By Claudia Deane and Darryl Fears
Washington Post, 9 March 2006
As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.
The survey comes at a time of increasing tension; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq show little sign of ending, and members of Congress are seeking to block the Bush administration's attempt to hire an Arab company to manage operations at six of the nation's ports. Also, Americans are reading news of deadly protests by Muslims over Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Conservative and liberal experts said Americans' attitudes about Islam are fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists.
According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe that Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since the attacks, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today.
The survey also found that one in three Americans have heard prejudiced comments about Muslims lately. In a separate question, slightly more (43 percent) reported having heard negative remarks about Arabs. One in four Americans admitted to harboring prejudice toward Muslims, the same proportion that expressed some personal bias against Arabs.
...James J. Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said he is not surprised by the poll's results. Politicians, authors and media commentators have demonized the Arab world since 2001, he said.
"The intensity has not abated and remains a vein that's very near the surface, ready to be tapped at any moment," Zogby said. "Members of Congress have been exploiting this over the ports issue. Radio commentators have been talking about it nonstop."
Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, agreed, saying Americans "have been given the message to respond this way by the American political elite, mass media and by select special interests."
Cole said he was shocked when a radio talk show host asked him if Islamic extremists would set off a nuclear bomb in the United States in the next six months. "It was ridiculous. I think anti-Arab racism and profiling has become respectable," he said.
Ronald Stockton, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan at Dearborn who helped conduct a study of Arabs in the Detroit area and on views of them held by non-Arabs, said an exceptionally high percentage of non-Muslims feels the media depicts Arabs unfairly, yet still holds negative opinions.
"You're getting a constant drumbeat of negative information about Islam," he said.
Michael Franc, vice president of government relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that the survey responses "seems to me to be a real backlash against Islam" and that congressional leaders do not help the problem by sometimes using language that links all Muslims with extremists.
SEE ALSO:
Hate Mongers Peddle the 'Big Lie'
Juan Cole
Informed Comment 9 March 2006
...This two-faced policy and self-contradictory rhetoric has contributed to growing hatred and bigotry toward Muslims in the US, which is no less worrisome than the hatred Jews faced in Europe in the 1920s. It is dangerous because of what it can become.
The subtext of bigotry and racism is what has blindsided the Bush administration with regard to the port deal for a company based in Dubai. Dubai is like the Fifth Avenue of the Middle East-- the place with the pricey shopping and the tall skyscrapers and the extravagant fashions. Dubai businessmen are no more likely to take over US ports and allow them to come to harm than US businessmen are. They want the deal in order to make money. Bush knows this very well. But since he has spent so much time fulminating against shadowy and sinister forces over there somewhere, he has spooked the American public and members of his own party.
The Big Lie eventually catches up with you.
The hatemongers are well known. Rupert Murdoch's Fox Cable News, Rush Limbaugh's radio program and its many clones, telebimbos like Ann Coulter, Evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham, Congressmen like Tom Tancredo, and a slew of far rightwing Zionists who would vote for Netanyahu (or Kach) if they lived in Israel-- Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, David Horowitz, etc., etc. And finally, there are many Muslims who have an interest in whipping up anti-Islamic feeling. Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress helped maneuver the US into a war against Iraq with lies about a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection and illusory WMD. The dissident Islamic Marxist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is now placing equally false stories about Iran in the Western press and retailing them to Congress and the Pentagon.
The hatemongers think that the American public is sort of like a big stupid dog, and you can fairly easily "sic" it on whoever you like. Just tell them that X people are intrinsically evil and that the US needs to go to war to protect itself from them. Then they turn around and blame those of us who don't want our country reduced to footsoldiers in someone else's greedy crusade for being "unpatriotic."
All human beings are the same. They all have the same emotions. All laugh when happy and weep when sad. There are no broad civilizations that produce radically different behavior in human beings. All are capable of violence. (Christians killed tens of millions in the course of the 20th century, far, far more than did Muslims). Few commit much violence except in war. You can walk around any place in Cairo at 1 am perfectly safely, but cannot do that everywhere safely in many major US cities, including the nation's capital, Washington, DC. Even the idea of Islam as a cultural world or civilization opposed to the Christian West is a false construct. Eastern Mediterranean honor cultures (Greece, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Syria) have more in common with each other across the Christian-Muslim divide than either has in common with Britain or the US. And, Muslim states don't make their alliances by religion. Egypt was allied with the Soviet Union in the 1960s, then switched to the US in the 1970s and until the present. Four of the five non-NATO allies of the US are Muslim countries. Turkey is even a full NATO ally and fought along side the US in the Korean War.
Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians.

