Wounded state lawmaker flies home from Iraq

Doctors have not decided whether to remove the bullet he received from sniper fire in Iraq.

By LINDSAY HANSON METCALF
The Kansas City Star

A Missouri state representative who was wounded in Iraq arrived at Kansas City International Airport on Tuesday evening, hours after surprising his family with news of his return.
“I’m just really happy to be home right now,” said a visibly fatigued Jason Brown, an Army Reserve staff sergeant from Platte City.

Brown, 36, said doctors had not decided whether to remove the bullet in his left lung, the result of sniper fire Thursday in Baghdad. Doctors were amazed, Brown said, that the lung did not collapse.

“I’m sore and I’m tired and I’m really happy to be standing,” said Brown, who was able to walk off the plane.

He is on a 30-day convalescent leave and will return to Iraq for “light duty.”

“You should go back and do your job,” said Brown, who runs a gun turret for the 414th Civil Affairs Battalion of Utica, N.Y.

Brown said a fellow soldier had been shot in the shoulder during the incident but was doing OK. Brown would not identify his comrade nor discuss the incident further, saying he would issue a news release in the coming days.

A family spokesman, George McClintock, said last week that Brown was wearing a bulletproof flak jacket but may have been shot in an area that was unprotected.

Dozens of friends, family and media assembled to greet Brown. Before giving interviews, he threw down his bag and knelt to hug his daughter, Alayna, 8, and son, Caleb, 4. His wife, Rachelle, had no words at first — only a long-awaited hug and kiss.

“I’m overcome with emotions,” Rachelle Brown said later. “I can’t even explain it.”
Rachelle Brown said she had received several phone calls and e-mails from her husband since he was injured. Before his plane landed, however, she didn’t know whether he had undergone surgery.

She said she found out Tuesday afternoon he was coming home.

Jason Brown said doctors had kept him in Baghdad until he left Sunday for a series of flights to Kansas City.

Brown, a Republican, is seeking re-election in the 30th House District. He was elected to the General Assembly in 2002 and has served from abroad since his April deployment to Iraq for a yearlong tour.

Brown joined the military in 1989. In 2000, he served in Bosnia-Herzegovina on a peacekeeping mission.

His unit works to help communities establish government and provide basic services. Among the unit’s duties was to help manage infrastructure projects and distribute water, food, medical supplies and clothing, he wrote in an earlier news release.

In the release, Brown said his area of service — east of the Tigris River in Baghdad — has had a high level of insurgent activity that began before his unit started to operate there.

Brown’s opponent is Democrat Jared Welch, who is a member of the Missouri Air National Guard and has served since 1995. Currently, he serves in the judge advocate general corps.
The well-wishers included Platte County Presiding Commissioner Betty Knight; Rep. Susan Phillips, who serves southern Platte County; and Brown’s fellow church members, including Cheryl and Dave Clark of Platte City. Cheryl Clark had coordinated First Christian Church’s efforts to bring meals to the family and had expected Rachelle to travel to meet Jason for surgery in Germany.

The Clarks considered Brown’s condition an answered prayer.

Said Cheryl Clark, “Amazing.”

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Let's admit we made a mess and clean it up

By GEORGE STEGER Midwest Voices

“To cut and run or not to cut and run.” That is the question as the November elections bear down upon us. But is it really a valid question? Or just another throwaway slogan designed to relieve voters of the necessity to think?

It’s about as helpful as that other slogan constantly foisted upon us: “Stay the course.” What course? Is there a plan at all? We’ve been given one snow job after the other in this fruitless and counterproductive war in Iraq. Each one has simply made the situation worse there.

The big question as we approach November is not whether we should stay or not; it’s how we can best fix the ever-expanding mess we’ve made in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Even the war we fight legitimately in Afghanistan has become more difficult and costly.

So what is the fix? That’s the real question before the voters. Neither U.S. political party has dared to look much beyond the status quo. Here’s a potential “new course,” rough and painful, but at least a place to begin:

•Ask the Iraqi government to ask us formally to leave (or ask them to call a referendum and let Iraqi voters vote us out — they most certainly would).

•Set a date for departure with the Iraqi government — within a year.

•Accede to the partitioning of the country into its native Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parts.

•Enlist United Nations and NATO support for the employment of international forces, including some from the Middle East, to police the temporary partition.

•Prepare a “Marshall Plan” kind of program aimed at the economic recovery of Iraq, with the Group of Seven world’s richest nations providing the loans.

•Initiate a U.S-led program of trade engagement and foreign direct investment in Iraq and in other key Muslim regions in the Mideast, such as Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan, with the aim of creating a free-market zone there.

•Though we would remain a staunch ally of Israel, make clear that U.S. foreign policy is not a mirror image of the Israeli one and that future U.S. policy in the Middle East will no longer rubber-stamp violence as a solution for every Arab-Israeli confrontation.

It should be clear to every American by now that what we have been witnessing in Iraq for the past three years is a failed strategy. We bought into it because we were afraid. As the election approaches, the same tocsin of fear begins to sound, and we are being urged again to “stay the course” of violence that has led us so far only toward the prospect of more violence and wider conflict.

There is a saying in some Army circles these days “to those who have a big and fancy hammer, everything looks like a nail.” That’s how we got into Iraq, when other, more patient solutions would have served us better. We have unprecedented military power, and our armed forces are proud and dedicated and well-trained. But force has just not worked in Iraq; the more we use, the worse it gets.

So, as in Vietnam, our troops’ sacrifices are appearing more and more to be in vain. Even Charles Krauthammer, that arch neoconservative himself, admitted in a column a few weeks ago that the government of Iraq is failing and if it fails, we will not win in Iraq. If that is true, then, as Krauthammer suggested, “it is unconscionable to make one more American soldier die for a cause that cannot be salvaged.”

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Guantanamo defense lawyer forced to retire by Navy

By Carol Rosenberg

McClatchy Newspapers

NEWARK, N.J. - The Navy lawyer who took the Guantanamo case of Osama bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court - and won - has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week he received word that he had been denied a promotion to full-blown Navy commander this summer - "about two weeks after" the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

Under the military's "up or out" promotion system, Swift will retire in March or April, closing out a 20-year career of military service.

A Pentagon appointee, Swift embraced the alleged al-Qaida's sympathizer's defense with a classic defense lawyer's zeal - casting his captive client as an innocent victim in the dungeon of King George, a startling analogy for the attorney whose commander-in-chief is President George Bush.

He wore Navy whites to his client's war-crimes tribunal at Guantanamo, dress blues to challenge the administration on the steps of the Supreme Court and turned up last week at a symposium at Seton Hall Law School in more sober, workaday khakis.

"It was a pleasure to serve," said Swift, who added that he would defend Salim Hamdan all over again, even if he knew he would have to leave the Navy earlier than he wanted.

"All I ever wanted was to make a difference - and in that sense I think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams," he said.

Swift, a University of Seattle Law School graduate, also said he will continue to defend Hamdan as a civilian. The Seattle law firm of Perkins Coie, which provided pro bono legal work in Hamdan's habeas corpus petition, has agreed to support Swift's defense of Hamdan in civilian life, he said.

Hamdan, 36, who has only a fourth-grade education, was captured along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan while fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, launched in reprisal for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He admits to working as bin Laden's $200-a-month driver on a Kandahar farm, but said he never joined al-Qaida and never fought anyone.

Still at Guantanamo as an "enemy combatant," Hamdan halted his war-crimes trial by challenging the format's constitutionality through civilian courts. The justices ruled in June that President Bush overstepped his constitutional authority by creating ad hoc military tribunals for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sending the Pentagon back to the drawing board for the trials.

In the end, it developed a system very similar to those struck down, setting the stage for a likely new challenge this session.

In the opinion of Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, Swift was "a no-brainer for promotion," given his devotion to the Navy, the law and his client.

