Free Internet Press Newsletter - Friday July 13 2007 - (813)

Friday July 13 2007 edition
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Bush Acknowledges Administration Role In CIA Leak 2007-07-13 00:56:23 President Bush acknowledged for the first time Thursday that "somebody" in his administration leaked the name of an undercover intelligence officer but declined to say whether he was disappointed in such an action and contended that it is time to move on. Asked during a news conference whether he was disappointed that his advisers revealed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to the news media, the president did not answer directly, but he offered perhaps his fullest discussion of a case he has generally refused to address because it was in the courts. Bush described as "fair and balanced" his decision to commute the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former aide to Vice President Cheneywho was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for his role in the leak of Plame's identity. Bush went on to say that he had not spent "a lot of time" talking with people in his administration about court testimony in the Libby case, adding: "I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I've often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, 'I did it.' Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter?" Read The Full Story Bush Distorts Al-Qaeda Links, Critics Say 2007-07-13 00:56:01 In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.” It is an argument Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to al-Qaeda or its presence in Iraq. But his references to al-Qaeda in Iraq, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the al-Qaeda leadership. There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq, but Bush’s critics argue that he has overstated the al-Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place. Read The Full Story Analysis: Expect A Summer Of Stalemate On Iraq War 2007-07-13 00:55:24 He lamented, in his own way, that he is unloved these days and reflected on the "war fatigue" that has gripped his country. He looked forward to the day, not so long from now, when he will retire to his Texas ranch and tell himself that he did the right thing. Yet no matter how battered he seems, no matter how unpopular he may be in the polls, President Bush still holds the commanding position in his showdown with Congress over Iraq. Even with Republican defections, as votes in both houses made clear this week, opponents do not have anywhere near the veto-proof majorities needed to wrest leadership of the war. The almost-certain result, according to strategists in both parties, will be at least two more months of anger and posturing but no change in direction. A weakened president is desperately playing for time while a Democratic opposition mounts its case against him and Republican lawmakers agonize over how long to stick with him. Bush will keep pressing his strategy in Iraq in hopes that it produces more than the meager results his White House  reported Thursday while his foes keep scoring political points and not much else. Read The Full Story World's Largest Telescope Starts Gazing 2007-07-13 00:54:15 The world's largest telescope starts using its complex structure of mirrors today to scour the outer reaches of the universe for planets similar to our own and to seek clues to help explain the origins of life. Set on a mountain on an Atlantic island, far enough from human habitation to get a clear view of the night sky, the Great Canary Telescope carries with it the hopes of scientists who believe clues to understanding our world can be found in as yet unseen parts of the universe. The telescope will, in effect, peer back in time as it picks up light emitted long ago in other parts of the universe. A powerful array of 36 separate mirrors form a single mirror that is 10.4 meters (34 feet) wide, 4% larger than the Keck telescopes at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The GTC's powerful eye will penetrate dense, cold molecular "clouds" to watch stars being born and will seek out the most distant galaxies and quasars. Read The Full Story Iran's Jews Reject Cash Offer To Move To Israel 2007-07-13 00:51:54 Iran's Jews have given the country a loyalty pledge in the face of cash offers aimed at encouraging them to move to Israel, the arch-enemy of its Islamic rulers. The incentives - ranging from £5,000 ($10,000) a person to £30,000 ($60,000) for families - were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel from among Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community. The offers were made with Israel's official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora. However, the Society of Iranian Jews dismissed them as "immature political enticements" and said their national identity was not for sale. Read The Full Story Dry Conditions Spark New Wildfires In U.S. Western States 2007-07-12 17:03:11 Dry conditions, high temperatures and ample tinder contributed to a rash of wildfires in western states today, with blazes in Utah endangering coal mines, methane wells and gas pipelines. Thunderstorms were expected across much of that area, with lightning strikes that spark fires and winds that fan the flames. The National Weather Service said in a statement that “many of the storms will contain little or no rain, and the potential for additional ignitions will be high.” A total of 336 new fires started on Wednesday, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. Many were