Iraq update: 5 simultaneous attacks overwhelm local defenses

From The Independent

Rebels overpower security forces

Devastating attacks on police and army bases show insurgents can fight American-trained forces head on - and win

15 February 2004

In a shattering blow to the American occupation of Iraq, insurgents yesterday successfully stormed the Iraqi police headquarters in Fallujah, shooting their way in and killing at least 19 people. The guerrillas, armed with heavy machine-guns and rockets, also overpowered the local Iraqi army garrison.

US forces, unable to reach the scene in time, were powerless to intervene as their newly created Iraqi security forces were quickly overwhelmed. Some 75 prisoners managed to escape during the raid.

An Iraqi police officer told yesterday how the attackers moved from room to room inside the police headquarters, gunning down the helpless police officers where they stood, even killing the wounded. He said he only survived because he was able to kick away a grenade the insurgents threw at him.

Four of the attackers were killed in the gun battle. Iraqi police said they believed three of them were foreign militants, because they were carrying foreign passports, but that the fourth was carrying an Iraqi identity card from Baghdad - but it was impossible to confirm these claims.

The Iraqi army base attacked yesterday was the same one at which General Johan Abizaid, the most senior American general in Iraq, narrowly escaped with his life in a rocket-propelled grenade attack two days earlier. Yesterday's raid capped a terrible week for the occupation, in which at least 100 Iraqis died in two suicide bombings aimed at new police and army recruits.

It was a devastating display of power by the insurgents. They have moved beyond car bombings now. They are able to fight head on with American-trained Iraqi security forces and capture their own bases from them. These are the forces the Americans were planning to entrust with security when they hand over political control to an interim Iraqi government on 30 June. In fact, there were no American forces inside Fallujah when the attack happened yesterday because the US has been trying to pull its own troops out of harm's way, handing over day-to-day security to Iraqis.

Much more at link including a Iraqi Body Count Update and a chronology of Iraqis killed in the first six weeks of 2004.

The five simultaneous attacks occurred on three police stations, a civil defense base and the mayor's office. All in Fallujah.

For the latest in Iraqi breaking news see Lunaville.org and Knight Ridder's Washington Bureau

We'll likely never know.

This is an excerpt from a CNN article regarding Bush's Guard Service:

Guardsman remembers

On Friday, a retired officer with the Alabama Air National Guard told CNN that he witnessed Bush serving his weekend duty in 1972 -- an account that could be significant given the persistent Democratic questions.

Speaking Friday from Daytona Beach, Florida, John B. "Bill" Calhoun said he commanded Bush and that Bush attended four to six weekend drills at Dannelly Field in Montgomery. He said Bush was with the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Alabama in 1972.

The drills consisted of eight-hour shifts Saturdays and Sundays, Calhoun said.

"We didn't have the planes that he could fly," Calhoun said. "But he studied his manuals, he read flying safety regulations, accident reports -- things pilots do quite often when they are not getting ready to fly or if they don't have other duties."

When Bush first arrived, he said he was living in Montgomery and working on the Senate campaign, Calhoun said.

Calhoun said he learned from another person that Bush was the son of George H.W. Bush, who at the time was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Calhoun said he asked the younger Bush if he planned to pursue a political career, and he said, "I don't know, probably."

The retired general said he is not surprised that more servicemen haven't come forward to talk about Bush's time at the base because they're a lot older and may have died, or retired and "gone on with their lives."

Calhoun said he does not have any photographs or documents to prove Bush showed up for duty, but his ex-wife, Patsy Burks, said she remembered Calhoun's account.

"Bill did come home [from the base] and told me that Bush was there," she said "I think what stuck in my head was that he was helping on the Senate campaign.

"What I do know about Bill is that whatever he says is the truth," she added. "This issue came up in the 2000 election. ... Bill did mention in 2000 that he contacted someone and said, 'If you need me to come forward, I will.' And they said, 'We're hoping that won't be necessary.'"

Questions about Bush's Guard service have intensified in recent weeks after Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe charged that Bush was absent without leave from his Guard service from May 1972 to May 1973, after he asked for the transfer.

Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett told CNN that in 1997, he overheard Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff while Bush was Texas governor, tell the adjutant general of the Texas National Guard to gather Bush's files and "make sure there wasn't anything there that would embarrass the governor." About 10 days later, Burkett said, he saw many of Bush's files in a trash can. (Guardsman says he saw Bush's Guard records in trash)

Allbaugh reacted angrily to Burkett's charges, calling them "hogwash" and "absolute garbage." Allbaugh, who also served as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he doesn't even know who the "goober" is, referring to Burkett.

Burkett's allegations were posted on Web sites just before the 2000 presidential election but were largely unreported by conventional media, according to USA Today.

But questions have lingered since that year's presidential campaign, after the Boston Globe uncovered a May 1973 evaluation by Bush's commander stating that the first lieutenant had not been seen during the previous year.

The Kerry camp's response:

"It's good to see that after 10 years of stonewalling, George W. Bush is finally releasing his National Guard records," a campaign statement said. "Does this mean he's now ready to come clean with the American people and release the White House documents on pre-September 11th intelligence? Will he start telling the truth about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and the rush to war?"

Much more at link

If the White House wanted to muddle this issue, they certainly have done that. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. Especially after 3 decades. It's the records that matter. I can, with almost absolute certainty tell you that Mr. Calhoun harbors beliefs that are, if not demonstrably false, have no basis in reason.

Four to six weeks of duty, do not a missing year make. Unless someone can come up with irrefutable documentation that Bush did all the time that he has claimed, this is an open issue.

That has to be a net positive for Kerry, and a negative for Bush. I doubt that this will be a deciding factor in the election, but it may cast doubt on Bush's character -- his only asset. I cannot fathom why people trust this guy. But then, people's beliefs often baffle me.

In yesterday's mailbag via Excite's "Oddly Enough" category:

Link

Comedian's View of the U.S. Election Campaign

Feb 13, 8:48 am ET

WASHINGT0N (Reuters) - With the U.S. presidential election campaign under way, late night comedy television show hosts are taking a humorous look at the candidates.
Here are some lines broadcast on Thursday:

NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno":

"I was watching TV last night. I saw an interesting documentary on the Ninja, the Japanese soldier. According to legend the Ninjas were warriors who could make themselves invisible whenever there was a war. Kind of like Bush and the National Guard."

"The White House has now released military documents that they say prove George Bush met his requirements for the National Guard. Big deal, we've got documents that prove Al Gore won the election."

CBS' "The Late Show with David Letterman":

"There was an embarrassing moment in the White House earlier today. They were looking around while searching for George Bush's military records. They actually found some old Al Gore ballots."

"President Bush says that he can't find any of his National Guard records from the 70s. Oh sure, but he's got no problem finding photos of John Kerry with Jane Fonda from the 70s."

Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart":

"The White House released documents it claims validates the president's (National Guard) service ... When deciphered the documents showed that in a one-year period, 1972 and 1973, Bush received credit for nine days of active National Guard service. The traditional term of service then and now for the National Guard is one weekend a month and two full weeks a year, meaning that Bush's nine-day stint qualifies him only for the National Guard's National Guard. That's the National Guard's National Guard, an Army of None."

Yes, I am two+ days behind on email.

An easy comparison:

White House 'FACT OF THE DAY' 02/13/2004

"Yesterday, Iraq was granted observer status in the World Trade Organization. The vote was unanimous - all 146 WTO members supported Iraq's bid."

Bully!

pure bs 'fact of the day' 02/14/2004

"FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) Guerrillas overwhelmed an Iraqi police station west of Baghdad on Saturday, meeting little resistance as they went room to room shooting police in a bold, well-organized assault that killed 23 people and freed dozens of prisoners, officials said.

The fierce daylight attack in Fallujah raised questions whether Iraqi police and defense forces are ready to battle insurgents as the U.S. military pulls back from the fight in advance of the November U.S. presidential election.

Police in the Fallujah station complained they had only small arms nothing larger than an automatic rifle in the face of dozens of fighters armed with heavy machine guns, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. No U.S. forces took part in the battle.

Before the attack, the gunmen set up checkpoints and blocked the road leading to the police station, but residents did not notify police, Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim said in Baghdad. Nearby storeowners were warned not to open Saturday morning, one shopkeeper in Fallujah said.

