Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday April 26 2007 - (813)

Thursday April 26 2007 edition
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Congressional Subpeonas Approved For Rice, Other Bush Appointees 2007-04-26 01:56:36 Lawmakers approved new subpoenas yesterday for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials, part of an expanding legal battle between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the administration over issues such as the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and flawed justifications for the war in Iraq. The subpoena issued to Rice seeks to force her testimony about the claim that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program. President Bush offered that as a key rationale for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address. The subpoena was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee along party lines, 21 to 10. The same panel also issued two subpoenas to the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents related to political presentations at the General Services Administration and the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House aides, including presidential adviser Karl Rove. Read The Full Story Unemployment Pays For Top Executives 2007-04-26 01:56:03 For many top executives, losing their jobs could be lucrative. For Sprint Nextel chief executive Gary D. Forsee, it could trigger as much as $73.8 million in pay and benefits, depending on the circumstances. An excise tax would take a bite out of that sum, but it would not be Forsee's problem. Sprint would cover the bill at a cost of $16.1 million. For Danaher chief H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., unemployment could trigger a payday worth as much as $103.5 million, plus $23.3 million of tax reimbursements. For General Dynamics chief Nicholas D. Chabraja, termination could come with $62.7 million of consolation. If he left voluntarily after a takeover, he would be entitled to a windfall, too. The immediate vesting of his stock options would have been worth $11 million at the end of last year. Read The Full Story Ranger Alleges Cover-Up In Tillman Case 2007-04-26 01:55:12 An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was cut down by friendly fire in Afghanistan said Tuesday a commanding officer had ordered him to keep quiet about what happened. The military at first portrayed Tillman's death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman's brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, "I was ordered not to tell him what happened." "You were ordered not to tell him?" repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "Roger that, sir," replied O'Neal, dressed in his Army uniform. Read The Full Story U.N. Accuses Iraq Of Covering Up Civilian Deaths 2007-04-25 22:38:46 The United Nations Wednesday accused the Iraqi government of trying to cover up a rise in civilian casualties from sectarian violence since the troop surge ordered by George Bush earlier this year. Iraq's government had withheld civilian casualty statistics because it feared the data would be used to depict a "very grim" security situation, claimed the U.N. officials in Baghdad. Amid growing political sensitivity to death toll figures, it also emerged Wednesday that Canadian scientists had complained that the British government last week denied a transit visa to an Iraqi colleague, Riyadh Lafta, an epidemiologist and co-author of a Lancet report that had estimated the Iraqi war dead at more than 650,000. The British Foreign Office said Wednesday that it was investigating his case. Read The Full Story Britain's Home Office And Police Implicated In Anti-Terror Leaks 2007-04-25 22:37:50 The row over allegations that lives were endangered by leaks about major anti-terrorism operations deepened Wednesday night as it emerged that there were a series of disclosures about one highly sensitive investigation. As Tony Blair rejected calls for an inquiry, and Liberal Democrats called upon the police to investigate, it emerged that journalists received up to three separate briefings about an allegation that a group of men was planning to abduct and behead a Muslim British soldier. The Guardian was told that an aide to John Reid, Britain's home secretary, was responsible for one of those leaks, and has also learned that there is strong suspicion among the highest-ranking police at Scotland Yard that one of their own officers also briefed the media. Read The Full Story A Top Taliban Commander Says Bin Laden Planned Attack During Cheney Afghanistan Visit 2007-04-25 22:36:48 A top Taliban commander said al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was behind the February attack outside a U.S. military base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, according to an interview shown Wednesday by Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera. Bin Laden planned and supervised the attack that killed 23 people outside the Bagram base while Cheney was there, said Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's main military commander in southern Afghanistan who has had close associations with al-Qaeda. "You may remember the martyr operation inside the Bagram base, which targeted a senior U.S. official. ... That operation was the result of his wise planning. He (bin Laden) planned that operation and guided us through it. The operation was a success," Dadullah told Al-Jazeera. He did not say how he knew bin Laden planned the attack, and it was not clear when the interview took place. Read The Full Story At Least 10 Killed As Storms Hit Texas-Mexico Border Area 2007-04-25 12:22:43 Search teams worked their way through wreckage-strewn neighborhoods in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, Wednesday after a tornado killed at least 10 people and destroyed two schools and more than 20 homes. At least of three of the victims died just across the border from Eagle Pass in Piedras Negras, Mexico, said