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U.S., Poland Upbeat on Missile Defense | Serving Henderson, Transylvania and Polk Counties | North Carolina | BlueRidgeNow.com

2007-05-25T02:27:00.000-04:00

U.S., Poland Upbeat on Missile Defense Serving Henderson, Transylvania and Polk Counties North Carolina BlueRidgeNow.com

May 25, 2007
Published Friday, May 25, 2007
U.S., Poland Upbeat on Missile Defense
By VANESSA GERAAssociated Press Writer
U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security John Rood, right, and Poland's deputy foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski, left, pose for photographers ahead of their talks on missile defense in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, May 24, 2007. Washington wants to place 10 interceptors in Poland to protect Europe and the U.S. from missiles launched from so-called rogue states, like Iran. (AP Photo) Buy a copy of this picture.
Negotiators voiced optimism Thursday that they could reach agreement for Poland to host part of a U.S. missile defense system. A Polish official said a deal could come in the next several months."This meeting today brings optimism to us because many of our observations and reflections are shared and were responded to by our American partners," said Polish deputy foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski.John Rood, U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, called Thursday's second round of talks "very constructive and fruitful."A first round of talks was held last week focusing on so-called status of forces issues, meaning the legal status of the base and its personnel, how they are treated and what their legal responsibility would be on Polish territory.The next round is slated for late June in Washington, Waszczykowski said, adding that Warsaw would present "concrete proposals." He predicted that an agreement could come in early fall.Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he remains firmly opposed to the U.S. plan to place parts of a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, two former Soviet satellite countries in eastern Europe.Washington insists that the system is not aimed at Russia, and would in fact be ineffective against Russia's huge stockpile of missiles. Instead, the system would protect most of Europe from missiles launched from Iran, which the U.S. says is pursuing nuclear weapons."Poland shares many of America's assessments of global threats," Waszczykowski said. "Combatting missile programs deserves Poland's full attention."Meanwhile, the presidents of 16 European countries were to meet in southeastern Czech Republic on Friday and Saturday to discuss the planned missile system and Kosovo.The U.S. missile defense system plan was "a possible topic for discussion," Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Wednesday.---Associated Press writer Ryan Lucas in Warsaw contributed to this report.

Andrew Hill- 1931–2007

2007-05-07T11:36:00.000-04:00

Andrew Hill

1931–2007

by Phil Freeman

April 30th, 2007 5:43 PM

Dissonant and unforgettable
photo: Jimmy Katz

be social

The pianist Andrew Hill, who died of lung cancer on April 20, was born in 1931, not 1937, as was frequently reported, and in Chicago, not in Haiti, like he used to tell reporters and liner-note writers. Never as willfully enigmatic as Thelonious Monk or as alienating (to some ears) as Cecil Taylor, Hill was an integral member of Blue Note Records' mid-'60s class of "in 'n' out" players—musicians equally comfortable with freedom, complexity, and the deceptively simple joys of hard bop. His compositions were frequently tricky, almost to the point of dissonance, but "Pumpkin," "Refuge," "Black Fire," and many more have melodies and a swinging energy that's impossible to shake loose once you hear them.

Hill got a late start, taking up the piano at 13 and making his debut as a leader with 1959's So in Love, a trio session on the Warwick label featuring fellow Chicagoan Malachi Favors on bass. He took few sideman gigs (most notably backing Rahsaan Roland Kirk), preferring to concentrate on his own compositions. He signed with Blue Note in 1963 and recorded four albums in five months: Joe Henderson's Our Thing, Hank Mobley's No Room for Squares, and his own Black Fire (with Henderson as a sideman) and Smoke Stack, which added a second bassist to a piano trio.

Still, he wasn't an ascetic by any means—he could get down 'n' dirty when the mood struck. Hill wrote, but didn't play on, "The Rumproller," Lee Morgan's follow-up to the hit "The Sidewinder," at the same time that he was backing avant-gardists Sam Rivers and Bobby Hutcherson on the latter's Dialogue and wresting saxophonist John Gilmore free of Sun Ra's Arkestra for Hill's own Compulsion (re- issued March 20) and Andrew!!!.

Like some other forward-thinking jazz players, Hill found his way into academia as the '60s ended. From 1970 to 1972 he was a composer in residence at Colgate University, where he received a doctorate. He taught at Portland State University, at NYU, and in public schools and prisons in California. He recorded for the short-lived Arista/Freedom label and, later, Black Saint/Soul Note. And in 1989, he returned to Blue Note for two albums, Eternal Spirit and But Not Farewell, both featuring then-up-and-coming alto saxophonist Greg Osby and, in the younger man's view, offering Hill the chance to apply his teaching experiences to the studio.

"Before I met Andrew, although I knew his music well, I hadn't figured upon a realistic or applicable means of integrating my thoughts, studies, and creative aspirations into a composite and personal approach to music," recalls Osby via e-mail. "In many ways, I was a wandering student in search of the elusive and indescribable mentor. Andrew sensed this and took it upon himself to advise me. His unselfish counsel, candor, and generosity provided me with solutions to many unanswerable questions." In 2000, the pair reunited on Osby's The Invisible Hand, a contemplative album with the feel of post-bop chamber music.

Hill was riding a new wave of appreciation in recent years, scooping up numerous prizes and awards. Jason Moran, possibly the best young pianist in mainstream jazz, co-wrote "Aubade" with Hill and recorded it on his 2005 album Same Mother. Earlier this year, guitarist Nels Cline released New Monastery, an entire album of Hill interpretations.

Last year, Hill returned to Blue Note again, releasing Time Lines, which had the feel of a farewell, the closing of a loop. It opened and closed with two versions—one with a full band, and one solo—of "Malachi," a tune dedicated to the late bassist who'd anchored So in Love. His 1960s albums were being remastered and reissued, and Mosaic Records, the label specializing in boxed sets aimed at connoisseurs, compiled a three-CD set of previously unreleased sessions from 1967–70.

On March 29, Hill played his final concert, a lunchtime trio date at Trinity Church which, like an idiot, I missed.

Andrew Hill's last concert is available online, though, through a search at trinitywallstreet.org

Legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson dies | ajc.com

2007-04-04T13:17:00.000-04:00

Legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson dies | ajc.com

Legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson dies

The Associated Press
Published on: 04/04/07

RUSTON, La. — Eddie Robinson, who sent more than 200 players to the NFL and won 408 games during a 57-year career, has died.

He was 88.

Super Bowl MVP quarterback Doug Williams, one of Robinson's former players, said the former Grambling State University coach died about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Robinson had been admitted to Lincoln General Hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

Robinson had been suffering from Alzheimer's, which was diagnosed shortly after he was forced to retire following the 1997 season, in which he won only three games. His health had been declining for years, and he had been in and out of a nursing home during the last year.

In his 57 years in football, Robinson set the standard for victories with a 408-165-15 record. John Gagliardi of St. John's, Minn., passed Robinson in 2003 and has 443 wins.

Robinson's teams had only eight losing seasons and won 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and nine national black college championships.

He sent more than 200 players to the NFL, including seven first-round draft choices.

It was a career that spanned 11 presidents, several wars and the civil-rights movement. His den was packed with trophies, representing virtually every award a coach can win. He was inducted into every hall of fame for which he was eligible.

Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings - New York Times

2007-03-23T22:46:00.000-04:00

Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings - New York Times

March 23, 2007

Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 10:31 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals. The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday.

There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week amid a political firestorm surrounding the firings.

The five-step plan involved notifying Republican home-state senators of the impending dismissals, preparing for potential political upheaval and naming replacements and submitting them to the Senate for confirmation.

The documents indicated that the hour-long morning discussion, held in the attorney general's conference room, was the only time Gonzales met with top aides who decided which prosecutors to fire and how to do it.

Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said it was not immediately clear whether Gonzales gave his final approval to begin the firings at that meeting. Scolinos also said Gonzales was not involved in the process of selecting which prosecutors would be asked to resign.

On March 13, in explaining the firings, Gonzales told reporters he was aware that some of the dismissals were being discussed but was not involved in them.

''I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers -- where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew,'' Gonzales said last week. ''But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the attorney general.''

Later, he added: ''I accept responsibility for everything that happens here within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the department, obviously there are going to be decisions that I'm not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated.''

The documents were released Friday night, a few hours after Sampson agreed to testify at a Senate inquiry next week into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

Asked to explain the difference between Gonzales' comments and his schedule, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse largely sidestepped the question by saying the attorney general had relied on Sampson to draw up the plans on the firings.

''The attorney general has made clear that he charged Mr. Sampson with directing a plan to replace U.S. attorneys where for one reason or another the department believed that we could do better,'' Roehrkasse said. ''He was not, however, involved at the levels of selecting the particular U.S. attorneys who would be replaced.''

Gonzales this week directed the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the circumstances of the firings, officials said. The department's inspector general also will participate in that investigation.

Nonetheless Democrats pounced late Friday.

''If the facts bear out that Attorney General Gonzales knew much more about the plan than he has previously admitted, then he can no longer serve as Attorney General,'' said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who is heading the Senate's investigation into the firings.

Added House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers:

''This puts the Attorney General front and center in these matters, contrary to information that had previously been provided to the public and Congress.''

Presidential spokesman Trey Bohn referred questions to the Justice Department, saying White House officials had not seen the documents.

The developments were not what Republicans, skittish about new revelations, had hoped.

Earlier Friday, a staunch White House ally, Sen. John Cornyn, summoned White House counsel Fred Fielding to Capitol Hill and told him he wanted ''no surprises.''

''I told him, 'Everything you can release, please release. We need to know what the facts are,''' Cornyn said.

Sampson will appear Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, his attorney said. His appearance will mark the first congressional testimony by a Justice Department aide since the release of thousands of documents that show the firings were orchestrated, in part, by the White House.

Sampson ''looks forward to answering the committee's questions,'' wrote his attorney, Brad Berenson, in a two-paragraph letter to Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

''We trust that his decision to do so will satisfy the need of the Congress to obtain information from him concerning the requested resignations of the United States attorneys,'' Berenson wrote.

E-mails between the White House and the Justice Department, dating back to the weeks immediately after the 2004 presidential election, show Sampson was heavily engaged in deciding how many prosecutors would be replaced, and which ones. The Bush administration maintains the dismissals of the eight political appointees were proper.

Democrats, however, question whether the eight were selected because they were not seen as, in Sampson's words, ''loyal Bushies.''

''He was right at the center of things,'' Schumer said earlier of Sampson. ''He has said publicly that what others have said is not how it happened. ... He contradicts DOJ.''

Schumer said he hoped Sampson would provide more detail about who initiated the firings and whether they were politically motivated.

------

Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks Is Said to Confess - New York Times

2007-03-15T08:50:00.000-04:00

Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks Is Said to Confess - New York Times

March 15, 2007

Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks Is Said to Confess

By ADAM LIPTAK

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, long said to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to them at a military hearing held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Saturday, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday. He also acknowledged full or partial responsibility for more than 30 other terror attacks or plots.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” he said.

In a rambling statement, Mr. Mohammed, a chief aide to Osama bin Laden, said his actions were part of a military campaign. “I’m not happy that 3,000 been killed in America,” he said in broken English. “I feel sorry even. I don’t like to kill children and the kids.” [Excerpts, Page A23.]

He added, “The language of war is victims.”

Though American officials had linked Mr. Mohammed to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to several others, his confession was the first time he spelled out in his own words a panoply of global terror activities, ranging from plans to bomb landmarks in New York City and London to assassination plots against former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II. Some of the plots he claimed to plan, including the attempt on Mr. Carter, had not previously been publicly disclosed.

Mr. Mohammed indicated in the transcript that some of his earlier statements to C.I.A. interrogators were the result of torture. But he said that his statements at the tribunal on Saturday were not made under duress or pressure.

His actions, he said, were like those of other revolutionaries. Had the British arrested George Washington during the Revolutionary War, Mr. Mohammed said, “for sure they would consider him enemy combatant.”

The hearing also summarized some of the evidence the Pentagon says supports the designation of Mr. Mohammed as an enemy combatant, including a computer hard drive containing information about the Sept. 11 hijackers, letters from Mr. bin Laden and the details of other plots. It was seized, the government says, when Mr. Mohammed was captured.

Mr. Mohammed spoke before a combatant status review tribunal that has the narrow task of determining whether President Bush had properly designated him an enemy combatant. Mr. Mohammed’s confession will almost certainly be used against him if and when he is tried for war crimes by a military commission.

Parts of the transcript were redacted by the military, and there were suggestions in it that Mr. Mohammed contended he was mistreated while in the custody of the C.I.A. after his arrest in 2003. He was transferred to military custody at Guantánamo Bay last year.

By tribunal rules, Mr. Mohammed was aided by a “personal representative,” not a lawyer. His attempt to call two witnesses was denied. And the tribunal indicated that it would consider classified evidence not made available to Mr. Mohammed.

Combatant status review tribunals are informal hearings created in response to a 2004 decision by the United States Supreme Court to judge whether prisoners at Guantánamo were properly designated as enemy combatants and subject to indefinite detention. Unlike the military commissions that hear war crimes charges, the combatant status review tribunals offer minimal procedural protections and are not recognizably judicial.

In the past, the hearings have been partly open to the press. But a series of recent hearings, involving some of the 14 so-called high-value detainees transferred to Guantánamo from secret C.I.A. prisons last year, were closed. In addition to the Mohammed transcript, the Pentagon yesterday also released transcripts of the hearings of Abu Faraj al-Libbi and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, top Qaeda operatives.

Mr. Libbi did not attend his hearing, and in a statement contained in the transcript he said he would refuse to do so until he could be tried according to accepted judicial principles in the United States. He said he had not been granted a lawyer and could not introduce witnesses in his defense.

“If I am classified as an enemy combatant,” he said in the statement, “it is possible that the United States will deem my witnesses are enemy combatants and judicial or administration action may be taken against them. It is my opinion the detainee is in a lose-lose situation.”

The tribunals in all three cases reserved judgment on the question of whether the men were indeed properly classified as enemy combatants, but there is little doubt that the president’s designation will be affirmed.

The prisoners may appeal the conclusions of the tribunals to a federal appeals court in Washington. While not contesting his own guilt, Mr. Mohammed asked the United States government to “be fair with people.” He said that many people who had been arrested as terrorists in the wake of 9/11 were innocent.

Mr. Mohammed’s representative, an Air Force lieutenant colonel whose name was not released, read a statement on Mr. Mohammed’s behalf “with the understanding he may interject or add statements if he needs to.”

In the statement, Mr. Mohammed described himself as the “military operational commander for all foreign operations around the world” for Al Qaeda.

He also took responsibility for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali.

Mr. Mohammed also outlined a vast series of plots that were not completed. Among his targets, he said, were office buildings in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York; suspension bridges in New York; the New York Stock Exchange “and other financial targets after 9/11”; the Panama Canal; British landmarks including Big Ben; buildings in Israel; American embassies in Indonesia, Australia and Japan; Israeli embassies in India, Azerbaijan, the Philippines and Australia; airliners around the world; and nuclear power plants in the United States.

He said he managed “the cell for the production of biological weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on dirty-bomb operations on American soil.”

Mr. Mohammed also said that he had taken part in “surveying and financing for the assassination of several former American presidents, including President Carter.” He added that he was responsible for an assassination plot against President Clinton in the Philippines in 1994.

But Mr. Mohammed interrupted his representative to clarify that he was not solely responsible for a 1995 attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II during a visit to the Philippines.

“I was not responsible,” Mr. Mohammed said, “but share.”