But, he said, Swift is part of a long line of Navy defense lawyers "of tremendous distinction" who were not made full commander and "had their careers terminated prematurely."

"He brought real credit to the Navy," said Fidell. "It's too bad that it's unrequited love."

In June, the prestigious National Law Journal listed Swift among the nation's top 100 lawyers, with such legal luminaries as former Bush administration Solicitor General Theodore Olson, 66; Stanford Law constitutional law expert Kathleen Sullivan, 50, and former Bush campaign recount attorney Fred H. Bartlit, 73.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, Pentagon spokesman on Guantanamo topics, did not respond to a query about the up-or-out system by which Navy lieutenant commanders are retired if they don't get promoted.

Perhaps ironically, one of Swift's first challenges on behalf of Hamdan as a civilian will be over whether he has the right to represent him in federal court. Under legislation approved by the House and Senate last month, Guantanamo detainees lose their right to file traditional habeas corpus petitions.

Swift last saw his controversial client last month at Guantanamo. "He's depressed," the lawyer said.

Swift said the Yemeni is now held in "Tango Block" at the U.S. detention center, in the company of ethnic Muslim Uighurs, who await resettlement elsewhere rather than repatriation to their native China.

"He now has Chinese roommates," meaning cellblock neighbors, said Swift, "which he's not particularly thrilled about."

Swift's supervisor, the Pentagon's chief defense counsel for Military Commissions, said the career Navy officer had served with distinction.

"Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary job," said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney, calling it "quite a coincidence" that the Navy promotion board passed on promoting Swift "within two weeks of the Supreme Court opinion."

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Start Making Sense

By KEVIN DRUM

Published: October 8, 2006

THE American public loathes the bickering, deadlocked 109th Congress. Its approval rating was a subterranean 25 percent in September’s New York Times/CBS poll. That makes this year’s Democratic strategy simple: make sure the public knows exactly who’s in charge of this wretched assemblage. Not a speech should go by without the phrase “Republican Congress” being repeated at least a dozen times. Two dozen would be even better.

So that’s that. But Democrats also have an opportunity to do something more constructive in this fall’s campaign: they should package a common-sense foreign policy so that it sounds like the common sense it is.

That means taking seriously the idea that our national interest is served by easing tensions and reducing hatred of the United States. This in turn means remaking the United States military so it can fight insurgencies and conduct peacekeeping missions more effectively; making serious use of multilateral institutions instead of deriding them; once again acting as an honest broker in the Middle East; and using economic engagement to help bring the Muslim world into the global community.

Democrats need to learn how to make this case convincingly, because it’s the only way we’re going to win the war against militant Islamic jihadism. It might help the party win an election or two as well.

— KEVIN DRUM, writer of the blog “Political Animal.”

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Denny Hastert's dodgy real estate deals.

by Norman Ornstein & Scott Lilly

Until last week, the broad image of House Speaker Dennis Hastert was of an affable, even grandfatherly figure. But Hastert's response--or lack thereof--to the Mark Foley scandal has suddenly put him in the hot seat, requiring even President Bush to defend him. The Speaker's reputation has taken a serious hit. Still, the image remains of an amiable guy, whose sins are more of sloth than malevolence.

Speaker Hastert, however, is no passive figure. When it comes to running the House, Hastert has, in fact, been an aggressive partisan. Recall, for instance, that he personally fired the chairman and two Republican members from the House Ethics Committee after they had the effrontery to rebuke Tom DeLay for misconduct. And when it comes to real estate, he has been a downright wheeler-dealer. Virtually overnight, the speaker's net worth went from approximately $300,000 to at least $6.2 million--thanks, in no small part, to an earmark he authored.

Hastert's real estate transactions have been reported extensively in the Chicago press and picked apart in a June report issued by the Sunlight Foundation. But they have been largely ignored in the national media. A careful examination of the facts in the case, however, leads to the conclusion that there are compelling reasons beyond the Foley case to call for the speaker's resignation from the post.

Here are the essential facts: In August, 2002, Hastert bought 196 acres of land in rural Kendall County, Illinois for $2,125,000. According to the Chicago Tribune, Hastert bought the plot in two separate transactions. The first deal gave him a house, barn, swimming pool, and 17 acres of land for $1.2 million. In the second deal, he obtained an additional 179 acres on an adjacent property for a little less than $5,200 per acre. The least valuable portions of the second deal were two fields, separated from the rest of the farm by a stream and inaccessible by road.
That was a big deal for a life-long politician and wrestling coach like Hastert, but harmless enough. Eighteen months later, however, Hastert's purchase took a new direction. The speaker entered into a real estate agreement with Dallas Ingemunson, the chair of the Kendall County Republican Party, and a campaign contributor named Tom Klatt. The three men formed a real estate trust and purchased an additional 69 acres of land adjacent to Hastert's two inaccessible fields. The trust paid $1,033,000 for the land, or about $15,000 per acre--more expensive turf than Hastert's plot in part because of its access to a road.

And here's where the deal first begins to acquire a pungent odor: The trust then added Hastert's two fields to the jointly acquired parcel and credited Hastert with 62 percent ownership apparently on the presumption that Hastert's $5,200 land was equal in value to his partners $15,000 land.

These deals coincided with a protracted battle in Congress sparked by the expiration of the 1998 highway bill. Hastert's purchase of his new home and the additional 179 acres of land took place the same month that the House Transportation Committee prepared for its first hearings on a new highway bill--a bill that would be rife with opportunities for members of congress to bring new roads to their districts in the form of earmarks, changes in infrastructure that could have a major effect on real estate values.

A new highway bill, however, didn't neatly wend its way to the president's desk. Members tacked literally thousands and thousands of earmarks to the legislation, wildly inflating its costs and provoking prolonged opposition from the administration. As the President's Fiscal Year 2003 budget warned: "The proliferation of congressional earmarking comes at a cost, in wasted dollars and in unfairness, as when a grant applicant who played by the rules and earned a place at the front of the funding line gets shoved backwards."

There was no better object lesson in the case against earmarks than the Prairie Parkway Corridor, pushed by none other than Denny Hastert. This new highway, designed to connect the counties west of Chicago to the metropolis itself, had neither the support of the public nor the Illinois Department of Transportation. Their objection: Rigid requirements in the highway bill would force the diversion of state funds that might have been used for the widening and improvement of existing roads--an approach, according to opinion polls, favored by a majority of the area's residents--or for more efficient transportation corridors to Chicago. But the Prairie Parkway did offer one important convenience: It was located just over a mile from the property owned by Hastert's trust.

Squabbling over the ballooning cost of the bill might have prevented this highway from ever coming to fruition. But Hastert played an unusually active role in shepherding the legislation, a more aggressive role than he played at any other point in his speakership. His dominance of the process was noted by an Illinois highway official, who remarked, "I think it's truly a recognition of the leadership of Speaker Hastert. Speaker Hastert was able to deliver a bill that made it through Congress that the president could sign, rather than a bill that would make it through Congress that the president would veto." Hastert himself explained at one point in the process that the negotiations had become so intense that he was no longer dealing with White House staff and had begun working directly with the president. When the bill finally passed in the summer of 2005, President Bush also recognized Hastert's efforts by traveling to his district for the bill signing ceremony. Bush also mentioned the Prairie Parkway which he said," is crucial for economic development in Kendall and Kane counties."

It was, we now know, crucial to the speaker's own economic development. In December of 2005, four months after the signing of the new Federal Highway Bill containing the $207 million inserted by Hastert for construction of the nearby Prairie Parkway, the 138 acres held by the trust were sold to a developer as part of planned 1600 home housing development. The trust received $4,989,000 or $36,152 an acre for the parcel of which 62.5 percent or $3,118,000 went to Hastert. Klatt and Ingemunson also did well. Their profit equaled 144 percent of their original investment. Hastert, however, received six times what he had paid for his investment, a profit equal to 500 percent of his original investment.

