Conservative and Liberal Groups Ask Candidates to Denounce Expanded Presidential Powers

October 14, 2007
Conservative and Liberal Groups Ask Candidates to Denounce Expanded Presidential Powers

Both the liberal American Freedom Campaign and the conservative American Freedom Agenda have adopted platforms complaining of administration muscle-flexing on issues ranging from the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Justice Department's threats to prosecute reporters for espionage.

The liberal group also has asked all presidential candidates to sign a pledge of limited executive authority, reading, "We are Americans, and in our America we do not torture, we do not imprison people without charge or legal remedy, we do not tap people's phones and e-mails without court order, and above all we do not give any president unchecked power. I pledge to fight to protect and defend the Constitution from attack by any president."

None of the nine Republican candidates has responded. The pledge has been signed by five Democratic hopefuls: Sens. Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Sen. Mike Gravel.

The other three Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Biden and former Sen. John Edwards, have not signed, but issued promises covering roughly the same ground. Letters from all three included renunciations of torture, wiretapping of U.S. citizens without court approval and imprisonment without judicial review.

The conservative campaign has asked candidates of both parties to endorse its detailed 10-point platform. Only one, Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican with libertarian leanings, has signed it, although Edwards has posted the document on one of his campaign Web sites.

Throwing a Curve on Iraq

October 13, 2007
Throwing a Curve on Iraq

The defector knew impressive details about the trailers and Iraq's biological weapons programs. His claims were at the heart of the pivotal National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, the intelligence community's "gold standard" report. It concluded with "high confidence" that Iraq had chemical and biological arms. Curveball's information also found its way into Mr. Bush's State of the Union address in January 2003, which prepared the country for war, and into Secretary of State Colin Powell's February presentation to the U.N., which persuaded many skeptics of Iraq's danger and duplicity.

None of it was true. As Mr. Drogin and his colleague Greg Miller first disclosed in the Los Angeles Times in early 2004, Curveball was a fabricator whom the Germans were eager to keep to themselves, providing other countries only with transcripts of their interrogations. The Germans were worried, they said, about protecting their source and thus did not allow the CIA to interview Curveball until a year after the invasion. The "paper thin" sources who supposedly corroborated Curveball's claims, Mr. Drogin concludes, eventually proved to be worthless.

Former Qwest CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm

October 13, 2007
Former Qwest CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio's lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.

In the court filings disclosed this week, Nacchio suggests that Qwest's refusal to take part in that program led the government to cancel a separate, lucrative contract with the NSA in retribution. He is using the allegation to try to show why his stock sale should not have been considered improper.

The 'Good Germans' Among Us

October 14, 2007
The 'Good Germans' Among Us

Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: "This government does not torture people." Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of "torture" is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.

By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America's "enhanced interrogation" techniques have a grotesque provenance: "Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.' It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation."

'Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Con Man Who Caused a War'

October 13, 2007
'Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Con Man Who Caused a War'

Thanks to misinformation in the refugee rumor mill, Ahmed feared that the Germans might deport him back to Iraq. Even if he didn't get thrown out, he knew he might wait years for asylum, especially after a Zirndorf official told him "the end of the line is over there" behind all the other friendless refugees clogging the system. Most important, Ahmed had learned that he could shorten the wait if he gave the Germans the information they sought.

The room was small and stuffy when Ahmed finnally sat across a table from the BND team at the federal questioning center. But he motioned them closer to take them into his con?dence. He wanted to share a secret. He would enlighten them about his vital job back in Baghdad, he said. He was ready to trade his valuable information for his fantastic asylum package. He was all set for his muni?cent stipend, fancy manor house, and silver Mercedes. He would happily assist his new German friends, he vowed.

He began to tell them of Saddam's secret program to churn out what BND reports later memorably would describe as Biowaffen.

In English, it meant germ weapons.

U.S. maternal death rate higher than Europe's

October 13, 2007
U.S. maternal death rate higher than Europe's

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has a sharply higher rate of women dying during or just after pregnancy than European countries, even some relatively poor countries such as Macedonia and Bosnia, according to the first estimates in five years on maternal deaths worldwide.

The United States has a far higher death rate than the European average, the report shows, with one in 4,800 U.S. women dying from complications of pregnancy or childbirth, the same as Belarus and just slightly better than Serbia's rate of one in 4,500.

Just one out of 47,600 women in Ireland die during or just after childbirth, the report found. Bosnia had the second-lowest rate, with 1 in 29,000 women dying during pregnancy and childbirth.

Richest 1% take home 21.2 percent of all U.S. income

October 12, 2007
Richest 1% take home 21.2 percent of all U.S. income

According to recent data from the Internal Revenue Service, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all U.S. income earned in 2005. That is a significant increase from 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of the nation's income.

In 2005, the top 50 percent of American earners brought in 87.17 percent of the nation's income, also an all-time high for the data available.

Leading Shiite politician calls for total US withdrawal from Iraq

October 13, 2007
Leading Shiite politician calls for total US withdrawal from Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) - A key Shiite member of Iraq's ruling coalition called Saturday for the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from his country and rejected the possibility of permanent bases.

Ammar Hakim, a leading figure of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), told a gathering celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr: "We will work not to have fixed bases for foreign troops on Iraqi lands."

US soldiers: Blackwater attacked fleeing Iraqi civilian

October 13, 2007
US soldiers: Blackwater attacked fleeing Iraqi civilian

The Washington Post says that according to their report, the US soldiers – after investigations at the square and interviews with witnesses and Iraqi police – found no evidence that any Iraqis had fired weapons and concluded that there was "no enemy activity involved." They did find evidence, however, that indicated Blackwater contractors fired on civilian vehicles fleeing the square.

"It appeared to me they were fleeing the scene when they were engaged. It had every indication of an excessive shooting," said Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, whose soldiers reached Nisoor Square 20 to 25 minutes after the gunfire subsided.

Al Gore: the anti-Bush

October 13, 2007
Al Gore: the anti-Bush

When Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, conservatives reacted with apoplexy. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, conservative bloggers and other Republican faithful denounced the prize as a fraud.

You might wonder why they care so much -- Gore, after all, is obviously not going to run for president, and even some conservatives now concede that global warming is real. The answer is that Gore's triumph is a measure of George W. Bush's disrepute.

Sanchez, former U.S. commander in Iraq, calls war 'a nightmare with no end in sight'

October 13, 2007
Sanchez, former U.S. commander in Iraq, calls war 'a nightmare with no end in sight'

ARLINGTON, Va. – The former top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq slammed the handling of the war and gave a bleak assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a convention of military journalists on Friday.