Free Internet Press Newsletter - Wednesday July 25 2007 - (813)

Wednesday July 25 2007 edition
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Report Suggests Laws Broken In U.S. Attorney Firings 2007-07-25 01:38:21 House Democrats, preparing for a vote today on contempt citations against President Bush's chief of staff and former counsel, produced a report Tuesday that for the first time alleges specific ways that several administration officials may have broken the law during the multiple firings of U.S. attorneys. The report says that Congress's seven-month investigation into the firings raises "serious concerns" that senior White House and Justice Departmentaides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year may have obstructed justice and violated federal statutes that protect civil service employees, prohibit political retaliation against government officials and cover presidential records. The 52-page memorandum, from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan), seeks to explain why Democrats are trying to overcome an effort by the White House to shield officials and documents from the congressional inquiry through a claim of executive privilege. The report also provides the first written account of the Democrats' interpretation of the firings and the administration's response to the controversy. The investigation "has uncovered serious evidence of wrongdoing by the department and White House staff," Conyers says. Read The Full Story San Diego Home Foreclosures Increase 551 Percent 2007-07-25 01:37:45 Home foreclosures in San Diego County continued their troublesome upward climb in June, but analysts say the number has yet to reach a threshold that creates a drag on real estate prices or the economy at large. “California is better off than the nation and San Diego County is better off than California,” said researcher John Karevoll of DataQuick Information Systems. “It still is not a major factor in the real estate market, but if there is a recession, it could become a huge factor.” DataQuick reported on Tuesday that during the first half of 2007 San Diego County had 2,896 foreclosures compared to 445 during the first half of 2006, a 551 percent increase. Read The Full Story U.S. Military's Civilian Hires Fall Between Cracks In Medical Care 2007-07-25 01:36:52 Traveling through Sunni insurgent territory north of Baghdad, the U.S. military convoy was nearing a base when a roadside bomb ripped into the lead Humvee, leaving its gunner, Mike Helms, bleeding and swaying from a strap in the open back. Helms, 31, a civilian counterintelligence expert with the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group, had been sent to Iraq in 2004 to help fill a critical intelligence gap in the area known as the Sunni Triangle. While in Iraq, he lived with soldiers and ate military rations, took fire from mortar rounds and small arms, and clocked hundreds of miles manning a machine gun on the back of a Humvee. Nevertheless, his status as an Army civilian would leave him stranded in the aftermath of the June 16, 2004, attack, when the bomb hit his Humvee so hard it blew his M-60 off its turret. In the months that followed, Helms recalled, he was denied vital care for his wounds - ranging from shrapnel in his left arm to traumatic brain injury. Forced to rely on federal workers' compensation and turned away from regular care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, Helms has faced years of frustration grappling with bureaucracies unprepared to help a government civilian wounded in combat. Read The Full Story UFO Sightings Bring English Town To A Standstill 2007-07-25 00:29:11 A crowd of 100 stunned stargazers brought a town centre to a standstill when five mysterious UFOs were spotted hovering in the sky. Drinkers spilled out of pubs, motorists stopped to gawp and camera phones were aimed upwards as the five orbs, in a seeming formation, hovered above Stratford-Upon-Avon for half an hour. The unidentified flying objects lit up the otherwise clear night sky above Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire on Saturday. Although Air Traffic Control reported no unusual activity, some witnesses were convinced they were witnessing an extra-terrestrial spectacle. Read The Full Story British Defense Committee: U.K. Troops In Iraq Go On Nightly 'Suicide Missions' At U.S. Request 2007-07-24 20:54:20 British soldiers are going on "nightly suicide missions" in southern Iraq and they are there only at the behest of the U.S., Labor Party Parliament members on the House of Commons' Defense Committee told the government Tuesday. In evidence that reflects deepening concern among army commanders, the Parliament members said they were told during a recent visit to British troops in Basra that the U.K.'s military role in Iraq was over. They painted a dark picture of the security situation in the city, with Iraqi forces inadequately trained, and infiltrated by Shia militia and criminal gangs. The view appeared to be shared Tuesday by Bob Ainsworth, the new armed forces minister also just back from a visit to southern Iraq, and by Brigadier Chris Hughes, the Ministry of Defense's (MoD) senior officer responsible for military commitments. Kevan Jones, a Labor member of the committee, said British troops were going on "nightly suicide missions", attacked every night as they delivered supplies to the British garrison at the Basra Palace in the center of the city. "We have a force surrounded like cowboys and Indians in the Basra Palace," he said. Read The Full Story Fire At Japanese Nuclear Power Plant 2007-07-24 20:53:53 A small fire broke out Tuesday at a partly constructed nuclear power station in northern Japan, the third blaze at the plant this month. It comes a week after an earthquake caused a radioactive spillage at another atomic plant. The operator, Hokkaido Electric Power (HEPCO), said there was no danger of a radiation leak and there were no injuries during the incident at the Tomari plant. Two other reactors at Tomari were operating