The Hastert earmark not only provided money for Parkway construction but mandated that the construction take place on the portion of the Parkway nearest his recently purchased property. While the money contained in the highway bill was sufficient to build only about one-third of the entire 36-mile road, the speaker insured that the right third would be selected by also earmarking funds for construction of a interchange in that portion of the proposed thooughfare.
The decision by the developer to build a subdivision in an area proximate to Hastert's farm had financial implications for the speaker that ran well beyond the $2.5 million profit he reaped on the sale. The Tribune has calculated that the remaining 125 acres he still owns is now worth about $4.5 million. Even counting the mortgage on the property, Hastert's net worth, according to the Tribune, appears to be more than $6.2 million. An estimate that Hastert's office does not dispute, probably because it is extremely conservative.

Hastert has responded forcefully to the allegations of venality. "I owned land, and I sold it, like millions of people do every day." The speaker's office has painted a portrait of a guy who just happened to be driving past a house he liked; he bought it and subsequently, in a straightforward transaction, sold some of the land that came with it for a profit.
The speaker hasn't exactly helped his case with his accounts of the transaction. His office has, for instance, described the Prairie Parkway as located over five miles from his property. But U.S. Geological Survey aerial photographs clearly show it to be about four miles closer than that.
We cannot say at this juncture whether the actions taken by the speaker are illegal. We can say that they do not meet the standards we expect--or should expect--from a member of Congress. And they certainly do not meet the standards we expect from the speaker of the House.


Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back On Track. Scott Lilly is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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Negro Leagues icon Buck O’Neil dies at 94

By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star

Beloved Negro Leagues icon and Kansas City legend Buck O’Neil died Friday night. O’Neil was 94.

He spent his life playing, coaching and finally promoting baseball. He was a batting champion, a three-time All-Star, and a wildly successful manager for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues before becoming the first black coach in the major leagues with the Cubs in 1962. As a scout, he is credited with discovering and signing Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Lou Brock, among others.

After his coaching career concluded, O’Neil devoted his life to spreading the stories of the men who played in the Negro Leagues. He captivated audiences of all ages and races with stories of Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and others.

He became something of a national celebrity as the narrator of Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, “Baseball,” in 1994. Since then he became the top ambassador for the Negro Leagues, telling his stories on national radio and television, including with David Letterman.

In Kansas City, he gained fame as the leader of the effort to build the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in the 18th and Vine district. Once it was built, O’Neil served as the museum’s chairman and its most effective promoter.

“It’s really hard to express what he meant to everybody in Kansas City and certainly to me, professionally, and even more personally as a dear friend,” said Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the museum. “He will be greatly missed by everybody. It will be a tremendous void in all our lives. But Buck would not want us to be sad, so we’ll try to be a little more upbeat. But obviously that’s hard right now.”

Kendrick said he did not know when services would be. There will be a 2 p.m. news conference today at the museum.

O’Neil was the subject of national attention when he was not among 17 Negro Leaguers elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in a special balloting in February. Several Hall of Famers, including Bob Feller, have since said they will work to correct what they perceive as a major mistake.
Following the disappointing news, O’Neil was less affected than most. At a news conference the day he found out, he told the crowd, “Shed no tears for Buck. No, no. Ol’ God’s been good to me. You can see that, don’t you? If I’m a Hall of Famer for you, that’s all I need. Just keep loving ol’ Buck.”

O’Neil still agreed to give the keynote address — and predictably stole the show — at July’s induction ceremonies in Cooperstown. The speech was just part of a whirlwind summer that included two at-bats at a T-Bones game, and appearances and autographs in New York City and Kauffman Stadium and points in between.

The activity apparently took a toll on O’Neil, as he was admitted to a hospital soon after to treat exhaustion. At a news conference following his release, he spoke briefly but was obviously still recovering.

Nearly all of his scheduled appearances this fall were canceled so that he could rest. He was readmitted to the hospital about three weeks ago, and his condition never improved.

Those who saw O’Neil play remember him as a good, if not stellar, ballplayer who was always highly respected by his teammates. He will be remembered most for the charisma and openness that drew in a large audience, which he entertained with stories about everything from the ills of segregation growing up in the South to why baseball legend Satchel Paige called him Nancy.
He was born John Jordan O’Neil, on Nov. 13, 1911, in Carrabelle, Fla., the son of a ballplayer. He was nicknamed “Buck” after the co-owner of the Miami Giants, Buck O’Neal. He was denied the chance to attend college in Florida and to play in the major leagues because of segregation, but decided at a young age that the best way to fight hatred and ignorance was through love.

As a ballplayer, he had a career batting average of .288, including four seasons above .300. He hit .353 and won the 1946 Negro Leagues batting crown, his first season back after two years with the Navy. The next year, he hit a career-high .358. He also toured with Paige at the height of Negro Leagues barnstorming in the 1930s and 1940s.

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Man tries to drive 310 miles in reverse

Associated Press

SYDNEY, Australia - A 22-year-old man attempted to drive 310 miles in reverse on a remote Outback highway after his transmission failed, blocking his forward gears, police said Friday. The man was stopped by Western Australia state police on Thursday afternoon after they spotted his car roaring in reverse down the highway at about 40 mph, according to a statement.

He was en route to the state capital, Perth, when his transmission failed outside a restaurant in the Outback town of Kalgoorlie, about 300 miles away, according to media reports.

Rather than call a mechanic, the man opted to continue driving, in reverse.

Police said they stopped the man, whose identity was not immediately released, outside the nearby town of Coolgardie, about 12 miles from where his backward journey began.

A breath test for alcohol proved negative, but the man was charged with reckless driving and other traffic offenses, police said. He was ordered to appear before the Coolgardie Magistrates Court on Monday.

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Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat

By PHILIP SHENON and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 2, 2006
The New York Times

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 — A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

The account by Sean McCormack came hours after Ms. Rice, the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did not recall the specific meeting on July 10, 2001, noting that she had met repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was “incomprehensible” she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack also said records show that the Sept. 11 commission was informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday.

When details of the meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, Bush administration officials questioned Mr. Woodward’s reporting.
Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward’s account.

Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff.
According to two former intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those assembled at the White House about the growing body of intelligence the Central Intelligence Agency had collected pointing to an impending Al Qaeda attack. But both current and former officials took issue with Mr. Woodward’s account that Mr. Tenet and his aides left the meeting in frustration, feeling as if Ms. Rice had ignored them.

Mr. Tenet told members of the Sept. 11 commission about the July 10 meeting when they interviewed him in early 2004, but committee members said the former C.I.A. director never indicated he had left the White House with the impression that he had been ignored.
“Tenet never told us that he was brushed off,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the commission. “We certainly would have followed that up.”

Mr. McCormack said the records showed that, far from ignoring Mr. Tenet’s warnings, Ms. Rice acted on the intelligence and requested that Mr. Tenet make the same presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Atttorney General John Ashcroft. But Mr. Ashcroft said by telephone on Monday evening that he never received a briefing that summer from Mr. Tenet. “Frankly, I’m disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing,” he said. “I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by and tell me.”

The dispute that has played out in recent days gives further evidence of an escalating battle between the White House and Mr. Tenet over who should take the blame for such mistakes as the failure to stop the Sept. 11 attacks and assertions by Bush administration officials that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and cultivating ties to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Tenet resigned as director of central intelligence in the summer of 2004 and was honored that December with a Presidential Medal of Freedom during a White House ceremony. Since leaving the C.I.A., Mr. Tenet has stayed out of the public eye, largely declining to defend his record at the C.I.A. even after several government investigations have assailed the faulty intelligence that helped build the case for the Iraq war.

Mr. Tenet is now completing work on a memoir that is scheduled to be published early next year.

