Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday November 9 2006 - (813)

Thursday November 9 2006 edition
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Analysis: New Direction May Be A Challenge For Bush 2006-11-09 00:10:07 Tuesday's electoral earthquake triggered an equally seismic reaction in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, one that signaled more clearly than ever that a politically humbled President Bush now agrees with a resurgent Democratic Party on the need for a change of course in Iraq. What was not clear was whether the two sides are genuinely prepared to work together to produce one. In the wake of an election that swept Republicans from power in the House and left them on the brink of surrendering their Senate majority as well, both parties have greater incentives to reach accommodation than at any time since Bush was elected in 2000. Iraq will provide the critical test of whether either can overcome the ingrained habits and bad blood of six years of partisan warfare that have often left the Capitol in gridlock. The president took the most dramatic step Wednesday in acknowledging how much the landscape has changed. At a midday news conference he announced that he had accepted the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has come to symbolize the administration's apparent unwillingness to change a policy that has failed to bring order to Iraq and that has lost popular support at home. Bush said it is time for "a fresh perspective" on the war. Read The Full Story Robert Gates, A Cautious Player From A Past Bush Team 2006-11-09 00:09:01 In choosing Robert M. Gates as his next defense secretary, President Bush reached back to an earlier era in Republican foreign policy, one marked more by caution and pragmatism than that of the neoconservatives who have shaped the Bush administration’s war in Iraq and confrontations with Iran and North Korea. Soft-spoken but tough-minded, Gates, 63, is in many ways the antithesis of Donald H. Rumsfeld, the brash leader he would replace. He has been privately critical of the administration’s failure to execute its military and political plans for Iraq, and he has spent the last six months quietly debating new approaches to the war, as a member of the Iraq Study Group run by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton. Gates last served in Washington 13 years ago, and Bush made clear on Wednesday that he regarded his nominee as someone who would bring new perspective to the final two years of his tenure. Read The Full Story 41 Troops Killed At Pakistani Base In Suicide Bombing 2006-11-09 00:07:51 A suicide bomber detonated explosives on a field filled with army recruits doing exercises in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday morning, killing at least 41 soldiers and wounding dozens in one of the worst such attacks in Pakistan's recent history. Officials immediately blamed the bombing on al-Qaeda and local Islamic extremists. They said it appeared to be an act of reprisal for a government missile attack Oct. 30 that killed 82 people at an Islamic school in the nearby Bajaur tribal region. Officials suspected that the school was being used as a training camp for guerrillas. "It seems that this was linked to the action by our forces against militants in Bajaur last week. Al-Qaeda and its followers in this region are getting desperate because of our actions," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said from Islamabad, the capital. "I am afraid this is a beginning of a new phase of terrorism in Pakistan. The terrorists are now pitched directly against our security forces." Read The Full Story Democrat Wins Senate Race In Montana 2006-11-08 12:15:00 The Democratic challenger in Montana, Jon Tester, won the race for the United States Senate today, leaving only Virginia to face an uncertain outcome in a tight midterm election race that is not expected to be decided for days or weeks. Tester’s victory means that the Senate will at the least be tied 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, but effectively the Republicans would remain in control in that case because Vice President Dick Cheney has a tie-breaking vote. The battle for the Senate drew attention today after the House came out clearly in Democratic hands after Tuesday’s election. But the uncertainty of the race in Virginia - and until earlier today Montana - left open the prospect of vote recounts that were likely to be lengthy. After new figures pushed his lead to about 3,000 votes around midday, Tester declared victory, but the Republican, Senator Conrad Burns, who has been trailing his challenger with more than 99 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, had not conceded. Tester said in a live television interview with CNN today that he was “absolutely” declaring himself the winner. “We feel good about winning this election,” he said. “We feel good about going to Washington, D.C.” Read The Full Story Ex-CIA Chief Robert Gates To Replace Rumsfeld 2006-11-08 11:40:42 President Bush today announced he is replacing Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, saying a "fresh perspective" is needed at the Pentagon to deal with the war in Iraq. In a White House news conference a day after midterm elections delivered the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, to Democratic Party control, Bush said he has chosen former CIA director Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld. "Now after a series of thoughtful conversations, Secretary Rumsfeld and I agreed that the time is right for new leadership at the Pentagon," said Bush. Rumsfeld, a principal architect of the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, had become a principal focus of criticism for Americans dissatisfied with Bush administration's strategy in Iraq. Democratic leaders, and even some Republican members of Congress, had called on Bush to replace Rumsfeld, who has been criticized be many military analysts for failing to dispatch enough troops to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 to combat the insurgency. Read The Full Story Breaking News: U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld To Resign. 2006-11-08 10:14:43 U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is to step down following Tuesday's election defeat for the GOP in the U.S. House, Republican officials have told the Associated Press.      There has been considerable pressure on Rumsfeld to resign or on President Bush to fire him over the past several weeks. A number of current and former military officials have said publicly that Rumsfeld had to go for his lack of planning and foresight in the Iraq War. On Monday, the Army Times, the Air Force Times, the Navy Times, and the Marine Times newspapers published a front page editorial calling for Rumsfeld to be removed as defense secretary.     In addition to criticism of the military aspects of the Iraq war, there have been consistent reports critical of the Defense Department's contracts with civilian business to rebuild Iraq, most notably those with Halliburton and its KBR subsidiary.      