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2006 Noteworthy News History Archive
Noteworthy News - Noteworthy Archive - 2007 Noteworthy News
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2006 Noteworthy News:

20061222

Noteworthy - Japan- US - World - Auto - Technology - Workers - Politics - History - Fuel - "Toyota’s Sales Projections Show It Surpassing G.M.." ... "Toyota Motor said today it plans to sell 9.34 million vehicles next year, a figure that analysts said would put it ahead of troubled General Motors as the world’s largest auto company." ... "Toyota reported global group sales this year of 8.8 million cars and trucks, below G.M.’s 2006 sales forecast of 9.2 million vehicles. But the figures released today showed the two rival car giants on starkly different trajectories, with Toyota expecting to add a half million vehicle sales next year, at a time when G.M. is shuttering plants and laying off workers." ... "Surpassing G.M. would be a crowning achievement for Toyota, a company that got its start in the 1930s by reverse-engineering G.M. and Ford cars, and that spent decades catching up with Detroit. It would also end G.M.’s 81-year reign over the global auto industry, and mark another step in the rise of Asian carmakers." ... "Analysts also said reaching the top would not exhaust Toyota’s opportunities for growth. They said Toyota will continue to gain in the American market, where higher gas prices have increased the popularity of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles." ... "Toyota’s rise would also prove a victory of sorts for its unique corporate culture, the so-called Toyota Way, which is rooted in an obsession with craftsmanship and constant improvement, or “kaizen.”" -By Martin Fackler -NYTimes

20061211

US - Iraq - Military - Police - Terrorism- Religion - Intelligence - Politics- Analysis - "Intensified Combat on Streets Likely." ... "President Bush's plan to send tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi reinforcements to Baghdad to jointly confront Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias is likely to touch off a more dangerous phase of the war, featuring months of fighting in the streets of the Iraqi capital, current and former military officials warned." ... "The prospect of a more intense battle in the Iraqi capital could put U.S. military commanders in exactly the sort of tough urban fight that war planners strove to avoid during the spring 2003 invasion of the country. The plan to partner U.S. and Iraqi units may compel American soldiers to rely on questionable Iraqi army and police forces as never before. And while the president insisted there is no timetable associated with the troop increase, military officials said sustaining it for more than a few months would place a major new strain on U.S. forces that already are feeling burdened by an unexpectedly long and difficult war." ... "Most of all, the White House's insistence on confronting all insurgents and militias, both Sunni and Shiite, may mean that the U.S. military will wind up fighting the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. That militia is estimated by some U.S. intelligence officials to have grown over the past year to about 60,000 fighters, and some in the Pentagon consider it more militarily effective than the Iraqi army." -By Thomas E. Ricks and Ann Scott Tyson -WashingtonPost

20061205

US - Iraq- Afghanistan - Government - Military - Technology - Money - Politics - People - Flying - Vehicles - Alabama - "U.S. Army Battling To Save Equipment: Gear Piles Up at Depots, Awaiting Repair." ... "Field upon field of more than 1,000 battered M1 tanks, howitzers and other armored vehicles sit amid weeds here at the 15,000-acre Anniston Army Depot [Alabama] -- the idle, hulking formations symbolic of an Army that is wearing out faster than it is being rebuilt." ... "The Army and Marine Corps have sunk more than 40 percent of their ground combat equipment into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to government data. An estimated $17 billion-plus worth of military equipment is destroyed or worn out each year, blasted by bombs, ground down by desert sand and used up to nine times the rate in times of peace. The gear is piling up at depots such as Anniston, waiting to be repaired." ... "The depletion of major equipment such as tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and especially helicopters and armored Humvees has left many military units in the United States without adequate training gear, officials say. Partly as a result of the shortages, many U.S. units are rated "unready" to deploy, officials say, raising alarm in Congress and concern among military leaders at a time when Iraq strategy is under review by the White House and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group." ... "Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, is lobbying hard for more money to repair what he calls the "holes" in his force, saying current war funding is inadequate to make the Army "well." Asked in a congressional hearing this past summer whether he was comfortable with the readiness levels of non-deployed Army units, Schoomaker replied: "No."" ... "Despite the work piling up, the Army's depots have been operating at about half their capacity because of a lack of funding for repairs." -By Ann Scott Tyson -WashingtonPost