It is unclear how muchMr. Tenet will use the book to settle old scores, although recent books have portrayed Mr. Tenet both as dubious about the need for the Iraq war and angry that the White House has made the C.I.A. the primary scapegoat for the war.

In his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” the journalist and author Ron Suskind quotes Mr. Tenet’s former deputy at the C.I.A., John McLaughlin, saying that Mr. Tenet “wishes he could give that damn medal back.”

In his own book, Mr. Woodward wrote that over time Mr. Tenet developed a particular dislike for Ms. Rice, and that the former C.I.A. director was furious when she publicly blamed the agency for allowing President Bush to make the false claim in the 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear materials in Niger.

“If the C.I.A., the Director of National Intelligence, had said ‘take this out of the speech,’ it would have been gone, without question,” Ms. Rice told reporters in July 2003.
In fact, the C.I.A. had told the White House months before that the Niger intelligence was bogus and had managed to keep the claim out of an October 2002 speech that President Bush gave in Cincinnati.

More recently, Mr. Tenet has told friends that he was particularly angry when, appearing recently on Sunday talk shows, both Ms. Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney cited Mr. Tenet by name as the reason that Bush administration officials asserted that Mr. Hussein had stockpiles of banned weapons in Iraq and ties to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Cheney recalled during an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sept. 10 of this year: “George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the president of the United States asked him directly, he said, ‘George, how good is the case against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?’ the director of the C.I.A. said, ‘It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President, it’s a slam dunk.’ ”

Philip Shenon reported from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.


Audio
Back Story: Philip Shenon on Rice’s Mideast Trip (mp3)

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Election Outcome Will Determine Fate of Iraq

by Tom McClanahan

Last week, President Bush declassified key portions of an intelligence analysis to counter leaked versions reported by the press. But as Washington flaps go, this one didn’t amount to much.
For all the headlines, the public version of the document offered little more than any consumer of news with access to the Internet didn’t discern already.

The declassified National Intelligence Estimate said al-Qaida has been seriously damaged, but the threat is becoming more diffuse. The analysts who wrote the document said jihadists were growing in number, but they couldn’t measure the increase with any precision.

More: Iraq, said the analysts, has become a “cause celebre” for jihadists, and the war is “cultivating supporters” of global terrorism.

Naturally, published reports seized on the cause celebre remark, but you’d think this would be obvious. Anywhere the United States invests that much blood and treasure would become a cause celebre for terrorists.

The intelligence estimate also explained why success in Iraq is critical: “Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed … fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.” Somehow, that assertion failed to make the headlines.

The document may have been unsurprising, but its overall gloomy tone was appropriate. Since Sept. 11, the challenge has only deepened.

During the summer, the eminent Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis gave a lecture with a title posing our strategic challenge in stark terms: “Bring Them Freedom, Or They Destroy Us.”
Jihadists led by Osama bin Laden see the current struggle as the continuation of a 1,300-year conflict between Islam and Christianity.

In the most recent phase of the conflict, the world of the infidels was divided between the United States and Soviet Union. From the Muslim point of view, the United States didn’t defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Rather, the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan by jihadists waging holy war.

Lewis says the jihadists were initially disheartened by the strong American response to Sept. 11 and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now they see Americans as deeply divided. With little understanding of how democracies work, they read debate as a sign of weakness.

“Thus,” says Lewis, “they prepare for the final victory, the final triumph and the final jihad.”
With an election looming in November, that’s an appropriate context for viewing the growing anti-war fervor among congressional Democrats.

If Democrats gain control of Congress, the risk is real that they would fatally undermine the Iraq effort by choking off the money — just as they did in the later years of the Vietnam War.

Congressional Democrats remain deeply divided on the war. Some favor immediate withdrawal, some favor timetables and some — a few — continue to back the administration.

But many have adopted a self-fulfilling policy of defeat. They have concluded that success in Iraq is impossible, therefore funding should be cut to ensure that success is impossible. The congressional Out of Iraq Caucus already has 73 members.

Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, told The Hill newspaper that she “wouldn’t spend another dime” on Iraq.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel, a war opponent, would become chairman of the Ways and Means Committee if Democrats take control of the House. He’s a bit more subtle than Woolsey, but his point is the same: “You’ve got to be able to pay for the war, don’t you?” he told The Hill.
For all the mistakes, waste and lost opportunities, voters should understand that at this moment in history, giving Democrats control of Congress could be the same as voting for defeat in Iraq.

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Scientists Form Group to Support Science-Friendly Candidates

From The New York Times, Sept 28

Several prominent scientists said yesterday that they had formed an organization dedicated to electing politicians “who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.”

Organizers of the group, Scientists and Engineers for America, said it would be nonpartisan, but in interviews several said Bush administration science policies had led them to act. The issues they cited included the administration’s position on climate change, its restrictions on stem cell research and delays in authorizing the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception.

In a statement posted on its Web site (www.sefora.org), the group said scientists and engineers had an obligation “to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interest ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.”

The group’s organizers include John H. Gibbons and Neal Lane, who were science advisers in the Clinton administration, the Nobel laureates Peter Agre and Alfred Gilman, and Susan F. Wood, who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration last year to protest the agency’s delay in approving over-the-counter sales of the so-called Plan B emergency contraception.

“The issues we are talking about happen to be issues in which the administration’s record is quite poor,” Dr. Lane said. But he said the goal was to protect “the integrity of science” so that Americans could have confidence in the government’s science-based decisions.

Mike Brown, the group’s executive director, said it would be a 527 organization under tax laws, meaning that it could be involved in electoral politics, and that contributions to the group would not be tax deductible. He said it would focus its resources — Internet advertising, speakers and other events — on races in which science issues play a part.

The group is looking at the Senate race in Virginia between George Allen, the incumbent Republican, and James Webb, a Democrat; a stem cell ballot issue in Missouri; the question of intelligent design in Ohio; and Congressional races in Washington State, Mr. Brown said.

In what it described as a Bill of Rights for scientists and engineers, the group said that researchers who receive federal funds should be free to discuss their work publicly, and that appointments to federal scientific advisory committees should be based on scientific qualifications, not political beliefs. It said the government should not support science education programs that “include concepts that are derived from ideology,” an apparent reference to creationism and its ideological cousin, intelligent design.

And it said the government should not publish false or misleading scientific information, something Dr. Wood said occurred when the National Cancer Institute briefly posted an item on its Web site suggesting that abortion was linked to breast cancer.

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Molly Ivins - R.I.P. Habeus Corpus (1215-2006)

Wednesday 27 September 2006

With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.

Austin, Texas - Oh dear. I'm sure he didn't mean it. In Illinois' Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to "cut and run" on Iraq.

Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. "I just could not believe he would say that to me," said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?

The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of "technical fixes" that were the point of the putative "compromise." It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.

This bill is not a national security issue-this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.

Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The "heart attack" came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had "basically been pulpified," according to the coroner.

The story of why and how it took the Times so long to print this information is in the current edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. The press in general has been late and slow in reporting torture, so very few Americans have any idea how far it has spread. As is often true in hierarchical, top-down institutions, the orders get passed on in what I call the downward communications exaggeration spiral.

For example, on a newspaper, a top editor may remark casually, "Let's give the new mayor a chance to see what he can do before we start attacking him."

This gets passed on as "Don't touch the mayor unless he really screws up."

And it ultimately arrives at the reporter level as "We can't say anything negative about the mayor."

The version of the detainee bill now in the Senate not only undoes much of the McCain-Warner-Graham work, but it is actually much worse than the administration's first proposal. In one change, the original compromise language said a suspect had the right to "examine and respond to" all evidence used against him. The three senators said the clause was necessary to avoid secret trials. The bill has now dropped the word "examine" and left only "respond to."

In another change, a clause said that evidence obtained outside the United States could be admitted in court even if it had been gathered without a search warrant. But the bill now drops the words "outside the United States," which means prosecutors can ignore American legal standards on warrants.