American officials and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan have said that Mr. Mohammed took part in killing Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, in Pakistan in 2002. Though Mr. Mohammed referred to Mr. Pearl in passing in the transcript, he did not confess to the killing. He did say that he had plotted to assassinate President Musharraf.

At the end of the recitation, Mr. Mohammed was asked, “Were those your words?”

“Yes,” he answered.

Later, he said: “What I wrote here, is not I’m making myself hero, when I said I was responsible for this or that. But you are military man. You know very well there are language for war.”

It is not clear how many of Mr. Mohammed’s expansive claims were legitimate. In 2005, the Sept. 11 commission said that Mr. Mohammed was noted for his extravagant ambitions, and, using his initials, described his vision as “theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star, the superterrorist.”

Mr. Mohammed declined to speak under oath, saying his religious beliefs prohibited it. But he said he was telling the truth.

“To be or accept the tribunal as to be, I’ll accept it,” he said. “That I’m accepting American Constitution, American law or whatever you are doing here. That is why religiously I cannot accept anything you do.”

He added: “When I not take oath does not mean I’m lying.”

Mr. Mohammed, 41, is an ethnic Pakistani who grew up in Kuwait and graduated from North Carolina State Agricultural and Technical State University in 1986. He was captured on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and was held in the secret C.I.A. prison system, where he is believed to have been subjected to harsh interrogation.

In a long monologue that fills about four single-spaced pages of the transcript, Mr. Mohammed said his motives were military ones.

“If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses, they send for a bombardment,” he said. “I consider myself, for what you are doing, a religious thing as you consider us fundamentalist. So, we derive from religious leading that we consider we and George Washington doing the same thing.”

He pleaded on behalf of some of his fellow detainees. “I’m asking you again to be fair with many detainees which are not enemy combatant,” Mr. Mohammed said. “Because many of them have been unjustly arrested.”

The unclassified part of the hearing lasted for a little more than an hour, according to the transcript.

Near the end, Mr. Mohammed summed up. “The American have human right,” he said. “So, enemy combatant itself, it flexible word.”

“War start from Adam when Cain killed Abel until now,” he said.

Margot Williams contributed reporting.

N.Y. Times - Obama on the Issues (and his Grandfather’s Wives)

2007-03-08T06:34:00.000-05:00

March 5, 2007, 4:54 pm

Obama on the Issues (and his Grandfather’s Wives)

By Nicholas D. Kristof

In Tuesday’s column, I write about Barack Obama and argue that it’s a canard that he is too inexperienced to be a good president. I quote briefly in the column from an interview I did with him in his Senate office on Feb. 27, but here are highlights from the transcript as a whole.

Q. Let’s start with Iraq. What happens if we do pull out troops from Iraq and then everybody just starts massacring each other and we have a genocide there?

A. Look, I think that the trajectory that we’re on is unsustainable and untenable. But I’ve been very clear that we need to be as careful of getting out as we were careless getting in….. Beginning a withdrawal and redeployment doesn’t mean that we are abandoning the field. Some of those folks need to go to Afghanistan and I think the reports that have been coming out of Afghanistan . . . the last several weeks confirm that we have a lot of unfinished business there. Some of those troops could be deployed in Kuwait or in various — around the region that would still allow us to respond in cases of an emergency.
Now, having said all that, is there a risk of a temporary spike in violence in the event of a phased redeployment? Absolutely. I don’t think that — anybody who suggests that we can guarantee success or stability in Iraq at this point is not being realistic — not being honest. I think there are risks in all the options we have available to us. I simply think that the only way to change the dynamic fundamentally on the ground involves us sending a signal to the Iraqi government that we’re not going to be there in perpetuity, sending a signal to the regional powers that we’re not going to be there forever and putting the onus on them.

Q. Tell me about Iran. I saw some sort of hawkish quotes that you gave, I think in 2004, to The Chicago Tribune. [He was quoted then as saying, “My instinct would be to err on not having those weapons in the possession of the ruling clerics of Iran.”]

A. Yeah. You know, they — I have to say they got painted as much more hawkish than they were intended. I mean essentially what is said, which I think would be incontrovertible, is that, you know, Iran’s a developing country. A nuclear weapon is a problem for the future. And that we should preserve our military options. And I think the exact quote at the time was, you know, If there was a way of disabling a nuclear facility without any collateral damage, then that would certainly be an option we’d want to take into account. You know, I don’t think that’s a particularly controversial statement. But the — but those options don’t exist. And I said in the very same article that every assessment that I’ve seen suggests that even if you are predisposed to military action, those options are extraordinarily dangerous….. More to the point, in light of what’s happening in Iraq, I would hope that the administration has learned its lesson. I certainly hope Congress has learned its lesson — that being trigger happy or having a quick trigger finger when it comes to military actions without having exhausted our diplomatic options, and without, you know, I think, having a very clear sense of what outcomes we’re looking for is a recipe for disaster. So I’ve been consistent throughout this process in saying we should talk to Iran. I think we should talk to Iran without conditions….

Q. I think it was the same article — maybe a different one — where you also sounded a little hawkish on Pakistan….[The Tribune paraphrased him on Sept. 25, 2004: “Obama said that if President Pervez Musharraf were to lose power in a coup, the United States similarly might have to consider military action in that country to destroy nuclear weapons it already possesses.”]

A. It’s a situation where I was simply saying things that I think, in Washingtonspeak, you use code for….What I said with respect to Pakistan was that, given that they’ve got a proven nuclear arsenal and that there’s been a history of their military not being as cautious as we would like them to be with respect to nuclear proliferation issues, and given the history of A.Q. Khan and what’s happened there, that you know if you had a coup in which Islamic extremists took over the Pakistani government, that would be a significant threat to U.S. security and we would want, again, to keep all our military options open. Now my hope is that we prevent that from happening or that we do everything we can to strengthen the forces of democracy and maintain good relations with Pakistan. Now, it’s a difficult thing because we have a genuine ally in Musharraf. It’s an imperfect partner. And. . . there are aspects of the Pakistani government and its relationship to its own people as well as its approach to dealing with al Qaeda and the Taliban that are real problems. And you know I guess I would probably like to see the administration send clearer signals to Pakistan that we want to work with them, we want to cooperate with them, we want to help them build their economy. We’re willing to put resources into Pakistan to improve the daily life of Pakistanis, which I think will in the long term strengthen Musharraf’s power. But in exchange, we have to be attentive to human rights, women’s rights. And we have to ask them to take issues like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, more seriously than they . . .

Q. How much difference does it make in dealing with Pakistan or Islamic rulers generally that you have a Muslim grandfather? Does that give you maybe less credibility in Alabama perhaps but more in Pakistan?

A. Probably my family background in and of itself may be less relevant, because the truth is my grandfather was Muslim but I never knew him. My father was basically an atheist or agnostic and I didn’t really know him either. But the connection that’s more direct is the four years I spent in Indonesia as a child — in a predominantly Muslim country. And although my stepfather wasn’t a practicing Muslim either, you know, I obviously was immersed in the culture that, you know, in which Islam played a role. I think it does make a difference. I think it makes people feel that I am less likely to engage in stereotypes and that I’m less likely to respond out of fear toward the Muslim world. That I’m willing and able to listen. And most importantly, I think, in our foreign policy, that I’m dealing with people on the basis of mutual dignity and respect. . . . one of the biggest problems with the Bush administration’s . . . foreign policy is a general dismissiveness, a sense that we will do what we please and we expect the world to align itself with whatever decisions that we make. And the degree to which not just the Islamic world . . .finds it to be myopic because it doesn’t recognize all the shifts of power that have taken place around the world, I think is important. But the last thing I’d — the last point I guess I would make about this, you know, my experience growing up in Indonesia or having family in small villages in Africa, I think it makes me much more mindful of the importance of issues like personal security or freedom from corruption or freedom from arbitrary violence. Because I’ve witnessed it in much more direct ways than I think the average American has witnessed it. You know, when I was growing up, and I write about this in my first book, you know, seeing beggars on the streets in front of the homes of generals who, you know, have a monopoly on all wheat imports . . . Right? And seeing the very real consequences of corruption. Or, you know, the fear that my own stepfather experienced when his visa was revoked and he was called back from studying in Hawaii because there’d been a military coup. And understanding that, you know, what we should be importing is not just an electocracy, not just sort of the form of democracy but that there’s — that the substance of electricity and water and freedom from disease and freedom from arbitrary arrest and the host of issues that people every day are struggling with, you know, for me to be attuned to that, I think, would make me a much better president.

Q. And your grandfather was Sunni?

A. No, I have no idea because my grandfather, I mean he grew up in traditional Luo culture. But fascinating, how he became Muslim was he actually was a cook for with the British army. And they then took him overseas. He initially converted to Christianity, and so I think was a Christian probably as long as he was a Muslim. And then at some point I think they may have gone to Saudi Arabia, I mean the stories are somewhat vague, he converted to Islam because I think he liked the — he was a very stern character and I think he just liked the idea that somehow, I think in the end Christianity seemed a little soft to him, the whole turn-the-other-cheek thing. So it appealed to his temperament more. I mean this is the story, I never met him, but this is the stories that I get.

Q. He had multiple wives?

A. Oh, yeah. Well, ultimately he only had two.

Q. Simultaneous though?

A. Let me think. You know, actually — no, no, I mean the Luo were polygamists, as were a lot of cultures at that time. So he would have viewed nothing wrong with having multiple wives, but I actually think he ended up having — no, I take — I think he would have had — I’m trying to just remember if they were consecutive or overlapping. His first wife, who was actually my blood grandmother, was — actually my, the woman who I call granny I see is actually a step-granny, so that’s actually his second wife. These things get a little fuzzy.

Q. Tell me about your anti-poverty work in Chicago, to what extent does that actual frustrating experience on the ground, to what extent does that inform your stance on poverty issues?

A. It informs it in a couple of ways. One, it confirms my deep-seated belief that most Americans want the same thing. It basically confirms my deep-seated belief that most people in the world want the same thing, which is shelter, the basics, necessities in life — they want their kids to succeed, they want some dignity and respect. …. It made me probably more modest in understanding that change does not happen quickly, that you have to have sustained effort over time to bring about significant change. It probably makes my views on how to bring that change about more complex than I think the ideological debates would present. Because I actually think that the interaction between government or social institutions and culture in economic development and making people’s lives better is integral. Schools being a great example. I’m a firm believer that we need to put more money into the inner-city schools. I’m also a firm believe that money alone without changes in attitude and how people think about learning, the commitment of parents to pushing their kids and the lifting of sort of anti-intellectualism, that is not unique to the inner city, it actually pervades a lot of America culture….those are all critical factors.
And so one of the interesting things when I think about the power of the presidency, I would see my role not only as somebody who’s pushing broadband into the classroom and higher teacher pay and early childhood education, but also somebody who’s using the bully pulpit to exhort our kids to take more math and science classes, and our parents to turn off the TV sets…..Just to tie it back to your original question, a lot of that comes from that experience.

Q. And your fatherhood initiative, the emphasis on family, I wondered if that was something that actually —

A. Absolutely. Same kind of thing. And I think one of the opportunities for Democrats in this election is to shed some of the constraints that we may have had from talking about what had been deemed family values. I think there’s no reason why that should be cornered by the conservatives. There’s nothing incompatible with talking about those issues and still being a strong supporter of women’s rights and still being a strong supporter of civil liberties and being forward-looking. We’re not going to replicate the 50’s, nor would we want to. But I think creating a life for children that is stable and in which they have reliable, regular adult figure in their lives that they can look up to is important.

Q. What about Darfur?

A. You know, I continue to be frustrated with our inability to act forcefully. The fact is that as long as we are still bogged down in Iraq, we have used up so much political capital and military firepower that it’s very difficult — it curtails the number of options that are available to us. But I would say that we have reached the point where a no-fly zone is probably warranted — if nothing else, just to disable the helicopter strafing or the janjaweed moving in with impunity. But doesn’t solve the long-term problem.
Now, again, this is where us having acted so unilaterally over the last six years is a real impediment to us being able to gather an alliance around a no-fly zone strategy. Because it would be very easy for Sudan to play the Muslim card to say here’s, once again, the U.S. attacking a Muslim country without the support of the world community. And al Qaeda will use it in their propaganda . . .It’s not clear to me that we’re going to get a significant amount of movement out of the Security Council for us to actually get a protective force on the ground . . . And I have to say this is where the Europeans have been very disappointing. For all the problems of the Bush administration, on this issue they’ve been better than anybody else. And it’s distressing to see the European countries that are often critical of our disregard for the underdeveloped world to see the callousness with which they’ve treated this issue.

Q. Talk about that a little bit. I asked Mark [Lippert] how an Obama administration would be different than the Bill Clinton administration, for example. And the thing that he emphasized was soft power and humanitarian efforts to boost our political capital..

A. Well, look, it’s not just humanitarian efforts. The argument I think we are going to be making in this campaign is that these investments are part of our national security strategy and that if we don’t get a handle on the ungoverned spaces around the world, if we are allowing anarchy and chaos and genocide to fester, if we are seeing the fastest growing populations end up uneducated and without prospects and without hope, and you’ve got millions of young men with caches of weapons ready to be mobilized by whatever hateful ideologies are out there, we’ve got problems. And for us to devote a portion of our security budget and strategy to investing in boreholes and schools and the training of police to obey the rule of law in countries and expanding the education of women and young girls in villages around the world, and giving them access to markets, if we can’t take what, relative to our military hardware and defense budgets, are a pittance and put some resources into these areas, we will not be secure…..Traditionally foreign aid has always been viewed — well, not always — I mean recently it has always been viewed as an afterthought. And I say more recent because George Marshall understood this. And the Marshall Plan was part of a security strategy, it wasn’t simply charity. We have to broaden that conception.

Q. One last question. Cuba. Is the embargo a failure?

A. Well, I think we’ve got a potential opportunity with Castro’s health waning to reopen the debate. We probably shouldn’t be overly optimistic that it’s going to change overnight. And I think it’s important that the United States isn’t too heavy-handed post-Castro in swooping and suggesting that somehow Cuba’s going to change immediately. I do think that it opens up the conversation among not just the United States but among Cubans both in the U.S. and in Cuba about breaking down some of the restrictions on travel and commerce….I don’t think we automatically ease those restrictions simply because Castro has died. What I think is that with Castro’s death there are going to be a new set of players, I think it’s going to be important for us to do an entire reevaluation of our strategy towards Cuba. And I think the aim should be to create a more open relationship….But that is still going to be contingent on having some desire on the part of the Cuban government to initiate that process as well.

N.Y. Times Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan’s Ex-Sex Slaves

2007-03-08T06:04:00.000-05:00

March 8, 2007

Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan’s

Ex-Sex Slaves

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

SYDNEY, Australia, March 7 — Wu Hsiu-mei said she was 23 and working as a maid in a hotel in 1940 when her Taiwanese boss handed her over to Japanese officers. She and some 15 other women were sent to Guangdong Province in southern China to become sex slaves.

Inside a hotel there was a so-called comfort station, managed by a Taiwanese but serving only the Japanese military, Ms. Wu said. Forced to have sex with more than 20 Japanese a day for almost a year, she said, she had multiple abortions and became sterile.

The long festering issue of Japan’s war-era sex slaves gained new prominence last week when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied the military’s role in coercing the women into servitude. The denial by Mr. Abe, Japan’s first prime minister born after the war, drew official protests from China, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, some of the countries from which the sex slaves were taken.

The furor highlighted yet again Japan’s unresolved history in a region where it has been ceding influence to China. The controversy has also drawn in the United States, which has strongly resisted entering the history disputes that have roiled East Asia in recent years.