normally, it said. The Kyodo news agency said investigators found damage to electrical wiring and suspected foul play, but the operator was unavailable to comment. Read The Full Story Top Taliban Commander Dies In Pakistan Raid 2007-07-24 13:55:50 A top Taliban commander who had became one of Pakistan's most wanted men since being released from U.S. custody in 2004 died Tuesday as security forces raided his hide-out, said Pakistani officials in Islamabad. Abdullah Mehsud had earned a fearsome reputation by orchestrating brazen attacks and kidnappings, and was regarded as one of the masterminds of an insurgency that has spread from Afghanistan into Pakistan and grown more intense in recent weeks. Pakistani officials said Mehsud blew himself up with a grenade early Tuesday morning rather than surrender as security forces closed in on his hideout in Zhob, a town in Baluchistan province that lies only 30 miles from the Afghan border. The town also sits near Waziristan, a tribal area where the Pakistani military has been engaged in intense clashes with extremist fighters. The claim of suicide could not be independently confirmed. Read The Full Story Commentary: A War The Pentagon Can't Win 2007-07-24 01:32:00 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon and appears in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, July 24, 2007. Daniel Benjamin is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Steven Simon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Both were members of the U.S. National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999. Their commentary follows:   As the National Intelligence Estimate issued last week confirms, a terrorist haven has emerged in Pakistan’s tribal belt. And as recent revelations about an aborted 2005 operation in the region demonstrate, our Defense Department is chronically unable to conduct the sort of missions that would disrupt terrorist activity there and in similarly ungoverned places. These are perhaps the most important kind of counterterrorism missions. Because the Pentagon has shown that it cannot carry them out, the Central Intelligence Agency should be given the chance to perform them. The story of the scrubbed 2005 operation illustrates why the Pentagon is incapable of doing what needs to be done. The preparations for the mission to capture or kill al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, appear to have unfolded like others before it. Intelligence was received about a high-level al-Qaeda meeting. A small snatch or kill operation was to be carried out by Special Operations. But military brass added large numbers of troops to conduct additional intelligence, force protection, communications and extraction work. At that point, as one senior intelligence official told this newspaper, “The whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan,” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pulled the plug. Read The Full Story We Hacked Into Apple's iPhone Claim Security Researchers 2007-07-24 01:31:21 It arrived in a blaze of publicity and had frenzied gadget fans queuing for days before its launch last month but, just weeks after Apple's iPhone was unleashed on American shoppers, researchers say they have discovered how to hack into it and steal personal information. Experts at Independent Security Evaluators, a computer protection consultancy, claim to have found a way to gain complete access to the phone, billed by its creators, Apple, as the mobile phone of the future. Researchers discovered the flaw after examining the way the iPhone connects to the internet. They say it is possible to hack in using the iPhone's wireless internet system, allowing full control of the phone, and accessing private information at will. Charlie Miller, lead analyst at ISE, said it meant the handset was open to abuse. "Within two weeks of part-time work we had successfully discovered a vulnerability," said a notice on the company's website. "The compromised iPhone sent personal data including SMS text messages, contact information, call history and voicemail information over this connection ... we can get any file we want." Read The Full Story Poll: Democrats Favored On War Issue 2007-07-24 01:30:37 Most Americans see President Bush as intransigent on Iraq and prefer that the Democratic-controlled Congress make decisions about a possible withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News  poll. As the president and Congress spar over war policy, both receive negative marks from the public for their handling of the situation in Iraq. By a large margin, Americans trust Democrats rather than the president to find a solution to a conflict that remains enormously unpopular. And more than six in 10 in the new poll said Congress should have the final say on when to bring the troops home. The president has steadfastly asserted his power as commander in chief to make decisions about the war, but his posture is now viewed by majorities of Democrats, independents and even Republicans as too inflexible. Asked whether Bush is willing enough to change policies on Iraq, nearly eight in 10 Americans said no. Since December, the percentage seeing Bush as too rigid has increased 12 points, with the most significant change among Republicans. Just after the 2006 midterm elections and the release of the 79-point plan from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, 55 percent of Republicans thought Bush was willing enough to change course in Iraq; in this poll, 55 percent of Republicans said he is not. Read The Full Story Medics Who Were Jailed Depart Libya 2007-07-24 01:29:49 Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to life in prison in Libya for allegedly contaminating children with the AIDS virus left Tripoli Tuesday on board a plane with the French president's wife, said officials at France's presidential palace. The delegation, which had arrived in Tripoli on Sunday to negotiate their release, included the European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant. The