The battle left 17 policemen, two civilians and four attackers dead. At least 37 people were wounded, nearly all police. Two wounded attackers were captured, but the rest escaped."

It's great news that the WTO vote was unanimous. The contrasting story isn't so good. I guess this is what C-Span Baghdad is going to covering to give a more 'balanced' tone to the reporting? Not likely.

The White House could have had C-Span Baghdad up and running in one day. The most likely reason it is not up yet, is because it is so very dangerous to all living things in Iraq.

Yes, the war planners did their jobs very well, but the civilian a$$holes won the day, and this is the part of the price tag for their arrogance. I'm certain that the Iraqi people would like to thank Messrs. Rumfeld and Wolfowitz for their brilliance.

Unprincipled The bio. of George W. Bush.

Just setting the record straight. :)

More on "Unprincipled." (this is that email link that was sent to millions of people smearing Kerry as a dupe for "special interests.")

Here are the facts, via WaPo:

Mr. Bush's acceptance of special-interest money and his subsequent rewards to the industries doing the giving dwarf anything in Mr. Kerry's record. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, whose figures are cited in the Bush campaign video, Mr. Bush has raised more than four times as much from lobbyists during the 2004 race as Mr. Kerry has -- $960,000 for Mr. Bush to $235,000 for Mr. Kerry. During the 2000 contest, the Bush campaign assigned an industry code to givers so it would know precisely how much it was beholden and to whom. As electric utility lobbyist Thomas Kuhn explained in a 1999 letter to fundraisers, putting the code on the check "does ensure that our industry is credited, and that your progress is listed among the other business/industry sectors." Mr. Kuhn's progress may well have been noted; he met at least 14 times with Vice President Cheney's energy task force.

"Nominations and donations coincided"? You wonder what possessed the Bush people to bring that up. Of Mr. Bush's Pioneers -- those who raised at least $100,000 in the 2000 campaign -- 21 snagged ambassadorships, and these weren't hardship postings. Checks from "HMOs, telecoms, drug companies"? Mr. Bush has swamped Mr. Kerry in all three sectors during this campaign, raking in 10 times as much from donors connected to the pharmaceutical industry ($585,000 to $58,000) and telecommunications ($578,000 to $58,000). The liberal group Public Citizen counted 53 registered lobbyists among the current Pioneers and Rangers (the $200,000-and-up crowd.) Total amount bundled by lobbyists? At least $6.5 million this time around. Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

And, since Mr. Bush brought it up, it's worth remembering that Mr. Kerry actually has some bona fides in the area of campaign finance ethics. He swore off checks from political action committees during his Senate races. He supported the McCain-Feingold legislation to end big soft-money checks to political parties -- which Mr. Bush's party did its best to kill and which the president only reluctantly signed. While the Bush administration fights to keep secret the activities of its energy task force, Mr. Kerry has promised to release the records of his meetings with lobbyists during his time in office.

More at link

Hat tip to Tena @ Atrios

Hint: If you C & P the address into Google, and then click on the link, you can bypass the WaPo's onerous registration process. Just make sure that you don't have any 'hide-referrer' software running. Google and WaPo as well as the NYT have a 'special relationship.'

Tom Rath of NH moves goalposts.

In this NYT piece NH Republican Tom Rath is quoted as saying the following:

" 'Get going' is the operative term. You've had a couple of weeks where the free media has not been what it should be.
There's a need for an antidote."

There is a need to alter a 'free media?" Jefferson would be most displeased. If anything, the media is finally serving in its role as public watchdog after having spent the last 40 months on vacation.

It should be pointed out that Rath's wife, Christine Rath is a local high school principal. Tom Rath is putting party -- at least in his public image -- over principle(no pun intended)

He is widely seen as a moderate Republican, that the Bush campaign -- if he wasn't so influential -- would paint as a Republican in Name Only(RINO). He would be painted as a liberal. He does support many progressive policies, which are anathema to Bush.

It is so unlikely that Rath supports Bush's policy positions in nearly every area, that one could say that Rath is being hypocritical.

More later.

Reading assignment

Krugman gives you a two-fer!

He reviews:

American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
by Kevin Phillips

and

The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
by Ron Suskind

I'm going to try and tie a few things together. Bear with me.

Tonight's Lou Dobbs Poll asks the following:

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT QUICKVOTE

Are you a supporter of:

1) Free trade
2) Fair and balanced trade
3) Protectionism

( Fox News: take note of the use of "Fair and Balanced™" )

I have a pretty good working understanding of what both, "Free trade" and "Protectionism" are, but what exactly is "Fair and balanced trade?"

Is that a scenario where all trade barriers are equal, and everyone worldwide is paid an equal sum for work produced? Sort of bringing everyone to the same economic status level? At present this would mean a large drop in the standard of living for the majority of U.S. workers. If I understand this correctly, some 84% of respondents opted for this choice.

I'm sure that respondent's really mean that they want their own situation to be "Fair and balanced." An odd position.

I'm certain that Indian's and the Chinese think globalisation, by and large, is a positive thing. Water has to find its own level. If all workers are placed on an even basis, it is the U.S. and other countries with currently high economic standards of living that will suffer. Not India. Not China.

Here is an interesting comment Alan Greenspan made to Congress yesterday:

"It's not as though Chinese or Indian software engineers ... are always going to be at a very significant (wage) differential. Because of the very large numbers of them, it'll be for a while, but eventually the gap will close."

I think that this is more of a statement of faith from the FRB Chair than anything. The truth is that no one knows how the future of technology is going to take shape. If more engineers are required, then it stands to reason that Asia is likely going to be able to hold employment costs down into the foreseeable future.

There will be many more engineers entering the workforce in India, Singapore, China, South Korea, and you can add to this list as other countries come up on the curve into the future. It is not unreasonable to say that for the foreseeable future, Asia will continue to siphon off jobs from the West. Of course this phenomenon did not start with engineering jobs, nor will it end here. If it's a job where data can be sent via the internet, it's likely that job may be a target to be done offshore.

As standards, and wages climb in one area, another area will be ready to absorb jobs from India, for instance. I do not see this as any kind of temporal issue as far as the American workforce is concerned. I see it as a more or less permanent condition of the result of globalisation.

I am not as sanguine as Chairman Greenspan.

Another Bush Guard story. This one from E & P:

The poop

A tease:

The New York Times, for example, has tracked down 16 retired personnel who served at the base in 1972 and none could recall seeing Bush.

Closer to home, Alabama papers have apparently done relatively little digging at and around Dannelly Air Base, a compound located next to Montgomery's airport and home to the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group, judging from the scant reports on their online archives.

The Birmingham News (Click for QuikCap) did find retired Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, former commander of the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron, who lives in Montgomery. "He never did come to my squad," Bricken said, referring to Bush, in an article published Thursday. "He was never at my unit." After reviewing documents provided by the paper, Bricken added, "He was looking for a place to hang his hat, but he never came by."

The paper also spoke to retired General William Turnipseed, who remains a well-known figure due to his role in the groundbreaking story on this subject by Walter Robinson in The Boston Globe in 2000. Turnipseed told the Birmingham News that he still doesn't remember Bush "showing up" and that former unit members who have contacted him couldn't remember Bush either.

Turnipseed said he remains a Bush supporter and complained, "I'm fed up. People want me to give them something to bash Bush."

The paper, however, did find one person who met Bush back then. Joe LeFevers, a member of the 187th in 1972, said he remembers seeing Bush in unit offices, and being told he was in Montogmery to work on an election campaign.

Local sentiment in conservative Alabama may be against much journalistic probing. A reader's comment in The Huntsville Times held that "George Bush was never AWOL" and simply missed one meeting and made it up. "He has done nothing wrong," the reader continued. "Stop your whining!"

I'm glad that a 'reader's comment' is the last word on the subject. ;)

This thing has taken on a life of its own.

The White House let reporters view dozens more of Bush's military medical records in the Roosevelt room of the White House, but is not making the material public. That's as reported by ABC news - television broadcast of 6:00PM Eastern US time.

I don't think that this will satifsy people that want the whole truth, wherever it may lead. I am one of those people. I wasn't going to vote GOP in the fall, but if I was on the fence, this issue might raise additional doubts about Bush's veracity.

Hey. How come I wasn't emailed a link to "Unprincipled?"

Bastids.