Opps! There goes the Bill of Rights...
G.O.P. Plan Would Allow Spying Without Warrants
By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
NYT, 9 March 2006
The plan by Senate Republicans to step up oversight of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant, legal experts said on Wednesday.
Civil liberties advocates called the proposed oversight inadequate and the licensing of eavesdropping without warrants unnecessary and unwise. But the Republican senators who drafted the proposal said it represented a hard-wrung compromise with the White House, which strongly opposed any Congressional interference in the eavesdropping program.
SEE ALSO:
Not to mention 'Congressional Oversight'
The Death of the Intelligence Panel
NYT, 9 March 2006
The wrenching debate in the 1970's over the abuse of presidential power produced two groundbreaking reforms aimed at preventing a president from using war or broader claims of national security to trample Americans' rights.
One was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which struck the proper balance between national security and bedrock civil liberties, and the other was the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a symbol of bipartisan leadership. They endured for a quarter of a century — until George W. Bush and Dick Cheney left FISA in tatters and the Senate Select Committee on its deathbed in just five years.
The Senate panel has become so paralyzingly partisan that it could not even manage to do its basic job this week and look into President Bush's warrantless spying on Americans' international e-mail and phone calls. Senator Pat Roberts, the chairman, said Tuesday that there would be no investigation. Instead, the committee's Republicans voted to create a subcommittee that is supposed to get reports from the White House on any future warrantless surveillance.
It's breathtakingly cynical. Faced with a president who is almost certainly breaking the law, the Senate sets up a panel to watch him do it and calls that control. This new Senate plan is being presented as a way to increase the supervision of intelligence gathering while giving the spies needed flexibility. But it does no such thing.
The Republicans' idea of supervision involves saying the White House should get a warrant for spying whenever possible. Currently a warrant is needed, period. And that's the right law. The White House has not offered a scrap of evidence that it interferes with antiterrorist operations. Mr. Bush simply decided the law did not apply to him.
SEE ALSO:
The law becomes irrelevant...
Justice Dept. Report Cites F.B.I. Violations
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
NYT, 9 March 2006
The Federal Bureau of Investigation found apparent violations of its own wiretapping and other intelligence-gathering procedures more than 100 times in the last two years, and problems appear to have grown more frequent in some crucial respects, a Justice Department report released Wednesday said.
While some of these instances were considered technical glitches, the report, from the department's inspector general, characterized others as "significant," including wiretaps that were much broader in scope than approved by a court and others that were allowed to continue for weeks or sometimes months longer than was authorized.
In one instance, the F.B.I. received the full content of 181 telephone calls as part of an intelligence investigation, instead of merely the billing and toll records as authorized, the report found. In a handful of cases, it said, the bureau conducted physical searches that had not been properly authorized.
...Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, characterized the report as "yet another vindication for those of us who have raised concerns about the administration's policies in the war on terror."
Mr. Conyers said that "despite the Bush administration's attempt to demonize critics of its antiterrorism policies as advancing phantom or trivial concerns, the report demonstrates that the independent Office of Inspector General has found that many of these policies indeed warrant full investigations."