Ms. Wu told her story on Wednesday outside the Japanese Consulate here, where she and two others who had been sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women, were protesting Tokyo’s refusal to admit responsibility for the abuse that historians say they and as many as 200,000 other women suffered.

All three — Ms. Wu, who is now 90; a 78-year-old South Korean from Seoul; and an 84-year-old Dutch-Australian from Adelaide — were participating in an international conference for Japan’s former sex slaves here. Now, just days after Mr. Abe’s remarks, the three were united in their fury.

“I was taken away by force by Japanese officers, and a Japanese military doctor forced me to undress to examine me before I was taken away,” said Ms. Wu, who landed here in Sydney on Tuesday night after a daylong flight from Taipei. “How can Abe lie to the world like that?”

Mr. Abe, a nationalist who had built his career partly on playing down Japan’s wartime past, made his comments in response to a confluence of events, beginning with the Democratic victory in the American Congressional elections last fall. That gave impetus to a proposed nonbinding resolution in the House that would call on Japan to unequivocally acknowledge and apologize for its brutal mistreatment of the women.

Even as Mr. Abe’s closest allies pressed him to soften a 1993 government statement that acknowledged the military’s role in forcing the women into sexual slavery, three former victims testified in Congress last month.

On Monday, Mr. Abe said he would preserve the 1993 statement but denied its central admission of the military’s role, saying there had been no “coercion, like the authorities breaking into houses and kidnapping” women.

He said private dealers had coerced the women, adding that the House resolution was “not based on objective facts” and that Japan would not apologize even if it was passed.

The resolution calls for Japan to “formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery.”

“Prime Minister Abe is in effect saying that the women are lying,” Representative Mike Honda, the California Democrat who is spearheading the legislation, said in a telephone interview. “I find it hard to believe that he is correct given the evidence uncovered by Japanese historians and the testimony of the comfort women.”

Japanese historians, using the diaries and testimony of military officials as well as official documents from the United States and other countries, have been able to show that the military was directly or indirectly involved in coercing, deceiving, luring and sometimes kidnapping young women throughout Japan’s Asian colonies and occupied territories.

They estimate that up to 200,000 women served in comfort stations that were often an intrinsic part of military operations.

Yet although Mr. Abe admitted coercion by private dealers, some of his closest allies in the governing Liberal Democratic Party have dismissed the women as prostitutes who volunteered to work in the comfort stations. They say no official Japanese government documents show the military’s role in recruiting the women.

According to historians, the military established the stations to boost morale among its troops, but also to prevent rapes of local women and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among soldiers.

Japan’s deep fear of rampaging soldiers also led it to establish brothels with Japanese prostitutes across Japan for American soldiers during the first months of the postwar occupation, a fact that complicates American involvement in the current debate.

In 1995 a private fund was set up to compensate the women, but many refused to accept any money because they saw the measure as a way for the government to avoid taking direct responsibility. Only 285 women have accepted money from the fund, which will be terminated at the end of this month.

The most direct testimony of the military’s role has come from the women themselves.

“An apology is the most important thing we want — an apology that comes from the government, not only a personal one — because this would give us back our dignity,” said Jan Ruff O’Herne, 84, who testified to a Congressional panel last month.

Ms. Ruff was living with her family in Java, in what was then the Dutch East Indies, when Japan invaded in 1942. She spent the first two years in a prison camp, she said, but Japanese officers arrived one day in 1944. They forced single girls and women to line up and eventually picked 10 of them, including Ms. Ruff, who was 21.

“On the first night, it was a high-ranking officer,” Ms. Ruff said. “It was so well organized. A military doctor came to our house regularly to examine us against venereal diseases, and I tell you, before I was examined the doctor raped me first. That’s how well organized it was.”

In Japan’s colonies, historians say, the military worked closely with, or sometimes completely relied on, local people to obtain women.

In Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea, Gil Won-ok said, she lined up outside a Japanese military base to look for work in her early teens. A Korean man, she said, approached her with the promise of factory work, but she eventually found herself in a comfort station in northeast China.

After she caught syphilis and developed tumors, Ms. Gil said, a Japanese military doctor removed her uterus.

“I’ve felt dead inside since I was 15,” said Ms. Gil, who was 16 when the war ended.

Like many comfort women, Ms. Gil was unable to bear children and never married, though she did adopt a son. She now lives in a home with three other former comfort women in Seoul.

Ms. Wu married twice, each time hiding her background. Somehow the husbands found out, and the marriages ended unhappily. Her adopted daughter is now angry with Ms. Wu for having spoken in public about her past, she said.

As for Ms. Ruff, she returned to the prison camp in Java after her release from the comfort station. Her parents swore her to silence. A Roman Catholic priest told Ms. Ruff, who had thought of becoming a nun: “My dear child, under these circumstances it is wise that you do not become a nun.”

It was at the camp that she met her future husband, Tom Ruff, one of the British soldiers who had been deployed to guard the camp after Japan’s defeat. She told him her story once before they were married — long before they had two daughters and migrated to Australia.

“But I needed to talk about it,” Ms. Ruff said, sitting at the kitchen table in her daughter Carol’s home here. “I could never talk to my husband about it. I loved Tom and I wanted to marry and I wanted a house. I wanted a family, I wanted children, but I didn’t want sex. He had to be very patient with me. He was a good husband. But because we couldn’t talk about it, it made it all so hard.”

“You could talk to Dad about it,” said her daughter Carol, 55.

“No, this is what I keep saying,” Ms. Ruff said. “I just told him the story once. It was never talked about again. For that generation the story was too big. My mum couldn’t cope with it. My dad couldn’t cope with it. Tom couldn’t cope with it. They just shut it up. But nowadays you’ll get counseling immediately.”

“It’s a wonderful thing,” Carol said.

“You don’t know how hard it was to carry this enormous burden inside you, that you would like to scream out to the world and yet you cannot,” Ms. Ruff said. “But I remember telling Carol, ‘One day I’m going to tell my story, and people will be interested.’ ”

ABC News - CIA Rushing Resources to Bin Laden Hunt

2007-03-06T05:56:00.000-05:00

CIA Rushing Resources to Bin Laden Hunt

March 05, 2007 3:47 PM

Brian Ross Reports:

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

"Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct," said one U.S. official. "We are very much increasing our efforts there," the official said.

People familiar with the CIA operation say undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan and the area across the border with Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up.

Although never publicly acknowledged, Pakistan has permitted CIA teams to secretly operate inside Pakistan.

Pakistan officials say they are aware that CIA teams have increased their presence in northern Waziristan since last September when Pakistan withdrew its troops from the area under a much-criticized "peace deal" with tribal leaders.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified last week that current intelligence "to the best of our knowledge" puts both bin Laden and al Zawahri in Pakistan. It was the first time a high-ranking U.S. official publicly identified Pakistan as bin Laden's hiding place.

Past intelligence has indicated that bin Laden often changed locations in March, traveling to hiding places in the mountains once the snow cover begins to melt.

WP: Blacks shift to Obama, poll finds

2007-02-28T17:34:00.000-05:00

WP: Blacks shift to Obama, poll finds

African American voters moving away from Sen. Clinton

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen

The Washington Post

Updated: 6:49 a.m. ET Feb 28, 2007

The opening stages of the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination have produced a noticeable shift in sentiment among African American voters, who little more than a month ago heavily supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton but now favor the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton, of New York, continues to lead Obama and other rivals in the Democratic contest, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. But her once-sizable margin over the freshman senator from Illinois was sliced in half during the past month largely because of Obama's growing support among black voters.

In the Republican race, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who recently made clear his intentions to seek the presidency, has expanded his lead over Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Giuliani holds a 2 to 1 advantage over McCain among Republicans, according to the poll, more than tripling his margin of a month ago.

The principal reason was a shift among white evangelical Protestants, who now clearly favor Giuliani over McCain. Giuliani among this group of Americans despite his support of abortion rights and gay rights, two issues of great importance to religious conservatives. McCain opposes abortion rights.

Among Democrats, Clinton still enjoys many of the advantages of a traditional front-runner. Pitted against Obama and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, she was seen by Democrats as the candidate with the best experience to be president, as the strongest leader, as having the best chance to get elected, as the closest to voters on the issues and as the candidate who best understands the problems "of people like you." Obama was seen as the most inspirational.

The Post-ABC News poll was completed days after aides to the two leading Democrats engaged in a testy exchange over comments critical of Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, by Hollywood mogul David Geffen, a former friend and financial backer of the Clintons who hosted a fundraiser for Obama last week in Los Angeles.

Early national polls are not always good predictors for presidential campaigns, but the Post-ABC poll offers clues to the competition ahead.

On the January weekend when she announced her candidacy, Clinton led the Democratic field with 41 percent. Obama was second at 17 percent, Edwards was third at 11 percent and former vice president Al Gore, who has said he has no plans to run, was fourth at 10 percent.

The latest poll put Clinton at 36 percent, Obama at 24 percent, Gore at 14 percent and Edwards at 12 percent. None of the other Democrats running received more than 3 percent. With Gore removed from the field, Clinton would gain ground on Obama, leading the Illinois senator 43 percent to 27 percent. Edwards ran third at 14 percent. The poll was completed the night Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar.

Clinton's and Obama's support among white voters changed little since December, but the changes among black Democrats were dramatic. In December and January Post-ABC News polls, Clinton led Obama among African Americans by 60 percent to 20 percent. In the new poll, Obama held a narrow advantage among blacks, 44 percent to 33 percent. The shift came despite four in five blacks having a favorable impression of the New York senator.

Rising favorability rating
African Americans view Clinton even more positively than they see Obama, but in the time since he launched his campaign, his favorability rating rose significantly among blacks. In the latest poll, 70 percent of African Americans said they had a favorable impression of Obama, compared with 54 percent in December and January.

Overall, Clinton's favorable ratings dipped slightly from January, with 49 percent of Americans having a favorable impression and 48 percent an unfavorable impression. Obama's ratings among all Americans improved over the past month, with 53 percent saying they have a favorable impression and 30 percent saying they have an unfavorable impression.

Her position on the war in Iraq does not appear to be hurting Clinton among Democrats, even though she has faced hostile questioning from some voters about her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to go to war. Some Democrats have demanded that she apologize for the vote, which she has declined to do.

The Post-ABC News poll found that 52 percent of Democrats said her vote was the right thing to do at the time, while 47 percent said it was a mistake. Of those who called it a mistake, however, just 31 percent said she should apologize. Among Democrats who called the war the most important issue in deciding their 2008 candidate preference, Clinton led Obama 40 to 26 percent.

In the Republican contest, McCain once was seen as the early, if fragile front-runner, for his party's nomination, but Giuliani's surge adds a new dimension to the race. In the latest poll, the former New York mayor led among Republicans with 44 percent to McCain's 21 percent. Last month, Giuliani led with 34 percent to McCain's 27 percent.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich ran third in the latest poll with 15 percent, while former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was fourth with 4 percent. Gingrich has not said he definitely plans to run, and without him, Giuliani's lead would increase even more, to 53 percent compared with McCain's 23 percent.

When Republicans were asked to rate Giuliani, McCain and Romney on a series of attributes, Giuliani was seen as the strongest leader, the most inspiring, the candidate with the best chance of winning the general election, the most honest and trustworthy and the one closest to them on the issues. McCain was seen as having the best experience to be president, but only by a narrow margin.

Potential problems for Giuliani
Giuliani faces potential problems because of his views on abortion and gay rights. More than four in 10 Republicans said they were less likely to support him because of those views. More than two in 10 Republicans said there was "no chance" they could vote for him.

With Clinton and Obama as possible barrier-breakers in this presidential campaign, Americans were asked how a candidate's race or gender would affect their vote. What the poll showed is that Americans indicated they were less likely to support a candidate over age 72 or a candidate who is a Mormon than a female or African American candidate.

Those findings could affect McCain, who is 70, and Romney, who is a Mormon. Nearly six in 10 said they would be less likely to vote for someone over age 72, while three in 10 said they would be less likely to support a Mormon.

The Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Feb. 22-25 among a random sample of 1,082 adults, including an oversample of 86 black respondents. The margin of sampling error for the poll was plus or minus 3 percentage points; it is higher for the sub-samples.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report

'I Heard a Loud Boom' -- Cheney Discusses Assassination Attempt

2007-02-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

'I Heard a Loud Boom' -- Cheney Discusses Assassination Attempt

Suicide Bomber Strikes U.S. Base Where Cheney Was Staying; Unhurt, Cheney Heads to Kabul

Vice President Dick Cheney arrives at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. (Richard Coolidge)

By JONATHAN KARL

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 27, 2007 — A suicide bomber struck at the main entrance to the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, today, as Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting.

"I heard a loud boom, and shortly after that the Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate, apparently a suicide bomber," Cheney said to a small group of reporters traveling with him.

At least 10 people were killed including a U.S. soldier. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office told The Associated Press as many as 23 had been killed.

Immediately after the attack, a red alert sounded throughout the base — a red alert that said the base was under direct attack.

The Secret Service rushed Cheney to a bomb shelter on the air base.

"They moved me for a relatively brief period of time to one of the bomb shelters near the quarters I was staying in," Cheney said.

Cheney said he never considered altering his schedule because of the bombing. About an hour after the explosion, he was aboard an Air Force C-17, flying to Kabul as planned for a meeting with Karzai.

Cheney said he was aware that the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack.

"I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government, and striking at Bagram with a suicide bomber is one way to do that," he said, adding that such attacks should "never affect our behavior at all."

Bad weather in Afghanistan had forced the vice president to spend the night in Bagram on Monday. He had only planned to be there for a few hours. The overnight stay in Afghanistan makes Cheney the most senior Bush administration official to spend the night in a war zone, a fact that complicated the already intense security surrounding this trip.

Maj. William Mitchell said Cheney was never in danger.

"He wasn't near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."

Old Foes Join in Anger as Train Bombing’s Toll Rises to 66

2007-02-20T06:52:00.001-05:00

February 20, 2007

Old Foes Join in Anger as Train Bombing’s Toll Rises to 66

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

DIWANA, India, Feb. 19 — A day after two homemade bombs killed at least 66 people on a train traveling to Pakistan from India, the governments of both countries on Monday condemned the attack and pledged that it would not deter their aim of reducing longstanding hostilities on the subcontinent.

The office of Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, on Monday morning called the bombing “an act of terror” and promised to apprehend those responsible. Pakistan also denounced the attack, which occurred on the eve of a visit by Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, the Pakistani foreign minister, to the Indian capital, New Delhi, and two weeks before officials from both countries were to meet for the first time to share information on terrorism-related activities.

The train had ferried more than 600 passengers from Delhi to the India-Pakistan border. The bombs exploded just after midnight Sunday, trapping slumbering passengers aboard the Attari Express in flames. By early Monday, when the bodies were pulled from train, they were so severely burned it was difficult to tell who they were, let alone whether they were Indian or Pakistani.

All told, 66 bodies were taken out of two burned-out compartments; 13 survivors somehow escaped, including an infant and Kamruddin, 60, a small thin man from Multan, Pakistan, who thanked God as an ambulance carried him to an Indian government hospital in New Delhi on Monday. Kamruddin recalled making his way to the door of his coach and having someone pull him out.

Twelve hours later, the two coaches were still smoldering.

Peace talks between India and Pakistan have crawled along for three years, yielding little more than an accord on transportation links like the Attari Express. The two last stepped close to the brink of war in early 2002. They have fought each other in three wars since independence from British rule in 1947.

“This is an act of sabotage,” Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Indian railroad minister, told reporters in the eastern city of Patna, according to wire service reports. “This is an attempt to derail the improving relationship between India and Pakistan.”

