Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday July 9 2007 - (813)

Monday July 9 2007 edition
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To Forestall GOP Defections, Bush Considers Announcing Pullback Of Troops In Iraq 2007-07-09 03:18:56 White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities. Bush and his aides once thought they could wait to begin those discussions until after Sept. 15, when the top field commander and the new American ambassador to Baghdad are scheduled to report on the effectiveness of the troop increase that the president announced in January but, suddenly, some of Bush’s aides acknowledge, it appears that forces are combining against him just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the war’s future and financing. Four more Republican senators have recently declared that they can no longer support Bush’s strategy, including senior lawmakers who until now had expressed their doubts only privately. As a result, some aides are now telling Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback, a strategy that he rejected in December as a prescription for defeat when it was proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Read The Full Story Editorial: The General Under Siege 2007-07-09 03:18:29 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the Washington Post edition for Monday, July 9, 2007. Pervez Musharraf's misrule of Pakistan during the past eight years is finally catching up with him. Sunday the general's army was engaged in the bloody siege of a mosque in Islamabad where pro-Taliban Islamic extremists have been defying his government's authority; more than 20 people already have died in the siege. The rebellion began in January, but Mr. Musharraf refrained from taking on the militants until clashes erupted around the mosque last week - a strategy symptomatic of his tolerance for the growth of Islamic extremist movements. The general has had far less patience for the secular political parties and civil society groups that could be his allies in fighting the Talibanization of Pakistan. He has refused to allow two former civilian prime ministers to return from exile; he has bullied the media, rigged elections and tried to fire the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Consequently, the pressure the president now faces from Islamists is matched by a nationwide campaign against him by Pakistan's moderate center. Last Monday a Supreme Court judge rejected the evidence that Mr. Musharraf presented against the dismissed jurist, who had been investigating political disappearances and seemed likely to resist the general's attempt to manipulate the presidential election this year. With that election approaching, Mr. Musharraf is increasingly dependent on two sources of support. One is the Pakistani army, where Islamic influence also seems to be encroaching; the other is the Bush administration, which has myopically stuck to its unqualified support for this autocratic but ineffective ruler despite his slipping support and inability to deliver on matters vital to U.S. security, such as breaking up Taliban and al-Qaeda bases near the Afghan border. The weaker Mr. Musharraf grows, the more wedded the State Department becomes to him. In a visit to Islamabad last month, Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte shrugged off reports that the strongman would once again refuse to step down as army commander this year while remaining president. "I think that is something General Musharraf himself will want to decide," Mr. Negroponte said, conspicuously placing the general above Pakistan's constitution. Read The Full Story Vacancies At Homeland Security Said To Hurt U.S. Preparedness 2007-07-09 03:17:58 The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today. As of May 1, Homeland Security had 138 vacancies among its top 575 positions, with the greatest voids reported in its policy, legal and intelligence sections, as well as in immigration agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard. The vacant slots include presidential, senior executive and other high-level appointments, according to the report by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee. A DHS spokesman challenged the report's tally, saying that it is skewed by a sudden expansion this spring in the number of top management jobs. Before then, only 12 percent of positions were unfilled in a department that has always been thinly staffed at headquarters, said spokesman Russ Knocke. The findings have stoked fresh concern among some in Congress about the four-year-old department's progress in overcoming management problems, dating to its troubled 2003 creation from 22 components. Read The Full Story Pakistani Special Forces Commander Killed In Mosque Siege 2007-07-09 03:16:59 A Pakistani Special Forces commander was killed after coming under heavy fire from militants holed up inside the Red Mosque in Islamabad early Sunday. Islamist rebels shot Lt. Col. Haroon Islam and another soldier as they laid bombs along the perimeter wall of the besieged mosque at 1:30 a.m. Moments later three giant explosions breached the wall but Lt. .Col. Haroon, died in a hospital. His death upped the stakes for President Pervez Musharraf as the siege of the radical mosque stretched into its sixth day, with positions hardening on both sides and signs that public patience was starting to fray. Article continues In his first comments since the crisis erupted on Tuesday, a belligerent Gen. Musharraf warned the militants to "surrender or die". The embattled chief cleric inside the mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, retorted that his