Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday February 5 2007 - (813)

Monday February 5 2007 edition
Free Internet Press is operated on your donations. Donate Today
U.S. States Challenge National Driver's License Law 2007-02-05 01:19:10 A revolt against a national driver's license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states. The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real I.D. Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases. Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real I.D. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network. "It's the whole privacy thing," said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "A lot of legislators are concerned about privacy issues and the cost. It's an estimated $11 billion implementation cost." Read The Full Story Gen. Petraeus Deploys His Ph.D. Corps 2007-02-05 01:17:37 Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals - including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders - in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war. Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys". They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq. Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is letting them try to wage the war their way. Read The Full Story Commentary: Obsessed By Personalities, U.S. News Media Has Forgotten What Democracy Is For 2007-02-05 01:15:14 Intellpuke: The following commentary is written by Gary Younge and appears in the Guardian edition for Monday, February 5, 2007. Mr. Younge, writing from Washington, D.C., writes that the U.S. media is gripped by election fever but discusses the candidates' highs and lows rather than the real social issues. Mr. Younge's column follows: "You want to run for president?" asked Frank Bruni in his book "Ambling into History". "Here's what you need to do: Have someone write you a lovely speech that stakes out popular positions in unwavering language and less popular positions in fuzzier terms. Better yet, if it bows to God and country at every turn - that's called uplift. Make it rife with optimism, a trumpet blast not just about morning in America but about a perpetual dazzling dawn. Avoid talk of hard choices and daunting challenges; nobody wants those. Nod to people on all points of the political spectrum ... Add a soupcon of alliteration. Sprinkle with a few personal observations or stories - it humanizes you. Stir with enthusiasm." Watching the contenders for the Democratic party nomination at the Washington Hilton this weekend during the party's winter meeting was to see Bruni's formula applied with precision (though he might have added: "Have millionaire backers, be tall, married and able-bodied" - it is unlikely the wheelchair user FDR would have been elected in the era of mass television). The candidates were each allowed seven minutes, 30 seconds of theme music, and 100 poster-waving fans, to lay out their stall for the new American century. Each one spoke of how the nation's historic mission as a beacon of liberty, justice and opportunity throughout the globe, had been traduced by the Bush administration. There was nothing bad enough you could say about the Iraq war, the budget deficit or the state of healthcare. There was also nothing concrete that most of the candidates would say about what they would do to fix them. With little of substance on offer, delivery was everything. Barack Obama, who delivered beautifully, called for an end to cynicism in American politics. That's a lot of work for just seven minutes. Read The Full Story Britain's Labor Party Urged To Make Plans For Blair's Swift Departure If Charges Filed In Cash-For-Honors Investigation 2007-02-05 01:13:13 Senior figures in Britain's Labor Party want the party to develop contingency plans for Prime Minister Tony Blair's early departure if charges appear likely in the cash for honors investigation. Some ministers and Parliament members want Blair to announce the date of his departure now to mitigate the damage if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides to prosecute. Others want officials to hammer out a timetable for the resulting leadership election. Few want Blair to depart before the Scottish, Welsh and local elections in May - despite an ICM/Sunday Express poll suggesting 56% of the U.K. public want him to quit now - and allies believe the CPS will still be considering charges by the time he announces his exit. But there is concern that he has not committed himself to leaving immediately after the elections. Colleagues believe he would have little choice but to resign before then if Ruth Turner, his head of government relations, or even Lord Levy, his fundraiser, were prosecuted. Read The Full Story Tax Dollars Spent On Government Contracting Almost Doubles Under Bush 2007-02-04 03:28:16 In June, short of people to process cases of incompetence and fraud by federal contractors, officials at the General Services Administrationresponded with what has become the government’s reflexive answer to almost every problem. They hired another contractor. It did not matter that the company they chose, CACI International, had itself recently avoided a suspension from federal contracting; or that the work, delving into investigative files on other contractors, appeared to pose a conflict of interest; or that each person supplied by the company would cost taxpayers $104 an hour. Six CACI workers soon joined hundreds of other private-sector workers at the G.S.A., the government’s management agency. Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a virtual fourth branch of government. On the rise for decades, spending on federal contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic security and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does. Read The Full Story Security Contracts To Continue In Iraq 2007-02-04 03:27:29 The Defense Department plans to continue hiring private contractors to provide security at reconstruction projects in Iraq and to train U.S. and Iraqi military officers in counterinsurgency, despite problems with past contracts for such jobs that traditionally have been done by military personnel. The contracting out of these wartime activities comes at a time when the United States is stretching its resources to provide the additional 21,500 troops in Iraq that are needed under President Bush's new strategy, which involves stepped-up counterinsurgency operations in Baghdad and the expansion of economic reconstruction activities. During an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new top commander in Iraq, said he counts the "thousands of contract security forces" among the assets available to him to supplement the limited number of U.S. and Iraqi troops to be used for dealing with the insurgency. A former senior Defense Intelligence Agency expert on the Middle East, retired Army Col. W. Patrick Lang, said last week that contracting out intelligence collection and security for Army units and their contractors "results from actual military forces being too small." He added: "I can't remember a subordinate commander considering mercenaries as part of his forces." Read The Full Story Cheney's Shadow Looms At Libby Trial 2007-02-04 03:26:27 Vice President Cheney's press officer, Cathie Martin, approached his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, to ask how she should respond to journalists' questions about Joseph C. Wilson IV. Libby looked over one of the reporters' questions and told Martin: "Well, let me go talk to the boss and I'll be back." On Libby's return, Martin testified in federal court last week, he brought a card with detailed replies dictated by Cheney, including a highly partisan, incomplete summary of Wilson's investigation into Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction program. Libby subsequently called a reporter, read him the statement, and said - according to the reporter - he had "heard" that Wilson's investigation was instigated by his wife, an employee at the CIA, later identified as Valerie Plame. The reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, was one of five people with whom Libby discussed Plame's CIA status during those critical weeks that summer. After seven days of such courtroom testimony, the unanswered question hanging over Libby's trial is, did the vice president's former chief of staff decide to leak that disparaging information on his own? Read The Full Story Indonesia Floods Leave More Than 145,000 Homeless 2007-02-04 03:25:48 Floods that have crippled much of Indonesia's capital worsened Sunday, inundating scores of districts and leaving about 145,000 homeless, said officials and witnesses. Overnight rains caused more rivers to burst their banks across Jakarta, sending muddy water up to six feet deep into more residential and commercial areas in the densely packed city of 12 million people. "Jakarta is now on the highest alert level," said Sihar Simanjuntak, an official monitoring water levels at key rivers across the city. Two days of incessant rain over Jakarta and hills to its south triggered the city's worst floods in recent memory Friday, highlighting Indonesia's infrastructure problems as it tries to attract badly needed foreign investment. Read The Full Story News Analysis: Iran's Boast On Uranium Enrichment Put To Test 2007-02-04 03:25:01 After decades of largely clandestine efforts, Iran is expected to declare in coming days that it has made a huge leap toward industrial-scale production of enriched uranium - a defiant act that the country’s leaders will herald as a major technical stride and its neighbors will denounce as a looming threat. For now, many nuclear experts say, the frenetic activity at the desert enrichment plant in Natanz may be mostly about political showmanship. The many setbacks and outright failures of Tehran’s experimental program suggest that its bluster may outstrip its technical expertise. The problems help explain American intelligence estimates that Iran is at least four years away from producing a nuclear weapon. After weeks of limited access inside Iran, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.)  