In a statement reported by Reuters, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, said, “We will not allow elements which want to sabotage the ongoing peace process to succeed in their nefarious designs.”

The overnight train, en route from Delhi to the border post at Attari, began service 30 years ago, and after a two-year suspension at a time of acute enmity between India and Pakistan, resumed service in January 2004. From Attari, passengers board a second train, which takes them to Lahore, Pakistan.

The explosions occurred when the train had advanced about a mile from Diwana, a tiny station here surrounded by fields of wheat.

Three other bombs were found in the train’s other coaches, according to police and railroad officials; a police officer at the scene said he saw a suitcase packed with eight to nine bottles filled with an unknown liquid, along with a plastic detonator.

V. K. Duggal, the home secretary, told reporters that sulfur and kerosene had probably been used.

Mr. Yadav, the railroad minister, said Monday evening that one person had been detained in connection with the blasts, according to Reuters, but offered no further details.

Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, told reporters that visas would be issued to Pakistani relatives of those who were feared dead. On Monday afternoon, police officers worked in the sun to identify victims at the main government hospital in Panipat, the nearest city to the site of the explosions, recording the remnants they had found: singed passports, a wallet, a key.

The attack occurred almost exactly five years after a fire on a train killed 59 Hindu pilgrims in Gujarat State, in western India, setting off some of the worst communal carnage in India’s history, in which at least 1,100 people were killed, mostly Muslims. Last July, a series of synchronized bombs went off on commuter trains in Mumbai, India’s largest city, killing about 180 people.

In the attack on Sunday, bombs went off inside two coaches, toward the back of the train, shortly after it left Diwana at 11:53 p.m., two officials at the station said. By the time the first fire trucks arrived, the two coaches were ablaze, and the air smelled of burning plastic and flesh, according to B. D. Ahuja, the fire station officer at Panipat.

Satya Narain Sharma, a firefighter who was among the first to reach the scene at 12:10 a.m. said that when fire crews tried to pry open the first door, it did not budge. Later, they found behind it a pile of bodies, all apparently passengers trying to escape. They found a second door open and began pulling out the dead. Muhammad Wasim Khan said his uncle, Shaffiq Ahmed Khan, from Karachi, was among the dead. Shaffiq Ahmed Khan and his sons, Aarish, 15, and Sammy, 9, had come to visit relatives in Delhi. They stayed for a month and began to make their way home on Sunday night, their bags stuffed with gifts: clothes, fancy soap and packets of Rajanigandha-brand paan masala, a North Indian mouth-freshener. They stuffed their money into their shoes, relatives said, so it would not be taken by the police along the way.

On Sunday night, Muhammad Wasim Khan settled them into the fourth coach from the back, and waved goodbye from the platform. The next afternoon, he found his uncle’s body at the hospital in Panipat. He recognized him by the brown coat he wore, and the money stuffed inside his shoes. His face was burned beyond recognition. The two boys had been admitted to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi.

At the Old Delhi railroad station, distraught friends and relatives began gathering before dawn to learn who had been killed and who had escaped alive, but at the emergency assistance booth on Platform 15, officials had little information.

Mohammad Aslam, a bangle manufacturer, who accompanied five of his cousins to the train on Sunday night, said his repeated requests for information were brushed off by station staff members. “They keep saying ‘How can we give you information when we know nothing ourselves?’ ” he said.

He said there had been no security searches before passengers boarded the train. Nodding toward the row of police officers searching people at the entrance to the station, opening suitcases and checking handbags, he said, “None of that was there yesterday.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting from Panipat and Amelia Gentleman from New Delhi.

Old Foes Join in Anger as Train Bombing’s Toll Rises to 66

2007-02-20T06:52:00.000-05:00

Outside Pressures Broke Korean Deadlock

2007-02-14T07:41:00.000-05:00

February 14, 2007

News Analysis
Outside Pressures Broke Korean Deadlock

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — It is hard to imagine that either George W. Bush or Kim Jong-il would have agreed even a year ago to the kind of deal they have now approved. The pact, announced Tuesday, would stop, seal and ultimately disable North Korea’s nuclear facilities, as part of a grand bargain that the administration has previously shunned as overly generous to a repressive country — especially one that has not yet said when or if it will give up its nuclear arsenal.

But in the past few months, the world has changed for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kim, two men who have made clear how deeply they detest each other. Both are beset by huge problems, and both needed some kind of breakthrough.

For Mr. Bush, bogged down in Iraq, his authority undercut by the November elections, any chance to show progress in peacefully disarming a country that detonated a nuclear test just four months ago could no longer be passed up. As one senior administration official said over the weekend, the prospect that Mr. Bush might leave Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea more dangerous places than he found them “can’t be very appealing.”

Still, the accord came under fast criticism from right and left that it was both too little and too late.

For years, Mr. Bush’s administration has been paralyzed by an ideological war, between those who wanted to bring down North Korea and those who thought it was worth one more try to lure the country out of isolation. In embracing this deal, Mr. Bush sided with those who have counseled engagement, notably his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and her chief negotiator, Christopher R. Hill. Mr. Bush took the leap in the hope that in a few months, he will be able to declare that North Korea can no longer produce fuel for new nuclear weapons, even if it has not yet turned over its old ones.

For Mr. Kim, the nuclear explosion — more of a fizzle — that he set off in the mountains not far from the Chinese border in October turned out to be a strategic mistake. The Chinese, who spent six decades protecting the Kim family dynasty, responded by cutting off his military aid, and helping Washington crack down on the banks that financed the Cognac-and-Mercedes lifestyle of the North Korean leadership.

“As a political statement, their test was a red flare for everyone,” said Robert Gallucci, who under President Clinton was the chief negotiator of the 1994 agreement with North Korea, which collapsed four years ago. “It gave President Bush and the Chinese some leverage.”

Mr. Gallucci and other nuclear experts agree that the hardest bargaining with world’s most reclusive, often paranoid, government remains ahead.

Over the next year, under the pact, the North must not only disable its nuclear reactors and reprocessing facilities, it must lead inspectors to its weapons and a suspected second nuclear weapons program. And to get to the next phase of the agreement, the one that gives “disarmament” meaning, North Korea will have to be persuaded to give away the country’s crown jewels: the weapons that make the world pay attention to it.

But before the administration faces off against Mr. Kim in Pyongyang, it will have to confront the many critics of the deal here at home. As the White House took credit on Tuesday for what it called a “first step,” it found itself pilloried by conservatives who attacked the administration for folding in negotiations with a charter member of what Mr. Bush called the “axis of evil,” and for replicating key elements of Mr. Clinton’s agreement with North Korea.

At the same time, Mr. Bush’s advisers were being confronted by barbs from veterans of the Clinton administration, who argued that the same deal struck Tuesday had been within reach several years and a half-dozen weapons ago, had only Mr. Bush chosen to negotiate with the North rather than fixate on upending its government.

In fact, elements of the new decision closely resemble the Clinton deal, called the Agreed Framework. As it did in that accord, the North agrees to “freeze” its operations at Yongbyon, its main nuclear facility, and to allow inspections there. And like that agreement, the new one envisions the North’s ultimately giving up all of its nuclear material.

In two respects, however, the new accord is different: North Korea does not receive the incentives the West has offered — in this case, about a year’s supply of heavy fuel oil and other aid — until it “disables” its equipment at Yongbyon and declares where it has hidden its bombs, nuclear fuel and other nuclear facilities. And the deal is not only with Washington, but with Beijing, Moscow, Seoul and Tokyo.

“We’re building a set of relationships,” Ms. Rice argued Tuesday, saying that the deal would not have been possible if she and President Bush had not been able to swing the Chinese over to their side. Mr. Bush has told colleagues that he believes the turning point came in his own blunt conversations with President Hu Jintao of China, in which, the American president has said, he explained in stark terms that a nuclear North Korea was more China’s problem than America’s.

But the administration was clearly taken aback on Tuesday by the harshness of the critique from the right, led by its recently departed United Nations ambassador, John R. Bolton, who charged that the deal “undercuts the sanctions resolution” against the North that he pushed through the Security Council four months ago.

Democrats, in contrast, were caught between enjoying watching Mr. Bush change course and declaring that the agreement amounted to disarmament-lite. “It gives the illusion of moving more rapidly to disarmament, but it doesn’t really require anything to happen in the second phase,” said Joel Wit, who was the coordinator of the 1994 agreement.

The Bush administration is counting on the lure of future benefits to the North — fuel oil, the peace treaty ending the Korean War it has long craved, an end to other sanctions — to force Mr. Kim to disclose where his nuclear weapons and fuel are stored.

Mr. Bush’s big worry now is that Mr. Kim is playing the administration for time. Many experts think he is betting that by the time the first big deliveries of oil and aid are depleted, America will be distracted by a presidential election.

But Mr. Bush could also end up with a diplomatic triumph, one he needs desperately. To get there, he appears to have changed course. Asked in 2004 about North Korea, he said, “I don’t think you give timelines to dictators and tyrants.”

Now he appears to have concluded that sometimes the United States has to negotiate with dictators and odious rulers, because the other options — military force, sanctions or watching an unpredictable nation gain a nuclear arsenal — seem even worse.

U.S. Says Arms Link Iranians to Iraqi Shiites

2007-02-12T08:14:00.000-05:00

February 12, 2007

U.S. Says Arms Link Iranians to Iraqi Shiites

By JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 — After weeks of internal debate, senior United States military officials on Sunday literally put on the table their first public evidence of the contentious assertion that Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most lethal weapons in the war. They said those weapons had been used to kill more than 170 Americans in the past three years.

Never before displayed in public, the weapons included squat canisters designed to explode and spit out molten balls of copper that cut through armor. The canisters, called explosively formed penetrators or E.F.P.s, are perhaps the most feared weapon faced by American and Iraqi troops here.

In a news briefing held under strict security, the officials spread out on two small tables an E.F.P. and an array of mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades with visible serial numbers that the officials said link the weapons directly to Iranian arms factories. The officials also asserted, without providing direct evidence, that Iranian leaders had authorized smuggling those weapons into Iraq for use against the Americans. The officials said such an assertion was an inference based on general intelligence assessments.

That inference, and the anonymity of the officials who made it, seemed likely to generate skepticism among those suspicious that the Bush administration is trying to find a scapegoat for its problems in Iraq, and perhaps even trying to lay the groundwork for war with Iran.

Iran on Monday rejected the American allegations. "Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence. Such charges are unacceptable," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.

Mr. Hosseini said Iran’s top leaders were not intervening in Iraq and considered "any intervention in Iraq’s internal affairs as a weakening of the popular Iraqi government, and we are opposed to that."

While the Americans displayed what they said was the physical evidence of their claims about Iran’s role in Iraq, they also left many questions unanswered, including proof that the Iranian government was directing the delivery of weapons.

The officials were repeatedly pressed on why they insisted on anonymity in such an important matter affecting the security of American and Iraqi troops. A senior United States military official gave a partial answer, saying that without anonymity, a senior Defense Department analyst who participated in the briefing could not have contributed.

The officials also were defensive about the timing of disclosing such incriminating evidence, since they had known about it as early as 2004. They said E.F.P. attacks had nearly doubled in 2006 compared with the previous year and a half.

“The reason we’re talking about this right now is the vast increase in the number of E.F.P.s being found,” one official said. American-led forces in Iraq, the official said, “are not trying to hype this up to be more than it is.”

Whatever doubts were created about the timing and circumstances of the weapons disclosures, the direct physical evidence presented on Sunday was extraordinary.

The officials said the E.F.P. weapons arrived in Iraq in the form of what they described as a “kit” containing high-grade metals and highly machined parts — like a shaped, concave lid that folds into a molten ball while hurtling toward its target.

For the first time, American officials provided a specific casualty total from these weapons, saying they had killed more than 170 Americans and wounded 620 since June 2004, when one of the devices first killed a service member.

But then the officials went much further, asserting without specific evidence that the Iranian security apparatus, called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Quds Force controlled delivery of the materials to Iraq. And in a further inference, the officials asserted that the Quds Force, sometimes called the I.R.G.C. - Quds, could be involved only with Iranian government complicity.

“We have been able to determine that this material, especially on the E.F.P. level, is coming from the I.R.G.C. - Quds Force,” said the senior defense analyst. That, the analyst said, meant direction for the operation was “coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government.”

At least one shipment of E.F.P.s was captured as it was smuggled from Iran into southern Iraq in 2005, the officials said. Caches and arrays of E.F.P.s, as well as mortars and other weapons traceable to Iran, have been repeatedly found inside Iraq in areas dominated by militias known to have ties to Iran, the officials said. One cache of antitank rocket-propelled grenades and other items was seized as recently as Jan. 23, the officials said.

The precise machining of E.F.P. components, the officials said, also links the weapons to Iran. “We have no evidence that this has ever been done in Iraq,” the senior military official said.

The officials also gave fresh details on recent American raids in Baghdad and the northern city of Erbil in which Quds Force members were picked up and accused of working with extremist groups to plan attacks on American and Iraqi forces.

Some of the five Iranians still being detained after they were picked up in Erbil on Jan. 11 had been flushing documents down a toilet when they were found, the defense analyst said, and they had recently been engaged in “changing their appearance” — apparently shaving their heads, though for what reason the analyst did not know.

An earlier raid in Baghdad was carried out, the officials said, after American forces received word that the No. 2 Quds Force official, whom they identified as Mohsin Chizari, was unexpectedly in Iraq. When Mr. Chizari was picked up in a raid in December, he was carrying false identification, the officials said.

He was later released to the Iraqi government with another Iranian official who was picked up at the same time. The Iraqis asked both Iranians to leave the country.

The senior defense analyst said there was no direct link between the detained Iranians and the physical evidence presented on Sunday. But the analyst said, “the overall tenor” of the evidence was that Mr. Chizari was implicated in bringing E.F.P.s into Iraq.

The briefing also presented new information on what the Americans call the smuggling routes. There are three main routes, officials said: the Mandelli border crossing, east of Baghdad; the Mehran crossing, in the marshes to the south; and in the southern city of Basra.

Paid Iraqis, rather than Iranians themselves, carry the materials across the border, the officials said.

The senior military official blamed recent press reports for, he said, overstating the importance of the weapons presentation, which had been delayed. Part of the delay reflected a view among officials in Washington that the original presentation was insufficiently strong. Officials here did not address that element of the internal debate.

The senior American military official did make it clear that declassifying the material took place only after weeks of analysis on what information could be useful to hostile forces — information that has mostly been kept out of the public eye since the E.F.P.s began turning up in Iraq. “We publicly have not acknowledged E.F.P.s for the past two years,” the senior military official said.

Laid out on the tables themselves were the tailfins of dozens of apparently used mortar shells, as well as intact mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades, cases for some of the weaponry, the E.F.P., and two identification cards the officials said were taken in the Erbil raid.

The shells had serial numbers in English in order to comply with international standards for arms, the officials said. One grenade, for instance, was marked with the serial number P.G.7-AT-1 followed by LOT:5-31-2006. The officials said that the serial numbers clearly identified the grenade as being of Iranian manufacture and the date showed that it had been made in 2006.

Commanders in Baghdad are acutely aware of the deadly E.F.P.s. Col. Steve Townsend, commander of the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Baghdad, said his unit has encountered about a dozen E.F.P.s in the past two months.

Iran’s role in Iraq has been discussed in recent months in public and private testimony by senior intelligence officials. In testimony last month, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said “there’s a clear line of evidence that points out the Iranians want to punish the United States, hurt the United States in Iraq, tie down the United States in Iraq, so that our other options in the region, against other activities the Iranians might have, would be limited.”