20061108

Noteworthy - Secret - US - Iraq - Iran - Religious - Terrorism - Military - Intelligence - History - "Gates’ CIA Past Could Haunt Him in Confirmation Hearings." ... "President Bush’s pick to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld with former CIA Director Robert Gates is an odd one, considering it’s almost certain to revive festering questions about the Bush administration’s handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq." ... "In early 1987, his role in the so-called Iran-Contra affair, a secret White House operation to sell weapons to radical Islamic Iran in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages — and cash for CIA-backed rebels in Nicaragua — came under scrutiny." ... "Then, in during his 1991 nomination hearings to run the CIA, Gates ran into a buzz saw of testimony from a former agency analyst who said that during the 1980s Gates had skewered intelligence to fit the convictions of senior Reagan administration officials that Soviet agents had concocted a plot to assassinate the pope and were arming and encouraging Marxist revolutionary groups to carry out terrorist attacks." ... "Both theories turned out to be wrong, according Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl, who headed a team of CIA analysts assigned the task of investigating the theory." ... "Senior former CIA analyst Mel Goodman charged Gates with a number of improprieties, including “the imposition of intelligence judgments, often over the protests of the consensus in the Directorate of Intelligence, to slant intelligence . . . suppression of intelligence that didn’t support the Casey agenda . . . (and) use of the Directorate of Operations to slant intelligence of the Directorate of Intelligence.”" -By Jeff Stein -CQ.com

20061103

Secret - US - Iraq - Nuclear - Government - Military - Intelligence - Internet - Archive - History - Hoekstra - Michigan - Roberts - Kansas - Legislation - Politics - "U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer." ... "Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein." ... "But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb." ... "Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”" ... "Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures." ... "The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs." ... "The director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence officials felt implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of government analysts. But President Bush approved the site’s creation after Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents’ release." ... "The campaign for the Web site was led by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Peter Hoekstra [Republican] of Michigan. Last November, he and his Senate counterpart, Pat Roberts [Republican] of Kansas, wrote to Mr. Negroponte, asking him to post the Iraqi material." (1, 2, 3) -By William J. Broad with contributions by Scott Shane -NYTimes

20061102

Noteworthy - US - Iraq- Military - Intelligence - Politics - History - "Bush owes troops an apology, not Kerry: Olbermann: Bush 'appearing to be stupid' about Kerry's joke." ... "A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America." ... "You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political; to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn't about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either, that the insult, in fact, is you." ... "So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans' deliberate distortions." ... "Thus, the president will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?" ... "This president must apologize to the troops for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, "look like just a comma."" ... "This president must apologize to the troops because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong." ... "This president must apologize to the troops for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence at a banquet while our troops were in harm's way." ... "This president must apologize to the troops because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators." ... "This president must apologize to the troops because his administration ran out of "plan" after barely two months." ... "This president must apologize to the troops for getting 2,815 of them killed." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Keith Olbermann -MSNBC