Back to more colorful issues...the ports
A Rebellion in the G.O.P. on Security, a Signature Issue
By CARL HULSE
NYT, 9 March 2006
After more than five years of allowing President Bush relatively free rein to set their course, Republicans in Congress are suddenly, if selectively, in rebellion, a mutiny all the more surprising since it centers on the party's signature issue of national security.
In a rebuke to the White House, House Republicans are moving aggressively to put the brakes on the takeover by a Dubai company of some port terminal operations in several large American cities, an effort that moved forward on Wednesday with broad bipartisan support.
...One thing is clear: Republicans on Capitol Hill are no longer entrusting security issues solely to Mr. Bush. They now realize that in some cases, they must protect themselves.

'Let's Pretend'
Senate Votes to Ban Gifts and Meals of Lobbyists
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and KATE PHILLIPS
NYT, 9 March 2006
Facing accusations that lawmakers are not serious about breaking the tight bond between Capitol Hill and K Street, the Senate voted Wednesday to bar members of Congress and their aides from accepting gifts and meals from lobbyists.
The meals and gifts ban, approved unanimously by voice vote, was the full Senate's first major decision on lobbying law changes in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The ban is attached to an underlying bill that originally barred just gifts, but senators decided Wednesday to prohibit meals as well.
...Not all of Mr. Dodd's colleagues were enthusiastic; the voice vote simply prevented them from having to go on record in opposition to it.
Even as the measure passed the Senate, it prompted a verbal roll of the eyes from the lead sponsor of the underlying lobbying legislation, Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. Mr. Lott branded the move ridiculous but said he would vote for it because it would give him "a fine excuse just to say no" to lobbyists and eat at home with his wife.
...The meals and gifts ban was part of a broader piece of legislation that includes provisions requiring lawmakers to disclose privately financed trips and that would double, from one year to two, the "cooling-off period" during which lawmakers who leave Capitol Hill for K Street are barred from lobbying their former colleagues.
The measure would also create a mechanism enabling lawmakers to strip so-called earmarks — the special interest projects that are sometimes inserted into bills at the behest of lobbyists — from legislation. And it would require, for the first time, the disclosure of big, paid grass-roots lobbying campaigns aimed at influencing government officials.
The grassroots provision, however, is on shaky ground. Strong opposition from conservative groups like the Family Research Council and liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union has severely crippled its chances. It is likely to be stripped out of the bill because Republicans fear that the opposition is so strong the provision will jeopardize the entire measure.
SEE ALSO:
Abramoff Says Top Republicans Were Allies
By REUTERS via NYT, 9 March 2006
Jack Abramoff says in the latest issue of the magazine Vanity Fair that he worked closely with many top Republicans, despite their claims to the contrary.
"Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn't know me is almost certainly lying," Mr. Abramoff said in an article in the magazine's April edition, which was released to reporters on Wednesday.
Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January and is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption inquiry.
In the article, Mr. Abramoff complained that many of those who used to work closely with him now claim that they never knew him.
"You're really no one in this town until you haven't met me," he said.
E-mail messages and other subpoenaed records will eventually prove that he worked closely with them, he said.
The magazine features photographs of Mr. Abramoff with Representative Tom DeLay, former Representative Newt Gingrich and President Ronald Reagan.
Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, dined at Mr. Abramoff's house and forced a Democratic appointee out of the State Department for him, the article said.
...Mr. Abramoff said that he did not spend much time lobbying Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, because he knew that the congressman would support his issues, but that they talked about other subjects.
"We would sit and talk about the Bible," he said. "We would sit and talk about opera."
Mr. Abramoffalso said Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, was especially cooperative, adding, "Every appropriation we wanted, we got. "
Spokesmen for Mr. Burns and Mr. DeLay were not immediately available for comment.
SEE ALSO:
Thurber on Reforming America's Lobby Habit
NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross
Interview with James Thurber, 8 March 2006
Congressional reform of the lobbying system is nettled by competing agendas and concerns over freedom of speech.
But in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, in which Indian tribes were directed to contribute campaign funds to lawmakers, the discussion has only become more heated. James Thurber is an expert in campaign conduct and lobbying who has testified before Congress.
The title of Thurber's speech was "Indian Tribes and the Federal Election Campaign Act". A political scientist, Thurber is the director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, where he also serves as a professor.
The State of Reform
Lobbyist and Ethics Proposals
In February, James Thurber spoke to the Committee on Rules and Administration and the Committee on Indian Affairs:
Read Thurber's Testimony