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last month that he believed that Iranian operatives inside Iraq were supporting Shiite militias and working against American troops.

But he also asserted that the White House had a poor understanding of Iranian calculations and added that he was concerned that the Bush administration was building a case for a more confrontational policy toward Tehran.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Michael R. Gordon and Felicity Barringer from Washington.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Michael R. Gordon and Felicity Barringer from Washington.

Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability

2007-02-11T08:25:00.000-05:00

February 11, 2007

Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability

By THOM SHANKER and MARK LANDLER
MUNICH, Feb. 10 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.

In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.

Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow’s former sphere of influence.

“The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance,” Mr. Putin said. “We have the right to ask, ‘Against whom is this expansion directed?’ ”

He said the United States had turned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sends monitors to elections in the former Soviet sphere, “into a vulgar instrument of ensuring the foreign policy interests of one country.”

The comments were the sternest yet from Mr. Putin, who has long bristled over criticism from the United States and its European allies as he and his cadre of former Soviet intelligence officials have consolidated their hold on Russia’s government, energy reserves and arms-manufacturing and trading complexes.

Rubble from the Berlin Wall was “hauled away as souvenirs” to countries that praise openness and personal freedom, he said, but “now there are attempts to impose new dividing lines and rules, maybe virtual, but still dividing our mutual continent.”

The world, he said, is now unipolar: “One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign.”

With the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the American defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, and a Congressional delegation sitting stone-faced, Mr. Putin warned that the power amassed by any nation that assumes this ultimate global role “destroys it from within.

“It has nothing in common with democracy, of course,” he added. “Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations — military force.”

“Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area,” said Mr. Putin, who increasingly has tried to re-establish Russia’s once broad Soviet-era influence, using Russia’s natural resources as leverage and defending nations at odds with the United States, including Iran.

American military actions, which he termed “unilateral” and “illegitimate,” also “have not been able to resolve any matters at all,” and, he said, have created only more instability and danger.

“They bring us to the abyss of one conflict after another,” he said. “Political solutions are becoming impossible.”

The comments irritated some European leaders and prompted sharp criticism from the Americans in attendance. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican widely expected to make a bid for the White House, made a rebuttal that began, “In today’s multipolar world, there is no place for needless confrontation.” He said that the United States won the cold war in partnership with powerful nations of Western Europe, and that “there are power centers on every continent today.”

Mr. McCain then hit back at Mr. Putin more directly. “Will Russia’s autocratic turn become more pronounced, its foreign policy more opposed to the principles of the Western democracies and its energy policy used as a tool of intimidation?” he asked. “Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions, at home and abroad, conflict fundamentally with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies.”

In Washington, Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said in a statement: “We are surprised and disappointed with President Putin’s comments. His accusations are wrong. We expect to continue cooperation with Russia in areas important to the international community such as counterterrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction.”

Russia has also faced criticism from the United States and other Western countries that believe it has used energy reserves and transport pipelines to reward friendly countries and to punish those seeking to distance themselves from Kremlin control. Some analysts saw the tone of the speech as evidence of how much oil and mineral revenues have strengthened Mr. Putin.

The occasion of the speech was the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy — an event begun deep in the cold war, when Germany was divided and hundreds of thousands of American troops were stationed in Western Europe as a bulwark against Warsaw Pact forces.

Mr. Putin began with an apology for the tough talk to come. But during a lively question and answer period full of challenges and rebukes, the Russian president indicated that he relished provoking the international audience of legislators, government leaders, political analysts and human rights advocates.

“I love it,” Mr. Putin said as he reviewed a long list of questions. He has long enjoyed high and durable public approval ratings at home, in part for standing up to the West and for pursuing an assertive foreign policy with former Soviet states.

He did offer at least two significant and conciliatory statements to the United States.

President Bush “is a decent man, and one can do business with him,” he said. From their meetings and discussions, Mr. Putin said, he has heard the American president say, “I assume Russia and the United States will never be enemies, and I agree.”

And while Mr. Putin denied that Russia had assisted the Iranian military with significant arms transfers, he also criticized the government in Tehran for not cooperating more with the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency or responding to questions about its nuclear program.

Other American lawmakers offered measured criticism afterward. “He’s done more to bring Europe and the U.S. together than any single event in the last several years,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, described the speech as “confrontational,” saying, “some of the rhetoric takes us back to the cold war.”

Iran’s top nuclear official, Ali Larijani, listened impassively from the back of the room. His attendance had become a sideshow in itself. After accepting an invitation to speak Sunday, he canceled, citing health reasons, after a tense meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that concluded with a decision to freeze technical cooperation projects.

Mr. Putin joked that he worried the United States was “hiding extra warheads under the pillow” despite its treaties with Moscow to reduce strategic nuclear stockpiles. And he indicated obliquely that the new Russian ballistic missile, known as the Topol-M, was being developed at least in part in response to American efforts to field missile defenses.

He expressed alarm that an effective antimissile shield over the United States would upset a system of mutual fear that kept the nuclear peace throughout the cold war. “That means the balance will be upset, completely upset,” he said.

Addressing tensions between Europe and Russia over energy exports, Mr. Putin said 26 percent of Russian oil was extracted by foreign companies. While Russia is open to outside investment, he said, it has found its businessmen blocked from deals abroad.

The Kremlin has been criticized for attempting to impose registration and taxation laws that could restrict the work of foreign nongovernmental organizations with offices in Russia to aid democratization.

But Mr. Putin said his concerns about the work grew from the fact that they “are used as channels for funding, and those funds are provided by governments of other countries.” That flow of foreign money to assist opposition Russian political organizations, he said, is “hidden from our society.

“What is democratic about this?” he asked. “This is not about democracy. This is about one country influencing another.”

Mrs. Merkel, in her opening speech, struck a far more diplomatic tone than Mr. Putin, though she alluded to the tensions between Europe and Russia over energy shipments and the independence of Kosovo.

Addressing herself to Mr. Putin, who was sitting in the front row, Mrs. Merkel said, “In my talks with you, I have sensed that Russia is going to be a reliable and predictable partner.” But she added, “We need to speak frankly with each other.”

Mrs. Merkel had previously criticized in sharp terms Russia’s recent shutdown of oil shipments to Belarus, which followed a dispute over natural gas prices. She is pressing Russia to sign a charter with the European Union on energy, which Moscow has resisted.

Mrs. Merkel alluded to another potential confrontation between Europe and Russia. The United Nations is weighing a proposal that would put Kosovo on the path to independence from Serbia, which Russia opposes because it fears that such a move could upset its own turbulent relations with ethnic groups in the Caucasus. Russia has crushed one separatist-minded people within its own borders, in Chechnya, but supports two breakaway regions in Georgia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“We’re going to come to the stage where we have to decide: does Serbia, does Kosovo want to move in the European direction?” Mrs. Merkel asked. “If that’s the route they choose, both will have to make compromises.”

C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Moscow.

Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says

2007-02-10T07:57:00.000-05:00

February 10, 2007

Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.

The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.

In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq.

The focus of American concern is known as an “explosively formed penetrator,” a particularly deadly type of roadside bomb being used by Shiite groups in attacks on American troops in Iraq. Attacks using the device have doubled in the past year, and have prompted increasing concern among military officers. In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say.

Because the weapon can be fired from roadsides and is favored by Shiite militias, it has become a serious threat in Baghdad. Only a small fraction of the roadside bombs used in Iraq are explosively formed penetrators. But the device produces more casualties per attack than other types of roadside bombs.

Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile. The officials said they were willing to discuss the issue to respond to what they described as an increasingly worrisome threat to American forces in Iraq, and were not trying to lay the basis for an American attack on Iran.

The assessment was described in interviews over the past several weeks with American officials, including some whose agencies have previously been skeptical about the significance of Iran’s role in Iraq. Administration officials said they recognized that intelligence failures related to prewar American claims about Iraq’s weapons arsenal could make critics skeptical about the American claims.

The link that American intelligence has drawn to Iran is based on a number of factors, including an analysis of captured devices, examination of debris after attacks, and intelligence on training of Shiite militants in Iran and in Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and by Hezbollah militants believed to be working at the behest of Tehran.

The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad.

The information includes interrogation reports from the raids indicating that money and weapons components are being brought into Iraq from across the Iranian border in vehicles that travel at night. One of the detainees has identified an Iranian operative as having supplied two of the bombs. The border crossing at Mehran is identified as a major crossing point for the smuggling of money and weapons for Shiite militants, according to the intelligence.

According to American intelligence, Iran has excelled in developing this type of bomb, and has provided similar technology to Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. The manufacture of the key metal components required sophisticated machinery, raw material and expertise that American intelligence agencies do not believe can be found in Iraq. In addition, some components of the bombs have been found with Iranian factory markings from 2006.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appeared to allude to this intelligence on Friday when he told reporters in Seville, Spain, that serial numbers and other markings on weapon fragments found in Iraq point to Iran as a source.

Some American intelligence experts believe that Hezbollah has provided some of the logistical support and training to Shiite militias in Iraq, but they assert that such steps would not be taken without Iran’s blessing.

“All source reporting since 2004 indicates that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Corps-Quds Force is providing professionally-built EFPs and components to Iraqi Shia militants,” notes a still-classified American intelligence report that was prepared in 2006.

“Based on forensic analysis of materials recovered in Iraq,” the report continues, “Iran is assessed as the producer of these items.”

The United States, using the Swiss Embassy in Tehran as an intermediary, has privately warned the Iranian government to stop providing the military technology to Iraqi militants, a senior administration official said. The British government has issued similar warnings to Iran, according to Western officials. Officials said that the Iranians had not responded.

An American intelligence assessment described to The New York Times said that “as part of its strategy in Iraq, Iran is implementing a deliberate, calibrated policy — approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force — to provide explosives support and training to select Iraqi Shia militant groups to conduct attacks against coalition targets.” The reference was to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian leader, and to an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Command that is assigned the task of carrying out paramilitary operations abroad.

“The likely aim is to make a military presence in Iraq more costly for the U.S.,” the assessment said.

Other officials believe Iran is using the attacks to send a warning to the United States that it can inflict casualties on American troops if the United States takes a more forceful posture toward it.

Iran has publicly denied the allegations that it is providing military support to Shiite militants in Iraq. Javad Zarif, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in an Op-Ed article published on Thursday in The Times that the Bush administration was “trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq.”

The explosively formed penetrator, detonated on the roadside as American vehicles pass by, is capable of blasting a metal projectile through the side of an armored Humvee with devastating consequences.

American military officers say that attacks using the weapon reached a high point in December, when it accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq. For reasons that remain unclear, attacks using the device declined substantially in January, but the weapons remain one of the principal threats to American troops in and around Baghdad, where five additional brigades of American combat troops are to be deployed under the Bush administration’s new plan.

“It is the most effective I.E.D out there,” said Lt. Col. James Danna, who led the Second Battalion, Sixth Infantry Regiment in Baghdad last year, referring to improvised explosive devices, as the roadside bombs are known by the American military. “To me it is a political weapon. There are not a lot of them out there, but every time we crack down on the Shia militias that weapon comes out. They want to keep us on our bases, keep us out of their neighborhoods and prevent us from doing our main mission, which is protecting vulnerable portions of the population.”

Adm. William Fallon, President Bush’s choice to head the Central Command, alluded to the weapon’s ability to punch through the side of armored Humvees in his testimony to Congress last month.

“Equipment that was, we thought, pretty effective in protecting our troops just a matter of months ago is now being challenged by some of the techniques and devices over there,” Admiral Fallon said. “So I’m learning as we go in that this is a fast-moving ballgame.”

Mr. Gates told reporters last week that he had heard there had been cases in which the weapon “can take out an Abrams tank.”

The increasing use of the weapon is the latest twist in a lethal game of measure and countermeasure that has been carried out throughout the nearly four-year-old Iraq war. Using munitions from Iraq’s vast and poorly guarded arsenal, insurgents developed an array of bombs to strike the more heavily armed and technologically superior American military.

In response, the United States military deployed armored Humvees, which in turn spawned the development of even more potent roadside bombs. American officials say that the first suspected use of the penetrator occurred in late 2003 and that attacks have risen steadily since then.

To make the weapon, a metal cylinder is filled with powerful explosives. A metal concave disk manufactured on a special press is fixed to the firing end.

Several of the cylinders are often grouped together in an array. The weapon is generally triggered when American vehicles drive by an infrared sensor, which operates on the same principle as a garage door opener. The sensor is impervious to the electronic jamming the American military uses to try to block other remote-control attacks.

When an American vehicle crosses the beam, the explosives in the cylinders are detonated, hurling their metal lids at targets at a tremendous speed. The metal changes shape in flight, forming into a slug that penetrate many types of armor.

In planning their attacks, Shiite militias have taken advantage of the tactics employed by American forces in Baghdad. To reduce the threat from suicide car bombs and minimize the risk of inadvertently killing Iraqi civilians, American patrols and convoys have been instructed to keep their distance from civilian traffic. But that has made it easier for the Shiite militias to attack American vehicles. When they see American vehicles approaching, they activate the infrared sensors.

According to American intelligence agencies, the Iranians are also believed to have provided Shiite militants with rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, mortars, 122-millimeter rockets and TNT.

Among the intelligence that the United States is expected to make public this weekend is information indicating that some of these weapons said to have been made in Iran were carried into Iraq in recent years. Examples include a shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile that was fired at a plane flying near the Baghdad airport in 2004 but which failed to launch properly; an Iranian rocket-propelled grenade made in 2006; and an Iranian 81-millimeter mortar made in 2006.

Assessments by American intelligence agencies say there is no indication that there is any kind of black-market trade in the Iranian-linked roadside bombs, and that shipments of the components are being directed to Shiite militants who have close links to Iran. The American military has developed classified techniques to try to counter the sophisticated weapon.

Marine officials say that weapons have not been found in the Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, adding to the view that the device is an Iranian-supplied and Shiite-employed weapon.

To try to cut off the supply, the American military has sought to focus on the cells of Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives it asserts are in Iraq. American intelligence agencies are concerned that the Iranians may respond by increasing the supply of the weapons.

“We are working day and night to disassemble these networks that do everything from bring the explosives to the point of construction, to how they’re put together, to who delivers them, to the mechanisms that are used to have them go off,” Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week. “It is instructive that at least twice in the last month, that in going after the networks, we have picked up Iranians.”

Special flights brought in tonnes of banknotes which disappeared into the war zone

2007-02-08T16:39:00.000-05:00

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish
Special flights brought in tonnes of banknotes which disappeared into the war zone

David Pallister
Thursday February 8, 2007

Guardian

The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.
The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee.

In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover.

Details of the shipments have emerged in a memorandum prepared for the meeting of the House committee on oversight and government reform which is examining Iraqi reconstruction. Its chairman, Henry Waxman, a fierce critic of the war, said the way the cash had been handled was mind-boggling. "The numbers are so large that it doesn't seem possible that they're true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tonnes of cash into a war zone?"

The memorandum details the casual manner in which the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbursed the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.

"One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack.

"They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds."

The minutes from a May 2004 CPA meeting reveal "a single disbursement of $500m in security funding labelled merely 'TBD', meaning 'to be determined'."

The memorandum concludes: "Many of the funds appear to have been lost to corruption and waste ... thousands of 'ghost employees' were receiving pay cheques from Iraqi ministries under the CPA's control. Some of the funds could have enriched both criminals and insurgents fighting the United States."

