White House defends use of torture

February 6, 2008
White House defends use of torture

WASHINGTON - The White House on Wednesday defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it is legal — not torture as critics argue — and has saved American lives.

President Bush could authorize waterboarding for future terrorism suspects if certain criteria are met, a spokesman said.

A day earlier, the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tactic was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

Bush's last spending plan only adds to a disastrous fiscal legacy

February 5, 2008
Bush's last spending plan only adds to a disastrous fiscal legacy

The president proposed to pay down the debt by $2 trillion during that time, which, he said, was as much as could be responsibly redeemed. He offered lavish tax cuts. And he vowed to "confront great challenges from which Government has too long flinched," putting Social Security and Medicare on solid financial footing.

But the fact remains that the purported surplus on which Mr. Bush based his tax-cutting agenda
was always something of a mirage, and the president has never been willing to adjust his agenda to
the grim new fiscal reality. Yesterday's promise of a small surplus by 2012 is once again premised
on omitting likely costs (zero is budgeted for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan) and by assuming
cuts to domestic spending that are unachievable politically and, in large part, unwise as a matter
of policy.

Manufacturer Fined $2 Million then Awarded New Military Contract

February 6, 2008
Manufacturer Fined $2 Million then Awarded New Military Contract

A North Dakota manufacturer has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a suit saying it had repeatedly shortchanged the armor in up to 2.2 million helmets for the military, including those for the first troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Twelve days before the settlement with the Justice Department was announced, the company, Sioux Manufacturing of Fort Totten, was given a new contract of up to $74 million to make more armor for helmets to replace the old ones, which were made from the late 1980s to last year.

Our big-spender President

February 2, 2008
Our big-spender President

President Bush's budget for fiscal year 2009, which goes to Congress, carries an alarming
distinction: For the first time in the history of the republic, annual federal spending will cross
the $3 trillion mark.

And federal spending got there early. That figure had been anticipated but not until next year
when the new president would have been saddled with that honor.

Bush was also in office when the government crossed the $2 trillion mark in 2002 and the
budget, thanks to the president's free spending Republican allies in Congress, sank into deficit
after four years of surpluses.

To get a sense of the growth of government, consider: Spending didn't cross the $1 trillion
mark until 1987 and the $100 billion threshold until 1972.

Appeals Court: Judges Must Review All Evidence, Not Just the Evidence the Military Chooses

February 2, 2008
Appeals Court: Judges Must Review All Evidence, Not Just the Evidence the Military Chooses

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court refused Friday to reconsider a ruling broadening its own authority to scrutinize evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The decision is a setback for the Bush administration, which was displeased by the court's three-judge ruling in July and had urged all 10 judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review it. The administration said the decision jeopardized national security.

U.S. Says No One Too Young for Guantanamo Court

February 4, 2008
U.S. Says No One Too Young for Guantanamo Court

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan should not be tried as a war criminal because he was a child soldier for al Qaeda, too young to voluntarily join its forces, his military defense lawyer told a U.S. war court on Monday.

Navy Lt. William Kuebler asked a military judge to throw out the charges against Canadian defendant Omar Khadr, who was shot and captured at age 15 in a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002.

"He is a victim of al Qaeda, not a member of al Qaeda," Kuebler said.

More Iraqis heading to Syria than returning home

February 6, 2008
More Iraqis heading to Syria than returning home

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqis are once again leaving Iraq for Syria in greater numbers than are returning, despite the lower level of bloodshed in their homeland, the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday.

A report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, citing Syrian immigration officials, said that in late January an average of 1,200 Iraqis entered Syria every day compared with around 700 who returned.

Bush's Tax Cuts Are Dead

February 6, 2008
Bush's Tax Cuts Are Dead

John McCain's performance in the Super Tuesday primaries, coupled with the release of President Bush's fantastical budget on Monday, may have doomed the extension of the Bush tax cuts on income, capital gains and dividends, which are slated to expire after 2010.