Kerry's spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, responded: "If the Bush White House wants to raise special interests as an issue, then bring it on."

"This White House has never met a special interest it didn't like. In fact, George Bush took more money from lobbyists in 2003 than John Kerry has in his entire career, and has managed to reward them handsomely for it too - at the expense of the environment, our economy and the middle class."

The silly season is here.

Is it okay to use the word fibber yet?

Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: “I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.” But, says Mintz, that “somebody” -- better known to the world now as the president of the United States -- never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.

“And I was looking for him,” repeated Mintz, who said that he assumed that Bush “changed his mind and went somewhere else” to do his substitute drill. It was not “somewhere else,” however, but the 187th Air National Guard Tactical squadron at Dannelly to which the young Texas flyer had requested transfer from his regular Texas unit – the reason being Bush’s wish to work in Alabama on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton "Red" Blount.

More at tasteful blue link above.

Props to Mad Dan Perkins.

I'll toss up today's Krugman! In a bit. He talks about Bush's 'cult of personality.' Indeed.

Update: Via email. Thanks Kaytee

NEW YORK - (KRT) - George W. Bush left his Texas Air National Guard assignment and moved to Alabama in 1972 even though the Air Force denied his request for a transfer, according to his military records.

In fact, Bush did not even ask for an official transfer until nine days after he moved to Alabama in May 1972.

The Air Force quickly rejected Bush's request, saying the fighter pilot was "ineligible" to move to the Alabama unit Bush wanted - a squadron of postal handlers.

Nevertheless, Bush stayed in Alabama until his Texas commanders finally gave him written authorization five months later to train there.

The controversy over Bush's Vietnam War-era record - and Democratic charges that he was AWOL - has prodded records documenting his service into public scrutiny. While they suggest he complied with the requirements of the time, they also show long absences from duty and that he was suspended from flying.

As the questions about his service continued at the White House for a second day, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan denounced them as "gutter politics."

Bush went to Alabama to work on the Republican senate campaign of Winton (Red) Blount. Mary Marks Curtis of Montgomery, Ala., who worked with Bush and dated him at the time, said that after the election, "he left and came back to Montgomery in late November or early December. He told me that he was coming back to Montgomery because he had to fulfill his Guard duty."

Is this going to be a campaign issue? I don't think so. Not directly. It is most likely to damage Bush's credibility to those that believe he's a credible man. I am not one of those people.

One would hope that the election is judged on the carefully weighed policy positions of the two, or more contestants. A tall order I know, but the fairest way to elect a president.

Update: part deux. I did a quick news scan and found this balancing, but not balanced piece.

Bush's Guard record defended

Ex-Air Guard pilot says Bush asked about volunteering for combat, was turned down

A former senior Virginia Air National Guard commander, who served with George W. Bush in the Texas Air Guard, says Bush looked into volunteering for Vietnam combat service but was told he did not have the required flight experience.

William J. Campenni, a retired Air Guard colonel, also said absences such as Bush's from his unit were common in the Air Guard during the period of Bush's service and still are.

He and Bush were young lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Texas Air Guard from 1970 to 1971, Campenni said, serving under the same flight and squadron commanders, both of whom are now dead.

Campenni, 63, lives in Herndon and has participated in Republican Party politics in Northern Virginia. He retired as an Air Force pilot in 1998, last flying with the 192nd Fighter Wing based at Richmond International Airport.

Huh. A partisan Republican. If Bush had ever "looked into volunteering for Vietnam combat service" One can be resonably certain that McClellan and Co. would have illuminated us with this tidbit by now..sheesh.

Update: v2.1 My local ABC affiliate just announced that all of the remaining Bush Guard records are to released.

Probe expanded.

No. This not about a Ford model of the 1980s.

Senate's Iraq Probe to Include Bush, Aides

(note: this is not the special panel to hand-picked by Bush to investigate intel failures. This is the Senate's Armed Services Committee)

By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer

February 13, 2004

WASHINGTON — In a blow to the Bush administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday that it planned to investigate whether White House officials exaggerated the Iraq threat or pressured analysts to tailor their assessments of Baghdad's weapons programs to bolster the case for war.

The move puts claims made by President Bush and other senior officials in his administration squarely in the sights of the committee's investigation, and could add to the White House's political troubles as it tries to keep questions about the war from becoming a drag on Bush's reelection campaign.

The White House and Republican leaders in Congress had sought for months to confine the inquiry to the performance of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and to insulate the administration. But the Senate panel voted unanimously Thursday to expand the probe after some GOP members appeared ready to break from the Republican position.

The expansion was a victory for Democrats, who have argued for months that many of the claims made by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and others were not backed up by the intelligence.

"We will address the question of whether intelligence was exaggerated or misused by reviewing statements by senior policymakers to determine if those statements were substantiated by the intelligence," said Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

The change in scope was announced in a statement issued by Rockefeller and the chairman of the panel, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). The statement outlined a new course for an investigation that is already several months along, and has involved interviews with dozens of U.S. intelligence officials and reviews of thousands of pages of classified documents.

New areas of inquiry will include "whether any influence was brought to bear on anyone to shape their analysis to support policy objectives," the statement said. Sources involved in the investigation said they had turned up no evidence so far that there was such pressure, or that analysts shaded their assessments to please the White House.

The committee said it would examine the role played by a controversial intelligence unit set up secretly at the Pentagon to search for ties between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network. The unit in the so-called Office of Special Plans has been accused of cherry-picking data to help bolster White House claims of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties that the CIA and other agencies viewed far more skeptically.

The committee also will focus new scrutiny on the intelligence community's use of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group during Saddam Hussein's regime that lobbied for years for a U.S. effort to oust the Iraqi president, and whose leaders have ties to senior members of the Bush administration. Critics say the INC has served up a stream of Iraqi defectors with exaggerated or unfounded claims about Iraq's weapons programs and other activities.

But the most significant shift for the committee is its determination to now examine "whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq" by administration figures were "substantiated by intelligence information." The statement said the committee would examine public comments and claims made not only by the current administration but by officials in the Clinton administration.

A senior aide on the committee said the panel had yet to determine exactly how it would decide whether White House officials' claims were supported by the underlying intelligence. But he said it had already collected claims and statements dating to the early 1990s, and had assembled all of the relevant intelligence assessments and reports. "All that has to be done now is the comparison," he said.

The committee now plans to issue an initial report based on its review of the performance of the intelligence agencies in late March or early April, the aide said, and the new areas of investigation could be the subject of a subsequent report. No date has been set, but Democrats are likely to push to get the information released well before the November elections.

The expansion marks a surprising shift in direction for the committee. Roberts and other Republicans had resisted the idea of scrutinizing the administration's public statements or interactions with intelligence analysts on the grounds that it was inherently political and beyond the jurisdiction of a congressional intelligence panel. Recent developments put new pressure on Republicans to give ground to Democrats.

The possibility that a compromise might be reached surfaced Wednesday when Roberts and Rockefeller met in a closed-door session with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.) to discuss an expansion of the investigation. Hagel is said by several sources to be one of the Republicans who believed the expansion was necessary. A spokesman for Hagel declined to comment.

The former chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, David Kay, said recently that he believed an examination of the administration's claims should accompany the review of the intelligence. After he resigned last month, Kay said that the prewar intelligence on Iraq was wrong and that he does not believe there were any banned weapons in Baghdad when the United States invaded last year.

Last week, CIA Director George J. Tenet gave a speech defending his agency, acknowledging problems with its prewar estimates but stressing that it never portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States. That remark seemed to undercut one of the administration's principal cases for launching the war over objections from France, Germany and other longtime allies.

White House officials have recently said they never used the word "imminent" to describe the threat, but a review of their statements shows they repeatedly portrayed the danger as urgent. Bush described Hussein's regime as a "grave and growing" danger and warned that the United States could not wait for definitive proof that Hussein had weapons stockpiles.

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud," Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati in October 2002. Since Hussein was ousted, some in the administration have retreated from insisting that weapons would be found.

L I N K

All in all, a pretty good day for democracy.

Krugman!

The Real Man

By PAUL KRUGMAN

To understand why questions about George Bush's time in the National Guard are legitimate, all you have to do is look at the federal budget published last week. No, not the lies, damned lies and statistics — the pictures.

By my count, this year's budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River.

It was not ever thus. Bill Clinton's budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.