According to Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, the $8.8bn funds to Iraqi ministries were disbursed "without assurance the monies were properly used or accounted for". But, according to the memorandum, "he now believes that the lack of accountability and transparency extended to the entire $20bn expended by the CPA".

To oversee the expenditure the CPA was supposed to appoint an independent certified public accounting firm. "Instead the CPA hired an obscure consulting firm called North Star Consultants Inc. The firm was so small that it reportedly operates out of a private home in San Diego." Mr Bowen found that the company "did not perform a review of internal controls as required by the contract".

However, evidence before the committee suggests that senior American officials were unconcerned about the situation because the billions were not US taxpayers' money. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, reminded the committee that "the subject of today's hearing is the CPA's use and accounting for funds belonging to the Iraqi people held in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq. These are not appropriated American funds. They are Iraqi funds. I believe the CPA discharged its responsibilities to manage these Iraqi funds on behalf of the Iraqi people."

Bremer's financial adviser, retired Admiral David Oliver, is even more direct. The memorandum quotes an interview with the BBC World Service. Asked what had happened to the $8.8bn he replied: "I have no idea. I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't - nor do I actually think it's important."

Q: "But the fact is billions of dollars have disappeared without trace."

Oliver: "Of their money. Billions of dollars of their money, yeah I understand. I'm saying what difference does it make?"

Mr Bremer, whose disbanding of the Iraqi armed forces and de-Ba'athification programme have been blamed as contributing to the present chaos, told the committee: "I acknowledge that I made mistakes and that with the benefit of hindsight, I would have made some decisions differently. Our top priority was to get the economy moving again. The first step was to get money into the hands of the Iraqi people as quickly as possible."

Millions of civil service families had not received salaries or pensions for months and there was no effective banking system. "It was not a perfect solution," he said. "Delay might well have exacerbated the nascent insurgency and thereby increased the danger to Americans."

As Inflation Soars, Zimbabwe Economy Plunges

2007-02-07T09:42:00.000-05:00

February 7, 2007
As Inflation Soars, Zimbabwe Economy Plunges
By MICHAEL WINES

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 6 — For close to seven years, Zimbabwe’s economy and quality of life have been in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, people there say, with one notable difference: the pace is no longer so slow.

Indeed, Zimbabwe’s economic descent has picked up so much speed that President Robert G. Mugabe, the nation’s leader for 27 years, is starting to lose support from parts of his own party.

In recent weeks, the national power authority has warned of a collapse of electrical service. A breakdown in water treatment has set off a new outbreak of cholera in the capital, Harare. All public services were cut off in Marondera, a regional capital of 50,000 in eastern Zimbabwe, after the city ran out of money to fix broken equipment. In Chitungwiza, just south of Harare, electricity is supplied only four days a week.

The government awarded all civil servants a 300 percent raise two weeks ago. But the increase is only a fraction of the inflation rate, so the nation’s 110,000 teachers are staging a work slowdown for more money. Measured by the black-market value of Zimbabwe’s ragtag currency, even their new salaries total less than 60 American dollars a month.

Doctors and nurses have been on strike for five weeks, seeking a pay increase of nearly 9,000 percent, and health care is all but nonexistent. Harare’s police chief warned in a recently leaked memo that if rank-and-file officers did not get a substantial raise, they might riot.

In the past eight months, “there’s been a huge collapse in living standards,” Iden Wetherell, the editor of the weekly newspaper Zimbabwe Independent said in a telephone interview, “and also a deterioration in the infrastructure — in standards of health care, in education. There’s a sort of sense that things are plunging.”

Mr. Mugabe’s fortunes appear to have dimmed as well. In December, the ruling party that has traditionally bowed to his will, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, balked at supporting a constitutional amendment that would have extended his term of office by two years, to 2010. The rebuff exposed a fissure in the party, known as ZANU-PF, between Mr. Mugabe’s hard-line backers and others who fear he has brought their nation to the brink of collapse.

The trigger of this crisis — hyperinflation — reached an annual rate of 1,281 percent this month, and has been near or over 1,000 percent since last April. Hyperinflation has bankrupted the government, left 8 in 10 citizens destitute and decimated the country’s factories and farms.

Pay increases have so utterly failed to keep pace with price increases that some Harare workers now complain that bus fare to and from work consumes their entire salaries.

Citing a leaked central bank document, Reuters reported Tuesday that prices of basic items like meat, cooking oil and clothes had risen 223 percent in the past week alone.

Soaring costs have made it impossible for both national and local governments to meet budgets and for businesses to afford raw materials, while subsidies for basic commodities have drained the government treasury and promoted corruption.

Seeking to revive farm production, for example, the government sells gasoline to farmers at a bargain rate of 330 Zimbabwe dollars per liter — and farmers promptly resell it on the black market for 10 times that, leaving their fields idle.

Mr. Mugabe, who blames a Western plot against him for Zimbabwe’s problems, has rejected all calls for economic reform. The government refuses to devalue Zimbabwe’s dollar, which fetches only 5 to 10 percent of its official value on the thriving black market. As a result, foreign exchange to buy crucial imported goods like spare parts and fertilizer has effectively dried up.

Despite acceptable rains, one international aid official said, Zimbabwe’s corn crop is currently lagging behind last year’s — and that harvest was among the worst in history. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the assessment had not been made public.

The central bank’s latest response to these problems, announced this week, was to declare inflation illegal. From March 1 to June 30, anyone who raises prices or wages will be arrested and punished. Only a “firm social contract” to end corruption and restructure the economy will bring an end to the crisis, said the reserve bank governor, Gideon Gono.

The speech by Mr. Gono, a favorite of Mr. Mugabe, was broadcast nationally. In downtown Harare, the last half was blacked out by a power failure.

Eighty-two years old, wily and physically robust, Mr. Mugabe has survived both international condemnation and domestic upheaval before.

Efforts to suppress dissent are rising: in recent weeks, trade union officials were seriously injured in police beatings, arsonists burned the home of a leading pro-democracy activist and church leaders were arrested while meeting to discuss the economic crisis. Foreign journalists remain barred from the country under threat of imprisonment, and harassment of Zimbabwean journalists has sharply increased.

But hyperinflation is eroding the government’s control over every aspect of public life and, by extension, over its own future.

“It’s out of control now, and they have to bring it back in control,” said John Robertson, a Harare-based economist and a frequent critic of government policies. “We’re reaching the steepest slopes of the process. They say they can fix prices, but the things that cause price increases come from so many different directions that the government can’t control them all.”

That growing loss of control is apparent. The black market, which already flourishes beyond the reach of tax collectors and regulators, is likely to grab an even larger share of the economy when the government freezes prices in March, because stores will be unable to make a profit selling products at government-fixed prices.

Problems with water and power supplies have become acute because of a lack of foreign exchange and salaries for workers; a wave of blackouts hit the nation early last month when 100 electrical workers walked out to protest low pay.

Zimbabwe’s political opposition has failed for years to mount an effective work stoppage to protest living conditions. But public workers, the bedrock of government support, this year have begun to walk off the job because there is no longer enough money to pay them a living wage.

The average teacher, for example, earns barely one-fourth of the salary needed to keep a family of six out of poverty. The military, unhappy with January’s 300 percent pay hike, is seeking 1,000 percent.

The growing number of strikes also has emboldened the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, a center of opposition to Mr. Mugabe, to make its own plans for a general work stoppage.

“People in Zimbabwe tend to be resilient,” said Jamal Jafari, an analyst for the Washington-based International Crisis Group, which monitors political risks worldwide. “But that having been said, what has to be the scariest statistic for the government is the fact that large sectors of the civil service and the military are far below the poverty line. They simply can’t raise salaries fast enough.”

Mr. Jafari and some political and economic analysts in southern Africa say they now believe that Zimbabwe faces a political showdown within months, as the governing bodies of ZANU-PF wrangle over whether to grant Mr. Mugabe an extended term or to put less radical members of the ruling party in power.

Few expect a democratic revolution; the one rival party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is riven by splits, systematically suppressed by the government and without an effective leader. Regardless, these experts say, by failing to arrest this accelerating decline, Zimbabwe is edging toward a day of political reckoning that years of diplomatic jawboning and political jockeying have failed to produce.

For the government, “the big problem about Zimbabwe is that the one thing you can’t rig is the economy,” said one Harare political analyst, who refused to be identified for fear of being persecuted. “When it fails, it fails. And that can have unpredictable effects.”

Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack

2007-02-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

February 5, 2007

Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack

By DAMIEN CAVE and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

BAGHDAD, Feb. 4 — A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that the Americans had been slow in completing the vaunted new American security plan, making Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks.

The critics said the new plan, which the Americans have started to execute, had emasculated the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that is considered responsible for many attacks on Sunnis, but that many Shiites say had been the only effective deterrent against sectarian reprisal attacks in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhoods. Even some Iraqi supporters of the plan, like Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister who is a Kurd, said delays in carrying it out had caused great disappointment.

In advance of the plan, which would flood Baghdad with thousands of new American and Iraqi troops, many Mahdi Army checkpoints were dismantled and its leaders were either in hiding or under arrest, which was one of the plan’s intended goals to reduce sectarian fighting. But with no immediate influx of new security forces to fill the void, Shiites say, Sunni militants and other anti-Shiite forces have been emboldened to plot the type of attack that obliterated the bustling Sadriya market on Saturday, killing at least 135 people and wounding more than 300 from a suicide driver’s truck bomb.

“A long time has passed since the plan was announced,” Basim Shareef, a Shiite member of Parliament, said Sunday. “But so far security has only deteriorated.”

American officials have said the new plan will take time, but new concerns emerged Sunday about the readiness of Iraqi military units that are supposed to work with the roughly 17,000 additional American soldiers who will be stationed in Baghdad under the plan, which President Bush announced last month.

Iraqi and American military officials said the command structure of the Iraqi side had still not been resolved, although the plan is supposed to move forward this coming week.

Naeem al-Kabbi, the deputy mayor of Baghdad and a senior official loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the powerful cleric who heads the Mahdi Army, said he believed the plan had been delayed “because the Iraqi Army is not ready.”

American military officials have not laid out a precise timeline for the security plan, and would not say if undermanned Iraqi units had delayed its start. But American officials have said Iraqi units arriving in Baghdad to fulfill their part of the new plan are only at 55 to 60 percent of their full strength.

With much of Baghdad devolving further into chaos, many Iraqis have begun to question whether the security plan has ambled along too slowly, setting up a situation in which American and Iraqi troops will be greeted with hostility rather than welcomed as protectors.

Concerns about the unintended consequences of the American security plan rippled through many levels of the Iraqi government.

“People’s expectations went up,” Mr. Zebari said. “They were hopeful, optimistic that this new surge, this new plan would provide a better life for them. And this daily killing — this bomb — they lose hope. Still the troops haven’t arrived.”

An American military official, responding to accusations that American efforts opened Shiite areas to attacks, said American checkpoints around eastern and central Baghdad last October seemed to reduce the number of car bombs until the checkpoints were removed because of objections from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and Shiite officials loyal to Mr. Sadr. The official was not authorized to comment about the subject and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the American military spokesman in Iraq, called for patience as the new security plan rolls out. “Give the government and coalition forces a chance to fully implement it,” he said in remarks carried by several news agencies.

His comments, however, came as more than a dozen mortar shells crashed on Adhamiya, a Sunni area of eastern Baghdad, in what appeared to be an act of retaliation by Shiites. At least 15 people were killed and more than 56 wounded, an Interior Ministry official said.

Clashes in western Baghdad between Sunni and Shiite militias left 7 dead and 11 wounded, and the authorities found 35 bodies throughout the city, many showing signs of torture.

Meanwhile in the streets of Sadriya, the poor, mostly Shiite area of central Baghdad where the bomb exploded on Saturday, merchants and residents struggled to contain their anger.

“I saw with my own eyes young children flying from the windows of the apartments on top of the shops when the explosion arrived,” said Haydar Abdul Jabbar, 28, a car mechanic who was standing near a barber shop when the bomb exploded. “One woman threw herself out of the window when the fire came close to her.”

Mr. Abdul Jabbar said he rushed to collapsed buildings trying to help the wounded, but found mainly hands, skulls and other body parts.

“The government is supposed to protect us, but they are not doing their job,” he said. “I watch the TV and see the announcements on the imminent implementation of the security plan. Where is it, for God’s sake?”

“I wish they would attack us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all,” he added, “so we will rest and anybody who wants the oil — which is the core of the problem — can come and get it. We can not live this way anymore. We are dying slowly every day.”

The truck exploded around dusk on Saturday at a market flush with crowded food stands. The crater from the blast was large enough to hold a sedan; the blast threw the truck’s gnarled engine block more than 100 yards away.

As the sun rose on Sunday, the rescue effort continued with workers and relatives tugging at concrete pieces in a mad search for victims amid the piles of debris where apartments and offices once stood. Processions heavy with death moved through the area. Men lashed simple wood coffins to the top of minibuses for the long journey to cemeteries, while families in the backs of trucks wailed after collecting the bodies of relatives.

While the American military put out a statement saying that the Iraqi Army assisted at the scene, the area closest to the crater was controlled by the Mahdi Army. Between 8 and 15 men dressed in black and carrying AK-47s, waved reporters away on Sunday morning.

The scene was thick with anger directed at the Iraqi government and American military for letting the people down and allowing such a devastating attack. When asked about the “tragedy” of the blast, one Mahdi guard responded, “The only tragedy was when we voted for weak officials.”

He then pointed toward the bombed-out buildings and added, “This is the result.”

Later, when two American Humvees and an Iraqi patrol passed just after 1 p.m., one of the men in black called the soldiers “apes and cowards.”

“They’re the ones who brought us the catastrophe,” one of them said. “If they were not here such a thing wouldn’t happen to us.”

Mr. Abdul Jabbar, the car mechanic, was one of many Iraqis who said that the American military would have been better off leaving the Mahdi Army in charge of Shiite neighborhoods.

Uday Ahmed, 31, a Sunni whose three restaurants at the market were obliterated by the blast, killing 20 of his workers, said that until a few weeks ago, Mahdi militiamen were more visible on the streets, checking vehicles, watching and offering to arbitrate disputes. After American and Iraqi officials arrested several top Mahdi commanders last month, he said, many of the Mahdi militants drifted into the shadows or fled.

He said their departure contributed to the recent spasm of violence in Shiite neighborhoods.

Some Shiites in the area said that the truck could have been stopped at a checkpoint, decreasing damage from its payload. Hussein Ali, 57, said Shiite militiamen might have recognized that the driver was not from the neighborhood.

“They don’t have any system or apparatus to check the cars,” he said. “But they know from looking at the faces who is supposed to come to Sadriya to bring vegetables or fruits. They have a relationship with the merchants.”

Iraqi officials, after meeting with American military commanders, are expected to announce as early as Monday that they have agreed on some of the details of the command structure for the new security plan.

American military officials say that the Iraqi officer who will lead his forces participating in the new Baghdad security effort, Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, will take command on Monday and that the Baghdad plan will be carried out soon.

McCain Criticizes War Resolution

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 — On the eve of a Senate showdown over a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s war strategy in Iraq, Senator John McCain of Arizona, a leading Republican critic of the measure, accused its sponsors Sunday of intellectual dishonesty. He described the nonbinding resolution as a “vote of no confidence in both the mission and the troops who are going over there.”

He said on the ABC News program “This Week” that if the sponsors wanted to block Mr. Bush’s plans to expand the American troop presence in Iraq, they should be brave enough to vote to cut off financing.