The proposed budget for fiscal 2009, which starts in Oct. 2008, confirmed that the Bush fiscal performance will end, as it began, as a clown show. The administration expects that if its proposal is enacted into law, the next president will confront a $409 billion deficit next year. And that's the rosy scenario version, assuming that gross domestic product will grow 2.7% in 2008, compared with a consensus estimate of about 2.2%, and that discretionary non-defense spending will barely budge, to cite two examples. And it fails to include the full cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gitmo detainee breaking down

February 7, 2008
Gitmo detainee breaking down

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Confined alone in his Guantanamo cell nearly around the clock, a Yemeni prisoner and former driver for Osama bin Laden has begun to break down mentally and cannot focus on preparing for his upcoming war-crimes trial, his attorneys say.

Lawyers for Salim Ahmed Hamdan asked in a motion ahead of pretrial hearings beginning Thursday for his military tribunal to be halted until his living conditions improve.

"I do not believe that Mr. Hamdan will be able to materially assist in his own defense if his conditions do not improve," wrote one of his civilian attorneys, Andrea Prasow.

US admiral confirms secret camp at Gitmo

February 7, 2008
US admiral confirms secret camp at Gitmo

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Western cadre said to boost al Qaeda's ability to hit U.S.

February 6, 2008
Western cadre said to boost al Qaeda's ability to hit U.S.

A steady stream of Western recruits to al Qaeda camps on the Pakistani border bolsters the group's ability to strike the United States, the nation's top intelligence official said Tuesday.

Those camps are preparing recruits to carry out terror attacks around the world, and are also a staging ground for assaults on neighboring Afghanistan, said National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

"Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training and positioning of operatives for an attack on the homeland," McConnell testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Baghdad drowning in sewage

February 3, 2008
Baghdad drowning in sewage

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Baghdad is drowning in sewage, thirsty for water and largely powerless, an Iraqi official said on Sunday in a grim assessment of services in the capital five years after the US-led invasion.

One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission, one is working at stuttering capacity while a pipe blockage in the third means sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth," said Tahseen Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.

Sheikhly told a news conference in the capital that water pipes, where they exist, are so old that it is not possible to pump water at a sufficient rate to meet demands -- leaving many neighbourhoods parched.

U.S. money for Russia is linked to Iran nuclear plant

February 6, 2008
U.S. money for Russia is linked to Iran nuclear plant

WASHINGTON: The U.S. Energy Department is subsidizing two Russian nuclear institutes that are building key parts of a reactor in Iran that the United States spent years trying to stop, according to a House committee.

The institutes, both in Nizhny Novgorod, gave U.S. officials sales presentations describing their capabilities, and listing the Bushehr reactor, which Russia has agreed to fuel, as one of their projects. One institute is providing control systems, including control room equipment, and the other is providing hundreds of pumps and ventilation fans.

Conservative Columnist: Time for a GOP vanishing act

February 3, 2008
Conservative Columnist: Time for a GOP vanishing act

Me, I don't know, but it's hard to shake the sense that four more years of GOP rule from the White House might just about kill off conservatism as a viable governing philosophy. Given the exhausted and brain-addled state of the right at the end of the Reagan Era, it's arguably better for both the country and conservatism for our side to retreat to the woods for some hard thinking and meaningful reform.

Here's the most despairing thought: that in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to matter much who wins the presidency. Why? Because it's quite possible that the economic crisis now breaking upon us is going to be beyond any politician's ability to manage, so severe that the fallout will dwarf any other issue that has preoccupied American political debate of late.

DOD acquisition practices suffered cost overruns in the billions of dollars

February 2, 2008
DOD acquisition practices suffered cost overruns in the billions of dollars

The Defense Department's major weapons programs have suffered cost overruns in the billions of dollars, years-long delays and quality shortfalls because of poor acquisition practices by the department, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO warned that the cost of designing and developing weapons systems could "continue to exceed estimates by billions of dollars" if the Defense Department doesn't improve its acquisition practices.