small and quickly contained, but some 39 larger fires burned out of control. Roads were closed and homes were evacuated in parts of California, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Washington and Nevada. Read The Full Story 19 Killed As U.S. Troops, Shiite Militants Battle In Baghdad 2007-07-12 17:01:41 Clashes between U.S. troops and Shiite Muslim militants in eastern Baghdad left 19 people dead and 21 wounded Thursday, said police and hospital officials. The fighting in the capital's Amin district was sparked by a U.S. raid before dawn that the military said apprehended two militants suspected of carrying out kidnappings and bombings. Armed men retaliated by firing rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. troops. American forces returned to Amin later in the morning, triggering a shootout and a barrage of mortar fire, said police. Nine of the dead Iraqis were gunmen, and the rest were civilians, said a police officer. An Iraqi photographer and driver employed by Reuters news service died in the violence, said the London-based news agency. Hospital officials identified them as photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40. Read The Full Story U.S. Warns Of Stronger Al-Qaeda, Better Positioned To Strike The West 2007-07-12 02:39:00 Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks, according to a new Bush administration intelligence report to be discussed today at a White Housemeeting. The report, a five-page threat assessment compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, is titled "Al-Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West," intelligence officials said. It concludes that the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network. Although the officials declined to discuss the assessment's content because it is classified, the CIA's deputy director for intelligence, John A. Kringen, told a House committee yesterday that al-Qaeda appears "to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan." "We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications," said Kringen. Read The Full Story CIA Said Instability In Iraq Seemed 'Irreversible' 2007-07-12 02:38:24 Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House. For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Irq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said. Later that morning, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants. "The government is unable to govern," Hayden concluded. "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function." Read The Full Story Britain And Russia On Brink Of Diplomatic Crisis Over Litvinenko Investigation 2007-07-12 02:37:41 Britain is on the brink of a diplomatic crisis with Russia which could see the expulsion of several diplomats from London and tit-for-tat reprisals by Moscow. The Foreign Office and Downing Street are preparing to send a strong signal to the Kremlin following its refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB agent suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko last November. On Monday, Russian prosecutors formally announced that  Lugovoi would not be handed over to the U.K., on the grounds that Russia's constitution prevents his extradition. The government was last night considering counter-measures to show Britain's extreme displeasure at the Kremlin's decision, and the seriousness with which it takes the "terrible" murder of Litvinenko - a British citizen and fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The options include the possible expulsion of Russian diplomats from the London embassy, and the withdrawal of cooperation in several areas, including education, trade, social affairs and counter-terrorism. Wednesday a spokesman for Russia's foreign ministry, Mikhail Kamynin, warned that London was in danger of jeopardizing its relationship with Moscow. "I don't understand the position of the British government. It is prepared to sacrifice our relations in trade and education for the sake of one man," he said, adding: "Our position is clearly in line with Russia's constitution and legislation." Read The Full Story 73-Bodies Recovered At End Of Mosque Siege 2007-07-12 02:36:53 Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan's prime minister, declared victory in the fight for the Red Mosque Wednesday as commandos gained control of the compound after a 36-hour battle. "The operation is over," he said after the last rattle of gunfire echoed from the Islamabad mosque. Civilian casualties were lower than expected, he said, and no women or children had been killed. Wednesday night, the army announced that 73 bodies had been recovered, bringing the total death toll from the eight-day siege to 106, including nine soldiers. Article continues Eight of the bodies had been charred beyond recognition, apparently as a result of accidents with petrol bombs, said Major General Waheed Arshad. All would be handed to civilian authorities for burial. Within hours Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri called for revenge in a taped video recording produced by al-Qaeda's media unit as-Sahab. Read The Full Story	U.K. Prime Minister Brown's Message To Bush: Time To Build, Not Destroy 2007-07-13 00:56:11 The first clear signs that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will reorder Britain's foreign policy emerged Thursday night when one of his closest cabinet allies urged the U.S. to change its priorities and said a country's strength should no longer be measured by its destructive military power. Douglas