The issue here goes beyond using the Government Printing Office to publish campaign brochures. In this budget, as in almost everything it does, the Bush administration tries to blur the line between reverence for the office of president and reverence for the person who currently holds that office.

Operation Flight Suit was only slightly more over the top than other Bush photo-ops, like the carefully staged picture that placed Mr. Bush's head in line with the stone faces on Mount Rushmore. The goal is to suggest that it's unpatriotic to criticize the president, and to use his heroic image to block any substantive discussion of his policies.

In fact, those 27 photos grace one of the four most dishonest budgets in the nation's history — the other three are the budgets released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Just to give you a taste: remember how last year's budget contained no money for postwar Iraq — and how administration officials waited until after the tax cut had been passed to mention the small matter of $87 billion in extra costs? Well, they've done it again: earlier this week the Army's chief of staff testified that the Iraq funds in the budget would cover expenses only through September.

But when administration officials are challenged about the blatant deceptions in their budgets — or, for that matter, about the use of prewar intelligence — their response, almost always, is to fall back on the president's character. How dare you question Mr. Bush's honesty, they ask, when he is a man of such unimpeachable integrity? And that leaves critics with no choice: they must point out that the man inside the flight suit bears little resemblance to the official image.

There is, as far as I can tell, no positive evidence that Mr. Bush is a man of exceptional uprightness. When has he even accepted responsibility for something that went wrong? On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that he is willing to cut corners when it's to his personal advantage. His business career was full of questionable deals, and whatever the full truth about his National Guard service, it was certainly not glorious.

Old history, you may say, and irrelevant to the present. And perhaps that would be true if Mr. Bush was prepared to come clean about his past. Instead, he remains evasive. On "Meet the Press" he promised to release all his records — and promptly broke that promise.

I don't know what he's hiding. But I do think he has forfeited any right to cite his character to turn away charges that his administration is lying about its policies. And that is the point: Mr. Bush may not be a particularly bad man, but he isn't the paragon his handlers portray.

Some of his critics hope that the AWOL issue will demolish the Bush myth, all at once. They're probably too optimistic — if it were that easy, the tale of Harken Energy would have already done the trick. The sad truth is that people who have been taken in by a cult of personality — a group that in this case includes a good fraction of the American people, and a considerably higher fraction of the punditocracy — are very reluctant to give up their illusions. If nothing else, that would mean admitting that they had been played for fools.

Still, we may be on our way to an election in which Mr. Bush is judged on his record, not his legend. And that, of course, is what the White House fears.

Indeed.

O'Reilly fulfills promise: Admits he was wrong on WMD issue

The BBC and Boston Globe offer color.

The guy's a tremendous ass.

No ten tonight. Still tending to familial issues.

Bush polls at lowest levels ever.

Visual aid

WaPo color

Bush has seemingly but one trait on his side. A majority of Americans - 52% - still believe him to be trustworthy and honest.

I don't make this stuff up.

That number is rapidly falling, and if it continues to founder..I fear he has nothing else to offer.

Chekov(that's Anton, not the guy on Star Trek) made a comment once:

"Any idiot can face a crisis, it's the day to day living that wears you out."

This in a nutshell explains Bush's popularity, and his recent decline. He was seen immediately post-9/11 as a leader - transformed overnight - and now it's the wear and tear of his policies that are bringing him down to Earth.

Now that's short bs.

F.B.I. turns up the Plame Flame

The investigation has already spread through much of the White House. Among those who have been interviewed by the F.B.I. are Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, and powerful behind-the-scenes figures like I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Those who have trooped in to answer questions from the grand jury include Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary; Claire Buchan, a deputy press secretary; Mary Matalin, a former top adviser to Mr. Cheney; and Adam Levine, a former White House communications aide.

Lots more at NYT, and additional documents are available for viewing at Find Law

Will justice be done? I certainly hope so. This is a really serious matter. I'm glad that the F.B.I. is, from all appearances, really digging into this.

Does Lou Dobbs read pure bs? Unlikely, but after a glance at last night's LDT transcript, he very well may :)

That Iraqi democracy -- so messy

Candidate Bush Bush - Gore debate 11 Oct. 2000:

GOV. BUSH: Well -- I don't think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war; that's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops.

And I'm not -- I strongly believe we need to have a military presence in the Korea peninsula, not only to keep the peace on the peninsula, but to keep regional stability. And I strongly believe we need to keep a presence in NATO. But I'm going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious.

Pretty clear policy. Let the indigenous folks decide their own forms of governments.

President Bush on Meet The Press 08 Feb. 2004

Russert: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?

President Bush: They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing. They're not going to develop that because right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment, that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.

Hmm. Seems like a slight shift of position here. Of course the facts on the ground -- as best as we can tell -- do not conform to Mr. Bush's publicly disclosed version of reality. Well, sure they're not going to initially have an Islamic theocracy, but that's only because the U.S. isn't going to allow it.

Today:

U.N. Official Favors Direct Election in Iraq

12:37 PM PST, February 12, 2004

A United Nations representative, trying to determine a stable transition of power in Iraq, strongly backed an influential Shiite cleric's view today to choose a new government through national elections.

Lakdar Brahimi, the U.N. adviser, was unable to say whether the elections could be held by June 30. On that date, the U.S. hopes that transitional leaders can be chosen through a caucus system until a national vote can be held in early 2005.

The leading cleric of Iraq's Shiite majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has called for swift, direct elections rather than the U.S.-backed plan for a caucus system. His demand, which drew tens of thousands of supporters to a rally last month, forced the Bush administration to ask for U.N. intervention. But he has called off further protests until the U.N. completes its work.

"Al-Sistani is still insisting on the elections," Brahimi told reporters after the meeting in Sistani's home in Najaf. "We are with him 100% because elections is the best way to establish a state that serves the interests of its people."

Shiites, who were suppressed under ousted President Saddam Hussein, account for roughly 60% of Iraq's 25 million population. They seek a stronger role in the new government.

Brahimi, 70, whose four decades of peacemaking in hot spots from Lebanon to Afghanistan have made him a revered U.N. figure, is expected to hold talks with Iraqis and the Coalition Provisional Authority in order to broker deals over the next week.

The U.N. has conducted scores of similar preelection assessments worldwide, but the Iraq mission is unique because of its sense of urgency and the worldwide scrutiny surrounding it.

One key objective is to determine whether it would be possible to hold elections by May to meet a June 30 deadline to transfer authority from the U.S. to a new transitional assembly. Many experts doubt that legitimate elections could take place by then, given Iraq's lack of voter rolls and security.

As a result, there's a growing consensus that the U.N. team will be asked to broker a political compromise between the United States, with its caucus plan, and many Shiites, who would presumably prevail in direct elections.

Much more at link

It'll be interesting to see if this will play out. After the initial election, it seems likely that with the next election cycle the Shiite clerics will have the majority of the power. That's of course if any form of compromise can be presently worked out.

You have to keep your eye squarely on the ball. What was that about Bartlett saying that the goalposts were being moved? :)

Bush's Right flank under siege.

Again, from E&P:

E&P read 27 columns by conservatives who mentioned Bush during the past 13 days. Nine of the columns had at least some questions about the president and his policies.

For instance, George Will of the Washington Post Writers Group wrote that Bush's "accumulating errors are undermining the premise of his reelection campaign, which is: Wartime demands hard choices and sacrifices, and a president who is steady, measured, and believable. ... Once begun, leakage of public confidence is difficult to stanch."

Another conservative WPWG columnist, Charles Krauthammer, said voters may choose John Kerry over Bush because of the Democrat's stronger military experience. "Sept. 11 reminded us that the '90s were an anomaly," Krauthammer wrote. "And upon returning to a world of mortal conflict with people who really want you destroyed, you instinctively want someone not new to the idea of war."

Robert Novak of the Chicago Sun-Times and Creators Syndicate added: "Most worrisome to Republicans is Kerry's war-hero image while, in the words of one prominent Bush supporter, 'our guy was drinking beer in Alabama.'"

Wall Street Journal contributing columnist Peggy Noonan wrote of Bush's "Meet the Press" appearance: "The president seemed tired, unsure, and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive... . He did not seem prepared."

Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle and Creators wrote that the Bush administration's "first-term spending spree isn't sitting well with those who have to bankroll it. ... Simply put, Bush broke the covenant Republican officeholders are supposed to share with voters: that they'll be tight with other people's money."

William Murchison of Creators asked: "Why no Bush vetoes of inappropriate appropriations?"

Pat Buchanan of Creators wrote that the Bush administration "invaded an oil-rich country on what the world believes were false pretenses and forged evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

Another Creators columnist, Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly, was quoted by Reuters as saying he's "much more skeptical about the Bush administration now" since weapons inspector David Kay expressed doubt about Iraq having WMDs.

The rest of the story

Of course all of this is premature hand-wringing from people that are paid to do so. However, it may mark a turning point of sorts if these sorts of 'analyses' continue.

These people are still solidly in the Bush camp. I cannot see that changing.

Buchanan is always a wildcard. He's fervently against neoconservatism, so he is rarely in agreement with Bush policy. You just never know what he'll pen next.

"If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us; but if we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us." - GW Bush 11 Oct. 2000

"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind." - GW Bush 08 Feb. 2004

Now that's what I call consistency.

Better late than never.

It's difficult to know who is creating the most noise regarding Bush's Guard service. The White House going into what appears to be full damage control mode, the Democrats, particularly those seeking Bush's seat, or our 'watchdog press.' (woof! heavy sarcasm)

The Boston Globe has run a couple of articles over the past few days. With this page serving as a repository for Walter Robinson's articles on the subject.

There is lots of old information being used for this news cycle, and some new material is surfacing as well.

Powell allegedly got a bit warm yesterday under questioning. While testifying about the timetable of the transfer of authority to the iraqis, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Americans were relying on Powell's judgments about war and peace, because Bush "may have been AWOL" during his Vietnam-era National Guard service, Vice President Dick Cheney had "said he had other priorities" than military service during Vietnam, and "other administration officials did not serve."

Powell shot back, "First of all, Mr. Brown, I won't dignify your comments about the president, because you don't know what you're talking about." A few minutes later, Powell scolded an aide to another Democratic House member, who was standing behind Brown and shaking his head as Powell explained the administration's views on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

"Are you shaking your head at something, young man, back there? Are you part of these proceedings?" Powell demanded of the aide.

When Brown protested that "I've never heard a witness reprimand a staff member," Powell replied, "I seldom come to a meeting where I am talking to a congressman and I have people aligned behind you giving editorial comment by head shake."

Brown's press aide, Tim Miller, said later that Powell's comments were "a sign that the administration is on the defensive these days."

Ouch.

As I've pointed to on these pages, this site has Bush's Guard records.

And finally, the The Seattle Times is reporting that the White House has reneged on yesterday's pledge to release all of Bush's military records.

[On MTP, Bush said that all of the pertinent records were in Colorado. Ed]

Here's a tease from the Times piece:

WASHINGTON ? The White House last night released a document showing that President Bush appeared at a military base in Alabama during the last year of his National Guard service, but aides backed away yesterday from his weekend pledge to release all his military records.
Bush's staff released a copy of a dental evaluation Bush had in the National Guard in Alabama in 1973 to rebut suggestions by Democrats who have questioned whether he ever showed up for duty there.

Bush enlisted in the Guard in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, and became a first lieutenant and an F-102 fighter pilot before leaving in 1973 to attend Harvard Business School.

Throughout his political career, opponents have focused on May 1972 to May 1973, during which it has been unclear how he fulfilled his military service. Bush has said that he performed temporary duty in Montgomery, Ala., while he was working on a U.S. Senate campaign, but there has been no definitive proof he did so. In addition, his records for that period indicate that he no longer took military physicals and was suspended from flying.

The dental examination was performed on Jan. 6, 1973, at Dannelly Air National Guard Base, which is south of Montgomery. According to the White House, the dental exam shows Bush did report for duty in Alabama. The exam, however, was done after November 1972, when earlier reports have said Bush returned to Texas.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration would not necessarily make public additional records of Bush's tenure in the National Guard unless the president's aides determine that they are "relevant to this issue."

Specifically, McClellan refused to commit to releasing medical or disciplinary records that become available to the White House. Bush's aides had released payroll records and other documents on Tuesday that they thought would douse the controversy, but instead they inflamed it by raising new questions both about Bush's service records and the White House's current claims.

"I think what you are seeing is gutter politics," he said. "The American people deserve better. There are some who are not interested in their facts. They are simply trolling for trash."

Administration officials confirmed yesterday that the Defense Department is pulling together all of Bush's payroll, personnel and medical records from the National Guard to centralize his file.

But White House communications director Dan Bartlett was emphatic that the administration had no immediate plans to open Bush's entire file, which would include his guard medical records.

"These are attempts to troll for personal records for partisan advantage. We're not going to play," Bartlett said. "The goal post is being moved."

I do agree with Bartlett that "the goal posts are being moved." But as to who is doing the moving remains unclear. At this juncture, I'm inclined to think that the Democrats initially raised the issue, and now it is the press that demanding answers.

I think that Bush's records ought to available for public scrutiny. He is the highest office in the U.S., and his military service should be open for discussion and debate. I'm certain that there will be follow-up.

While at E&P I noted that the site that the GOP often uses to float new memes, Drudgereport.com is reporting a rumor about Kerry having some manner of unverified extra-marital affair.

I refuse to read Drudge. He's not a journalist. He's more of an aggrandizing gossip columnist than anything else.

From E&P:

Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, acknowledged that his staff had begun to dig deeper into the life and career of Kerry, but said he had not heard anything about an alleged infidelity. "What we're finding, I don't know," he said. "This is the first we are looking into him this way."

This is a non-story until it can be shown otherwise. If E&P had not put up a small piece about it, I wouldn't have known about it.

Of course there could be something here. But until there is hard evidence to support such a charge, it remains an illusory bit of pablum.

Try this for a break from the constant barrage of attacks from the RWEC against Kerry.

A couple of quick things before I bail for the evening.

I have only given a cursory look at Bush's call for new measures to counter the threat of WMD, hence I'm utterly unsuited to make any statements concrning his plan.

I did note that the prez used the likely venue of the National Defense University at Fort Lesley J. McNair to deliver this policy 'upgrade.' This president never seems to go where there might be the slightest hint of a hint of dissent. *shrugs*

The second deadly bombing in as many days underscores the real peril that ordinary Iraqis face every day. Truly sad.

While Kerry rolls on, and broadens his message he leaves Wesley Clark in his wake(bad choice of word..wake) I wish them both the best.

And in science, tongue twisting Rhyniognatha hirsti has pushed back the origin of faunal flight back some 80 million years.

Most cool.

I'd do "The Ten" tonight, but familial matters take precedence over nocturnal blogging.

Iraqis talk a bit about their weapons programs, and a reminder of what Divid Kay said before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

Iraqis in their own words:

"I would like to meet President Bush and tell him 'you claimed that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and this is the evidence you occupied this country for this reason. So, what's your evidence now? Did you find the weapons of mass destruction?' No, it's occupation, colonialism." -- Turki al-Jaburi

The following are quotes from Khaled Francis, an iraqi scientist involved in Iraq's chemical weapons program.

"You know, all these matters have been exaggerated.

"After the Gulf War, they disconnected the whole program. They changed the program to pesticides and herbicides and other products. As I know, they destroyed all the weapons they had.'"

In responding to a question as to how he knew that all the weapons programs were dismantled he replied:

"Because most of the people working on the destruction of these weapons are my friends, my colleagues and we discuss about it. I was working in the research center. This is the most important center in the whole office, and we know what's going on outside."

When questioned about whether or not he thought that there were any later attempts to restart the chemical weapons programs he responded:

"If they wanted to do it, they could, because the most important [element] is the people who are working in this field, and it needs very simple tools. No need for complicated instruments or anything. But, as I know, there was not any idea to re-start the program again."¹

As a reminder, here is a bit of Kay's testimony before the Armed Services Committee:

Levin: In your opinion, Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in 2002, is that correct?

Kay: That's correct Senator.

Levin: Do you have any evidence that they had any stockpiles, large or small in 2002?

Kay: Simply have no evidence.²

Sources:

1. Sonja Pace Baghdad RealMedia stream 10 02 2004

2. Transcript of Dr. David Kay's Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee of 28 10 2004

Free Markets? Are they really FREE? If so, I want one!