• 'Importance of Enforcement and Transparency' (Requires Adobe Acrobat)
• 'Indian Tribes and the Federal Election Campaign Act' (Requires Adobe Acrobat)

Fastow Testifies Lay Knew of Enron's Problems
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
NYT, 9 March 2006
Andrew S. Fastow, the onetime chief financial officer of Enron, provided some of the strongest evidence yet linking Kenneth L. Lay, the company's founder and former chief executive, to a conspiracy to defraud investors. But Mr. Fastow's statements, coming in the sixth week of the trial of Mr. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, another former chief executive, were almost lost under a searing cross-examination by Daniel Petrocelli, Mr. Skilling's lead lawyer.
Days after he retook the reins as Enron's chief executive in 2001, Mr. Lay was told that Enron was in such a precarious state that a "massive restructuring" or a sale of the company would be required to save it from ruin, Mr. Fastow said at the criminal trial of his former bosses.
In the most devastating testimony to date that Mr. Lay was not in the dark about Enron's snowballing problems, Mr. Fastow said that he told Mr. Lay in August 2001, just after Mr. Skilling had resigned as chief executive, that Enron had $5 billion to $7 billion of "embedded problems" and had all but run out of options to right the listing ship.
"We needed some sort of dramatic solution and we needed a bank to help us sort it out," Mr. Fastow said in his second day on the witness stand.
...But Mr. Fastow seemed determined to weather what is expected to be a lengthy and cutting cross-examination by defense lawyers. Contrite and polite, Mr. Fastow openly admitted to being greedy and conceded that Mr. Skilling earned not a penny from Mr. Fastow's self-dealing partnership schemes. Mr. Fastow, who has already agreed to serve at least 10 years in prison and is cooperating with prosecutors, portrayed himself as a man who had come to terms with his wrongdoing.
"What I did was reprehensible," he said at one point, starting into a speech after a question by Mr. Petrocelli. "It is not easy to look at yourself and to recognize that about yourself. And it took me a long time to do that. And some days it is still hard to do that. I have destroyed my life. All I can do is ask for forgiveness and be the best person I can be."
But in the morning, Mr. Fastow, under questioning by prosecutor John Hueston, said he personally discussed Enron's "serious problems" with Mr. Lay in the summer and fall of 2001. At a meeting on Aug. 15 in Mr. Lay's office, Mr. Fastow said he outlined Enron's problems for Mr. Lay. At the meeting, he testified he presented Mr. Lay with a list of problem areas, including the energy services and broadband units, as well as an Indian power plant project.
..."A significant number of senior management participated in this activity to misrepresent our company," Mr. Fastow said. "And we all benefited financially from this at the expense of others. And I have come to grips with this. That, in my mind, was stealing."

8 March 2006

Expert On Iraq: 'We're In A Civil War'
By Jake Tapper
ABC News via Informed Comment, 7 March 2006
As Pentagon generals offered optimistic assessments that the sectarian violence in Iraq had dissipated this weekend, other military experts told ABC News that Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq already are engaged in a civil war, and that the Iraqi government and U.S. military had better accept that fact and adapt accordingly.
"We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.
"It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq," added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.
Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News, "If you talk to U.S. intelligence officers and military people privately, they'd say we've been involved in low level civil war with very slowly increasing intensity since the transfer of power in June 2004."

Violence Keeps UN Expansion in Iraq on Hold: Annan
Reuters via ABC News via Informed Comment, 8 March 2006
U.N. hopes of stepping up its activities in Iraq are still on hold due to the violence across the country and the risk of U.N. staff becoming targets, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday.
Efforts to reinforce the world body's presence in satellite offices in Basra in the south and Erbil in the north appear to have failed because no country will provide the aircraft needed to ferry staff safely in and out of those cities, Annan said.