Alexander, the trade and development secretary, made his remarks in a speech in America, the first by a cabinet minister abroad since Brown took power a fortnight (two weeks) ago. The speech represents a call for the U.S. to rethink its foreign policy, and recognize the virtues of so-called "soft power" and acting through international institutions including the United Nations. In what will be seen as an assertion of the importance of multilateralism in Brown's foreign policy, Alexander said: "In the 20th century a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st century strength should be measured by what we can build together. And so we must form new alliances, based on common values, ones not just to protect us from the world, but ones which reach out to the world." He described this as "a new alliance of opportunity". Read The Full Story U.S. House OKs Troop Withdrawal Bill 2007-07-13 00:55:39 Hours after President Bush credited the recent troop buildup with "measurable progress" in the Iraq war, the House Thursday voted 223 to 201 to bring most of the troops home by April 1. If the House measure should clear the Senate, Bush would almost certainly veto it, as he threatened to with an earlier troop withdrawal provision. Despite that outlook, the Democratic-controlled House seemed determined to turn up the heat on Bush and his Republican congressional allies. "We were reassured that progress was being made in Iraq 500 deaths ago, 1,000 deaths ago, 2,000 deaths ago, and 3,000 deaths ago," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said. "Like the boy who cried wolf, this President cries 'progress.' What progress?" Read The Full Story Islamic Revolution Will Come In Pakistan, Warns Cleric, As Militants Bury Their Dead 2007-07-13 00:54:51 President Pervez Musharraf vowed Thursday to step up the fight against gun-toting fundamentalists, as the first funerals were held for militants killed in the Red Mosque siege and a defiant captured cleric predicted an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. "Extremism is not finished in this country. We have to fight it and we have to finish it," said the general, promising new weapons and training for security forces along the Afghan border. Wearing a dark suit and a sombre expression, Gen. Musharraf appealed to a sense of unity among a nation still reeling from an eight-day siege that left at least 108 people dead. "The goal was not to kill people, it was to rescue children," he said. Article continues But questions lingered about whether the government was masking the true extent of civilian casualties. Read The Full Story Reports Of Negative Side Effects From Avandia Triple 2007-07-13 00:52:22 In the month after a surprising analysis revealed possible heart risks from the blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia, reports of side effects to federal regulators tripled. The sudden spike is a sign that doctors probably were unaware of the drug's possible role in their patients' heart problems and therefore may not have reported many such cases in the past, said several experts. It also shows the flaws of the safety tracking system and suggests that a better one might have detected a potential problem before the drug had been on the market for eight years. Avandia is used to control blood sugar, helping more than 6 million people worldwide manage Type 2 diabetes, the kind that is linked to obesity. These people already are at higher risk for heart attacks, so news that the drug might raise this risk by 43 percent was especially disturbing. Read The Full Story House Judiciary Committee Considers Contempt Citation Agains Miers 2007-07-12 17:03:38 A House panel cleared the way Thursday for contempt proceedings against former White House counsel Harriet Miers after she obeyed President Bush and skipped a hearing on the firings of federal prosecutors. Addressing the empty chair where Miers had been subpoenaed to testify, Rep. Linda Sanchez  ruled out of order Bush's executive privilege claim that his former advisers are immune from being summoned before Congress. The House Judiciary subcommittee that Sanchez chairs voted 7-5 to sustain her ruling. If an agreement with the White House is not reached, the full Judiciary Committee could convene hearings and vote on whether to hold Miers, Bush's longtime friend and former Supreme Court nominee, in contempt. Ultimately, the full House would have to vote on any contempt citation. "Those claims are not legally valid," Sanchez, D-California, said of Bush's declaration, made Monday. "Ms. Miers is required pursuant to the subpoena to be here now." Read The Full Story Driven By Oil Prices, U.S. Trade Deficit Widens To $60 Billion In May 2007-07-12 17:02:46 The nation’s trade deficit widened to $60 billion in May as oil prices jumped and the volume of foreign oil coming into the United States rose, but the overall trend still appears to be improving, said economists. The U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday that the trade imbalance - the gap between what is imported and exported - grew 2.3 percent from April in seasonally adjusted terms. For the first five months of the year, however, the deficit grew at a slower pace than it did last year. From January through May, the deficit was $295.5 billion, compared with $317.8 billion in the first five months of 2006. Despite the May increase, the gap seems on track to narrow this year as purchases of imported goods and services slows in the United States and demand for American exports overseas rises. A wide