20061024

Noteworthy - US - Guantanamo Bay - Cuba - Military - Intelligence - Torture - Terrorism - Prison - Religion - People - War Crimes - Law Enforcement - Politics - "Can the '20th hijacker' of Sept. 11 stand trial? Aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo may prevent his prosecution." ... "Mohammed al-Qahtani, detainee No. 063, was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores. He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water. He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator squatted over his Koran." ... "That much is known. These details were among the findings of the U.S. Army's investigation of al-Qahtani's aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." ... "But only now is a picture emerging of how the interrogation policy developed, and the battle that law enforcement agents waged, inside Guantanamo and in the offices of the Pentagon, against harsh treatment of al-Qahtani and other detainees by military intelligence interrogators." ... "In interviews with MSNBC.com - the first time they have spoken publicly -former senior law enforcement agents described their attempts to stop the abusive interrogations. The agents of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, working to build legal cases against suspected terrorists, said they objected to coercive tactics used by a separate team of intelligence interrogators soon after Guantanamo's prison camp opened in early 2002. They ultimately carried their battle up to the office of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who approved the more aggressive techniques to be used on al-Qahtani and others." ... "Although they believed the abusive techniques were probably illegal, the Pentagon cops said their objection was practical. They argued that abusive interrogations were not likely to produce truthful information, either for preventing more al-Qaida attacks or prosecuting terrorists." ... "And they described their disappointment when military prosecutors told them not to worry about making a criminal case against al-Qahtani, the suspected "20th hijacker" of Sept. 11, because what had been done to him would prevent him from ever being put on trial." ... "Defense Department e-mails seen by MSNBC.com show that a delegation visiting Guantanamo on Sept. 25, 2002, included Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now attorney general; David S. Addington, legal counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, now his chief of staff; Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel; William Haynes III, the Pentagon general counsel; Larry Thompson, then deputy attorney general; Christopher A. Wray, the principal associate deputy attorney general, now head of Criminal Division at the Justice Department; and John Yoo, a lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who reportedly had just helped write an Aug. 1, 2002, "torture memo" to Gonzales, defining torture narrowly as causing pain equivalent to organ failure or death." ... "The visiting VIPs met with Gen. Dunlavey and his staff, but not with any of the law enforcement investigators who opposed the aggressive interrogations." ... "Under the Military Commissions Act signed last week by President Bush, statements made under torture would not be admissible in a military trial." ... "But the law says a military judge could accept statements made under coercion. A court may have to decide which category, torture or coercion, encompasses such techniques as a fake trip to Egypt, sleep deprivation, and being forced to do dog tricks. The new law also extends legal protection from prosecution for war crimes to any U.S. personnel who used coercive tactics, if they believed in good faith that what they were doing was lawful." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Bill Dedman -MSNBC

20061022

Secret - Electronic - Voting Machines - Company - Hackers - Technology - Election 2006 - Politics- Maryland - "Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections: Researchers, Candidates Have Little Confidence in Machines Designed to Make Elections Easier to Call." ... "Cheryl Kagan, a former Maryland Democratic legislator, was shocked when she opened her mail Wednesday morning." ... "Inside, she discovered three computer discs. With them was an anonymous letter saying the discs contained the secret source code for vote-counting that could be used to alter the votes cast through Maryland's new electronic voting machines." ... ""My understanding is that with these disks a malicious person could skew the outcome of an election," Kagan said." ... "Diebold, the company that makes the voting machines, told ABC News, "These discs do not alter the security of the Diebold touch-screen system in any way," because election workers can set their own passwords." ... "But ABC News has obtained an independent report commissioned by the state of Maryland and conducted by Science Applications International Corporation revealing that the original Diebold factory passwords are still being used on many voting machines." ... "The SAIC study also shows myriad other security flaws, including administrative over-ride passwords that cannot be changed by local officials but can be used by hackers or those who have seen the discs." (1, 2) -By Jake Tapper, Rebecca Abrahams, and Eduardo Sunol -ABCNEWS.com