In this Op-Ed piece from the CS Monitor, the author William Krist, senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center illuminates some facts of which we should all be aware.

Here's a tease..okay, tease and a half :)

....Agricultural tariffs today are four to eight times as high as tariffs on industrial goods. For certain products, agricultural tariffs are shockingly high: Japan's tariff on rice has been as high as 1,364 percent and the European Union's tariff on sugar beets as high as 540 percent; US tobacco tariffs have reached 350 percent.

Developed countries also heavily subsidize their farmers: The US slips them about $30 billion annually and the EU pays out some $45 billion. In the US, more than one-quarter of farm income can come from subsidies and higher prices due to trade barriers, in the EU more than one-third of income results from subsidies and trade barriers, and in Japan an impressive 60 percent of income results from these distortions.

Faced with these high tariffs and enormous subsidies, many developing countries question the American belief in free trade and free markets. The current trade round stalled at Cancún because developed countries failed to make far-reaching proposals to open their agricultural markets.

But the US often overlooks the fact that addressing the demands of developing countries is in America's best interests: Its own agricultural trade barriers damage its own economy, as well as that of developing countries. High US tariffs drain the wallets of American consumers, raising prices not only at the grocery store, but also at the mall. Keeping out low-priced cotton imports hurts the hard-pressed American textile industry, and US sugar tariffs hurt domestic producers of soft drinks and processed foods.

The billions spent on agricultural subsidies could be used to strengthen social security, fund Iraqi reconstruction, or reduce taxes for the average American. It would be nice to think that all this money is helping small family farms in the heartland. But in reality, more than 15 Fortune 500 companies receive subsidies and at least 100 large US farms receive more than $2 million in subsidies each.

While US barriers raise domestic prices, US subsidies artificially lower prices in the world's markets. Without these subsidies, the world price for many agricultural products would be significantly higher, and the small family farmers in Africa would earn substantially more for their labors.

How can the US free its economy of these damaging barriers and subsidies? While bilateral or regional trade agreements are easier to negotiate, agricultural subsidies - the core problem - cannot be addressed in bilateral agreements. The new US-Australia free-trade agreement, which excludes sugar and other key agricultural products, is only the latest example. Developed countries must reduce subsidies together: If the US agreed to eliminate subsidies in a bilateral agreement, Europe would flood US markets with subsidized products. To take the free-market plunge, everyone must jump in at the same time....

Go. Read. Learn. Be popular

This is the kind of Op-Ed piece that blurs the lines between hard news and editorial commentary. It's the kind that I would want if I had an Op-Ed page.

Oh, yeah. I guess this blog is my Op-Ed page. Silly me.

Iraq cost speedbump - Maybe it's the fluctuation in the value of the dinar?

The AP does the numbers. Via AP wire.

Pentagon: 3 Months in Iraq Cost $14B

WASHINGTON - The ongoing war in Iraq cost about $4 billion in September, spiked to $7 billion in October and hit just under $3 billion in November, the Pentagon said Wednesday in its latest report on how much the military operation costs.

That amounted to roughly $14 billion spent on U.S. military operations in Iraq over the three-month period late last year, the latest figures available, said Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's chief financial official.

He said analysts were trying to determine why the costs spiked in October.

Officials previously had said the occupation of Iraq is costing $1 billion a week.

Zakheim also sought to allay concerns, expressed by top military chiefs to a congressional committee Tuesday, that the Pentagon would run out of money to finance the efforts.

The Iraq war and occupation, along with the ongoing operations in Afghanistan, are being paid for through supplemental spending bills that are approved by Congress outside of the regular budget process.

Already, Congress has approved $166 billion for those operations. The Pentagon has said it does not expect the Bush administration to seek another spending bill until January 2005, but the chiefs of the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps suggested Tuesday that money will run out by the end of September.

Zakheim said Wednesday that the military can fill the gap by borrowing money from other operations and maintenance accounts. This causes some repairs and maintenance work to be delayed, but Zakheim said this would not lead to permanent problems if a supplemental spending bill were approved by the following spring.

Why wait? Zakheim said the Pentagon wanted to see how events in Iraq unfold this year before deciding how much money it will need.

He denied the suggestion that the Bush administration was waiting until after the November elections to prevent the cost from becoming a political issue.

SPECULATION:

It's likely that the occupation is really costing on the order of $1.4 billion per week. I've worked at some firms and have seen firsthand how it's possible to fudge the numbers over a quarter or so in order to work a seemingly anomalous event into the ongoing profit and loss statement. I think this is what we're ultimately going to see in Iraq.

END SPECULATION

So, Dov doesn't think a war is a political issue? WTH? Wars are amongst the most political of all enterprises a State can enter into. Of course now Dov is the one 'playing politics.' Bad Dov.

Wars, being amongst the ultimate political expression are stubborn to reveal their true costs. They are notorious for going 'over budget.' This is because of two reasons. The first being that no one -- even at this stage in the occupation -- can open a spreadsheet program and say, "Yup. It's going to cost us $380,170,012,912.82 to do this." The second being that it's never politically advantageous to have your economic team attempt to paint a true cost of conducting a war and subsequent fallout. "Only $500 billion? Hell, yeah. That's a no-brainer. Let's do it."

War not a political issue. Preposterous.

Discouraged.

My local newspaper, the Concord Monitor, published this WaPO piece, which is purely an Op-ed rumor filled bit, not of hard news quality.

This is the headline the Monitor ran the piece with:

Cheney's Record Damaging His Standing

Rumors circulate about his place on the '04 ticket

If this was run on the Op-Ed page, I'd have no qualms about it. After all, the WaPo correctly -- in my humble opinion -- ran the piece under "Opinions" > "Columns" > "White House Notebook."

However, the usually sensible Monitor ran this as the lead in their "Nation/World" section. This is not good policy.

I'm sure there are a lot of you that think I'm merely 'splitting hairs' here. Perhaps I am. But I see this as a snapshot of a
wider issue affecting journalism today. Innuendo replaces facts, and celebrity bests substance.

Yes, I know that print exists as the conduit to sell more print. But there are what I would consider inviolate rules. One of these being to properly place items within their most proper setting.

Dirty Birds

The Baltimore Sun reported yesterday that some 74,000 chickens were destroyed in Sussex county Delaware an effort to control the spread of avian flu. The discovery of infected birds in this second flock startled experts, and increased worries about the region's poultry industry.

A snippet:

The infected chickens were found on a farm in Sussex County that supplies birds to a large commercial processor. It is located about five miles from the Kent County farm where the virus was first detected late last week.

State Department of Agriculture officials said the outbreaks did not appear to be linked, but both farms and about 75 others around them will be quarantined and tested for up to a month. Farms with high rates of poultry mortality on the three-state Delmarva peninsula will also face increased testing, agricultural officials said.

Eleven countries, mostly in Asia, have banned imports of Delaware or U.S. poultry products as a precaution. Delmarva accounts for about 6 percent of American poultry exports.

Officials said they believe they can contain the avian flu to the two counties where the virus was found through quarantines, testing and disinfecting of trucks and equipment.

But anxiety is still reigning among farmers who do not know when they will be able to send their birds for processing.

"The dinner table conversation for a farmer tonight is about fear of losing his living," said Michael T. Scuse, Delaware's agriculture secretary. "We have people who have everything they own at stake. We can't emphasize enough how serious this is. This is very, very serious. We have a multibillion-dollar industry at stake."

Sussex is the largest broiler-producing county in the nation.

Both outbreaks involve a strain of the virus that is not considered a threat to humans who live nearby or purchase meat in grocery stores.

But extensive precautions are being taken across Delaware. Some 73,800 birds were destroyed yesterday, and meetings of farmers, sales and auctions of farm equipment, and sales of live poultry were ordered stopped.

Officials advised farmers to close off their farms to outsiders to prevent further spread of the avian flu, which is most often transmitted from bird to bird through mud and manure, and which can be tracked on shoes or vehicles. Birds also can transmit the virus to other birds through the air.

Quick action in this case can prevent the flu from mutating from what is thought to be a relatively mild strain into a more dangerous form that could seriously sicken birds or humans, health officials said.

The United States has had many avian flu outbreaks over the past several years, but none has ever killed a human, unlike the strain in Asia that has recently caused illness and death among people there.

Still, the local farmers are feeling the pressure.