have reported that Tehran has succeeded in manufacturing parts for about 3,000 centrifuges, the devices that can spin uranium into reactor fuel - or bomb fuel. In recent days, the Iranians have begun installing the machines and supporting gear in a cavernous plant at Natanz, which would be a potential target if the United States or one of its allies decided that diplomacy would never keep Iran from getting the bomb. What the Iranians are not talking about, experts with access to the atomic agency’s information say, is that their experimental effort to make centrifuges work has struggled to achieve even limited success and appears to have been put on the back burner so the country’s leaders can declare that they are moving to the next stage. Read The Full Story	Attacking Iran Would Be Disastrous, Warns Coalition Of Opinion Led By Retired Officers 2007-02-05 01:18:00 Warnings of the dire consequences of military confrontation with Iran, and calls for a renewed diplomatic effort, are being issued on both sides of the Atlantic in a sign of the growing anxiety over the prospect of U.S. or Israeli action. A coalition of foreign policy thinktanks, humanitarian organizations and peace groups are scheduled to issue a report Monday arguing that an attack on Iran, reportedly being contemplated by the U.S. and Israel as a means of slowing down Iran's nuclear program, would backfire disastrously. Three former high-ranking U.S. officers echoed the report's conclusions and urged Tony Blair to slow the march to war by making it clear to Washington that he would oppose a military attack on Iran. In a letter in yesterday's Sunday Times, the retired officers - General Joseph Hoar, a former head of U.S. central command, Lieutenant General Robert Gard and Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan - said a strike against Iran "would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions". Read The Full Story Iraqi Insurgents May Have New Anti-Aircraft Weapon 2007-02-05 01:17:03 American military commanders in Iraq have been forced to adopt new security tactics in the wake of a fresh threat from insurgents after it was confirmed that all four U.S. helicopters that have crashed there in the past two weeks were brought down by ground fire. The crashes raise concerns that insurgents, who have proved highly innovative in warfare, have acquired new weaponry. Twenty Americans, including 16 soldiers and four civilians working for a security company, died in the crashes. In the deadliest incident 12 soldiers died on January 20 when their Black Hawk came down near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. In each case, reports from witnesses suggested that the craft were shot down. Sunday this was confirmed by Major General William Caldwell, the senior U.S. military spokesman. Read The Full Story Saudi Arabia Jails Foreigners For Party Where Alcoholic Drinks Served 2007-02-05 01:13:44 A Saudi Arabian court has convicted and sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison for attending a party where alcoholic drinks were served and men and women danced, a Saudi newspaper reported Sunday. The kingdom's religious police arrested 433 foreigners, including more than 240 women, for attending the "impudent" party in Jiddah, reported the state-guided newspaper Okaz. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place. Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to three to four months in prison and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes. They have the right to appeal, said the newspaper. Read The Full Story Bush's Medicare Budget Would Raise Premiums 2007-02-04 03:28:32 More and more Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay higher premiums for coverage of prescription drugs and doctors’ services under President Bush’s 2008 budget, to be unveiled on Monday. Single people with annual incomes over $80,000 and married couples with incomes over $160,000 already have to pay higher premiums for the part of Medicare that covers doctors’ services. The income thresholds rise with inflation. Budget documents show that Bush will propose a similar surcharge on premiums for Medicare’s new prescription drug benefit. In addition, the president will ask Congress to “eliminate annual indexing of income thresholds,” so that more people would eventually have to pay the higher premiums. Read The Full Story Authors Of Bush's Iraq Plan Say It May Fail 2007-02-04 03:27:51 The success of the Bush administration's new Iraq strategy depends on a series of rapid and dramatic political and economic reforms that even the plan's authors have little confidence will work. In the current go-for-broke atmosphere, administration officials say they are aware that failure to achieve the reforms would result in a repeat of last year's unsuccessful Baghdad offensive, when efforts to consolidate military gains with lasting stability on the ground did not work. This time, they acknowledge, there will be no second chance. Among many deep uncertainties are whether Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is up to the task and committed to spearheading what the administration foresees as a fundamental realignment of Iraqi politics; whether Maliki's Shiite-dominated government and its sluggish financial bureaucracy will part with $10 