followers would rather perish as martyrs than give themselves up. He hoped their deaths would spark an Islamic uprising across Pakistan. Read The Full Story Pennsylvania Governor Orders Partial Shutdown Of State Offices 2007-07-09 03:16:17 Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell (D) ordered a partial government shutdown and indefinitely furloughed more than 24,000 state workers Sunday after negotiations with the state legislature did not resolve a budget stalemate. Critical services, such as health care, state police patrols and prisons, will be maintained. But about a third of the state workforce - employees whose jobs are deemed not essential to health and safety - will go without paychecks starting Monday. The state has been without a budget since June 30, and Rendell and Republicans in control of the state Senate have since been locked in a battle of wills. Read The Full Story Leahy Expects Former Bush Aide To Testify 2007-07-08 14:36:15 The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday he expects a former Bush aide to testify before Congress this week about the firings of federal prosecutors despite White House objections. Sen. Patrick Leahy's committee has subpoenaed Sara Taylor, a former White House political director, as part of its investigation into whether the Bush administration improperly ordered the U.S. attorneys dismissed. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Taylor's lawyer said she is willing to talk but does not want to defy President Bush, who has rejected subpoenas for documents from Taylor and for her testimony. Lawyer W. Neil Eggleston said Taylor expects a letter from White House lawyer Fred Fielding directing her not to comply on the basis of executive privilege. "In our view, it is unfair to Ms. Taylor that this constitutional struggle might be played out with her as the object of an unseemly tug of war," Eggleston wrote House and Senate Judiciary committee leaders and Fielding over the weekend. Read The Full Story Research Links Lead Exposure To Criminal Activity 2007-07-08 14:35:40 Rudy Giuliani never misses an opportunity to remind people about his track record in fighting crime as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. "I began with the city that was the crime capital of America," Giuliani, now a candidate for president, recently told Fox's Chris Wallace. "When I left, it was the safest large city in America. I reduced homicides by 67 percent. I reduced overall crime by 57 percent." Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax, Virginia, who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning. The theory offered by the economist, Rick Nevin, is that lead poisoning accounts for much of the variation in violent crime in the United States. It offers a unifying new neurochemical theory for fluctuations in the crime rate, and it is based on studies linking children's exposure to lead with violent behavior later in their lives. Read The Full Story Suspects In Britain Bomb Plot Linked By Family, School And Work 2007-07-08 14:33:51 The ambulance crew was on a routine call: A boozy reveler at the Tiger Tiger nightclub had fallen and banged his head. But as the medics approached the crowded club just before 2 a.m. on Friday, June 29, something caught their eyes. A pale green Mercedes, parked outside the club's front door, seemed to be smoking. Their call to police set into motion an anti-terrorist investigation that has spread from London's theater district to Scotland, India, the Middle East, the United States and the remote western Australian gold mining town of Kalgoorlie. The investigation centers on what police believe is the first Islamic extremist terror network to use car bombs in Britain, targeting downtown London and the Glasgow airport. The eight suspects detained by police are highly educated and have overlapping family, work and school links. Six are foreign doctors or trainee doctors working in British hospitals; two of the doctors inquired about continuing their medical training in the United States. The suspects include a husband and wife, and three members of an Indian Muslim family. Read The Full Story U.S. Troops: Iraq Outposts Plan May Be Flawed 2007-07-08 02:12:32 The neighborhood outposts that the U.S. military launched with great fanfare in Baghdad early this year were supposed to put more American patrols on the streets and make residents feel safer. But some soldiers stationed at the posts and Iraqis who live nearby say they are doing the opposite. The outposts, along with joint U.S.-Iraqi security stations, form a cornerstone of the current Iraq strategy. Following a classic counterinsurgency tenet, military planners are trying to take U.S. forces out of their distant, sprawling military bases and into the day-to-day lives of Iraqis. Although senior U.S. commanders and mid-level officers say they believe the bases are starting to work, many soldiers stationed at the outposts are doubtful, arguing that the burden of protecting the bases means they spend less time on the streets. Read The Full Story Goals For Iraq Unmet, Bush Plans To Promote Smaller Steps 2007-07-08 02:11:59 The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war. In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are turning against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine, said officials. Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed with provincial elections this year and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation. In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to "take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November." Read The Full Story U.S. Dollar Takes A Pounding From World Interest Rates 2007-07-08 02:11:10 British holidaymakers jetting to America this summer will be able to distract themselves from rising mortgage payments by snapping up bargains with cheap dollars, as the foreign exchange markets bet on another rise in interest rates. Sterling ended last week at $2.01 after hitting a 26-year high above $2.02 against the dollar as the Bank of England pushed up borrowing costs for the fifth time in less than a year; but analysts say the dollar sell-off is set to continue, as rates rise further. "The dollar is taking a good beating," said David Bloom, currency strategist at HSBC. "Interest rates are higher around the world, and the U.S. is no longer seen as the first port of call for cash any more." Fears of another rate rise by the end of the year were exacerbated by a sharp jump in oil prices on Friday, which could give inflation a renewed boost. Read The Full Story	Homes Foreclosure Rate In Atlanta One Of Highest In Nation 2007-07-09 03:18:45 Despite a vibrant local economy, Atlanta homeowners are falling behind on mortgage payments and losing their homes at one of the highest rates in the nation, offering a troubling glimpse of what experts fear may be in store for other parts of the country. The real estate slump here and elsewhere is likely to worsen, given that most of the adjustable rate mortgages written in the last three years will be reset with higher interest rates, said Christopher F. Thornberg, an economist with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. As a result, borrowers of an estimated $800 billion in loans will be forced in the next 12 months to 18 months to make bigger monthly payments, refinance or sell their homes. A big reason the fallout is occurring faster here is a Georgia law that permits lenders to foreclose on properties more quickly than in other states. The problems include not just people losing their homes, but also sharp declines in property values, particularly in lower-income and working-class neighborhoods. For example, a three-bedroom house near Turner Field, where the Atlanta Braves baseball team plays, fetched a high bid late last month of $134,000 at an auction by the bank that took possession of it. Almost three years ago, the new home was bought for $330,000. Read The Full Story Commentary - Bush: Naturally, Never Wrong 2007-07-09 03:18:16 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Shankar Vedantam, who writes The Department of Human Behavior column for the Washington Post. This column appears in the Post's edition for Monday, July 9, 2007. Psychologists once conducted a simple experiment with far-reaching implications: They asked people to describe an instance in their lives when they had hurt someone and another instance when they had been hurt by someone else. The incidents that people described were similar whether they saw themselves in the role of victim or perpetrator - they were familiar betrayals, lies and acts of unkindness. When people described events in which they were the perpetrators of wrongdoing, they invariably said their actions had caused only brief pain to others. Many said the hurtful acts were justified or could not have been prevented. When people reported the same kinds of incidents as victims, however, they invariably described the actions as inexplicable, senseless and immoral. Victims never felt that the wrongdoing was unavoidable. And they reported that the pain lasted a long time. The most interesting aspect of social psychologist Roy Baumeister's study was that the same people dealing with the same kinds of hurt perceive hurtful actions in entirely different ways, depending on whether they are the ones causing the hurt or the ones being hurt. Read The Full Story Tunneling Near Iran Nuclear Site Raises Concerns 2007-07-09 03:17:35 The sudden flurry of digging seen in recent satellite photos of a mountainside in central Iran might have passed for ordinary road tunneling, but the site is the back yard of Iran's most ambitious and controversial nuclear facility, leading U.S. officials and independent experts to reach another conclusion: It appears to be the start of a major tunnel complex inside the mountain. The question is, why? Worries have been stoked by the presence nearby of fortified buildings where uranium is being processed. Those structures in turn are now being connected by roads to Iran's nuclear site at Natanz, where the country recently started production of enriched uranium in defiance of international protests. As a result, photos of the site are being studied by governments, intelligence agencies and nuclear experts, all asking the same question: Is Iran attempting to thwart future military strikes against its nuclear facility by placing key parts of it in underground bunkers? The construction has raised concerns at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna, Austria-based U.N. watchdog that monitors Iran's nuclear program. On Friday, an IAEA spokeswoman confirmed that the agency has broached the subject with Iranian officials. "We have been in contact with the Iranian authorities about this, and we have received clarifications," said Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman. She declined to elaborate. Read The Full Story Iran Media Accused Of Trying To Oust Ahmadinejad As President 2007-07-09 03:16:37 Allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have accused the media of trying to depose him in a "creeping coup", raising fears of a fresh clampdown on opposition newspapers and websites. The accusation, from the president's allies, coincides with disclosures that Ahmadinejad has authorized