State Department pays private contractors $4 billion a year

October 24, 2007

State Department pays private contractors $4 billion a year

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — Over the past four years, the amount of money the State Department pays to private security and law enforcement contractors has soared to nearly $4 billion a year from $1 billion, administration officials said Tuesday, but they said that the department had added few new officials to oversee the contracts.

It was the first time that the administration had outlined the ballooning scope of the contracts, and it provided a new indication of how the State Department´s efforts to monitor private companies had not kept pace. Auditors and outside exerts say the results have been vast cost overruns, poor contract performance and, in some cases, violence that has so far gone unpunished.

29% Conviction Rate in Terrorism Prosecutions

October 24, 2007

29% Conviction Rate in Terrorism Prosecutions

There was a time when federal prosecutors would consistently win terrorism prosecutions.

From 1993 to 2001, prosecutors in Manhattan convicted some three dozen terrorists through guilty pleas and in six major trials.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the government's track record has been decidedly spottier, and its failure to obtain a single conviction on Monday in its terrorism-financing prosecution of what was once the nation's largest Islamic charity was another in a series of missteps and setbacks.

Juries convicted 9 defendants, 30 defendants pleaded guilty, and
11 pleaded guilty to other charges. There were eight acquittals and four dismissals.

Reports Assail State Department on Iraq Security

October 23, 2007

Reports Assail State Department on Iraq Security

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — A pair of new reports have delivered scorching judgments about the State Department's performance in overseeing work done by the private companies that the government relies on increasingly in Iraq and Afghanistan to carry out delicate security work and other missions.

A State Department review of its own security practices in Iraq assails the department for poor coordination, communication, oversight and accountability involving armed security companies like Blackwater USA, according to people who have been briefed on the report. In addition to Blackwater, the State Department's two other security contractors in Iraq are DynCorp International and Triple Canopy.

Bush Asks Congress for $46 billion

October 14, 2007

Bush Asks Congress for $46 billion

President Bush challenged Congress to another clash over the direction of the Iraq war yesterday as he asked lawmakers for $46 billion more to pay for overseas military operations and insisted that they approve it by the end of the year.

The president's war funding plan revived the political struggle over Iraq that has grown somewhat dormant in Washington over the past month. Democrats vowed not to rubber-stamp the request and indicated that they will disregard Bush's holiday deadline, holding off any action until next year as they debate a new strategy to counter his leadership on the war.

Government money short to help poor pay heating bills

October 19, 2007

Government money short to help poor pay heating bills

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 30 million low-income American households who will need help paying heating bills this winter from a U.S. government program will be left in the cold because of a lack of funding for the program.

The poor, already digging deep to pay for expensive gasoline, also will face much higher heating fuel costs, especially if oil prices stay near record levels.

Consumer groups and state energy officials have sounded the alarm, saying a federal program to help poor families pay heating bills will have nowhere near the money needed to cover those expected to seek assistance.

The government's Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, only has enough funding to cover 16 percent of the 38 million poor households eligible for the program.

ECFR/Gallup Global Poll: the world is increasingly hostile to military power

October 44, 2007

ECFR/Gallup Global Poll: the world is increasingly hostile to military power

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Mary Robinson called global public opinion the "second superpower". She may have been exaggerating its impact on the Gulf, but she was right to point to the legitimacy of power as an increasingly important factor in world politics.

Even in the many places where citizens cannot vote in free and fair elections, governments are constantly "polling' the public to understand their aspirations and pre-empt them. Who will gain and who will lose from the emergence of a global public opinion? Which of the current great powers will succeed in capturing publics' imagination?

OMB Edits CDC Testimony

October 14, 2007

OMB Edits CDC Testimony

WASHINGTON - The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Atlanta-based CDC, the government's premier disease monitoring agency, told a Senate hearing that climate change "is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans."

Trillion-dollar war: Afghanistan and Iraq set to cost more than Vietnam and Korea combined

October 24, 2007

Trillion-dollar war: Afghanistan and Iraq set to cost more than Vietnam and Korea combined

President George Bush will have spent more than $1 trillion on military adventures by the time he leaves office at the end of next year, more than the entire amount spent on the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.

There are also disturbing signs that Mr Bush is preparing an attack on Iran during his remaining months in office. He has demanded $46bn (£22.5bn) emergency funds from Congress by Christmas and included with it a single sentence requesting money to upgrade the B-2 "stealth" bomber.

New Joint Chiefs chairman gets blunt questions from Army captains about strain of Iraq service

October 23, 2007

New Joint Chiefs chairman gets blunt questions from Army captains about strain of Iraq service

FORT SILL, Okla. (AP) Army captains who represent the military's future pelted the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with blunt questions Tuesday about the strain of long war deployments.

At times technical and other times very personal, the officers reflected the worries of a military struggling to fight two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without exhausting troops, alienating their families or driving soldiers away.

Iraqi refugees turn to prostitution

October 24, 2007
Iraqi refugees turn to prostitution

Ayman al-Halaqi, a club manager here, said Iraqi dancers are cheaper to hire than Syrians. Back home, even dancing in a skimpy costume would be considered shameful. Iraqi women who go beyond that can earn 10 times more from a single encounter with a client than by working a full day as a housemaid.

At the al-Rawabi club, the usual customers are mostly Iraqi or Syrian men, but summer brought the annual flood of visitors from Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia.

House Judiciary Committee told Justice Department targeted Democrats

October 24, 2007

House Judiciary Committee told Justice Department targeted Democrats

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — Richard L. Thornburgh, attorney general in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, charged Tuesday that political reasons motivated the Justice Department to open corruption investigations against Democrats in Mr. Thornburgh's home state, Pennsylvania.

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Thornburgh became the first former Republican attorney general to join with Democratic lawmakers to suggest that the Justice Department under Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales had singled out Democratic politicians for prosecution.

Beck: "[A] handful of people who hate America ... are losing their homes in a forest fire today"

October 22, 2007

Beck: "[A] handful of people who hate America ... are losing their homes in a forest fire today"

On the October 22 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, host Glenn Beck stated, "I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." Beck continued: "There are a few people that hate America. But I don't think the Democrats are those. I think there are those posing as Democrats that are like that." Beck's comment came as forest fires ravaged parts of Southern California, leaving one person dead, four firefighters wounded, and forcing about 1,500 people from their homes, according to The New York Times.