plane was heading to Bulgaria, said officials at the Elysee Palace. France had been seeking the return home of the six - in jail for the past eight years - in a final goodwill gesture by Libya after it commuted their death sentences in favor of life in prison. Bulgaria made an official request Thursday for Tripoli to repatriate the medics to serve their sentences in Bulgaria. It granted citizenship to the Palestinian doctor, Ashraf al-Hazouz, last month. Read The Full Story	Editorial: Credibility Collapse 2007-07-25 01:38:07 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the Washington Post's edition for Wednesday, July 25, 2007. Once again, Alberto Gonzales is unable to offer straight answers to simple questions. "I don't trust you." "What credibility is left for you?" Something is terribly, terribly wrong when the attorney general of the United States is called to testify under oath before Congress and much of the hearing revolves around his credibility - or lack thereof. But such was the case yet again during an appearance yesterday by Alberto R. Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The comments quoted above from Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) and ranking Republican Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) reflect the frustration we have come to know all too well when Mr. Gonzales is asked to provide answers to legitimate questions, whether the subject is surveillance programs, interrogation methods for foreign prisoners, the firing of U.S. attorneys - or even last-minute missions to hospital rooms. That last topic formed the basis of what can only be described as incredible testimony by Mr. Gonzales yesterday. During the hearing, the attorney general was asked about his March 10, 2004, sojourn to a Washington hospital where then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was in intensive care because of gall bladder complications. Mr. Ashcroft had temporarily transferred the powers of the attorney general to his deputy, James B. Comey. Mr. Comey had refused to give the department's legal blessing to an intelligence program due to expire the next day. Mr. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, traveled to Mr. Ashcroft's bedside with then-White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card, Jr. Read The Full Story Stocks Take A Beating On Lender's Earnings 2007-07-25 01:37:26 U.S. stocks took a beating Tuesday largely because poor earnings from one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders renewed concerns about whether the housing downturn could damage the broader economy. Countrywide Financial, which originates 17 percent of U.S. mortgages, reported a sharp drop in second-quarter profit, slashed its earnings forecast and signaled that its woes reflect that credit problems are spreading to a wider population of borrowers than once believed. With more than 1,000 branches and an extensive network of mortgage brokers, Countrywide's reach makes it a closely watched bellwether of market conditions, which is why its lower-than-expected results rattled investors, analysts said. All major stock indexes recorded the biggest loss in more than four months. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, a broad market measure, fell 30.53 points, or nearly 2 percent, to 1511.04. The Dow Jones industrial average of blue-chip stocks fell 226.47, or 1.6 percent, to 13,716.95. The tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 50.72, or 1.9 percent, to 2639.86. Read The Full Story Audit: SBA Improperly Canceled Loans To 8,000 Along Gulf After Hurricanes 2007-07-25 01:36:17 The federal Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s largest program to help disaster victims rebuild their houses, improperly canceled thousands of loans it had promised homeowners along the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurricanes, a government audit has found. The agency canceled nearly 8,000 loans without calling the borrowers or mailing them a notice, according to the audit by the agency’s inspector general. The homeowners did eventually receive a letter contending that they had voluntarily given up their loans, the report says, even though many told auditors that they actually needed the money. The loans were canceled last year, after the agency had come under fire for being slow to give out rebuilding money, according to the audit. Former agency employees have complained that they were pressured to withdraw the loans to cut the number of applicants whose loans had been approved but not paid out. A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment on the report. Read The Full Story Special Prosecutor Considered To Investigate Misconduct At U.S. Justice Department 2007-07-24 20:54:32 Angry U.S. senators suggested a special prosecutor should investigate misconduct at the Justice Department, accusing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday of deceit on the prosecutor firings and President Bush's eavesdropping program. Democrats and Republicans alike hammered Gonzales in four hours of testimony as he denied trying, as White House counsel in 2004, to push a hospitalized attorney general into approving a counterterror program that the Justice Department then viewed as illegal. Gonzales, alternately appearing wearied and seething, vowed anew to remain in his job even as senators told him outright they believe he is unqualified to stay. Read The Full Story Hundreds Die In Southern Europe's Heat Wave 2007-07-24 20:54:09 Southern Europe sizzled in record-breaking temperatures yesterday with the heatwave being blamed for deaths in Hungary and Romania, power cuts in Macedonia and forest fires from Serbia to Greece. Up to 500 people have died in Hungary because of the heatwave with deaths attributed to heatstroke, cardiovascular problems and other illnesses aggravated by high temperatures which reached a record high of 41.9C (107F) in the southern city of Kiskunhalas. Countries across the Balkan peninsula also labored under temperatures