20061017

Secret - Military - Terrorism - Torture - Prisons - Legislation - Religious - Civil Liberties - History - Politics - "Bush Signs Terror Interrogation Law." ... "President Bush signed legislation Tuesday authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions, calling it a "vital tool" in the war against terrorism." ... "Bush's plan for treatment of the terror suspects became law just six weeks after he acknowledged that the CIA had been secretly interrogating suspected terrorists overseas and pressed Congress to quickly give authority to try them in military commissions." ... "A coalition of religious groups staged a protest against the bill outside the White House, shouting "Bush is the terrorist" and "Torture is a crime." About 15 of the protesters, standing in a light rain, refused orders to move. Police arrested them one by one." ... "The law protects detainees from blatant abuses during questioning - such as rape, torture and "cruel and inhuman" treatment - but does not require that any of them be granted legal counsel. Also, it specifically bars detainees from filing habeas corpus petitions challenging their detentions in federal courts." ... "Many Democrats opposed the legislation because they said it eliminated rights of defendants considered fundamental to American values, such as a person's ability to go to court to protest their detention and the use of coerced testimony as evidence." ... "The American Civil Liberties Union said the new law is "one of the worst civil liberties measures ever enacted in American history."" ... ""The president can now, with the approval of Congress, indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, put people on trial based on hearsay evidence, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero." ... ""Nothing could be further from the American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions Act," he said." -By Nedra Pickler -AP

20061013

Rove - Faith - Politics- Book - Foley - FL - "Book: Bush Aides Called Evangelicals 'Nuts': White House advisors sought the support of conservative Christians but mocked them in private, writes a onetime administration official." ... "A new book by a former White House official says that President Bush's top political advisors privately ridiculed evangelical supporters as "nuts" and "goofy" while embracing them in public and using their votes to help win elections." ... "The former official also writes that the White House office of faith-based initiatives, which Bush promoted as a nonpolitical effort to support religious social-service organizations, was told to host pre-election events designed to mobilize religious voters who would most likely favor Republican candidates." ... "The assertions by David Kuo, a top official in the faith-based initiatives program, have rattled Republican strategists already struggling to persuade evangelical voters to turn out this fall for the GOP." ... "Some conservatives lamented Thursday that the book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," also comes in the midst of the scandal involving former [Florida Republican] Rep. Mark Foley, another threat to conservative turnout in competitive House and Senate races." ... "In the book, Kuo, who quit the White House in 2003, accuses Karl Rove's political staff of cynically hijacking the faith-based initiatives idea for electoral gain. It assails Bush for failing to live up to his promises of boosting the role of religious organizations in delivering social services." ... "Kuo is not the first insider to accuse the White House of politicizing the faith-based program. John J. DiIulio Jr., the first director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, resigned after seven months and was quoted as saying that the White House was run by "Mayberry Machiavellians" who sometimes put politics ahead of other causes." ... "While many Democrats opposed the initiative as a violation of church-state separation, the White House used the program to build alliances with prominent African American ministers, some of whom switched political allegiances to back Bush. It was part of a larger minority outreach program designed by Rove and other conservative activists to slice off pieces of the traditional Democratic coalitions in order to build a lasting GOP majority." -By Peter Wallsten -LAtimes

20061002

Government - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - History - Politics - Reporting - Book - "Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat." ... "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." -By Philip Shenon and Mark Mazzetti -NYTimes
Government - Military - Terrorism - Intelligence - History - Politics - "Rumsfeld, Ashcroft received warning of al Qaida attack before 9/11." ... "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." ... "The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning." ... "One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10" that "connected the dots" in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again." ... "Former CIA Director George Tenet gave the independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission the same briefing on Jan. 28, 2004, but the commission made no mention of the warning in its 428-page final report. According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet testified to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste and to Philip Zelikow, the panel's executive director and the principal author of its report, who's now Rice's top adviser." ... "A new book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post alleges that Rice failed to take the July 2001 warning seriously when it was delivered at a White House meeting by Tenet, Cofer Black, then the agency's chief of top counterterrorism, and a third CIA official whose identity remains protected." ... "Rice's deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, who became national security adviser after she became secretary of state, and Rice's top counterterrorism aide, Richard Clarke, also were present." -By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Stroebel, and John Walcott with contributions by Matt Stearns and Drew Brown -McClatchy via -RealCities