US campaign captivates a world hungry for a change from Bush

February 1, 2008
US campaign captivates a world hungry for a change from Bush

Germans are gaga over Barack Obama. He's got Japan pretty jazzed, too, along with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Russia's leaders, not so much: They prefer a Republican — as long as it's not Kremlin critic John McCain.

America's extraordinary presidential campaign has captivated politicians and ordinary people around the globe. With so much at stake in the race for the White House, the world is watching with an intensity that hasn't been seen since the Clinton era began in 1992.

GOP lost in defense budget black hole

February 1, 2008
GOP lost in defense budget black hole

The U.S. currently spends roughly as much as the rest of the world combined. Nevertheless, Talent talked of "threats that are highly unpredictable and therefore, taken as a whole, more dangerous than the threats we faced during the Cold War."

Apparently those years of defending war-ravaged allies from an aggressive Soviet Union, unpredictable Maoist China, and various European and Third World communist satellites were nothing compared with confronting Osama bin Laden with his vast legions.

Cost of Insuring UK Corporate Debt Soars

January 22, 2008
Cost of Insuring UK Corporate Debt Soars

The cost of protecting corporate debt against default surged in Europe yesterday as fears intensified over the fate of global bond insurers and the $2,400bn (€1,662bn) of debt they guarantee.

The credit market was in its blackest mood since the height of the summer's subprime panic after Ambac, one of the biggest bond insurers, or so-called monolines, was downgraded by Fitch Ratings on Friday.

Bush legacy: Setting a standard in fear-mongering

February 1, 2008
Bush legacy: Setting a standard in fear-mongering

When I left the Bush administration in 2003, it was clear to me that its strategy for defeating terrorism was leaving our nation more vulnerable and our people in a perilous place. Not only did its policies misappropriate resources, weaken the moral standing of America, and threaten long-standing legal and constitutional provisions, but the president also employed misleading and reckless rhetoric to perpetuate his agenda.

This week's State of the Union proved nothing has changed.

Besides overstating successes in Afghanistan, painting a rosy future for Iraq, and touting unfinished domestic objectives, he again used his favorite tactic - fear - as a tool to scare Congress and the American people. On one issue in particular - FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) - the president misconstrued the truth and manipulated the facts.

Seven Years Of Decline

January 28, 2008
Seven Years Of Decline

Boy, have times changed.

As 2007 drew to a close, a Newsweek International cover featured the image of a bruised Uncle Sam slumped in a boxing ring, under the headline: "Can America Get Back on Top?"

So what happened? How did we go from dominant military, economic and cultural superpower to battered fighter in the corner?

Bush inherited a military that had all active-duty Army divisions rated at the highest readiness levels and that was capable of fighting a two-front war. He will leave behind a military facing the worst readiness crisis in a generation, with not a single active-duty or reserve brigade "fully combat ready."

DOD: war budget includes $70 billion for first three months of 2009

January 28, 2008
DOD: war budget includes $70 billion for first three months of 2009

WASHINGTON: The White House will ask Congress next week for another $70 billion (€47.4 billion) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an amount that would help cover operational costs only until early in 2009 when the next administration takes over.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday that the money, included as part of the administration's 2009 budget request, would be considered an "emergency allowance" to pay for operations beginning Oct. 1, when the budget year begins, until possibly January.

Bush Issues Signing Statement Waiving Ban On Permanent Bases In Iraq

January 29, 2008
Bush Issues Signing Statement Waiving Ban On Permanent Bases In Iraq

President Bush yesterday signed the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act after initially rejecting Congress's first version because it would have allegedly opened the Iraqi government to "expensive lawsuits."

Even though he forced Congress to change its original bill, Bush's signature yesterday came with a little-noticed signing statement, claiming that provisions in the law "could inhibit the President's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations." CQ reports on the provisions Bush plans to disregard:

Home ownership in record plunge

January 29, 2008
Home ownership in record plunge

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The housing and mortgage meltdown caused the biggest one-year drop in the rate of homeownership on record, according to government figures released Tuesday.

The decline, while expected, is yet another indication of the housing market's sudden and dramatic turn.