billion for rapid job creation and reconstruction, at least some of it directed to sectarian opponents; and whether the U.S. military and State Department can calibrate their own stepped-up reconstruction assistance to push for action without once again taking over. Read The Full Story Commentary: We Cannot Let The Kyoto Debacle Happen Again 2007-02-04 03:26:56 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by David King, the British government's chief science advisor,  for the Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007, edition of The Observer. In his commentary Mr. King writes genuine international action on climate change is a necessity. Mr. King's column follows: Open any newspaper and the chances are you'll find an item on climate change. Friday saw yet another flurry of coverage with the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth assessment report on the science of climate change. What makes this report stand out from others? The IPCC is a global body established in 1988 to provide independent, scientific advice on climate change. Friday's report is not new research, but, rather, a stock-take of the entire body of knowledge that exists on climate change. It builds on three previous reports and incorporates results from a further six years of research. The report is the first of three to be published by the IPCC this year. Later reports will focus on the impacts of climate change and on the actions required to address the problem. This process has involved more than 2,500 scientists and 130 countries. Read The Full Story British Commander Calls For More Troops In Afghanistan 2007-02-04 03:26:08 General David Richards, the British general who has been commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan has called for a major reinforcement of the multinational coalition efforts in Afghanistan, saying he has "always been without the resources [he] would wish for" during his nine months in charge and calling a crucial battle against the Taliban last autumn "a damned near-run thing". Interviews from the most senior to the most junior levels in Afghanistan by The Observer have revealed a chronic lack of troops, which will be only partially allayed by the dispatch of extra NATO soldiers announced by American, British and Polish governments in recent days. A series of European governments have refused to send more troops and the U.K. has only enhanced the 6,000-strong British deployment by around 350 troops. Though a new battalion of 850 British infantry are being dispatched - in the face of strong opposition by the British Treasury Ministry, according to senior defense sources - 500 headquarters staff are being withdrawn. Read The Full Story U.S. Eco-Millionaire's Land Grab Prompts Anger In Argentina 2007-02-04 03:25:14 Douglas Tompkins calls himself a "deep ecologist". He is a millionaire on a quest to preserve some of Argentina's last frontier lands from human encroachment by buying them and turning them into ecological reserves. Yet Argentina may not permit him such philanthropy. Opponents are branding him a new-age "imperialist gringo"  and claim he has a secret aim: to help the U.S. military gain control of the country's natural resources. Tompkins, who sold his Esprit clothing firm in 1989 for a reported $150 million to devote his time and wealth to ecology, takes such attacks in his stride. "Land ownership is a political act; it arouses passions," he says. Tompkins, 63, holds to a very severe brand of environmentalism and is fond of reminding listeners that, unless runaway consumerism is halted, "we humans will be building ourselves a beautiful coffin in space called planet Earth". Read The Full Story Japan's Foreign Minister Calls U.S. Iraq Policy 'Immature' 2007-02-04 03:24:23 Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso has criticized U.S. policy in Iraq, saying American actions following the initial fighting in 2003 have been "immature," Japanese media reports said on Sunday. The comments follow remarks by Japan's defense minister last month saying President Bush had been wrong to start the Iraq war, and may damage ties with Washington ahead of a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney on February 20-22. "Rumsfeld went ahead and did it, but the operation after occupation was very immature and did not work so well, so that's why there's still trouble now," the financial daily Nikkei quoted Aso as saying in a speech on Saturday, referring to former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Read The Full Story
Original materials on this site © Free Internet Press. Any mirrored or quoted materials © their respective authors, publications, or outlets, as shown on their publication, indicated by the link in the news story. Original Free Internet Press materials may be copied and/or republished without modification, provided a link to http://FreeInternetPress.com is given in the story, or proper credit is given. Newsletter options may be changed in your preferences on http://freeinternetpress.com Please email editor@freeinternetpress.com there are any questions. XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php