20061001

Reynolds - Hastert - Foley - Boehner - E-Mails - Louisiana - Teen - Noteworthy - Lawmakers - Enforcement - Secrets - 2006 Election - NY - Ill - Fla - Ohio - Mich - "GOP Leader Rebuts Hastert on Foley: [New York Republican Thomas] Reynolds: Speaker Knew of E-Mails in Spring." ... "House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert ([Republican, Illnois] R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley ([Republican, Florida] R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week." ... "Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully." ... "Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, became the second senior House Republican to say that Hastert has known of Foley's contacts for months, prompting Democratic attacks about the GOP leadership's inaction. Foley abruptly resigned his seat Friday." ... "House Majority Leader John A. Boehner ([Republican] R-Ohio) told The Washington Post on Friday that he had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert." ... "Yesterday's developments revealed a rift at the highest echelons of House Republican ranks a month before the Nov. 7 [2006] elections, and they threatened to expand the scandal to a full-blown party dilemma." ... "Republicans appeared to have kept the matter under wraps. Rep. Dale E. Kildee (Mich.), the only Democrat on the House Page Board, said yesterday: "I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley's inappropriate communications with a House page, and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter."" (1, 2) -By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington with contributions by R. Jeffrey Smith and Magda Jean-Louis -WashingtonPost

20060929

Noteworthy - US - Iraq - Political - Intelligence - History- Book - "Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq." ... "The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war." ... "The warning is described in “State of Denial,” scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush’s top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq." ... "As late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet.”" ... "Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is described as disengaged from the nuts-and-bolts of occupying and reconstructing Iraq — a task that was initially supposed to be under the direction of the Pentagon — and so hostile toward Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, that President Bush had to tell him to return her phone calls. The American commander for the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is reported to have told visitors to his headquarters in Qatar in the fall of 2005 that “Rumsfeld doesn’t have any credibility anymore” to make a public case for the American strategy for victory in Iraq." ... "Robert D. Blackwill, then the top Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, is said to have issued his warning about the need for more troops in a lengthy memorandum sent to Ms. Rice. The book says Mr. Blackwill’s memorandum concluded that more ground troops, perhaps as many as 40,000, were desperately needed." ... "It says that Mr. Blackwill and L. Paul Bremer III, then the top American official in Iraq, later briefed Ms. Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, about the pressing need for more troops during a secure teleconference from Iraq. It says the White House did nothing in response." (1, 2) -By David E. Sanger with contributions by Mark Mazzetti, David Johnston, and Julie Bosman -NYTimes

20060926

Noteworthy

Government

Military

Terrorism

Prisoner

Human Rights

Legislation

"Detainee Measure to Have Fewer Restrictions: White House Reaches Accord With Lawmakers." ... "Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed over the weekend to alter new legislation on military commissions to allow the United States to detain and try a wider range of foreign nationals than an earlier version of the bill permitted, according to government sources." ... "Lawmakers and administration officials announced last week that they had reached accord on the plan for the detention and military trials of suspected terrorists, and it is scheduled for a vote this week. But in recent days the Bush administration and its House allies successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how the government could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy combatants," the sources said yesterday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of negotiations over the bill." ... "The government has maintained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that, based on its reading of the laws of war, anyone it labels an unlawful enemy combatant can be held indefinitely at military or CIA prisons. But Congress has not yet expressed its view on who is an unlawful combatant, and the Supreme Court has not ruled directly on the matter." ... "As a result, human rights experts expressed concern yesterday that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of anyone who, as the bill states, "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its military allies." ... "The definition applies to foreigners living inside or outside the United States and does not rule out the possibility of designating a U.S. citizen as an unlawful combatant. It is broader than that in last week's version of the bill, which resulted from lengthy, closed-door negotiations between senior administration officials and dissident Republican senators. That version incorporated a definition backed by the Senate dissidents: those "engaged in hostilities against the United States."" ... "Under a separate provision, those held by the CIA or the U.S. military as an unlawful enemy combatant would be barred from challenging their detention or the conditions of their treatment in U.S. courts unless they were first tried, convicted and appealed their conviction." ... "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) yesterday assailed the provision as an unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus, which he said was allowable only "in time of rebellion or in time of invasion. And neither is present here."" (1, 2) -By R. Jeffrey Smith with contributions by Michael A. Fletcher and Julie Tate