Oscar Murillo, the city's civil protection director. On the U.S. side, five of the dead were in a mobile home when the storm slammed it against a school building, said Maverick County Judge Jose Aranda. A young girl between 4 and 6 years old, her parents, and two other adult relatives were inside, he said. Wednesday morning, several mobile homes from the community of about 26,000 residents were missing, officials said. More than 70 people were reported injured in Eagle Pass. Read The Full Story Depleted Uranium - Poisoning U.S. Troops And The Planet 2007-04-25 12:21:12 Lori Brim cradled her son in her arms for three months before he died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Dustin Brim, a 22-year-old Army specialist had collapsed three years ago in Iraq from a very aggressive cancer that attacked his kidney, caused a mass to grow over his esophagus and collapsed a lung. The problems she saw during her time at Walter Reed, including her son screaming in pain while doctors argued over medications, had nothing to do with mold and shabby conditions documented in recent news reports. What this mother saw was an unexplainable illness consuming her son. And what she has learned since her son's death is that his is not an isolated case. Read The Full Story Gonzales Aide Goodling Granted Immunity To Testify Before House Committee 2007-04-25 12:20:25 A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the 2/3 majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote. Democrats said the votes were necessary tools to force into the open the story of why the prosecutors were fired and whether they were singled out to influence corruption cases. The votes instruct a House lawyer to seek an immunity grant from a federal court. The grant would not take effect unless Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan, chooses to issue Goodling a subpoena compelling her to testify, said Conyers. Read The Full Story China Could Overtake U.S. As Biggest Greenhouse Gas Producer By November 2007-04-25 02:30:13 China may overtake the United States as the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases within months, one of the world's leading energy analysts predicted Wednesday. Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), said the country's economic growth had been so fast in 2006 and 2007 that the historic global shift of climate-changing emissions from west to east which was previously predicted for 2009 or 2010 could now happen by November. Yet these predictions paled into insignificance, said Dr. Birol, if China took no measures to restrain emissions. At current rates, he said, it would be emitting twice as much CO2 as the world's 26 richest countries combined within 25 years. Read The Full Story Revival Of Oversight Role Sought By Congress 2007-04-25 02:29:34 Over the course of only 15 minutes Wednesday, three congressional committees will consider subpoenas for half a dozen officials from the White House and the departments of Justice and State. On the list is former presidential chief of staff Andrew H. Card, Jr., Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Justice Department liaison to the White House Monica M. Goodling, a key figure in the controversial firing of eight U.S.attorneys. Republican leaders call it a "partisan witch hunt", but Democratic lawmakers, and even some Republicans, say it is an overdue return to their constitutional role of executive-branch oversight. Since Democrats assumed control of Congress in January, they have hired more than 200 investigative staffers for key watchdog committees. They include lawyers, former reporters and congressional staffers who left oversight committees that had all but atrophied during the six years that the GOP controlled Congress and the White House. They have already begun a series of inquiries on subjects ranging from allegations of administration meddling in federal scientists' work on global warming and the General Services Administration's alleged work for Republican campaigns to how disproved claims that Iraq had purchased nuclear material from Niger evolved into a case for war. Read The Full Story Scotland Yard Chief: Al-Qaeda Thriving Despite War On Terror 2007-04-25 02:27:40 The head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command said Tuesday that al-Qaeda had survived the six-year long "war on terror" launched by President George Bush and Tony Blair, and its central leadership had retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain. Deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, the national counterterrorism coordinator, warned in a lecture last night that terrorists "have momentum" and were on an "inexorable trend to more ambitious and more destructive attack planning". Clarke was giving a lecture in memory of Colin Cramphorn, the deceased former chief constable of West Yorkshire who was in charge of the force when it was revealed that three of the four bombers behind the attacks on London in July 7, 2005, came from his area. Read The Full Story	Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed 2007-04-26 01:56:22 White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said Wednesday. The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, said the officials. The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable. Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources - including office buildings, phones and computers - for partisan purposes. Read The Full Story Baghdad's Fissures And Mistrust Keep Political Goals Out Of Reach 2007-04-26 01:55:40 U.S. military commanders say a key goal of the ongoing security offensive is to buy time for Iraq's leaders to reach political benchmarks that can unite its fractured coalition government and persuade insurgents to stop fighting. Yet, in pressuring the Iraqis to speed up, U.S. officials are encountering a variety of hurdles: The parliament is riven by personality and sect, and some politicians are abandoning Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. There is deep mistrust of U.S. intentions, especially among Shiites who see American efforts to bring Sunnis into the political process as an attempt to weaken the Shiites' grip on power. Many Iraqi politicians view the U.S. pressure as bullying that reminds them they are under occupation. And the security offensive, bolstered by additional U.S. forces, has failed to stop the violence that is widening the sectarian divide. Read The Full Story Divided U.S. House Passes Iraq Pullout Timetable 2007-04-25 22:39:09 Intellpuke: Following are two separate articles on the action by the U.S. House and comments by various lawmakers. The first is the Washington Post's article on this event, the second is the New York Times' take on the same story. I decided to post both articles because their tone is markedly different and because, between the two newspapers' articles, more voices are heard than just one report would provide. I added the "U.S." to the headlines of each article, otherwise they are as the two papers presented them on their, respective, websites. I did not choose the order of the articles for any particular reason. The Washington Post article follows, and below that you'll find the article by the New York Times. The U.S. House Wednesday night brushed aside weeks of angry White House rhetoric and veto threats to narrowly approve a $124 billion war spending bill that requires troop withdrawal from Iraq to begin by Oct. 1 with a goal of ending U.S. combat operations there by next March. The Senate is expected to follow the House's 218 to 208 vote with final passage Thursday, completing work on the rarest of bills: legislation to try to end a major war as fighting still rages. Democrats hope to send the measure to the White House on Monday, almost exactly four years after Bush declared an end to major combat in a speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. That would be a particularly pungent political anniversary for Bush to deliver only the second veto of his presidency. Wednesday night's vote came after a fiery, partisan debate that has grown familiar after months of wrangling, first over a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's troop increase, then over the largest war spending bill in U.S. history. Read The Full Story U.S. Defense Contractor Wants Indictments Dismissed 2007-04-25 22:38:25 Lawyers for a defense contractor accused of bribing a congressman and committing fraud with a top CIA official have asked a judge to dismiss charges. The lawyers claim the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego deliberately and illegally disclosed grand jury secrets to the news media. It also used "the grand jury as a weapon in its bureaucratic skirmishes with its Justice Department overseers in Washington, D.C.," wrote Mark Geragos, an attorney for defense contractor Brent Wilkes. The leaks created "a public atmosphere that compelled the grand jury to return indictments," Geragos wrote to U.S. District Judge Larry Burns in a request filed Monday. He called the disclosures a "gesture of defiance" by then-U.S. Attorney Carol Lam as she was forced out of office. Read The Full Story Panic Sweeps Through Spain's Construction Sector, Wipes Up To 65% Off Shares In A Week 2007-04-25 22:37:21 Britons pursuing their dream of a house in the sun were warned Wednesday that an outburst of panic in the Spanish construction sector would see the value of the overpriced properties they have bought in recent years plunge. "This is not good news for U.K. investors in Spain," said Diana Choyleva, chief economist at Lombard Street Research. "We have had over-investment on a gigantic scale." A wave of panic spread through the Spanish bourse over the past week as property developers saw up to 65% of their share price wiped out in frantic trading. The loss of confidence came amid growing signs that the market was already suffering from overbuilding and rising interest rates on euro mortgages. "We will definitely see house price growth stop and a fall in nominal prices is likely in Spain over the next 12 to 18 months," said Choyleva. Widespread corruption in the Spanish building sector together with property laws in some regions, such as Valencia, which have been denounced as abusive to buyers and owners, had set the scene for this week's dramatic downturn. Read The Full Story Fox Guards Henhouse: OSHA Leaves Worker Safety In Hands Of Industry 2007-04-25 12:23:01 Seven years ago, a Missouri doctor discovered a troubling pattern at a microwave popcorn plant in the town of Jasper. After an additive was modified to produce a more buttery taste, nine workers came down with a rare, life-threatening disease that was ravaging their lungs. Puzzled Missouri health authorities turned to two federal agencies in Washington. Scientists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which investigates the causes of workplace health problems, moved quickly to examine patients, inspect factories and run tests. Within months, they concluded that the workers became ill after exposure to diacetyl, a food-flavoring agent. Yet the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with overseeing workplace safety, reacted with far less urgency. It did not step up plant inspections or mandate safety standards for businesses, even as more workers became ill. Read The Full Story Pentagon To End Talon Data-Gathering Program 2007-04-25 12:21:33 Less than two weeks after being sworn in as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, James R. Clapper, Jr., is moving to end the controversial Talon electronic data program, which collected and circulated unverified reports about people and organizations that allegedly threaten Defense Department facilities. Clapper, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agence (DIA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, "has assessed the results of the Talon program and does not believe they merit continuing the program as currently