Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday June 19 2007 - (813)

Tuesday June 19 2007 edition
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'Signing Statements' Study Finds Bush Administration Has Ignored Laws 2007-06-19 02:01:03 President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and Monday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes. Bush has been criticized for his use of "signing statements," in which he invokes presidential authority to challenge provisions of legislation passed by Congress. The president has challenged a federal ban on torture, a request for data on the administration of the USA Patriot Act and numerous other assertions of congressional power. As recently as December, Bush asserted the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in a signing statement attached to a postal reform bill. For the first time, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office - Congress's investigative arm - tried to ascertain whether the administration has made good on such declarations of presidential power. In appropriations acts for fiscal 2006, GAO investigators found 160 separate provisions that Bush had objected to in signing statements. They then chose 19 to follow. Read The Full Story Military Psychiatric-Care Overhaul Urged 2007-06-19 02:00:23 Top officials in the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill said Monday that the federal government must move quickly to revamp the nation's system for identifying and caring for military personnel with the invisible wounds of mental illness. Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center Monday and discussed mental-health issues, including treatment for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on Ward 53, according to an Army spokesman. "We have realized there are shortfalls, and we've been going about fixing it," said Col. Dan Baggio, noting that the Army has conducted four mental-health surveys of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read The Full Story Ambassador Tells Rice Embassy Staff In Baghdad Is Inadequate 2007-06-19 01:59:31 Ryan C. Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, bluntly told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a cable dated May 31 that the embassy in Baghdad - the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy - lacks enough well-qualified staff members and that its security rules are too restrictive for Foreign Service officers to do their jobs. "Simply put, we cannot do the nation's most important work if we do not have the Department's best people," Crocker said in the memo. The unclassified cable underscores the State Department's struggle to find its role in the turmoil in Iraq. With a 2007 budget of more than $1 billion and a staff that has expanded to more than 1,000 Americans and 4,000 third-country nationals, the embassy has become the center of a bureaucratic battle between Crocker, who wants to strengthen the staff, and some members of Congress, who are increasingly skeptical about the diplomatic mission's rising costs. "In essence, the issue is whether we are a Department and a Service at war," Crocker wrote. "If we are, we need to organize and prioritize in a way that reflects this, something we have not done thus far." In the memo, Crocker drew upon the recommendations of a management review he requested for the embassy shortly after arriving in Baghdad two months ago. Read The Full Story Magazine Ranks Iraq As Second Most Unstable Country 2007-06-18 13:43:11 Iraq now ranks as the second most unstable country in the world, ahead of war-ravaged or poverty-stricken countries such as Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti and North Korea, according to the 2007 Failed State index issued today by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace. Despite billions of dollars in foreign aid, and the presence of more than 150,000 American troops, Iraq has been on a steady decline over the past three years, according to the index. It ranked fourth last year, but its score dropped in almost all of the 12 political, economic, security and social indicators on which the index is based. "The report tells us that Iraq is sinking fast," said Fund for Peace President Pauline Baker. "We believe it's reached the point of no return. We have recommended - based on studies done every six months since the U.S. invasion - that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up." Read The Full Story Ehud Barak Sworn In As Israel's New Defense Minister 2007-06-18 13:42:42 Former prime minister Ehud Barak was sworn in as Israe's defense minister on Monday in a cabinet shakeup rushed through in response to violence in Gaza. Barak received a vote of approval from parliament to replace Amir Peretz, who lost to Barak in last week's Labor Party leadership election. Labor is the main coalition partner in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government. Barak, a decorated former commando and armed forces chief, built his comeback on Labor chagrin at the way Olmert and Peretz, who both lack military pedigrees, handled last year's Lebanon war against Hezbollah. Read The Full Story Iraq On Verge Of Genocidal Civil War, Warns Ex-U.S. Official 2007-06-18 02:02:50 The man who led the initial American effort to reconstruct Iraq after the war believes the country is on the brink of a genocidal civil war and its government will fall apart unless the U.S. changes course and allows a three-way federal structure. He has also urged talks with Iran and other regional players. Jay Garner, the former U.S. general appointed two months before the invasion to head reconstruction in Iraq, admitted that before the 2003 war coordination between the various U.S. departments and military had been disjointed. He also disclosed that the U.S. State Department official in charge of postwar planning, Thomas Warrick, was prevented from joining his team by Donald Rumsfeld, who was defense secretary. He said he was shocked by the Pentagon's decision to reduce troop levels and disband the Iraqi army. Read The Full Story Gen. Petraeus Sees U.S. Troops In Iraq For Years To Come 2007-06-18 02:02:22 Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said Sunday. Asked whether he thought the job assigned to an additional 30,000 troops deployed as the centerpiece of President Bush's new war strategy would be completed by then, Gen. David H. Petraeus replied: "I do not, no. I think that we have a lot of heavy lifting to do." Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, his diplomatic counterpart in Baghdad, said a key report they will deliver to Washington in September will include what Crocker called "an assessment of what the consequences might be if we pursue other directions." Noting the "unhelpful roles" being played by Iran and Syria in Iraq, Crocker said: "We've got to consider what could happen." Read The Full Story Gaza Situation Putting Strain On Egyptian Border 2007-06-18 02:01:21 All but sealed off by Egypt and Israel, Gaza presented an intensifying security concern to its neighbors and a fast-approaching humanitarian crisis Sunday, three days after its takeover by Hamas. Palestinian boys spilled over the rusted metal fence at Gaza's unguarded border to fly kites in the no man's land between Gaza and Egypt. Palestinian security forces, dominated by the Fatah movement, fled their border posts last week in the course of their rout by Hamas fighters. Egyptian soldiers posted every 100 feet or so have effectively served on border duty for both sides of the frontier in the first days of Hamas' administration. The Egyptians chucked rocks at Palestinian boys who clung to the barbed wire and low concrete walls on the Egyptian side of the border at Salaheldin, a long-closed crossing 1.5 miles from the main Rafah transit point between Gaza and Egypt. Read The Full Story 7 Afghan Children Killed In Air Strike 2007-06-18 02:00:10 At least seven children have been killed in a U.S.-led coalition air strike in a religious school in Afghanistan, the coalition said on Monday, amid rising anger over civilian deaths from foreign military operations. Violence has surged in recent months in Afghanistan after the traditional winter lull, with foreign forces launching attacks against Taliban guerrilla strongholds in the south and east and the Taliban hitting back with a string of suicide bombings. In a separate incident, three coalition soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed on Sunday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle near the southern city of Kandahar. The air strike, late on Sunday in southeast Paktika province near the Pakistan border, was part of an operation aimed at a compound containing a mosque and a madrassa thought to have been used as a safehouse by al-Qaeda fighters, said the coalition. Read The Full Story	Bush Aides' Misuse Of E-Mail Detailed By U.S. House Committee 2007-06-19 02:00:50 White House aides made extensive use of political e-mail accounts for official government business, despite rules requiring that they conduct such business through official communications channels, according to new evidence disclosed yesterday by congressional investigators. The Republican National Committee told the investigators that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove  alone sent or received more than 140,000 e-mails between 2002 and 2007, more than half of which involved individuals using official ".gov" e-mail accounts, said a report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The RNC said it still has copies of those e-mails. Former Rove assistant Susan B. Ralston affirmed in a deposition released by the committee that her ex-boss used his political e-mail account "most of the time." The White House previously acknowledged that aides to President Bush improperly used the political e-mail accounts, but the material released Monday details for the first time how frequently they used the accounts and for what purposes. Read The Full Story U.S. Failure To Pay 'Threatens Darfur Peacekeeping' Plan 2007-06-19 02:00:03 A breakthrough agreement to deploy a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur risks being undermined by a shortfall of up to $1 billion (£504 million) in U.S. contributions to the costs of global peacekeeping, campaigners said Monday. A U.N. delegation announced on Sunday that Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, had agreed at talks in Khartoum to allow the deployment of a 20,000-strong U.N. and African Union hybrid force by next year. The deal ended months of wrangling and followed a direct threat by President George Bush to impose additional sanctions on the Sudanese government. At least 200,000 people have died in Darfur, in western Sudan, and an estimated 2.5 million have been displaced, since fighting between government-backed militias and rebel forces erupted in 2003. Read The Full Story U.S. Lifts Embargo To Help Abbas 2007-06-19 01:59:14 The United States Monday lifted its embargo on direct aid to the Palestinian government, joining the European Union and other countries in a swift demonstration of support for embattled President Mahmoud Abbas in his struggle against the anti-Israeli militant group Hamas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had called Salam Fayyad, the new prime minister named this week by Abbas, to tell him she was ending bans on aid and diplomatic contacts imposed after Hamas' unexpected victory in legislative elections last year. "We want to work with his government and support his efforts to enforce the rule of law and to ensure a better life for the Palestinian people," she told reporters. In Luxembourg, European Union foreign ministers said they also were prepared to end the 15-month embargo on direct financial aid to the Palestinian government. "The signal is that we support 100 percent, politically and