The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has "has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." Quick, define "purposefully and materially." One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.

The bill simply removes a suspect's right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.

As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon "degenerates into a playground for sadists." But not unbridled sadism-you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving "severe pain" and substituted "serious pain," which is defined as "bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain."

In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: "The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit."

Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary-these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law.

I'd like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis.

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The Fine Art of Declassification

It’s hard to think of a president and an administration more devoted to secrecy than President Bush and his team. Except, that is, when it suits Mr. Bush politically to give the public a glimpse of the secrets. And so, yesterday, he ordered the declassification of a fraction of a report by United States intelligence agencies on the global terrorist threat.

Mr. Bush said he wanted to release the document so voters would not be confused about terrorism or the war when they voted for Congressional candidates in November. But the three declassified pages from what is certainly a voluminous report told us what any American with a newspaper, television or Internet connection should already know. The invasion of Iraq was a cataclysmic disaster. The current situation will get worse if American forces leave. Unfortunately, neither the report nor the president provide even a glimmer of a suggestion about how to avoid that inevitable disaster.

Despite what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, have tried to make everyone believe, one of the key findings of the National Intelligence Estimate, which represents the consensus of the 16 intelligence agencies, was indeed that the war in Iraq has greatly increased the threat from terrorism by “shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

It said Iraq has become “the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” It listed the war in Iraq as the second most important factor in the spread of terrorism — after “entrenched grievances such as corruption, injustice and fear of Western domination.” And that was before April, when the report was completed. Since then, things have got much worse. (The report was written before the killing in June of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The authors thought such an event would diminish the danger in Iraq. It has not.)

Mr. Bush decided to release this small, selected chunk of the report in reaction to an article on the intelligence assessment that appeared in The Times over the weekend. As a defense of his policies, it serves only to highlight the maddening circular logic that passes for a White House rationale. It goes like this: The invasion of Iraq has created an entire new army of terrorists who will be emboldened by an American withdrawal. Therefore, the United States has to stay indefinitely and keep fighting those terrorists.

By that logic, the more the United States fights, the longer the war stretches on.

It’s obvious why Mr. Bush did not want this report out, and why it is taking so long for the intelligence agencies to complete another report, solely on Iraq, that was requested by Congress in late July. It’s not credible that more time is needed to do the job. In 2002, the intelligence agencies completed a report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in less time. Mr. Bush also made selected passages of that report public to buttress his arguments for war with Iraq, most of which proved to be based on fairy tales.

Then, Mr. Bush wanted Americans to focus on how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, and not on the obvious consequences of starting a war in the Middle East. Now, he wants voters to focus on how dangerous the world is, and not on his utter lack of ideas for what to do about it.

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The Fine Art of Declassification

It’s hard to think of a president and an administration more devoted to secrecy than President Bush and his team. Except, that is, when it suits Mr. Bush politically to give the public a glimpse of the secrets. And so, yesterday, he ordered the declassification of a fraction of a report by United States intelligence agencies on the global terrorist threat.

Mr. Bush said he wanted to release the document so voters would not be confused about terrorism or the war when they voted for Congressional candidates in November. But the three declassified pages from what is certainly a voluminous report told us what any American with a newspaper, television or Internet connection should already know. The invasion of Iraq was a cataclysmic disaster. The current situation will get worse if American forces leave. Unfortunately, neither the report nor the president provide even a glimmer of a suggestion about how to avoid that inevitable disaster.

Despite what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, have tried to make everyone believe, one of the key findings of the National Intelligence Estimate, which represents the consensus of the 16 intelligence agencies, was indeed that the war in Iraq has greatly increased the threat from terrorism by “shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

It said Iraq has become “the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” It listed the war in Iraq as the second most important factor in the spread of terrorism — after “entrenched grievances such as corruption, injustice and fear of Western domination.” And that was before April, when the report was completed. Since then, things have got much worse. (The report was written before the killing in June of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The authors thought such an event would diminish the danger in Iraq. It has not.)

Mr. Bush decided to release this small, selected chunk of the report in reaction to an article on the intelligence assessment that appeared in The Times over the weekend. As a defense of his policies, it serves only to highlight the maddening circular logic that passes for a White House rationale. It goes like this: The invasion of Iraq has created an entire new army of terrorists who will be emboldened by an American withdrawal. Therefore, the United States has to stay indefinitely and keep fighting those terrorists.

By that logic, the more the United States fights, the longer the war stretches on.

It’s obvious why Mr. Bush did not want this report out, and why it is taking so long for the intelligence agencies to complete another report, solely on Iraq, that was requested by Congress in late July. It’s not credible that more time is needed to do the job. In 2002, the intelligence agencies completed a report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in less time. Mr. Bush also made selected passages of that report public to buttress his arguments for war with Iraq, most of which proved to be based on fairy tales.

Then, Mr. Bush wanted Americans to focus on how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, and not on the obvious consequences of starting a war in the Middle East. Now, he wants voters to focus on how dangerous the world is, and not on his utter lack of ideas for what to do about it.

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Old Agonies, New Fury

It's not too late to salvage a rapidly deteriorating situation, diplomats say, but more troops will be needed.

MALEK DIN, Afghanistan Bravo Company knew its quarry was here, somewhere. The soldiers could hear Taliban fighters radio one another, tracking every step the Americans took through the rutted tracks, mud-walled compounds and parched orchards of the Afghan outback.

Yet in three tense, sweat-soaked days of blasting open doors, digging up ammo caches and quizzing tight-lipped villagers, the GIs never found a single Taliban fighter.

“They just hide their weapons and become farmers,” muttered one 10th Mountain Division officer, nodding at turbaned men glowering from the shade of a nearby wall.

Afghanistan has become Iraq on a slow burn. Five years after they were ousted, the Taliban are back, their ranks renewed by a new generation of diehards. Violence, opium trafficking, ethnic tensions and political corruption and anarchy are all worse.

The diversion of troops and resources to Iraq — including many assigned to hunt down Osama bin Laden — is seen by critics of the Bush administration as leaving the door open to a Taliban comeback.

Only 22,000 U.S. and nearly that many NATO-led troops are trying to secure a country half again the size of Iraq, where 150,000 coalition troops are deployed.

Suicide bombings have soared from two in all of 2002 to about one every five days. Civilian casualties are mounting. President Hamid Karzai has become unpopular.

“The Americans made promises that they haven’t carried out, like bringing security, rebuilding the country and eradicating poverty,” said Nasir Ahmad, hawking secondhand clothes in Kabul’s main bazaar. “Karzai is an irresponsible person. He is just a figurehead.”

Senior U.S., European and Afghan officials, diplomats and military commanders said it’s not too late to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist base camp again. But containing the crisis will require more troops, attention and energy.

“The challenge we face is not of a military nature,” Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said on Sept. 21. “The critical task at this stage is strengthening the government of Afghanistan, developing the economy and building Afghan civil society.

The Pentagon had planned to withdraw some U.S. forces, but Eikenberry, now sees no cuts before next year.

If American and NATO forces left, warned Police Gen. Gullam Jan, “the Taliban would come back in a week.”

James Dobbins, who was President Bush’s special envoy to Afghanistan, said the administration dismissed European offers of a major peacekeeping force after the U.S. intervention and quickly began shifting military assets to invade Iraq.

The White House “resisted the whole concept of peacekeeping,” said Dobbins. “They wanted to demonstrate a different approach, one that would be much lower cost. So the decision to skimp on manpower and deploy one-fiftieth the troops as were deployed in Bosnia was accompanied by a decision to underplay economic assistance.”

He noted that Congress wasn’t asked for reconstruction money until a year after Afghanistan was invaded. “Much of the money didn’t show up for years. And not only were the actual sums relatively small, but with the failure to establish even a modicum of security in the countryside, there was no way to spend it.”