constituted, particularly in light of its image in Congress and the media," according to a statement released in his name Tuesday by a Pentagon spokesman. Talon, launched in 2003 with an eye toward Sept. 11, 2001, came under public scrutiny in December 2005 with the disclosure that it had collected data on anti-military protesters and peaceful demonstrators. More recently, the American Civil Liberties Union released an internal Pentagon report showing that, as of 18 months ago, Talon had about 13,000 entries, of which 2,821 involved reports on U.S. citizens. Read The Full Story Kucinich Officially Moves To Impeach Cheney 2007-04-25 12:20:48 Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney for “high crimes and misdemeanors” related to his participation in the buildup for the war in Iraq - and what the longshot Democratic presidential contender said was belligerent rhetoric toward Iran. In an 18-page draft resolution, Kucinich outlined three charges against Cheney: that he “manipulated the intelligence process ... by fabricating the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” to justify the war in Iraq; that he deceived citizens and Congress “about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda” to justify the war; and that he has “openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran, absent any real threat to the United States, and has done so with the United States’ proven capability to carry out such threats.” “In all this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as vice president, and subversive to constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States ... [and] by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office,” the resolution concluded. Read The Full Story New Planet Could Be Earthlike 2007-04-25 12:20:09 The most enticing property yet found outside our solar system is about 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra, a team of European astronomers said Tuesday. The astronomers have discovered a planet five times as massive as the Earth orbiting a dim red star known as Gliese 581. It is the smallest of the 200 or so planets that are known to exist outside of our solar system, the extrasolar or exo-planets. It orbits its home star within the so-called habitable zone where surface water, the staff of life, could exist if other conditions are right, said Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. “We are at the right place for that,” said Dr. Udry, the lead author of a paper describing the discovery that has been submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Last Thing Middle East Wants Is U.S. Troops To Leave Iraq 2007-04-25 02:29:52 Intellpuke: In the following commentary, Hussein Agha, a senior associated member of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, writes that across the Middle East ordinary people want the U.S. to get out of Iraq but, from Israel to al-Qaeda, political groups and states have other ideas. Mr. Agha's commentary, which appears in the Guardian edition for Wednesday, April 25, 2007, follows: Overt political debate in the Middle East is hostile to the American occupation of Iraq and dominated by calls for it to end sooner rather than later. No less a figure than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arguably the United States' closest Arab ally, has declared the occupation of Iraq "illegal" and "illegitimate". Real intentions, however, are different. States and local political groups might not admit it - because of public opinion - but they do not want to see the back of the Americans. Not yet. For this there is a simple reason: while the U.S. can no longer successfully manipulate regional actors to carry out its plans, regional actors have learned to use the U.S. presence to promote their own objectives. Quietly and against the deeply held wishes of their populations, they have managed to keep the Americans engaged with the hope of some elusive victory. The so-called axis of moderate Arab states - comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - dreads an early U.S.  withdrawal. First, because it would be widely interpreted as an American defeat, which would weaken these pro-American regimes while both energizing and radicalizing their populations. Read The Full Story U.S. Soldiers Face A Grisly Problem, Grateful Iraqis And A Grim Outlook 2007-04-25 02:28:58 The soldiers called him Bob, and for the past several weeks, until Tuesday morning, he was the biggest obstacle to the success of an important mission in a small but crucial corner of the Iraq war. "We can't get anybody to get Bob out. No one wants to do it," Army Maj. Brent Cummings, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, said with worry one recent morning as Bob's story began unfolding. Cummings was looking at an aerial photograph of an area in east Baghdad called Kamaliya, where there was an abandoned spaghetti factory with a hole in the courtyard, a hole in which some of his soldiers had discovered Bob. Bob: It's shorthand for "bobbin' in the float," Cummings explained. Read The Full Story West's Foot-Dragging On Aid To Africa Putting Lives At Risk 2007-04-25 02:27:12 The west's foot-dragging over aid pledges to Africa was described last night as "grotesque" and a threat to the lives of the world's poor by the body set up by Tony Blair to monitor the results of Britain's Gleneagles summit. Almost two years after the G8 group of leading industrial nations promised to boost development assistance by $50 billion a year by 2010, the Africa Progress Panel (APP) headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said rich countries were only 10% of the way to their target. "If the efforts to double aid by 2010 are not increased soon it will be too late," said Annan as the APP presented its findings in Berlin to the prime minister and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will host this year's G8 summit in early June. Read The Full Story
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