A principal Republican backer of the resolution, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said on the same program that it was important for the Senate to make a clear stand against the troop building, which he said would produce only more turmoil.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, a Democratic supporter of the resolution, said she was frustrated that Republican leaders would try to filibuster to block a vote. “Look, debate is going on in every schoolyard, in every state, in every city of this nation,” she said on CNN’s “Late Edition,” describing the proposed filibuster as “obstructionism.”

Reporting was contributed by Wisam A. Habeeb, Qais Mizher, Khalid W. Hassan, Marc Santora, James Glanz and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, and Philip Shenon from Washington.

McCain’s Advisers Once Made Ads That Drew His Ire

2007-02-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

February 4, 2007

McCain’s Advisers Once Made Ads That Drew His Ire

By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Senator John McCain, intent on succeeding where his freewheeling presidential campaign of 2000 failed, is assembling a team of political bruisers for 2008. And it includes advisers who once sought to skewer him and whose work he has criticized as stepping over the line in the past.

In 2000, Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, said the advertisements run against him by George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas, distorted his record. But he has hired three members of the team that made those commercials — Mark McKinnon, Russell Schriefer and Stuart Stevens — to work on his presidential campaign.

In 2004, Mr. McCain said the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement asserting that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had not properly earned his medals from the Vietnam War was “dishonest and dishonorable.” Nonetheless, he has hired the firm that made the spots, Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, which worked on his 2000 campaign, to work for him again this year.

In October, Mr. McCain’s top adviser expressed public displeasure with an advertisement against former Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, that some saw as having racist overtones for suggesting a flirtation between Mr. Ford, who is black, and a young, bare-shouldered white woman, played by a blond actress.

The Republican committee that sponsored the spot had as its leader Terry Nelson, a former Bush campaign strategist whom Mr. McCain hired as an adviser last spring. In December, just weeks after the Ford controversy broke, Mr. McCain elevated Mr. Nelson to the position of national campaign manager.

Taken together, the moves provide the strongest indication yet that Mr. McCain intends to run a far tougher campaign than the one he ran in the 2000 primary. And they come as he transitions from being a onetime maverick to a candidate seeking to gather his party around him and create an air of inevitability about his prospects for winning nomination.

As Mr. McCain assembles his team, he is also making it that much harder for his Republican challengers by scooping up a significant circle of the party’s top talent.

In recent years, Mr. McCain has made a concerted effort to mend fences with Mr. Bush and reassure the Republican base that he is a reliable conservative. But his moves have focused new attention on the extent to which he may risk sacrificing the image he has long cultivated of being his own man, driven by principle rather than partisan politics.

Mr. McCain’s advisers said he was not changing. But they were unapologetic about putting together a group dedicated to doing what it takes to reach the White House and employing lessons from his defeat at the hands of Mr. Bush in 2000.

“This is about winning at the end of the day,” said John Weaver, Mr. McCain’s longtime senior strategist. “I don’t want to be in a knife fight ever again, but if I am, we’re going to win it.”

Mr. McCain’s representatives said he would not provide an interview.

Seven years ago, Mr. McCain charmed the news media and the public with his Straight Talk Express bus tour. He had a lean operation befitting an upstart candidacy, and he regularly spoke out against attack advertising, a quaint notion in retrospect.

In the end, he ran his share of confrontational advertisements, once even leveling the ultimate Republican-to-Republican insult: that Mr. Bush was as dishonest as Bill Clinton. But he was perceived as having been knocked back on his heels by the rougher, tougher Bush campaign.

Now Mr. McCain is building a larger organization, bringing together the heart of the bare-knuckled Bush crew once overseen by Karl Rove while keeping most of the advisers who ran his shoestring effort of 2000.

“It’s like an all-star World Wrestling Federation cage match, except that instead of fighting one another, all of the brawlers are on the same team,” said Steve McMahon, a strategist for the Democratic National Committee. “There are very few people who play this game at the highest level, and on the Republican side these guys are among the best.”

Mr. McCain has also hired Brian Jones, an adviser to Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign; Fred Davis, a media consultant for Mr. Bush in 2004; and Steve Schmidt, who oversaw Mr. Bush’s 2004 war room, exploiting any tidbit that could help paint Mr. Kerry as a “flip-flopper.”

The hires are another signal that the 2008 primary campaign could be a combative one all around.

On the Democratic side, John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, has wasted no time attacking Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s position on Iraq. And Mrs. Clinton’s team includes strategists who invented the concept of the modern campaign war room for her husband 15 years ago. But Senator Barack Obama of Illinois drew cheers at a party gathering on Friday when he warned his fellow candidates against attacking one another.

Mitt Romney, a Republican and the former governor of Massachusetts, has hired Alex Castellanos, a onetime Bush strategist who also famously produced the 1990 commercial for Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator, in which a pair of white hands crumpled a rejection letter as a narrator said, “You needed that job and you were the best qualified, but it had to go to a minority because of a racial quota.”

Given Mr. McCain’s history with some of the people on his team, the evolution of his staff may present an early challenge: How does he stay true to the “Straight Talk” spirit of his 2000 campaign, which helped him win the stature he has now, while also engaging in the political brinkmanship it can take to win?

The Democratic National Committee is already criticizing Mr. McCain for his hires, issuing a statement this week calling them “a testament to how far he’s gone down the do-anything-to-win path.”

Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster who is not yet allied with a candidate, said Mr. McCain was running the risk of looking “politically expedient” and of blunting his brand as “Senator Straight Talk.” He said the risk was highlighted by Mr. McCain’s recent suggestions that he may not use the campaign finance system he has long championed.

In 2000, Mr. McCain received money from the system, which gives public financing to candidates who agree to strict spending limits. Mr. Weaver, the senior strategist, said Mr. McCain was keeping his options open because others, including Mrs. Clinton, were planning to work around the system.

As Mr. McCain’s aides often point out, for all its appeal, the McCain 2000 campaign was a losing one. And they said it would be unfair to suggest that because Mr. McCain was augmenting his team he was somehow preparing to change who he was.

“There are no negotiations regarding his principles,” Mr. Weaver said.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Jones, the campaign communications director, said Mr. McCain was not allowing his distaste over the Swift Boat commercials to interfere with his relationship with Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, with whom Mr. McCain has his own decade-long association. In addition, he said, Mr. McCain hired Mr. Nelson because of his breadth of experience in national campaigns. “The campaign,” Mr. Jones said, “is not going to let past contests on the battlefield limit how it’s going to go after talent.”

Presidential politics are rich in fungible allegiances. James A. Baker III ran the primary campaigns of Gerald Ford and the elder George Bush against Ronald Reagan, only to become Mr. Reagan’s chief of staff. This year, David Axelrod is serving as a senior strategist for Mr. Obama; he was a senior strategist to Mr. Edwards in his 2004 campaign.

“You could dissect any campaign this way: this guy did this ad this one time,” said Mr. Schriefer, the former Bush media strategist, who will run Mr. McCain’s advertising team. “There’s a tremendous history of foes becoming allies.”

Mr. McKinnon, who led Mr. Bush’s advertising group in 2004, said he saw no inconsistency in working for Mr. McCain. Mr. Bush was right for 2000, he said, and Mr. McCain is right for 2008. “At the end of the day, the campaign will be won or lost on the character of the candidate and his or her core message,” Mr. McKinnon said. “Of course, I believe that will be John McCain.”

Asked if the senator would avoid the attacks he criticized in 2000, Mr. Jones said that while Mr. McCain had yet to declare his candidacy, any campaign he ran would be “consistent with his beliefs and values.”

Science Panel Calls Global Warming ‘Unequivocal’

2007-02-03T08:51:00.000-05:00

February 3, 2007

Science Panel Calls Global Warming ‘Unequivocal’

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW C. REVKIN

PARIS, Feb. 2 — In a grim and powerful assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is “unequivocal” and that human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.

They said the world was in for centuries of climbing temperatures, rising seas and shifting weather patterns — unavoidable results of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

But their report, released here on Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said warming and its harmful consequences could be substantially blunted by prompt action.

While the report provided scant new evidence of a climate apocalypse now, and while it expressly avoided recommending courses of action, officials from the United Nations agencies that created the panel in 1988 said it spoke of the urgent need to limit looming and momentous risks.

“In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the panel along with the World Meteorological Organization.

“Feb. 2 will be remembered as the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet,” he went on. “The evidence is on the table.”

The report is the panel’s fourth assessment since 1990 on the causes and consequences of climate change, but it is the first in which the group asserts with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming in the past half century.

In its last report, in 2001, the panel, consisting of hundreds of scientists and reviewers, said the confidence level for its projections was “likely,” or 66 to 90 percent. That level has now been raised to “very likely,” better than 90 percent. Both reports are online at www.ipcc.ch.

The Bush administration, which until recently avoided directly accepting that humans were warming the planet in potentially harmful ways, embraced the findings, which had been approved by representatives from the United States and 112 other countries on Thursday night.

Administration officials asserted Friday that the United States had played a leading role in studying and combating climate change, in part by an investment of an average of almost $5 billion a year for the past six years in research and tax incentives for new technologies.

At the same time, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions. “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution,” he said.

The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, contributes about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country.

Democratic lawmakers quickly fired off a round of news releases using the report to bolster a fresh flock of proposed bills aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has called the idea of dangerous human-driven warming a hoax, issued a news release headed “Corruption of Science” that rejected the report as “a political document.”

The new report says the global climate is likely to warm 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reach twice the levels of 1750, before the Industrial Revolution.

Many energy and environment experts see such a doubling, or worse, as a foregone conclusion after 2050 unless there is a prompt and sustained shift away from the 20th-century pattern of unfettered burning of coal and oil, the main sources of carbon dioxide, and an aggressive expansion of nonpolluting sources of energy.

And the report says there is a more than a 1-in-10 chance of much greater warming, a risk that many experts say is far too high to ignore.

Even a level of warming that falls in the middle of the group’s range of projections would be likely to cause significant stress to ecosystems, according to many climate experts and biologists. And it would alter longstanding climate patterns that shape water supplies and agricultural production.

Moreover, the warming has set in motion a rise in global sea levels, the report says. It forecasts a rise of 7 to 23 inches by 2100 and concludes that seas will continue to rise for at least 1,000 years to come. By comparison, seas rose about 6 to 9 inches in the 20th century.

John P. Holdren, an energy and climate expert at Harvard, said the report “powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable.”

“Since 2001, there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins and growing impacts of the climatic changes that are under way,” said Mr. Holdren, who is the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger and greater confidence about the dominant role of fossil-fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.”

The conclusions came after a three-year review of hundreds of studies of past climate shifts; observations of retreating ice, warming and rising seas, and other changes around the planet; and a greatly expanded suite of supercomputer simulations used to test how the earth will respond to a growing blanket of gases that hold heat in the atmosphere.

The section released Friday was a 20-page summary for policymakers, which was approved early in the morning by teams of officials from more than 100 countries after three days and nights of wrangling over wording with the lead authors, all of whom are scientists.

It described far-flung ramifications for both humans and nature.

“It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent,” said the summary.

Generally, the scientists said, more precipitation will fall at higher latitudes, which are also likely to see lengthened growing seasons. Semi-arid subtropical regions, already chronically plagued by drought, could have a further 20 percent drop in rainfall under the panel’s midrange outlook for increases in the greenhouse gases.

The summary added a new chemical consequence of the buildup of carbon dioxide to the list of mainly climatic and biological effects foreseen in its previous reports: a drop in the pH of seawater as oceans absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide, which forms carbonic acid when partly dissolved. The ocean would stay alkaline, but marine biologists have said that a change in the direction of acidity could imperil some kinds of corals and plankton.

The report essentially caps a half-century-long effort to discern whether humans, through the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases released mainly by burning fuels and forests, could influence the earth’s climate system in potentially momentous ways.

The group operates under the aegis of the United Nations and was chartered in 1988 — a year of record heat, burning forests and the first big headlines about global warming — to provide regular reviews of climate science to governments to inform policy choices.

Government officials are involved in shaping the summary of each report, but the scientist-authors, who are unpaid, have the final say over the thousands of pages in four underlying technical reports that will be completed and published later this year.

Big questions remain about the speed and extent of some impending changes, both because of uncertainty about future population and pollution trends and the complex interrelationships of the greenhouse emissions, clouds, dusty kinds of pollution, the oceans and earth’s veneer of life, which both emits and soaks up carbon dioxide and other such gases.

But a broad array of scientists, including authors of the report and independent experts, said the latest analysis was the most sobering view yet of a century of transition — after thousands of years of relatively stable climate conditions — to a new norm of continual change.

Should greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere at even a moderate pace, average temperatures by the end of the century could match those last seen 125,000 years ago, in the previous warm spell between ice ages, the report said.

At that time, the panel said, sea levels were 12 to 20 feet higher than they are now. Much of that extra water is now trapped in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which are eroding in some places.

The panel said there was no solid scientific understanding of how rapidly the vast stores of ice in polar regions will melt, so their estimates on new sea levels were based mainly on how much the warmed oceans will expand, and not on contributions from the melting of ice now on land.

Other scientists have recently reported evidence that the glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic could flow seaward far more quickly than estimated in the past, and they have proposed that the risks to coastal areas could be much more imminent. But the climate change panel is forbidden by its charter to enter into speculation, and so could not include such possible instabilities in its assessment.

Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, said the lack of clarity should offer no one comfort. “The speed with which melting ice sheets are raising sea levels is uncertain, but the report makes clear that sea levels will rise inexorably over the coming centuries,” he said. “It is a question of when and how much, and not if.”

The warming and other climate changes will be highly variable around the world, with the Arctic in particular seeing much higher temperatures, said Susan Solomon, the co-leader of the team writing the summary and the section of the panel’s report on basic science. She is an atmospheric scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The kinds of vulnerabilities are very much dependent on where you are, Dr. Solomon said in a telephone interview. “If you’re living in parts of the tropics and they’re getting drier and you’re a farmer, there are some very acute issues associated with even small changes in rainfall — changes we’re already seeing are significant,” she said. “If you are an Inuit and you’re seeing your sea ice retreating already, that’s affecting your life style and culture.”

The 20-page summary is a sketch of the findings that are most germane to the public and world leaders.

The full report, thousands of pages of technical background, will be released in four sections through the year — the first on basic science, then sections on impacts and options for limiting emissions and limiting inevitable harms, and finally a synthesis of all of the findings near year’s end.

In a news conference in Paris, Dr. Solomon declined to provide her own views on how society should respond to the momentous changes projected in the study.

“I honestly believe that it would be a much better service for me to keep my personal opinions separate than what I can actually offer the world as a scientist,” she said. “My stepson, who is 29, has an utterly different view of risks than I do. People are going to have to make their own judgments.”

Some authors of the report said that no one could honestly point to any remaining uncertainties as justification for further delay.

“Policy makers paid us to do good science, and now we have very high scientific confidence in this work — this is real, this is real, this is real,” said Richard B. Alley, one of the lead authors and a professor at Pennsylvania State University. “So now act, the ball’s back in your court.”

Elisabeth Rosenthal reported from Paris, and Andrew C. Revkin from New York. Felicity Barringer contributed reporting from Washington.

2007-02-01T18:05:00.000-05:00

Feb. 1, 2007, 4:10PM
Global warming 'very likely' man-made

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer

PARIS — A long-awaited report says global warming is "very likely" man-made, the most powerful language ever used on the issue by the world's leading climate scientists, delegates who have seen the report said Thursday.

And the document, the most authoritative science on the issue, says the disturbing signs are already visible in rising seas, killer heat waves, worsening droughts and stronger hurricanes.

There was another signal, too: The City of Light dimmed the lights.