financially, Abbas and his transition government," said Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn. Read The Full Story 700 Held In Global Pedophile Ring Arrests 2007-06-18 13:43:01 British police, with aid from U.S. investigators, have shattered a global Internet pedophile ring, rescuing 31 children and rounding up more than 700 suspects worldwide, authorities said Monday. Some 200 suspects are based in Britain, said the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, a government agency. Of the 31 children, some only a few months old, more than 15 were in Britain, said the center. British authorities would not break down where the other suspects or children came from. A Canadian official said 24 Canadians were arrested and seven children rescued, but added that the time period was longer than the more than 10 months the British said their portion of the investigation lasted. U.S. officials declined to comment because their investigation is continuing. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court Backs Wall St. Banks On Dot Com Lawsuit 2007-06-18 13:42:27 The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a setback to investors suing over their losses in the crash of technology stocks seven years ago. In a 7-1 decision, the court sided with Wall Street banks that allegedly conspired to drive up prices on 900 newly issued stocks. The justices reversed a federal appeals court decision that would have enabled investors to pursue their case for anticompetitive practices. The case deals with alleged industry misconduct during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. Read The Full Story Tiny But Hungry, Moth Threatens California Agriculture 2007-06-18 02:02:38 Full grown, the light brown apple moth is roughly the size of a nickel: a little dirt-colored insect with an adult life span shorter than the average summer vacation. But oh, what an eater. As a caterpillar, the moth feeds on flowers, fruits and firs, a diet that can include corn and tomatoes for dinner and cherries, peaches and plums for dessert. So omnivorous is the moth that some entomologists call it the “light brown everything moth.” It is exactly that appetite that has state and federal officials in California worried. A native of Australia, the moth had never been seen in the continental United States before February, when a retired entomologist discovered one in a trap behind his house in Berkeley, just across the bay from San Francisco and within fluttering distance of one of the nation’s most important agricultural regions. The moth has since been found in nine California counties, including Napa, where the discovery of a single specimen set off alarm bells for winemakers and farmers up and down the grape-happy region. Read The Full Story Gazans Stock Up On Gasoline, Food As Fuel Supplies Run Dry 2007-06-18 02:02:09 Gazans rushed to stock up on gasoline and food Sunday as Israel cut fuel supplies in its first concrete response to Hamas' seizure of power in Gaza. The panic-buying came on another frenetic day of politics as President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new government in Ramallah, West Bank, and outlawed the Hamas militias that deposed the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. He promised their members would be punished for their actions. Ismail Haniyeh, who was fired by Abbas as prime minister on Thursday, insisted that he remained in power and that the new government was illegal. Israeli nervousness at the emergence of an Islamic mini-state on its southern doorstep was compounded by a reminder of the instability on its northern flank when two rockets were fired across the border from Lebanon, the first such episode since last summer's war with Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied involvement. Read The Full Story Renewed Threat To Kill Abducted BBC Reporter Alan Johnston 2007-06-18 02:00:52 Efforts to win the release of the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston were set back Sunday night when the militants holding him threatened to kill him and said he would not be freed until their demands were met. The warning, from a spokesman for a group calling itself the Army of Islam, came on a day when Hamas officials had suggested Johnston's release was only hours away. "Freeing this detainee has not been part of any deal with any faction or organization. What appears on television screens and through the media here and there are untrue," the Army of Islam spokesman, named as Abu Khatab, told al-Jazeera television Sunday night. "If they do not meet our demands there will be no release for that detainee and if things become more difficult ... then we would seek God's satisfaction by slaughtering this journalist." Read The Full Story Kurdish Rebel Leader Warns Turkey Against Iraq Incursion 2007-06-18 01:59:56 A Kurdish rebel leader has warned Turkey that it faces disaster if its troops and tanks cross into northern Iraq, amid growing concern of a big Turkish operation to hunt down Kurdish guerrillas holed up across the border. The Turkish army faces "a political and military disaster" if its generals give orders for a cross-border offensive, Cemil Bayik, one of the two most powerful figures in the Kurdistan Workers party, or PKK, told the Guardian at a hideout in the Qandil mountains on the border with Iran. Bayik said his units did not seek a fight, but "would defend ourselves if attacked". It could become "a quagmire for them [the Turkish army] and create space for Iran to interfere in Iraq also," he said. Over the past month, tensions have been rising in Iraqi Kurdistan, with the Turkish army massing thousands of troops and tanks along the 238-mile border and its hawkish chief of staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, repeatedly pressing a reluctant government in Ankara for permission to go in after the PKK. Read The Full Story
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