that hit a historic 43C in Belgrade and 44C in Bulgaria. In an urgent announcement, Greece's weather service predicted temperatures of 45C (113F) and the government urged people to restrict their movements and stay indoors. Read The Full Story Gonzales Denies Pressuring Ashcroft On Warrantless Surveillance During Hospital Talk 2007-07-24 13:56:05 Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Tuesday defended a dramatic nighttime visit to the hospital bed of his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, in March 2004, saying that he had no intention of taking advantage of Ashcroft while he was recovering from surgery. Gonzales said his visit to Ashcroft's bedside, accompanied by Andrew H. Card, Jr., then the White House chief of staff, came after an emergency meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate about "a very important intelligence activity," which was about to expire because Ashcroft's temporary replacement had refused to renew it. "We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel he was competent," Gonzales testified at an oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying that Ashcroft was "lucid" and did most of the talking during the meeting. Gonzales' testimony provides more details about a controversial dispute that spring between Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, and then-deputy attorney general James B. Comey, who was running the Justice Department during Ashcroft's illness. In a remarkable appearance before the Judiciary panel in May, Comey testified that he was angered by the episode because he believed Gonzales and Card sought "to take advantage of a very sick man". Read The Full Story U.S. House To Move On Contempt Action Against White House Aides Bolten and Miers 2007-07-24 01:32:20 The House Judiciary Committee said Monday that it would move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings against President Bush's chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas pertaining to the investigation of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year. The committee's chairman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, said the committee would vote Wednesday on a resolution to hold Bolten and Miers in contempt for refusing to turn over documents and testimony sought by the panel. The decision ratchets up a battle between Congress and the White House in which the Bush administration has sought to invoke executive privilege to keep documents about the firings under wraps. The resolution would go to the House floor for a vote if, as expected, the committee approves it. Only twice since the Watergate investigations of the mid-1970s has the full House voted to hold an administration official in contempt of Congress. Read The Full Story Injured Iraq War Veterans Sue V.A. Secretary Nicholson 2007-07-24 01:31:43 Frustrated by delays in health care, injured Iraq war veterans accused Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson in a lawsuit of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment. The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, California,seeks broad changes in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that the V.A. has failed warriors on numerous fronts. It contends the V.A. failed to provide prompt disability benefits, failed to add staff to reduce wait times for medical care and failed to boost services for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The lawsuit also accuses the V.A. of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying benefits. The V.A. and Pentagon have generally denied such charges. Read The Full Story Water Levels Still Rising As Thousands Hit By Worst Floods In Modern British History 2007-07-24 01:31:08 Intellpuke: There are several articles here in the flooding in Britain. The first article, by Guardian newspaper staff writers, follows: The British government was accused Monday night of failing to act on its own advice to overhaul U.K. flood defenses and drainage systems which first highlighted deep-seated problems three years ago. As large tracts of central and southern England remained under water, leaving tens of thousands of homes without power or drinking water, the environment minister, Hilary Benn, announced an independent review into what is being billed as the worst episode of flooding in modern British history. It emerged Monday night that the government was warned in two separate reports that the plans in place to tackle flood risks were "complex, confusing and distressing for the public". In July 2004 the government said it needed to improve co-ordination between water companies, councils and the Environment Agency; then in 2005, the government also agreed to "work towards giving" the agency "an overarching strategic overview across all flooding and coastal erosion risks". Ministers promised to transfer this responsibility by 2006. Read The Full Story 100 People, Including 4 U.S. Troops, Dies In Clashes In Pakistan, Afghanistan 2007-07-24 01:30:21 Nearly 100 people, including four U.S. troops, died in clashes in Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, military spokesmen said, as security forces battled Talibanfighters in a war that has been gaining intensity on both sides of the border. The vast majority of those reported killed Monday were suspected insurgents. In Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition reported that its troops, along with Afghan National Army soldiers, killed about 50 Taliban fighters in the southern province of Helmand. The battle began Sunday night when insurgents ambushed an Afghan army patrol with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and continued into Monday. U.S.-led forces dropped four bombs on suspected Taliban positions, said the coalition. Later, NATO forces reported that they had used air power to attack a meeting of Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan. NATO did not provide casualty figures. Read The Full Story
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