The Census Bureau report showed that home owners accounted for 67.8% of occupied homes in the fourth quarter, down 1.1 points from a year earlier. It's the largest year-over-year drop recorded in the report.

Food stamps offer best stimulus

January 29, 2008
Food stamps offer best stimulus

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As Congress and the White House consider a $150 billion stimulus package that includes tax rebates and tax incentives for business, a report released Tuesday suggests that other methods would do a better job of infusing money into the flagging economy and doing it fast.

The industry research firm Moody's Economy.com tracked the potential impact of each stimulus dollar, looking at tax rebates, tax incentives for business, food stamps and expanding unemployment benefits.

Corporate Debt Suggests Defaults Are Likely

January 24, 2008
Corporate Debt Suggests Defaults Are Likely

The volume of U.S. corporate debt issued by companies in severe financial distress rose in January to the highest level in more than four years, suggesting corporate defaults are likely to surge in coming months, Standard & Poor's said Thursday.

The credit-rating agency said the ratio of "distressed" corporate debt to all speculative-grade debt jumped to 11.1 percent in January from 6.1 percent in December. The percentage this month is the highest since September 2003.

Clear Majority Rejects Immunity for Phone Companies

January 18, 2008
Clear Majority Rejects Immunity for Phone Companies

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters favor requiring the government to obtain a warrant from a court
before wiretapping the conversations U.S. citizens have with people in other countries—a figure quite consistent with the 61% opposition we found in October. An outright majority of voters (55%)
“strongly” supports requiring warrants. Only one-third (33%) support warrantless wiretaps of Americans’ international conversations, with fewer than 1-in-4 (24%) strongly supporting
warrantless wiretaps.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters reject immunity for phone companies that may have violated the law by selling customers’ private information to the government, preferring to let courts decide the outcome of any cases. Again intensity favors opponents of immunity, with 45% "strongly" opposed. Just one-third (33%) support immunity for the phone companies, with only about 1-in-5
(22%) strongly supporting immunity.

Intelligence Chief: Waterboarding as Torture

January 13, 2008
Intelligence Chief: Waterboarding as Torture

The nation's intelligence chief says that waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him, or if someone under interrogation was taking water into his lungs.

But Mike McConnell declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.

Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis

January 30, 2008
Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis

LONDON (Reuters) - More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain's leading polling groups.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes.

The last complete census in Iraq conducted in 1997 found 4.05 million households in the country, a figure ORB used to calculate that approximately 1.03 million people had died as a result of the war, the researchers found.

Ex-9/11 Panel Chief Held Secret Meetings With White House

January 30, 2008
Ex-9/11 Panel Chief Held Secret Meetings With White House

The charges are said to be contained in New York Times reporter Philip Shenon's unreleased book, "The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation," according to Max Holland, an author and blogger, and generally confirmed by the book's publisher. Although the book is not slated to hit stores until early next month, Holland says he bought a copy of the audio version at a bookstore. (Attempts to purchase the book, in any format, at the Barnes & Noble across the street from ABC News headquarters were unsuccessful.)

9/11 Commission co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton hired former Condoleezza Rice aide Philip Zelikow to be executive director, Zelikow failed to tell them about his role helping Rice set up President George W. Bush's National Security Council in early 2001 – and that he was "instrumental" in demoting Richard Clarke, the onetime White House counterterrorism czar who was fixated on the threat from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, according to Holland's version of Shenon's tome.

Justice Dept. accused of blocking Gonzales probe

January 29, 2008
Justice Dept. accused of blocking Gonzales probe

WASHINGTON -- The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly "impeded" his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch's letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Army Suicides Up As Much As 20 Percent

January 31, 2008
Army Suicides Up As Much As 20 Percent

WASHINGTON - As many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of some 20 percent over the year before, officials said Thursday.

The rise comes despite numerous efforts to improve the mental health of a force stressed by a longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the most deadly year yet in the now six-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.

Internal briefing papers prepared by the Army's psychiatry consultant early this month show there were 89 confirmed suicides last year and 32 deaths that are suspected suicides and still under investigation.