Bush acknowledged Tuesday that the Taliban and other extremists “have tried to regain control, mostly in the south of Afghanistan. And so we’ve adjusted tactics and we’re on the offense to meet the threat and to defeat the threat….

“I know there’s some in your country who wonder or not — whether or not America has got the will to do the hard work necessary to help you succeed,” Bush told Karzai at the White House. “We have got that will, and we’re proud of you as a partner.”

The majority of Afghanistan’s 31 million people oppose the Taliban, which banned women from working and girls from attending school, enforced a puritanical form of Islamic government that included public floggings and executions, and fought a bloody civil war in the mid-1990s with the country’s Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek minorities.

But the Taliban scattered the warlords and established a kind of peace in much of the country, however repressive. Now, many yearn for a return of the security that the radicals provided.
Many Afghans also have grown disgusted with Karzai, who rarely leaves his heavily fortified palace in Kabul.

“The insurgency is developing all over,” warned Zia Mojaddedi, a senior member of Karzai’s national security council. “It is still not lost. They are not strong. But we are weak. We are corrupt.”

While the Taliban uprising has been focused in the southern homeland of the ethnic Pashtuns, their reach and that of allied Islamic groups and criminal gangs now extend to more than half the country.

In the southeast, troops face daily ambushes and hidden explosives. Operations end up building sympathy for the Taliban among the conservative Pashtun.

“Four or five times the Americans have searched my house,” Mohammad Akram, a wizened cleric, complained in one village. “They shoot at us. If the Americans have proof that I am with the bad guys, show me the proof. The Americans dishonor our homes.”

He waved at about 200 villagers. “The Taliban and al-Qaida are probably here right now. These people will support them because the government has done nothing for them.”

Lt. David Patton agrees that the Taliban are probably there. His unit found itself fighting for its life in the area a week earlier. “They basically trapped us. I had nine guys and it was a two-hour firefight.”

Since January, 158 U.S. soldiers and troops of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force have died, against 130 in 2005. Perhaps 1,500 Afghans died as well.

The administration notes how Afghanistan now has a democratic constitution, and elections have been held for president, parliament and provincial councils.

Reconstruction has gone forward in the north, center and west, where the Taliban strike but aren’t entrenched. Some 6 million children attend school, more than 1,800 miles of road have been built, and electricity, irrigation, bridges and health clinics are going in.

But in the south, the International Security Assistance Force is unable to kick-start reconstruction because of the fighting.

Until the international force arrrived, no more than 3,000 U.S. troops were deployed there. Instead, most Pentagon manpower focused on hunting al-Qaida along the border with Pakistan.
The result has been “to a large degree a vacuum,” said a senior official with the international force. “When the Taliban was pushed out (in 2001), they were neither replaced by effective government, nor were they replaced by alternative security forces. NATO is now dealing with the consequences of previous failures in policy.”

The guerrillas assassinate officials and pro-government Muslim religious leaders, undermining the efforts to extend Kabul’s authority. Anyone suspected of informing or even not sharing the Taliban’s radical vision of Islam is at peril.

Large sections of the nation’s main highway have become unsafe, and at least 300 schools are burned or closed.

Guerrillas appear openly in Kandahar, the Pashtun spiritual and cultural capital. Taliban suicide-bomber cells have infiltrated Kabul.

They and their leaders operate from Pakistan, aided by al-Qaida, radical Islamic parties and even elements in Pakistan government who want to keep Afghanistan weak.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf insists he’s doing everything possible to crack down but has never arrested any Taliban leaders.

As in Iraq, the U.S. exit strategy for Afghanistan hinges on building the army and police.
The Afghan army has about 30,000 troops who participate in operations with U.S. and international forces. But they lack basic equipment — helmets, radios and armored vehicles — and rely on U.S. and other foreign funds for their salaries.

Police issues are worse.

“If a Talib comes across the border and encounters the police, he says, ‘Here are 5,000 Afghanis (about $100). We are going to fight the infidels. We have weapons and rockets. Take this 5,000 Afghanis and get lost,’ ” Mojaddedi said.

Desertions, Taliban infiltration, massive equipment theft, nepotism, low pay, incompetence, recruiting woes and corruption have forced reform of the Afghan National Police to grind to a halt, said Jan, Mojaddedi and U.S officials involved.

“Many of the people of Afghanistan are on the fence right now,” Marine Gen. James Jones, NATO’s top commander, said. “If military action is not followed by visible, tangible, sizable and correctly focused reconstruction and development efforts, then we will be in Afghanistan for a much longer period of time than we need to be.”

Some pertinent data points:

22,000 U.S. forces; NATO forces add 20,000 and the Afghan army adds 30,000
12,000 Taliban’s estimate of own strength
1,600 Estimated civilians dead this year
158 Allied soldiers killed this year, up from 130 in 2005
15 Missouri and Kansas casualties since 2001

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Duty in Iraq gets extended

One combat team must stay 46 more days, and another group will be sent back early.

By DREW BROWN
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON For the second time in two months, an Army unit in Iraq has seen its tour of duty extended. It was the latest sign of the strain that more than three years of combat have put on the force.

About 4,000 troops with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, based in Giessen, Germany, will see their tour of duty extended by 46 days, the military announced Monday. The unit was supposed to end its 12-month combat tour and return home in mid-January 2007, but will now begin its redeployment in late February.

The extension was implemented to ensure that soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, will have at least 12 months at their home base of Fort Stewart, Ga., before they return to Iraq for the third time in January 2007.

Also, the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas, will deploy to Iraq 30 days earlier than planned.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the changes were in order to maintain 15 combat brigades in Iraq. Last week Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, said that the U.S. military would have to maintain as many as 147,000 troops in Iraq through next spring.
U.S. military commanders had hoped to reduce the number of U.S. troops to less than 100,000 by the end of this year, but increasing violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims has dashed those hopes.

“What these decisions reflect is the flexibility that the United States military has to adjust to a changing environment and a changing situation,” Whitman said.

A congressional staffer briefed on the development said that the Army was moving up the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division troops by a month so that the 172nd Stryker Brigade’s deployment wouldn’t be extended again. But an Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Carl Ey, said the two developments weren’t necessarily connected.

This marks the third time that U.S. forces have been notified that they’d have to stay in Iraq beyond their original return date. The first time occurred in December 2004, when more than 12,000 soldiers and Marines were told that they would have to stay for two additional months in order to bolster security for Iraq’s parliamentary elections. The second was the Stryker Brigade extension in July.

Last month the Marine Corps announced that it would recall as many as 2,500 inactive reservists, the first time the Marines have recalled inactive reservists to duty since the 1991 Gulf War.

To reach Drew Brown, send e-mail to dbrown@ mcclatchydc.com.

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Rice challenges Clinton on terror record

NEW YORK - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenged former President Clinton's claim that he did more than many of his conservative critics to pursue Osama bin Laden, and she accused President Bush's predecessor of leaving no comprehensive plan to fight al-Qaida.
"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice said Monday during a meeting with editors and reporters at the New York Post.

The newspaper published her comments Tuesday, after Clinton appeared on "Fox News Sunday" in a combative interview in which he defended his handling of the threat posed by bin Laden and said he "worked hard" to have the al-Qaida leader killed.

"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try."

Rice disputed his assessment.

"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," she said.

Rice took exception to Clinton's statement that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for incoming officials when he left office.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida," she told the newspaper, which is owned by News Corp., which also owns Fox News Channel.

In the TV interview, Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a "conservative hit job" and asked: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' I want to know how many people you asked, 'Why did you fire Dick Clarke?'"

He was referring to the USS Cole, attacked by terrorists in Yemen in 2000, and former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke.

Rice said Clarke "left when he did not become deputy director of homeland security."
The interview has been the focus of much attention - drawing nearly 1.2 million views on YouTube and earning the show its best ratings in nearly three years.