It was an expression of concern over the state of the planet as the world awaited the report's release on Friday. Slowly, starting first with the iconic Eiffel Tower and then spreading to the hotel where many scientists were staying, Paris quieted and dimmed ever so slightly, even as those still fine-tuning the document burned the midnight oil.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a group of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments — unanimously portrays the science of global warming as an existing and worsening threat, officials told The Associated Press.

"There's no question that the powerful language is intimately linked to the more powerful science," said one of the study's many co-authors, Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, who spoke by phone from Canada. He said the report was based on science that is rock-solid, peer-reviewed, conservative and consensus: "It's very conservative. Scientists by their nature are skeptics."

The scientists wrote the report, based on years of peer-reviewed research; government officials edited it with an eye toward the required unanimous approval by world governments.

In the end, there was little debate on the strength of the wording about human activity most likely to blame.

"That is a big move. I hope it is a powerful statement," said Jan Pretel, head of the department of climate change at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.

The panel quickly agreed Thursday on two of the most contentious issues: attributing global warming to man-made burning of fossil fuels and connecting it to a recent increase in stronger hurricanes. Negotiations over a final third difficult issue — how much sea level rise is predicted by 2100 — went into the night Thursday with a deadline approaching for the report.

While critics call the panel overly alarmist, it is by nature relatively cautious because it relies on hundreds of scientists, including skeptics.

"I hope that policymakers will be quite convinced by this message," said Riibeta Abeta, a delegate whose island nation Kiribati is threatened by rising seas. "The purpose is to get them moving."

It took delegates just 90 minutes to agree on the signature statement which describes how sure scientists are about global warming being caused by man. The answer — "very likely" — translates to a more than 90 percent certainty.

What that means in layman's language is "we have this nailed," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who originated the percentage system.

"They're hearing through the science that this is appropriate," Mahlman, a reviewer of panel's work but not an author or editor, said. "I'm pretty happy with the 'very likely' designation."

That phrase is an escalation from the panel's last report in 2001, which said warming was "likely" caused by human activity. There had been speculation that the participants might try to up the ante too "virtually certain" man causes global warming, which translates to 99 percent chance.

The Chinese delegation was resistant to strong wording on global warming, said Barbados delegate Leonard Fields and others. China has increasingly turned to fossil fuels for its huge and growing energy needs and it asked that an ambiguous footnote be added to the "very likely" statement.

The footnote reads, "Consideration of remaining uncertainty is based on current methodology," according to an official who was at the negotiations but was sworn to secrecy.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government delegation was not one of the more vocal groups in the debate over whether warming is man-made, said other countries' officials. And several attendees credited the head of the panel session, Susan Solomon, a top U.S. government climate scientist, with pushing through the agreement so quickly.

The Bush administration acknowledges that global warming is man-made and a problem that must be dealt with, Bush science adviser John Marburger has said. However, Bush continues to reject mandatory limits on so-called "greenhouse" gases, even as he acknowledges the existence of climate change.

But this is more than just a U.S. issue.

"What you're trying to do is get the whole planet under the proverbial tent in how to deal with this, not just the rich countries," Mahlman said Thursday. "I think we're in a different kind of game now."

The panel, created by the United Nations in 1988, releases its assessments every five or six years — although scientists have been observing aspects of climate change since as far back as the 1960s. The reports are released in phases, with this one being the first of four this year.

The next report is due in April and will discuss the effects of global warming.

But there are some elements of that in the current document.

The report will say that global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those on the Atlantic Ocean, such as Hurricane Katrina, according to Fields, the Barbados delegate, and others.

They said the panel agreed that an increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming. The scientists said global warming's connection varies with storms in different parts of the world, but that the storms that strike the Americas are global warming-influenced.

That's a contrast from the 2001 which said there was not enough evidence to make such a conclusion. And it conflicts with a November 2006 statement by the World Meteorological Organization, which helped found the IPCC. The meteorological group said it could not link past stronger storms to global warming.

Fields — of Barbados, a country in the path of many hurricanes — said the new wording was "very important." He noted that insurance companies — which look to science to calculate storm risk — "watch the language, too."

Another contentious issue is predictions of sea level rise. Scientists are trying to incorporate concerns that their early drafts underestimate how much the sea level will rise by 2100 because they cannot predict how much ice will melt from Greenland and Antarctica.

In early drafts, scientists predicted a sea level rise of no more than 23 inches by 2100, but that does not include the ice sheet melts.

The report is being edited in English, then must be translated into five other languages. It will be a 11-15 page summary for policymakers in most of the world's countries.
___

Associated Press Writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report.

How Should We Interpret Biden's Comments About Obama?

2007-02-01T15:55:00.000-05:00

From Susan Pizarro-Eckert,
Your Guide to Race Relations.
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How Should We Interpret Biden's Comments About Obama?

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” This quote comes from Senator Joe Biden, who recently announced he too was throwing his hat into the already crowded ring for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Since he made this statement, blogs have been buzzing. And key media personalities have requested that the Senator and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee clarify what he meant. (watch his response on YouTube.)

This scenario reminds me of that Geico commercial, the one in which the caveman sits across from the therapist who asks him why the company slogan "So easy a caveman can do it" is so offensive to him. Rather than answer the question, the caveman responds with a question of his own: "How would you feel if it said 'So easy a therapist can do it?' To this, the therapist cocks her head and confidently responds, "Well that wouldn't make sense." "Why," asks the caveman, "because therapists are smart?" In the Geico slogan "so easy a caveman can do it" the offensive subtext is obviously "...and as you know, cavemen aren't smart."

It seems to me that Biden's comment plays on the prevailing stereotypes about African-American males: that they are unintelligent, inarticulate, dirty/corrupt/criminal, and unattractive. The subtext of his comment becomes "...and you know those people are unintelligent, inarticulate, dirty/corrupt/criminal, unattractive." If we understand this, then we understand the context for his next comment, which is "It's a storybook, man."

When it comes to race, and comments about race, people are either so quick to defend, or attack, that we end up blind to what lies before our very eyes. But, what if we took Biden's comment out of a racial context? What if we pretended just for one moment that he had instead said, "I mean, you got the first mainstream woman who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking gal?” How would this comment have come across then? My guess would be major controversy about whether or not Senator Joe Biden is a chauvinist woman-hater and therefore, whether or not he is fit for the presidential role.

But Biden was referring to Obama's race. That's not my opinion; here's a direct quote: "...you got the first mainstream African-American..."

And because he targeted race in such a derisive manner (Are we really to believe that never before Obama has there been an "articulate," "bright," "clean," and "nice-looking" African-American in the mainstream eye?), I believe he invited the resulting controversy.

Still, some bloggers have written that they see no harm in his comments, explaining either that this says more about "Biden's tendency to run his mouth off, I think, than it is some indication of latent racism (written by Greg Tinti on The Political Pit Bull)," or, enlightening us all by clarifying that what the Senator really meant to say can only be understood if you add the context words he left out: specifically “presidential candidate....And I presume by “clean” he means “clean-cut” rather than “bathes regularly.” (written by James Joyner on Outside the Beltway)."

And still other bloggers, while acknowledging the arrogance and ignorance of Biden's comments, are taking this opportunity to slam Democrats for making a faux pas on a subject they usually attack Republicans for: "Maybe Biden has been hanging around Robert Byrd for a little too long...Anyway, it’s nice to see the Democrats come out and show you what they really think of minorities in this country. They always bring up race as an issue, and now you know why (See "And the Left Say WE'RE Racists?")."

But let's not forget: Biden is no stranger to controversy. He was a candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, but according to USA Today, withdrew from the race in 1987 amid accusations that he had plagiarized passages in his speeches. In addition, his earlier comments about not being able to go into a 7-eleven or Dunkin Donuts without an Indian Accent (CBS News) also managed to ruffle more than a few feathers.

What's your opinion? Were Biden's comments about Obama appropriate?...Participate in our forum poll.

In Senate, Allies of Bush Work to Halt Iraq Vote - New York Times

2007-01-31T04:12:00.000-05:00

In Senate, Allies of Bush Work to Halt Iraq Vote - New York Times:

January 31, 2007

In Senate, Allies of Bush Work to Halt Iraq Vote

By CARL HULSE and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — The Bush administration’s allies in the Senate began a major effort on Tuesday to prevent a potentially embarrassing rejection of the president’s plan to push 20,000 more troops into Iraq.

With the Senate expected to reach votes on possible resolutions sometime next week, the signs of the new campaign seeped out after a weekly closed-door lunch in which Republican senators engaged in what participants described as a heated debate over how to approach the issue.

The new effort by President Bush’s allies, including Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, is aimed at blocking two nonbinding resolutions directly critical of the White House that had appeared to be gaining broad support among Democrats and even some Republicans.

Republicans skeptical of the troop buildup said some of their colleagues had begun to suggest that opponents of the White House plan ran the risk of undermining Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new military commander in Iraq, as well as Mr. Bush.

“There is a lot of pressure on people who could be with us not to be with us,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, the co-author of one resolution along with Senators John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, and Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska.

As an alternative to that measure and another broadly backed by Democrats, Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, along with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut, are trying to enlist support for a resolution that would set benchmarks for the Iraqi government and describe the troop increase as a final chance for the United States to restore security in Baghdad.

The senators have been joined in their effort by the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Senator David Vitter of Louisiana.

The debate over Iraq also resounded elsewhere on Capitol Hill, as senators attending the confirmation hearing for Adm. William J. Fallon, nominated to command American forces in the Middle East, heard his blunt assessment of the path ahead. He said “time is running out” for positive action by the government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to show it can quell sectarian violence.

At another Senate hearing, the leaders of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel that reported to Mr. Bush and Congress last month, disputed the White House’s contention that most of their recommendations had been incorporated into Mr. Bush’s troop increase plan.

“The diplomatic effort has not been full enough,” said Lee H. Hamilton, co-chairman of the study group with James A. Baker III. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Hamilton described the initiatives begun by the administration in the Middle East as modest and slow, and added, “We don’t have the time to wait.”

On the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrats began laying the constitutional groundwork for an effort to block the president’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and place new limits on the conduct of the war there, perhaps forcing a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

In advance of a possible Senate vote on the resolutions, Republican senators now appear widely divided over how to proceed. In trying to head off the resolution supported by Senators Warner and Collins, allies of the White House appear to be trying to muster at least the 41 votes they would need to prevent a vote on the measure under Senate rules. Mr. McCain is sponsoring the competing resolution that would establish benchmarks for the Iraqi government. He said the proposal also could be fashioned to give Congress more oversight.

Republicans were viewing Mr. McCain’s plan as a way to deter Republicans from joining in the resolutions more critical of Mr. Bush, and many Republicans said that would be preferable to one criticizing the troop buildup outright. Senators also said they were beginning to realize that the vote, while nonbinding, would be an important statement on Congressional sentiment regarding the war.

“We all know the world is watching,” said Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia.

The more sharply worded of the two measures critical of the White House is one approved last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and backed by the Democratic Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Carl Levin of Michigan, as well as Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican. The second of the two measures is one backed by Senator Warner.

As those debates flared mostly in private, the confirmation hearing for Admiral Fallon as the new head of the military’s Central Command became a proxy debate not only over the president’s new strategy but also for the competing resolutions supported by senators of both parties.

But Admiral Fallon, currently in charge of American forces across Asia and the Pacific, declined to answer directly politically fraught questions about whether certain proposed resolutions would harm the military effort in Iraq or undermine the troops’ morale.

The admiral, who if confirmed as expected would be the first Navy officer to head the Central Command, said that he would always offer unvarnished military advice, but that he would avoid commenting on partisan political issues.

In his testimony, Admiral Fallon told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States might have erred in its assessments of how effectively the new Iraqi government could manage the nation’s affairs.

“Maybe we ought to redefine the goals here a bit and do something that’s more realistic in terms of getting some progress and then maybe take on the other things later,” Admiral Fallon said, adding, “What we’ve been doing is not working and we have got to be doing, it seems to me, something different.”

“Time is running out,” he concluded.

Senator Levin submitted a letter he co-authored with Senator McCain demanding that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice make public the administration’s requirements for actions to be taken by the government in Baghdad to earn continued American support.

Late Tuesday, Senator Levin’s office released a reply from Ms. Rice that stated assurances that the Bush administration supports Mr. Maliki but also listed deadlines already missed by his government. Among them were laws to guarantee an equitable distribution of the country’s oil wealth, to establish provincial elections and to reintegrate disenfranchised Sunnis into Iraqi political life.

In the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who led the panel for the last two years, joined Democrats who asserted that Mr. Bush cannot simply ignore Congressional opposition to his plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

“I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole decider,” Mr. Specter said. “The decider is a joint and shared responsibility.”

Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat who acted as chairman for the hearing, said he would soon introduce a resolution that would go much further. It would end all financing for the deployment of American military forces in Iraq after six months, other than a limited number working on counterterrorism operations or training the Iraqi Army and police force. In effect, it would call for all other American forces to be withdrawn by the six-month deadline.

Jeff Zeleny and David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington, and John O’Neil from New York.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US chief seeks new tack on Iraq

2007-01-30T20:58:00.000-05:00

BBC NEWS | Americas | US chief seeks new tack on Iraq

US chief seeks new tack on Iraq

President George W Bush's nominee to be the new commander of US military forces in the Middle East has called for a "new and different" approach in Iraq.

Admiral William Fallon told a Senate confirmation hearing that "time is short" for the US to turn Iraq around.

His comments came on another day of bloodshed in Iraq.

About 40 people died and more than 100 were injured in a series of bomb and mortar attacks across Iraq as Shia Muslims celebrated the Ashura festival.

'Sensitive time'

In Washington, Adm Fallon told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the previous US strategy in Iraq was "not working".

We need candid assessments, and you'll get them from me
Adm William Fallon

"I believe the situation in Iraq can be turned around but time is short," he said.

"What we have been doing has not been working. [What] we have got to be doing, it seems to me, is something different."

Adm Fallon, who currently heads the military in the Pacific, is poised to become the first US navy officer to head Central Command, or Centcom.

He is replacing Gen John Abizaid, who is retiring after nearly four years as Centcom chief and if confirmed would become the immediate boss of Gen David Petraeus, who was recently confirmed as the commander of US forces in Iraq.

The commander's reputation as an able diplomat is being seen as an important asset at a very sensitive time for US policy in Iraq, says the BBC's James Coomarasamy, in Washington.

'No guarantees'

If confirmed, the admiral will have to oversee the deployment of more than 20,000 US troops in a "surge" operation in Iraq.

"There are no guarantees but you can depend on me for my best effort," Adm Fallon said.

We don't believe that [Iran's] behaviour, such as supporting Shia extremists in Iraq, should go unchallenged
John Negroponte
Nominee for deputy secretary of state

"We need candid assessments, and you'll get them from me."

Adm Fallon's comments echoed the grim but more realistic tone currently coming from the White House, our correspondent says.

Separately, John Negroponte, the first US director of intelligence and a former ambassador to Iraq and to the UN, now nominee for the post of deputy secretary of state, answered questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He backed recent tough talk towards Iran, saying Tehran was meddling in Iraq, and insisted that a diplomatic channel was already open with Syria.

"I would characterise our policy as desirous of resolving any issues we have with Iran by peaceful means," he said.

"But at the same time, we don't believe that their behaviour, such as supporting Shia extremists in Iraq, should go unchallenged.

"If they feel that they can continue with this kind of activity with impunity, that will be harmful to the security of Iraq and to our interests in that country."

His comments came as Democrat Senator Barack Obama expressed fears that the US would inadvertently stumble into active hostilities with Iran.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6314135.stm