-WashingtonPost

20060925

US - Afghanistan - Iraq - Pakistan - Osama bin Laden - Religious - Terrorism - Money - Politics - Military - Intelligence - "Afghanistan, 5 years later: U.S. confront Taliban's return." ... "Afghanistan has become Iraq on a slow burn. Five years after they were ousted, the Taliban are back in force, their ranks renewed by a new generation of diehards. Violence, opium trafficking, ethnic tensions, official corruption and political anarchy are all worse than they've been at any time since the U.S.-led intervention in 2001." ... "By failing to stop Taliban leaders and Osama bin Laden from escaping into Pakistan, then diverting troops and resources to Iraq before finishing the job in Afghanistan, the Bush administration left the door open to a Taliban comeback. Compounding the problem, reconstruction efforts have been slow and limited, and the U.S. and NATO didn't anticipate the extent and ferocity of the Taliban resurgence or the alliances the insurgents have formed with other Islamic extremists and with the world's leading opium traffickers." ... "There are only 42,000 U.S. and NATO-led troops to secure a country that's half again the size of Iraq, where 150,000 U.S.-led coalition troops are deployed. Suicide bombings have soared from two in all of 2002 to about one every five days. Civilian casualties are mounting." ... "James Dobbins, who was President Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan, said that the administration dismissed European offers of a major peacekeeping force after the U.S. intervention and almost immediately 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." ... ""We invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. We conquered the country in December, and Congress was not asked to provide any (reconstruction) money until the following October," he continued. "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."" ... "There are 22,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But there are only 5,000 U.S. combat soldiers in eastern Afghanistan bordering Taliban refuges in Pakistan, a 27,000-square-mile area of vast deserts and mountains nearly the size of South Carolina." ... "ISAF [International Security Assistance Force led by NATO], with 20,000 troops from 36 nations, has only 8,000 troops for 77,000 square miles - slightly smaller than Minnesota - in the south." ... "The insurgents and their leaders operate from Pakistan, aided by Pakistani officials, radical Islamic parties and al Qaida. They're flush with recruits from Islamist seminaries on both sides of the border that offer religious instruction and combat training." ... "Taliban extremists also have been to Iraq for training in combat and bomb-making, and Iraqi insurgents have traveled to Pakistan to forge closer ties with Afghan and Pakistani extremists, according to U.S. intelligence officials." ... "The Afghan army has about 30,000 troops who participate in operations with U.S. and ISAF forces. But they lack basic equipment - helmets, radios and armored vehicles - and rely on U.S. and other foreign funds for their salaries." -By Jonathan S. Landay -McClatchy-RealCities

20060924

US - Government - Intelligence - Iraq - Global - Religious - Military - Terrorism - Politics - "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat." ... "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." ... "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." ... "The [new] 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." ... "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." (1, 2) -By Mark Mazzetti -NYTimes

20060922

Torture - Secret - Noteworthy - United States - Government - International - Military - Intelligence - Terrorism - Prisons - Human Rights - War Crimes - Law - Politics - Ariz - SC - VA - "The Abuse Can Continue: Senators won't authorize torture, but they won't prevent it, either." ... "The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation. Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes." ... "In short, it's hard to credit the statement by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday that "there's no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved." In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent. If they do, America's standing in the world will continue to suffer, as will the fight against terrorism." ... "In theory, Congress could override Mr. Bush's regulations governing treatment if it judges that they are being used to authorize unacceptable practices." ... "But the senators who have fought to rein in the administration's excesses -- led by Sens. McCain, Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) -- failed to break Mr. Bush's commitment to "alternative" methods that virtually every senior officer of the U.S. military regards as unreliable, counterproductive and dangerous for Americans who may be captured by hostile governments." ... "Mr. Bush will go down in history for his embrace of torture and bear responsibility for the enormous damage that has caused." -WashingtonPost