They Came for the Chicken Farmer
NYT, 8 March 2006
This has been our nightmare since the Bush administration began stashing prisoners it did not want to account for in Guantánamo Bay: An ordinary man with a name something like a Taliban bigwig's is swept up in the dragnet and imprisoned without any hope of proving his innocence.
A case of mistaken identity's turning an innocent person into a prisoner-for-life was supposed to be impossible. President Bush told Americans to trust in his judgment after he arrogated the right to arrest anyone, anywhere in the world, and toss people into indefinite detention. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld infamously proclaimed that the men at Guantánamo Bay were "the worst of the worst."
But it has long been evident that this was nonsense, and a lawsuit by The Associated Press has now demonstrated the truth in shameful detail. The suit compelled the release of records from hearings for some of the 760 or so men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. (About 490 are still there.) Far too many show no signs of being a threat to American national security. Some, it appears, did nothing at all. And they have no way to get a fair hearing because Gitmo was created outside the law.
...If the stories of the chicken farmer and the men with the wrong watches are new, the broad outlines of this disaster have long been visible. It is shocking in itself, and in the fact that average citizens have not risen up to demand that these abuses come to an end. The founding fathers knew that when you dispensed with the rule of law, the inevitable outcome was injustice. Now America is becoming the thing they sought to end.

Senate Panel Blocks Eavesdropping Probe
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post, 8 March 2006
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted along party lines yesterday to reject a Democratic proposal to investigate the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program and instead approved establishing, with White House approval, a seven-member panel to oversee the effort.
Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters after the closed session that he had asked the committee "to reject confrontation in favor of accommodation" and that the new subcommittee, which he described as "an accommodation with the White House," would "conduct oversight of the terrorist surveillance program." The program, which became public in December, has allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between U.S. residents and suspected terrorists abroad without first obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters.
The panel's vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), took a sharply different view of yesterday's outcome. "The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House through its chairman," he told reporters. "At the direction of the White House, the Republican majority has voted down my motion to have a careful and fact-based review of the National Security Agency's surveillance eavesdropping activities inside the United States."
SEE ALSO:
G.O.P. Senators and Bush Reach Wiretap Accord
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SCOTT SHANE
NYT, 8 March 2006
Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.
The agreement, hashed out in weeks of negotiations between Vice President Dick Cheney and Republicans critical of the program, dashes Democratic hopes of starting a full committee investigation because the proposal won the support of Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The two, both Republicans, had threatened to support a fuller inquiry if the White House did not disclose more about the program to Congress.
"We are reasserting Congressional responsibility and oversight," Ms. Snowe said.
The proposed legislation would create a seven-member "terrorist surveillance subcommittee" and require the administration to give it full access to the details of the program's operations.
Ms. Snowe said the panel would start work on Wednesday, and called it "the beginning, not the end of the process."
"We have to get the facts in order to weigh in," she said. "We will do more if we learn there is more to do."
The agreement would reinforce the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 to issue special warrants for spying but was sidestepped by the administration. The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the court whenever possible.
If the administration elects not to do so after 45 days, the attorney general must certify that the surveillance is necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittee why the administration has not sought a warrant. The attorney general would be required to give an update to the subcommittee every 45 days.
Democrats called the deal an abdication of the special bipartisan committee's role as a watchdog, saying the Republicans had in effect blessed the program before learning how it worked or what it entailed.
"The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House," said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the panel.

Is Antitrust No Longer the Issue?
By STEPHEN LABATON
NYT, 7 March 2006
As head of the Federal Communications Commission during the Clinton administration, Reed E. Hundt killed talks about a possible merger in 1997 when he said that a proposed deal between AT&T and SBC would be "unthinkable" under antitrust laws.
Last year those two companies combined with little resistance. And on Monday Mr. Hundt said that AT&T's proposal to buy BellSouth for $67 billion was "eminently thinkable," and that if he were still at the commission, "I would bless the deal."
His statement was a sign of how far the regulatory climate, as well as the marketplace, has traveled in less than a decade...