Rice questioned the value of the dialogue.

"I think this is not a very fruitful discussion," she said. "We've been through it. The 9/11 commission has turned over every rock and we know exactly what they said."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., defended her husband. "I just think that my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take this," she told Newsday on Monday.

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Blunt opts for new plan

The governor blames the attorney general for foiling a proposal to fund a building boom.
By KIT WAGAR
The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent

With the specter of lawsuits hovering over the deal, Gov. Matt Blunt on Monday dropped his effort to force the partial sale of Missouri’s student loan agency.

Blunt’s office said he would support a new plan that would ask the legislature to approve the transfer of $350 million from the independent student loan authority to the state to finance a building boom at state universities.

The decision was a sharp about-face by Blunt, who has insisted for eight months that his plan to go it alone and push the deal through the board of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority was legal and financially sound.

Blunt’s spokesman, Spence Jackson, said the change of heart was prompted by the possibility of board members balking at approving the latest deal. Their reluctance stemmed from concern that they would be sued by Attorney General Jay Nixon or others, Jackson said.
Nixon had warned board members in a Sept. 6 letter that state law required the loan authority’s assets to be used only to help students obtain low-cost college loans. His staff also warned board members that they could be held liable for violating their fiduciary duty if they took action not in the loan authority’s interest.

In announcing his reversal, Blunt sounded a defiant tone, blaming Nixon for foiling his plan. He called Nixon’s objections politically motivated, reckless and irresponsible.
Jackson went even further, saying Nixon’s “narcissistic obsession with legal threats has board members rightly in fear of his abuse of office.”

In a low-key statement, Nixon emphasized his twin demands: public participation in any divestiture of loan authority assets and a comprehensive analysis of any proposal to ensure that the plan is legal and would not leave the loan authority bankrupt.

“Sending the MoHELA proposal back to the General Assembly for consideration provides the necessary opportunity for public input,” Nixon said. “It is essential that the legislature also demand the analysis that was promised on the impact of this deal on Missouri families’ access to higher education.”

Blunt’s plan has gone through a half-dozen versions in efforts to answer Nixon’s complaints that the plan could raise the cost of student loans, that it represented an illegal transfer of a nonprofit agency’s assets and that it could bankrupt the loan authority.

Blunt’s latest plan attempted to address the financial concerns by shrinking the amount of money the loan authority would transfer. The legal concerns were addressed by calling the transfer a “cooperation agreement” among state agencies rather than a gift to the state.
But the latest plan has been unraveling slowly ever since Blunt unveiled it Aug. 28. Details in the agreement kept changing, and Nixon again criticized the way the plan was developed without public comment.

The plan was scheduled to be approved by the loan authority’s board Sept. 8. But it was pushed back to Sept. 27 after several board members expressed concerns about the possibility their vote could violate their duty to the loan authority.

Three board members abruptly resigned last week. Blunt replaced them, but it put the new members in the position of voting on a multibillion-dollar transaction after being on the board less than a week.

Greg Steinhoff, director of Missouri’s Economic Development Department, said the new plan makes the cooperation agreement effective only upon approval of the legislature. Lawmakers would grant approval by changing state law to expand the loan authority’s mandate to include the payments required under the new plan.

That is the course that Nixon had recommended since early this year. But Blunt administration officials insisted that their change of direction was not an acknowledgment that Nixon was right. Such a move would simply insulate board members from unfounded accusations that they had violated their duty, they said.

“It’s an acknowledgment that Nixon’s bullying tactics scared some board members, and we are taking action to protect them against a school-yard bully,” Jackson said.

To reach Kit Wagar, call (816) 234-4440 or send e-mail to kwagar@kcstar.com.

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Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat by Mark Mazzetti

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.
The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.
The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.

Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion.
Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”
That document makes only passing mention of the impact the Iraq war has had on the global jihad movement. “The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry,” it states.

The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, “exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies.”
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a more ominous report about the terrorist threat. That assessment, based entirely on unclassified documents, details a growing jihad movement and says, “Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.”

The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article.

The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.
It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.

In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership.

But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism.

In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate’s conclusions in public speeches.

“New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field.
Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations.

The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.
The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.”

More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.”

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Voter ID arguments set for Oct. 4

JEFFERSON CITY The battle over Missouri’s voter identification law is heading quickly to the state’s highest court.

The Missouri Supreme Court Thursday set Oct. 4 as a date to hear arguments in the case.
A Cole County judge last week threw out the law, which required voters to present state-issued photo IDs at the polls.

Circuit Judge Richard Callahan declared the law to be an infringement of the fundamental right to vote, ruling that the law placed an extra burden on the elderly, poor, minorities, women and others who have a harder time obtaining a state-issued ID.

In appealing the ruling, Attorney General Jay Nixon’s office Thursday asked the state Supreme Court to put the case on a fast track as the Nov. 7 general election approaches.
“Changing rules in the weeks leading up to an election is problematic,” Nixon’s office wrote in the appeal. “Voters need certainty as to what the requirements for voting will be. Also, election authorities need to be able to train poll workers and election judges with a single set of requirements. The alternative will assure confusion for voters and poll workers, resulting in chaos on Election Day.”

The high court agreed to set a hearing for Oct. 4, the same day it will hear an appeal of a ruling that forced a proposed cigarette tax increase back on the Nov. 7 ballot.

Also Thursday, Callahan denied efforts to allow the state to continue to issue free non-driver’s license photo identification cards to prospective voters. When Callahan threw out the voter ID law, the Department of Revenue said that, as of Monday, it stopped issuing the free IDs to voters as required by the law.

The agency began charging $11 for the IDs.

Nixon’s office asked the judge to clarify his ruling as to whether it prevented the Department of Revenue from issuing the free IDs. Callahan denied the motion.

To reach Tim Hoover, call 1-(573)-634-3565 or send e-mail to thoover@kcstar.com.

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MOHELA Gaining Proper Authority

By HENRY J. WATERS III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune
Published Tuesday, September 19, 2006

On Sept. 27 the board of directors of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority is scheduled to vote on the controversial plan to sell part of its portfolio to finance college and university capital projects around the state.

Gov. Matt Blunt insists this action is legal and financially sound. It would provide some $335 million for campus buildings and $15 million to translate university research into commercial projects. At the same time, because of ongoing bonding authority promised by the Department of Economic Development, he says the ability of MOHELA to provide low-cost student loans will not be impaired.

Attorney General Jay Nixon and others question whether the governor or the board has the authority to do any such thing without action by the Missouri General Assembly. Count me among this band of skeptics. Yet the governor refuses to send the matter to the legislature, and lawmakers acquiesce.

If the deed is done unilaterally, it will represent an excessive assumption of executive power and almost certainly will invite a lawsuit. A court will enjoin the MOHELA board from proceeding and, in my view, probably find no authority in the original statute passed by the legislature creating MOHELA.

Judging from a plain reading of the legal language one would believe proceeds of the loan authority can be used only for student loan purposes, not college buildings. If the agency’s authority is to be broadened to accommodate Blunt’s plan, an option worth serious consideration, the legislature should do it.

General Nixon says four of the seven MOHELA board members might have conflicts of interest laying them open to individual lawsuits. They represent education institutions that would receive transfers of money if MOHELA assets were sold. This possible danger would be mitigated if the board has legislative authority to proceed.

In recent days MOHELA staff members have tried to show the complicated deal would not interfere with student loan benefits. This is a debate worth having, but until the loan agency has the legal ability to do the deal at all, it is moot. To clarify this ability, legislative action should be undertaken.

Finally, legislative prerogative should be preserved and exercised. Lawmakers should have asserted their role in this matter instead of letting the administration go for it alone.
If MOHELA and the governor send this matter to the General Assembly before taking further action, they might well hurry rather than hinder the process. With proper enabling legislation, the deal can go forward without lawsuit delays and the real possibility of a permanent courtroom injunction.