20060917

US - Iraq - Government - Military - Money - Politics - "Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq." ... "After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon." ... "To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration." ... "O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade." ... "Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance --but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting." ... "The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By Rajiv Chandrasekaran -WashingtonPost

20060914

GOV - TV - Media - Telecom - Business -Law - "Media ownership study ordered destroyed: FCC draft suggested fewer owners would hurt local TV coverage." ... "The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says." ... "The report, written in 2004, came to light during the Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin." ... "Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that "every last piece" of the report be destroyed. "The whole project was just stopped - end of discussion," he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC's Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said." ... "The report, written by two economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, analyzed a database of 4,078 individual news stories broadcast in 1998. The broadcasts were obtained from Danilo Yanich, a professor and researcher at the University of Delaware, and were originally gathered by the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism." ... "The analysis showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of "on-location" news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market." -AP via -MSNBC

20060908

Noteworthy - US - Iraq - Secret - Censored - Intelligence - Transportation - Government - Politics - Virginia - "[US Army Fort] Eustis chief: Iraq post-war plan muzzled: Army Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, an early planner of the war, tells about challenges of invasion and rebuilding." ... "Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday." ... "In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan." ... "Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq." ... "Scheid, who is also the commander of Fort Eustis in Newport News [Virginia], made his comments in an interview with the Daily Press. He retires in about three weeks." ... "Scheid said the planners continued to try "to write what was called Phase 4," or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation." ... "Even if the troops didn't stay, "at least we have to plan for it," Scheid said." ... ""I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that," Scheid said. "We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today." ... ""He said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war."" -By Stephanie Heinatz with contributions by Tracy Sorensen-DailyPress.com
Noteworthy - US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism - Religion - Osama bin Laden - Dick Cheney - Politics - "Intelligence Didn't Back Bush Iraq Claims, Senate Reports Say." ... "Bush administration claims justifying the war against Iraq were based on fragmented, conflicting, and at times unreliable intelligence, according to two reports released today by the Senate Intelligence Committee." ... "Administration statements that Saddam Hussein was allied with Osama bin Laden and was helping al-Qaeda obtain chemical and biological weapons proved wrong and misleading and weren't based on solid intelligence in its possession, the declassified Senate reports said." ... "Contrary to assertions by Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials, Hussein didn't have links to al-Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist plot, the reports said." ... "``Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime,'' one of the reports said. Hussein refused all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support, said the reports." ... "Allegations that Hussein provided chemical and biological weapons training to al-Qaeda operatives also turned out to be false, the reports said. The Defense Intelligence Agency said in 2002 that it was unlikely Iraq gave Bin Laden any useful weapons assistance." ... "While Bin Laden's al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq in 2002, he was traveling under cover and eluded efforts by Hussein to capture him, the reports said." -By William Roberts and James Rowley -Bloomberg
Noteworthy - US - World - Military - Intelligence - Legislation - Secret - Prisons - Human Rights - War Crimes Act - "Interrogation Methods Rejected by Military Win Bush’s Support." ... "Many of the harsh interrogation techniques repudiated by the Pentagon on Wednesday would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration. And the courts would be forbidden from intervening." ... "The proposal is in the last 10 pages of an 86-page bill devoted mostly to military commissions, and it is a tangled mix of cross-references and pregnant omissions." ... "But legal experts say it adds up to an apparently unique interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, one that could allow C.I.A. operatives and others to use many of the very techniques disavowed by the Pentagon, including stress positions, sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures." ... "So-called high-value detainees held by the C.I.A. have been subjected to tough interrogation in secret prisons around the world." ... "More run-of-the-mill prisoners held by the Defense Department have, for the most part, faced milder questioning, although human rights groups say there have been widespread abuses." ... "The new bill would continue to give the C.I.A. the substantial freedom it has