William Messick, 69, whose 180-acre Kent County farm is in sight of the first case of avian flu, was among those whose birds have been tested and found to be clean. He has about 100,000 chickens that were supposed to be sent out for slaughter at Allen Family Foods Inc. last night and this morning, but that has been delayed until Friday. He hasn't left his farm since he got the news Saturday, not wanting to risk his livelihood.

Much more at link

I think it's wise that proper precautions are being taken. This is likely to be at the very least a regional tragedy. The untold story is that the once regarded safe U.S livestock industry is likely to come under the microscope.

With the halting of the USDA 'mad cow' probe, and the current round of avian flu damage as yet unknown, further bans of U.S poultry products are likely. This may be unwarranted by the actual data surrounding the strain(s) of avian flu found stateside, but fear usually trumps reason.

The economic fallout is likely to be devastating to the region at the very least, but just how deep and far the impact will reverberate is an unkown at this juncture.

TV VIEWING ASSIGNMENT

FRONTLINE: Beyond Baghdad

"As Washington continues to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein, FRONTLINE takes viewers on a journey across Iraq to reveal just what it will take to stabilize the volatile nation and accelerate the transfer of power to the Iraqi people. In "Beyond Baghdad," FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith travels the length and breadth of Iraq for five weeks, interviewing everyone from tribal sheiks and ayatollahs to politicians and U.S. military commanders. Smith's reporting reveals a seriously fractured Iraq, where modest successes in nation-building have been offset by widespread inter-ethnic and sectarian rivalry, frustration, and violence."

FRONTLINE is one of the very few reasons I broke my 'television fast.' I still only watch PBS, and my local ABC affiliate. I can't justify getting cable. My SO may overrule me shortly. Stay tuned!

Not on CNN

I would think that tis would be a relatively big story. The diary of an alleged 'jihadist' certainly got my attention.

The following is but a snippet of the article:

Military officials say Mohammed Kadir Hussen's odyssey from his hometown, Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to the battlegrounds of Iraq -- a journey outlined in a diary seized when he was arrested, a document now known as "the Book" -- provides a glimpse into what remains one of the murkiest aspects of the Iraq insurgency: the role of foreign jihadists, or so-called holy warriors of Islam.

" 'The Book' talked about the jihad: how the jihad was going to happen whether Saddam Hussein survived the war or not," said Col. David A. Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which occupies a great swath of western Iraq and seized the young Saudi and his unusual travelogue. "People were coming from all over to fight and kill Westerners."

So many foreign fighters are said to have congregated in Qusaybah, a longtime smuggling hub, that the military nicknamed it "the jihad Super Bowl," Teeples said.

The Army says the primary threat in Iraq remains loyalists of the former regime. The foreign contingent may represent no more than 5 percent to 10 percent of the overall insurgent force of up to 5,000 people, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad.

But commanders also say the foreign fighters' impact has been significant and has probably yielded the bulk of what has become perhaps the insurgents' most potent weapon -- suicide bombers. However, the Army adds that no successful suicide bomber has yet to be positively identified.

Although Saddam's alleged relationship with al-Qaida was one of the justifications for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, no definitive operational link has yet been demonstrated between the Islamic militants and Saddam's decidedly secular government.

But with borders porous in the wake of the invasion, highly motivated jihadists - eager to confront Americans on Arab soil - have infiltrated the country, U.S. commanders concede. These shadowy forces have largely remained under the radar screen as the Army concentrates on cells of Saddam loyalists, commanders say.

"Perhaps with all the focus on former regime elements, some kind of screen is now down, and those terrorists who want to fight Americans are coming in," said Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine of the 82nd Airborne Division, which patrols the Fallujah zone, a hotbed of the insurgency.

There is no way to measure the influx of foreign combatants. They continue to arrive despite operations breaking down what Army officers call "rat lines" of support for jihadists arriving via Syria in the west and Iran in the east. In the last two weeks, the Army says, an Iranian and an Afghan were arrested in Baghdad while trying to put a roadside bomb in place, and a Jordanian with a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher was taken into custody. Several Egyptians and a suspected Yemeni extremist were picked up in Fallujah.

Last month, President Bush himself announced the capture of Hassan Ghul, who U.S. officials say may be the first confirmed al-Qaida operative arrested in Iraq. Ghul was allegedly a courier for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the reputed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - and, like Ghul, a Pakistani.

U.S. commanders say it is extremely difficult to determine if the detained foreign fighters are linked to al-Qaida or other terror organizations, such as Ansar al Islam, a Kurdish extremist group suspected of having connections to the twin suicide attacks last week at Kurdish political party headquarters in northern Iraq that killed more than 100 people. Some of those captured boast of international terror affiliations; others deny such ties. Proving or disproving it can be almost impossible.

"No one is walking around with an al-Qaida identity card, as far as I know," said Col. Joe Anderson, who oversaw the occupation of the northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas with the 101st Airborne Division, which is returning home after almost a year in Iraq.

Many fighters captured or killed carry no identification whatsoever, so their origins remain murky. In such cases, officials rely on clues such as foreign currency found in their possession or, in the case of prisoners, their accents. Foreign fighters, frequently embracing martyrdom, are also more likely to fight to the death than other insurgents, commanders say.

Many of the foreign jihadists appear to be disaffected young men harboring an abiding hatred of the West, but having little or no previous experience in training camps or the battlefield -- a common profile among Saudis and others who have gravitated to holy war venues such as Afghanistan and Chechnya. This seems to have been the case with Mohammed Kadir Hussen.

"He was a poor Saudi guy without a lot of prospects," said a U.S. military intelligence official familiar with Hussen's travelogue. "He started out wanting to help other Muslims, and it evolved into this jihad."

Army officials agreed to talk in general terms about the young Saudi's life and diary but declined to provide a copy. The document has been translated into English and distributed among intelligence agencies.

U.S. authorities say they have traced efficient networks bringing in foreign jihadists. Middlemen known as "facilitators," mostly Iraqis, help guide the young fighters and direct them to safe houses where they can stay, arrange for basic training and acquire arms. Eventually they are deployed against U.S. forces.

The Army recently detained one such alleged facilitator, Madi Thiab Ruhaybi, an Iraqi man in his 50s known as Abu Mohammed who was captured near the bustling Trebil crossing point on the Iraq-Jordan border.

"Abu Mohammed was kind of a runner, a go-to guy, a guy who gets things done," the military intelligence official said. "He would go to the border and pick someone up, move money from here to there, get weapons - he would make all that happen. He was a mid- to lower-level guy, certainly not a decision-maker.

"If you're the boss, you need someone like Abu Mohammed to go out and do the dirty work. He knows where to go to get weapons. If you need coordination with your buddy in Syria to get foreign fighters in, he's the guy who goes out and makes the connection."

He is the kind of intermediary with whom Hussen probably hooked up when he arrived in Iraq. The fervent Saudi, in his 20s, is believed to have crossed the border in April or May, after Saddam's fall. He arrived first at this border outpost, at the time virtually wide open, officials said, and probably made contact with pro-Saddam hard-liners aiding foreign volunteers.

A marriage of convenience between former regime allies and foreign jihadists has marked the insurgency, U.S. officials say.

"The jihad people who came in had their own agenda. They were not connected to former regime loyalists, but to Islamic extremists," Teeples said. "But as this thing evolved, it became obvious that the best network for anyone coming from outside to fight would be to contact former regime loyalists. Those were the people who knew who to call, where to find safe houses, where to get their hands on money, weapons, transportation. They had intelligence on where the coalition troops were moving convoys, where troops were stationed, where mortars could be set up."

Why hasn't this received any coverage(that I've seen) from the major media outlets? Sure it's not nearly as important as an exposed body part during a national sporting event(heavy sarcasm). But further inquiry into this issue could yield answers to the vexing issue as to the true nature of the 'insurgent's' identities and agendas.

Lives are being lost over these very issues, but the press, by and large has ignored this potentially illuminating story.

With the wild differences in estimates of the numbers of foriegn fighters in Iraq, and just exactly what the nexus is between these foreign fighters/'Saddam loyalists'/and common Iraqi resistance, this would seem a natural issue for an investigative reporter to flesh out.

Maybe I'm giving our press corps too much credit. First to publish trumps thorough investigation and analysis of data. Isn't that right Ms. Miller?