In a monarchy, the king and his court get to make decisions like this unilaterally. In a democracy, the legislature has a co-equal role. In the MOHELA question, the legislature has not yet performed its duty.

I hope the funds finally will be available for capital projects on campuses without harming MOHELA functions, but to accomplish this end most surely proper governance process must be followed. Otherwise, it’s a fool’s errand.

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MOHELA Gaining Proper Authority

By HENRY J. WATERS III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune
Published Tuesday, September 19, 2006

On Sept. 27 the board of directors of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority is scheduled to vote on the controversial plan to sell part of its portfolio to finance college and university capital projects around the state.

Gov. Matt Blunt insists this action is legal and financially sound. It would provide some $335 million for campus buildings and $15 million to translate university research into commercial projects. At the same time, because of ongoing bonding authority promised by the Department of Economic Development, he says the ability of MOHELA to provide low-cost student loans will not be impaired.

Attorney General Jay Nixon and others question whether the governor or the board has the authority to do any such thing without action by the Missouri General Assembly. Count me among this band of skeptics. Yet the governor refuses to send the matter to the legislature, and lawmakers acquiesce.

If the deed is done unilaterally, it will represent an excessive assumption of executive power and almost certainly will invite a lawsuit. A court will enjoin the MOHELA board from proceeding and, in my view, probably find no authority in the original statute passed by the legislature creating MOHELA.

Judging from a plain reading of the legal language one would believe proceeds of the loan authority can be used only for student loan purposes, not college buildings. If the agency’s authority is to be broadened to accommodate Blunt’s plan, an option worth serious consideration, the legislature should do it.

General Nixon says four of the seven MOHELA board members might have conflicts of interest laying them open to individual lawsuits. They represent education institutions that would receive transfers of money if MOHELA assets were sold. This possible danger would be mitigated if the board has legislative authority to proceed.

In recent days MOHELA staff members have tried to show the complicated deal would not interfere with student loan benefits. This is a debate worth having, but until the loan agency has the legal ability to do the deal at all, it is moot. To clarify this ability, legislative action should be undertaken.

Finally, legislative prerogative should be preserved and exercised. Lawmakers should have asserted their role in this matter instead of letting the administration go for it alone.
If MOHELA and the governor send this matter to the General Assembly before taking further action, they might well hurry rather than hinder the process. With proper enabling legislation, the deal can go forward without lawsuit delays and the real possibility of a permanent courtroom injunction.

In a monarchy, the king and his court get to make decisions like this unilaterally. In a democracy, the legislature has a co-equal role. In the MOHELA question, the legislature has not yet performed its duty.

I hope the funds finally will be available for capital projects on campuses without harming MOHELA functions, but to accomplish this end most surely proper governance process must be followed. Otherwise, it’s a fool’s errand.

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3 Depart Board as Key Vote Looms

Multiple resignations are the latest predicament for the proposal. One spot has been filled.
By KIT WAGAR, The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent

Gov. Matt Blunt’s staff was scrambling Tuesday after three board members resigned from Missouri’s student loan agency days before a vote on whether to give the state $350 million.
The loss of three people from the seven-member board of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority raised doubts about Blunt’s plan to use the agency’s money to pay for a building spree at college campuses. Four affirmative votes would be needed to approve the plan, but one board member is on record as opposing it.

The board is scheduled to consider Blunt’s plan on Sept. 27. Blunt moved to plug one hole Tuesday by appointing St. Louis banker Tom Reeves to serve the last 33 days of an unexpired term on the board. But officials conceded that they have no way of knowing whether Reeves will feel comfortable voting for a multibillion-dollar transaction at his first board meeting.
The multiple resignations were the latest twist in the saga that has gripped the loan authority since January, when Blunt first proposed selling the agency to raise money for life sciences buildings and other improvements at state universities.

Blunt has touted the plan as a way to improve university research and the educational opportunities for Missouri students. But critics — most notably Attorney General Jay Nixon — have called the plan an illegal diversion of funds that would ultimately increase the cost of college for Missouri students.

The latest predicament arose Monday when two loan authority board members resigned. Charles McClain automatically was off the board when he cited health reasons for stepping down as commissioner of higher education, effective at the end of this week.

Marilyn Bush, an executive with Bank of America in St. Louis, cited the upcoming vote on Blunt’s plan as the reason for her resignation. Bush wrote that since her term would expire next month, she wanted to “allow a new member who would serve on the board for the next four years to be given the opportunity to consider and vote on this matter.”

And James Ricks, a management professor at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, resigned Tuesday. His resignation letter was not available, but he previously had indicated he would probably abstain from voting because his employer would receive some of the benefits from the plan.

Blunt’s office announced Tuesday afternoon that the governor had appointed Reeves to replace Bush. Reeves is president of Pulaski Bank, based in Creve Coeur. By law, two of the agency’s board members represent lending institutions.

Raymond Bayer Jr., the loan authority’s executive director, said he set aside four hours today to meet with Reeves and go over Blunt’s plan in detail. Bayer said the loan authority’s management team has endorsed the plan, but the final decision lies with the board.
“I’m going to give Reeves a mountain of paperwork and provide him with everything he needs to make an informed decision,” Bayer said. Like all board members, Reeves will “need to look at the proposal and vote in the best interest of MoHELA,” Bayer said.

The new funding plan requires the loan authority to pay the state $30.3 million immediately and an additional $180 million within six months. That would be followed by payment of $140 million in quarterly installments for six years.

The state would use the money to build research facilities and business incubators at state universities, including an $85 million health sciences center at the University of Missouri-Columbia and $18.4 million for new buildings and equipment at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Only one board member, retired banker John Greer from Marshfield, Mo., has publicly opposed the plan. He said Tuesday that the diversion of funds into university building projects violated the loan authority’s mission, which is to provide low-cost loans to college students.
“This is a money-grab, the biggest money-grab I’ve ever seen,” Greer said, comparing it to the robbery of a Brink’s armored car. “Tax money should go for buildings, not MoHELA money.”
The plan might be good for the state, but it would not be good for the loan authority or for college students, who would see higher interest rates and fewer loan-forgiveness programs, he said.

“They say they are doing these building projects without raising taxes,” Greer said. “But someone is being taxed — it’s the students … It will mean less loan forgiveness for students who were called away and are now fighting in Iraq. We always had plans to increase those programs, and there is no way this plan won’t affect that.”

To reach Kit Wagar, call (816) 234-4440 or send e-mail to kwagar@kcstar.com.

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National Guard provission dropped

Bond and Leahy had sought to give the Guard a say in key Pentagon decisions.By LYDIA GENSHEIMER The Kansas City Star

Sen. Kit Bond’s efforts to enhance the National Guard’s status at the Pentagon was set back when House-Senate conference leaders pulled his provision from a defense bill.
The dropped provision, co-sponsored by Bond, a Republican, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, would have elevated the Guard chief to a four-star general and required that the No. 2 position in the U.S. Northern Command be a member of the National Guard. Bond has argued that the Guard has been shut out of key decision-making.

“They have supported us in the global war on terror, and the National Guard has earned a promotion,” Bond said. “It’s time the Guard had a seat at the table when plans are being made.”
The conference report on the Defense Authorization Bill also is expected to include a provision allowing the president more control over the National Guard, giving him power to call the Guard to action — without governors’ consent — in an event such as a natural disaster. Leahy said the bill now stands as a double setback for the Guard.

Thousands of National Guard members signed petitions presented Tuesday afternoon to Bond and Leahy. Both senators say they are still pushing for a change in the bill’s language.
A conference report is expected in the next several days, however, and a House vote is possible by the end of the week.

To reach Lydia Gensheimer, call 1-(202) 383-6011 or send e-mail to lgensheimer @mcclatchydc.com.

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