Free Internet Press will continue to monitor this story and post more information as soon as it becomes available. Read The Full Story	U.S. Envoy Seeks To Reassure Wary Iraqis 2006-11-09 00:09:30 The U.S. ambassador in Baghdad sought to reassure Iraqis on Wednesday that major Democratic gains in Tuesday's elections did not herald an immediate or dramatic change in U.S. policy, saying President Bush "is the architect of U.S. foreign policy" and committed to success in Iraq. In a speech to Iraqi journalists and a few government officials, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad explained that there would be a change in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress but that "Americans understand that Iraq is important" and "have made great sacrifices" for the country and its people. While continued violence "sometimes causes some, understandably, to wonder whether Iraqis can succeed," he said, "it is clear that Americans want Iraq to succeed" and would continue supporting efforts to bring peace and security to the country. Khalilzad said Bush "is committed to working with both houses of the American Congress to get support needed for the mission in Iraq to succeed". Yet many Iraqis expressed concern that a political sea change in Washington could leave them and their country in even worse shape than it is today, while others said they hoped the Democrats would be more forceful in demanding that Iraq's government curb militias and improve security. Read The Full Story Hamas Says Death Of 18 Civilians Will Be Avenged 2006-11-09 00:08:30 The leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas called on his fighters Wednesday to "activate resistance" hours after an Israeli artillery strike killed 18 civilians, mostly women and children, from a single family in Gaza. Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile in Damascus, Syria, promised retaliation after a wave of artillery shells landed before dawn on a residential street in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Several homes were hit, all belonging to one family. The attack sparked international condemnation and came a day after the Israeli military ended a six-day operation in Beit Hanoun that claimed more than 50 lives. More than 350 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military in the past five months. "Our condemnation will not be in words but in deeds," said Meshaal. "All Palestinian groups are urged to activate resistance." Read The Full Story Democrats Capture Majority In U.S. Senate 2006-11-08 18:59:04 Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans Wednesday with an upset victory in Virginia, giving the party complete domination of Capitol Hill for the first time since 1994, as NBC News reported that Democrat Jim Webb was the apparent winner. Webb’s apparent squeaker win over incumbent Sen. George Allen effectively gave Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, an astonishing turnabout at the hands of voters unhappy with Republican scandal and unabated violence in Iraq. Allen was the sixth Republican incumbent senator defeated in Tuesday’s elections. The Senate had teetered at 50 Democrats and independents, 49 Republicans for most of Wednesday, with Virginia hanging in the balance. Webb’s victory ended Republican hopes of eking out a 50-50 split, with Vice President Dick Cheney wielding tie-breaking authority. Read The Full Story In Virginia, A Recount Would Not Come Soon 2006-11-08 12:14:38 Virginia’s election laws allow an apparent loser to request a recount if a contest’s margin is less than 1 percent -  and the margin in the preliminary results of the state’s Senate election stood this morning at about one-third of 1 percent. While a recount seems likely, though, if it comes it will not come quickly. According to a statement issued this month by the state’s Board of Elections, no request for a recount may be filed until the vote is certified, which is scheduled to happen this year on Nov. 27th. After certification, a losing candidate has 10 days to file a recount request in the state courts. The petition will be considered by a panel made up of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court in Richmond and two judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. Those judges then set out guidelines for conducting the recount. Read The Full Story Analysis: Strategy Shift Likely For Bush 2006-11-08 11:40:20 For weeks, President Bush has waved off questions about how he would cope with a Democratic House. He and his aides said they simply did not expect to be dealing with a Speaker Pelosi, and Bush regularly mocked the Democrats for "measuring the drapes" on Capitol Hill in anticipation of victory. But the dramatic election results yesterday left Bush facing not only a House but also, possibly, a Senate in the hands of the opposition party - should the narrow Democratic leads in Virginia and Montana hold up. And later today, at a White House news conference scheduled for just after 1 p.m., the nation will begin hearing just how Bush plans to cope with a completely different Capitol Hill environment than he has faced in his first six years in Washington. The White House sent the strong signal this morning that Bush intends to offer a conciliatory message, indicating he will express the desire to work closely with Democrats during the next two years on Iraq and domestic issues such as education and energy. Press secretary Tony Snow said in an interview that Bush made a round of congratulatory calls to senior Democrats, describing the tone as "very cordial." Read The Full Story Analysis: A Voter Rebuke For Bush, Iraq War 2006-11-08 00:45:37 Intellpuke: The Democrats have gained a net four seats in the U.S. Senate and need a net gain of six seats to have the majority there. As I write this, the Senate races in Virginia and Montana are too close to call and, apparently, hold the key to whether the Republicans or Democrats will have the Senate  majority. The following news analysis is by Washington Post staff writers Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei. The political pendulum in American politics swung away from the right yesterday, putting an end to the 12-year Republican Revolution on Capitol Hill and delivering a sharp rebuke of President Bush and the Iraq war. The GOP reign in the House that began with Newt Gingrich in a burst of vision and confrontation in 1994 came crashing down amid voter disaffection with congressional corruption. The collapse of one-party rule in Washington will transform Bush's final two years in office and challenge Democrats to make the leap from angry opposition to partners in power. How far the balance shifts to the left remains to be seen. The passion of the antiwar movement helped propel party activists in this election year, and the House leadership under the likely new speaker, Nancy Pelosi  (D-California), hails from the party's liberal wing. But the Democrats' victory was built on the back of more centrist candidates seizing Republican-leaning districts, and Pelosi emphasized that she will try to lead without becoming the ideological mirror of Gingrich. "We have learned from watching the Republicans - they would not allow moderates a voice in their party," Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) said in an interview as he waited to see if Democrats would take control of the upper chamber as well. "We must work from the middle." Read The Full Story
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