NO TEN TONIGHT

I am dealing with a family issue.

No details, but the next couple of days could be on the light side.

Just found a new blog..more of a meta site, with a series of blogs. The site is Mallasch.com. In the Journalism area there is a link with some commentary concerning Reuters' decision to use indigenous 'offshore' journalists to cover American firms.

There are NO extra points for guessing where this news bureau is going to be set-up.

Of course it is in Bangalore, India.

The AP got the story, and if you read it carefully, you'll note the curious -- and I'm certain merely concidental -- statement that these are brand new positions whilst Reuters is slashing its payroll by 3,000 people worldwide. This in an effort to save some $800 million USD annually.

So, we can start to add journos to the list of 'displaced' workers that will be part of the 'positive transformation' that Bush's CEA Chair Gregory Mankiw was gushing about yesterday(okay, gushing IS too strong a verb..ebullient? No. Words fail me)

Then of course, there is always the issue of the quality of the reporting. As more and more technology firms, investment analysts and other services are moved to Bangalore, this small bureau will likely grow exponentially both in size and importance. Who will oversee them overseas?

I don't have the answer.

UPI has the primary scene from across the marsh

Select quotes:

"I thought Bush was the right choice four years ago, but I've gotten to loathe the guy. I really don't like his stand on the Middle East and especially going to war with Iraq. Kerry looks like the guy to beat him." -- Janet Sproul

"Its not so much anti-Americanism I sense here as it is Bush being an alienating factor (in foreign attitudes)." -- Bailey Kasten

"There are a lot of angry people here tonight. It's the same everywhere. We haven't had such a surge in interest in the organization's 40-year history." -- Rachelle Valladeres, international chairwoman of the Democratic Party Abroad

"If Bush gets re-elected, I fear he will have so changed the basic social structures of America there won't be any way back (for such things as social security). Dean is very supportive of rescinding Bush's tax cuts and he seems to have energized the campaign." -- David Merrill

Bailey Kasten's comments most closely reflect what I receive in emails and from reader comments. It's Bush that people abroad seem to take to task. Not America, nor Americans -- well, save for one American ;)

David Merrill's take on Bush's fiscal policy -- and the likely long term effect on social programs -- could have come from my own lips.

American expatriates in their own words.

Note: I would have used the modifier "Democrat" in the above, but commenters like Ms. Sproul defy that limitation.

Pot. Kettle. ?

That other Times, the LA Times has two stories that dovetail nicely.

They are, shockingly about Bush and Kerry.

First, the pres.' stuff:

Bush National Guard Records Released

White House contends that the records show the president was paid for service dates during a period under scrutiny.
From Associated Press

11:22 AM PST, February 10, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The White House, facing election-year questions about President Bush's military service, released pay records and other information today that it said supports Bush's assertion that he fulfilled his duty as a member of the Air National Guard during the Vietnam war.

The material included annual retirement point summaries and pay records that the White House said show that Bush served.

"When you serve, you are paid for that service. These documents outline the days on which he was paid. That means he served. And these documents also show he met his requirements," press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters. "And it's just really a shame that people are continuing to bring this up."

"These documents clearly show that the president fulfilled his duties," McClellan said.

The documents indicate Bush received pay for six days of duty between May and December of 1972 when he was supposed to be on temporary duty in Alabama. There is a five-month stretch in 1972 when he was not paid for service. The records do not indicate what duty Bush performed or where he was.

The White House also has not been able to produce fellow guardsmen who could testify that Bush attended guard meetings and drills. "Obviously we would have made people available" if they had been found, McClellan said.

Sen. John Kerry, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, is regularly accompanied by a "band of brothers" of military veterans who served with him in Vietnam.

Kerry said today he has said all he is going to say about Bush's record.

"I just don't have any comment on it," Kerry told reporters between campaign stops in Tennessee and Virginia. "It's not an issue that I chose to create. It's not my record that's at issue and I don't have any questions about it."

Much more at link

6 days of duty records. That's it? Hell, that's not even a week. Sheesh. What do pay records mean? Not much I'd say. Tom Paine has far more depth.

Where is any record of Bush serving in calendar year 1973?

McClellan does his job. There is still a long period that no one seems to be able to account for. I don't know what this means. I suspect that most people will draw the conclusion -- if they care at all -- that Bush was in effect, AWOL.

Without supporting evidence, I remain neutral on the issue.

Kerry's statement; "it's not an issue that I chose to create. It's not my record that's at issue and I don't have any questions about it," is sheer political genius. If that wasn't canned, I admire a guy that can turn a phrase like that.

Onto Kerry:

Bush Camp to Pore Over Kerry Votes

(I'm sure they've been dong this now for weeks, but..let's continue)

WASHINGTON — The manager of President Bush's reelection campaign said Monday that in an expected matchup with John F. Kerry, the Republican team would focus much of its criticism on the votes the Massachusetts senator cast to cut defense and intelligence spending and to oppose 1991's Persian Gulf War.

The comments by Ken Mehlman, posted on the Bush campaign's website, signaled that the president and his aides hoped to undercut Kerry's credentials on national security issues.

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Kerry frequently has cited his Vietnam War record and belittled Bush's use of military themes and imagery. If Republicans want to talk about national security, Kerry tells crowds, he has a ready reply: "Bring it on!"

It appears that the Republicans will do just that — albeit carefully.

"We honor Sen. Kerry's patriotic service during the Vietnam War," Mehlman said in an "online chat" with Bush supporters. "Yet we question the judgments of his votes to consistently cut defense and intelligence funding, his vote against the first Gulf War, and his recently stated belief that the war on terror is primarily about law enforcement and intelligence."

David Wade, a Kerry spokesman, responded: "The GOP is resorting to their usual politics of attack and distortion. It's smart strategy. Otherwise they'd have to do something really desperate, and talk about their record."

But Bush advisors say that it is Kerry, by virtue of his thousands of votes during his 19-year career in the Senate, who has a vulnerable record. They plan to depict him as a "typical" Massachusetts liberal who is soft on defense and who has been tied to special interests.

"John Kerry is who he is, and he won't be able to run from that," said one Bush campaign advisor.

Mehlman also warned Kerry and other Democrats to steer clear of the questions some have raised about Bush's tenure in the National Guard during the Vietnam War. Bush flew a fighter jet when he was in the Guard from 1968 to 1973, but his units were not called into combat.

The rest of the story

pure bs DISCLAIMER! I'm an engineer, not a political analyst. I'm a guy with a blog and sometimes I see stuff.

This is how I read the two above pieces. Kerry and others have questions over Bush's Guard service. It's a matter of record that Bush twice took time off from the Guard to campaign for Republican candidates while Vietnam was aboil. The first time
in 1970 for his dad's congressional campaign and the second from May to November 1972 to travel to Alabama to work on a Republican U.S. Senate campaign. These things are not in dispute.

What I want to know, is this not something of a dereliction of duty? I do not know. I am inclined to think so, but I do now how the military views such matters.

We know how Bush behaved in these cases.

Until it can be shown otherwise, it remains unknown as to what motivations Kerry had in voting on any issue.

I did chuckle a bit about Wade's statement.

You know what the real 'awful truth' is, it is that the vast majority of voters don't have a reasonably full set of untainted facts with which to draw conclusions. The facts are sometimes hard to find, but with effort, they can usually be found.

Read as much as you can. Try and find non-partisan, verifiable, fact based pieces, and think for yourself. Don't let anyone dissuade you from using reason -- the best tool we have -- to draw your own conclusions.

Car Bomb Kills Dozens at Police Station Near Baghdad

A car bomb exploded outside a police station in this town south of Baghdad today, killing at least 50 people and wounding about 100, a hospital official said.

Earlier the head of the Iraqi police force, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim, put the death toll at 35, with up to 45 people wounded.

General Ibrahim and another officer confirmed that the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, but they were not sure how many people were in the car.

The deadly incident was seen as the latest in a string of attacks by insurgents against Iraqis considered collaborators with occupying coalition forces.

The dead and wounded apparently were civilians who were standing waiting to apply for police jobs, officials said. No policemen were killed, a local officer said, but nine policemen were believed to have been wounded.

Huge, angry crowds gathered outside the site of the blast and tried to loot the station. They were dispersed by gunfire, throwing stones at a police truck, shattering a window.

More at NYT