aides to establish a special team to counter "black propaganda against the government". There has been criticism from the reformist and liberal press that Ahmadinejad has failed to deliver his electoral promises of prosperity and has instead presided over an ailing economy and soaring inflation. Ahmadinejad's advisers complain he has been insulted by "rumor-mongers" who represent "economic and political gangs" opposed to his social justice agenda. In interviews, several supporters signalled that the government was preparing to retaliate. Read The Full Story California Wildfires Burn 34,000 Acres, Close Parts Of Highway 395 2007-07-08 14:36:27 In the latest indication that this will be a long, smoky summer, two lightning-sparked wildfires burned unchecked Saturday through 34,000 acres of the Inyo National Forest, forcing officials to shut down long stretches of U.S. Highway 395, the gateway to the Eastern Sierra Nevada. At various times, portions of Highway 395 were closed between Bishop on the north and Pearsonville on the south  - a 115-mile-long stretch of highway. In the middle, flames licked at the western edge of the small town of Independence, where authorities evacuated hundreds of people, some of whom were given 10 minutes' notice. In the thick of the fire, an orange glow bathed the steep, rugged slopes of the mountainsides, and dense smoke blanketed the chaparral plains in between as helicopters dropping fire retardant and water peppered the sky. Read The Full Story At Least 170 Killed In Iraq Bomb Attacks Over 18-Hour Period 2007-07-08 14:36:00 Suicide attacks across Iraq killed at least 144 people and injured scores in an 18-hour period, including a massive truck bombing in a northern Shiite village that ripped through a crowded market, burying dozens in the rubble of shops and mud houses, Iraqi officials said Saturday. At least another 26 people were killed Sunday when two car bombs exploded within five minutes of each other in the city's mostly Shiite Karrada district and a bomb hit a truck of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers traveling to Baghdad to aid in the crackdown on the violence, according to the Associated Press. Shattering a relative lull in Iraq's violence, the attacks raised questions about whether insurgents who have fled an ongoing military offensive in Baghdad and Diyala province are regrouping and assaulting soft targets elsewhere, in less-secure areas with fewer troops. Read The Full Story Israeli Cabinet Approves Release Of 250 Palestinian Prisoners 2007-07-08 14:35:25 The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners, officials said, in the government's latest gesture of support for moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his struggle against the Hamas militant group. However, the officials said Israel had still not finalized the list of prisoners to be freed or the timing of the release. Palestinian officials said they were disappointed Israel is not coordinating the release with them. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to the prisoner release at a June 25 summit with Abbas as part of Israel's strategy of bolstering the Palestinian leader following Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip last month. Israel also has transferred more than $100 million in frozen tax funds to Abbas, and pledged to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank. Read The Full Story Doubt Is An Alien Concept At Roswell UFO Festival 2007-07-08 14:31:30 Attention, all aliens. Come on down. Because, seriously, this is your crowd. About 50,000 of your closest admirers are expected this weekend for the Roswell UFO Festival, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the nearby crash landing of a flying saucer - and, naturally, the ensuing government coverup. A weather balloon? Please. We are not fools. At least that's the thinking here. Not up on the latest ufology? The debate today is all about "disclosure," meaning not if, but when. When is the government finally going to open its top-secret files to reveal its voluminous data on the sightings, abductions and close encounters dating back to at least July 5, 1947. "The anomalies." Here in the desert Southwest. And probably Mars. Read The Full Story Heat Wave Fuels Western Wildfires 2007-07-08 02:12:17 As a heat wave made parched terrain even drier, wildfires dotted the West on Saturday, forcing authorities to evacuate homes and close highways and wilderness areas. Hundreds of people in Winnemucca were ordered to leave their homes Saturday night because of an 8,000-acre wildfire, one of more than a dozen blazes that charred a combined 55 square miles in northern Nevada. A 100-mile stretch of Interstate 15 in central Utah was closed when a 160,000-acre wildfire jumped the highway, and other fires burned in California, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The fire near Winnemucca, a town of 8,000 about 170 miles east of Reno, threatened up to eight blocks of homes and an electrical substation, said U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Jamie Thompson. Read The Full Story U.S. Aborted Raid On Al-Qaeda Chiefs In Pakistan In 2005 2007-07-08 02:11:32 A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of al-Qaeda in Pakistan's in tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials. The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations. But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Poter J. Goss, then the director of the Centrl Intelligence Agency, said officials. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning. Read The Full Story
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