Former Enron CFO Implicates Old Bosses
CEO Sanctioned Fraud, Jury Hears
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post, 8 March 2006
Andrew S. Fastow, the government's star witness in the Enron Corp. trial, took the stand Tuesday and testified that he concocted a massive fraud in face-to-face meetings with the company's chief executive, who both sanctioned the deals and asked him to "get me as much juice as you can."
Fastow, in a nervous but steady voice, spent most of his first six hours on the stand describing quid pro quo deals he arranged with Jeffrey K. Skilling, then Enron's chief executive. He said Skilling was so obsessed with making the company look good for Wall Street that Skilling approved of sham deals that helped the company meet its earnings targets while Fastow, then chief financial officer, personally skimmed millions of dollars off the transactions.
Near the end of the day's testimony, Fastow began talking about when former chairman Kenneth L. Lay took over the chief executive reins, a time when Fastow said "the foundation was crumbling" but Lay continued to make positive public statements about the company's prospects.
Fastow, who carefully exited the courtroom by walking past the jury instead of down the center aisle where he would have had to pass his former bosses, will continue his testimony Wednesday.

Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign
By MICHAEL BARBARO
NYT, 7 March 2006
Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.
It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.
Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.
Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.
But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.
But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.
Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit.com, one of the oldest blogs on the Web, said that even in the blogosphere, which is renowned for its lack of rules, a basic tenet applies: "If I reprint something, I say where it came from. A blog is about your voice, it seems to me, not somebody else's."
Companies of all stripes are using blogs to help shape public opinion.
Before General Electric announced a major investment in energy-efficient technology last year, company executives first met with major environmental bloggers to build support. Others have reached out to bloggers to promote a product or service, as Microsoft did with its Xbox game system and Cingular Wireless has done in the introduction of a new phone.
What is different about Wal-Mart's approach to blogging is that rather than promoting a product — something it does quite well, given its $300 billion in annual sales — it is trying to improve its battered image.

Fight Looms on Lawmakers' Use of Corporate Jets
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
NYT, 8 March 2006
Senator Barack Obama flew at least nine times on corporate jets last year, traveling to fund-raisers in New York and San Francisco, home to Chicago and to Rosa Parks's funeral in Detroit. Each time, he reimbursed the plane's owners at first-class rates, as Senate rules require.
But Mr. Obama, freshman Democrat from Illinois, felt queasy about this perk of Senate life, so he said he gave it up.
"This is an example where appearances matter," he said. "Very few of my constituents have a chance to travel on a corporate jet."
As the Senate looks at changes in lobbying laws this week after the Jack Abramoff scandal, a big fight will be over limiting lawmakers' use of corporate jets. Critics like Mr. Obama want an end to the practice, or at least substantial rate increases. Other lawmakers, in both parties, say travel on corporate planes is necessary in modern politics.

At Conservative Forum on Bush, Everybody's a Critic
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post, 8 March 2006
If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations.
"We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come," explained David Boaz, the think tank's executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. "We didn't get that."
Now why would the administration pass up such an invitation?
Well, it could have been because of the first speaker, former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett. Author of the new book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," Bartlett called the administration "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."
It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. Author of the forthcoming "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back," Sullivan called Bush "reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."
Nor was moderator Boaz a voice of moderation. He blamed Bush for "a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years," a "federalization of public schools" and "the biggest entitlement since LBJ."
True, the small-government libertarians represented by Cato have always been the odd men out of the Bush coalition. But the standing-room-only forum yesterday, where just a single questioner offered even a tepid defense of the president, underscored some deep disillusionment among conservatives over Bush's big-spending answer to Medicare and Hurricane Katrina, his vast claims of executive power, and his handling of postwar Iraq.