imbalance between imports and exports slows economic growth. And for the last decade, a ballooning trade deficit has been a given for the American economy. Read The Full Story Lady Bird Johnson Dies - Played Influential Role As First Lady 2007-07-12 17:01:17 Lady Bird Johnson, 94, a first lady whose quiet ambition and determination allowed her to play an influential role in her husband's remarkable political career and to carve out an identity of her own as an advocate for beautifying the national landscape, died Wednesday at her home in Austin, Texas. Mrs. Johnson, who also was a successful businesswoman and philanthropist, had been in failing health for several years. She suffered a stroke in 1993 and was legally blind because of macular degeneration. She spent six days last month in an Austin hospital, where she was treated for a low-grade fever. "She just slipped away," family spokeswoman Elizabeth Christian said. Mrs. Johnson was thrust into the role of first lady when the assassin's bullet that felled John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, elevated her husband, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, to the presidency. The first wife of a president since Eleanor Roosevelt to pursue the role of an activist, she helped bring the cause of conservation to national attention. Campaigning for beautification - although she found the term "prissy" and "slight" - she helped her husband, the 36th president, advance preservation of the American landscape as an economic, aesthetic and ecological necessity. A 1982 poll of historians ranked her third among first ladies in influence and importance, behind Roosevelt and Abigail Adams. Read The Full Story Sting Operation Reveals Security Gap At Nuclear Regulatory Commission 2007-07-12 02:38:43 Undercover congressional investigators posing as West Virginia businessmen obtained a license with almost no scrutiny from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that enabled them to buy enough radioactive material from U.S. suppliers to build a "dirty bomb," a new government report says. The investigators obtained the license within 28 days from officials at the NRC, the federal agency that in addition to regulating nuclear power plants oversees radioactive materials used in health care and industry, the report by the Government Accountability Office says. NRC officials approved the request with a minimal background check that included no face-to-face interview or visit to the purported company to ensure it existed and complied with safety rules, the report says. Using a post-office box at Mail Boxes Etc., a telephone and a fax machine, the undercover investigators from the GAO obtained the license "without ever leaving their desks," the report says. Read The Full Story White House Gives Iraq Mixed Marks In Report 2007-07-12 02:37:56 A widely anticipated White House report on Iraq, set for release Thursday, argues that the Baghdad government has made "satisfactory" progress toward nearly half of the political and military goals sought by Congress, while acknowledging that an equal number remain "not satisfactory," an administration official said Wednesday. The report, ordered by lawmakers as an interim assessment of President Bush's troop-increase strategy, identifies some positive movement in eight of the 18 congressional benchmarks, most of them related to military issues; finds insufficient improvement in eight others, mainly related to political reconciliation; and judges mixed results in the final two, said the official. The administration's assessment comes the day after U.S. intelligence experts offered an overwhelmingly negative view of military and political conditions in Iraq, saying that Iraqi forces will remain incapable of taking charge of security for years to come and that deepening sectarian political divides remain the largest impediment to progress. On Capitol Hill, where the Senate is debating Bush's Iraq strategy, an early vote on legislation designed to tie the president's hands fell victim to a Republican filibuster. But two more lawmakers, Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine and Chuck Hagel (Nebraska), joined the growing ranks of Republicans who have broken with the administration, saying they would support Democratic efforts to begin U.S. troop reductions. Read The Full Story Relatives Of Firefighters Blast Giuliani 2007-07-12 02:37:19 Relatives of firefighters killed at the World Trade Center reproached GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani in a video Wednesday, pairing footage of the falling twin towers with charges the city's former mayor was woefully unprepared for Sept. 11. The parents and siblings of some of the 343 firefighters killed in the terrorist attacks released the video with the International Association of Fire Fighters, which opposes Giuliani's candidacy. Giuliani's campaign denounced the images, saying that the former mayor had a long history of supporting firefighters' health and safety and that the international union releasing the video only supports Democratic presidential candidates. Fire union officials and family members, repeating claims they had made for months, charged Giuliani pushed for a faster cleanup of ground zero at the expense of finding remains, put an emergency center in a building that collapsed on Sept. 11 and failed to provide working radios for firefighters, making it impossible for them to learn the towers were on the verge of collapse. Read The Full Story
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