Free Internet Press Newsletter - Monday August 13 2007 - (813)

Monday August 13 2007 edition
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Anti-Mafia Police Uncover Arms To Iraq Plot 2007-08-13 02:37:57 U.S. kept in dark over 105,000 rifles deal. Revelation highlight Baghdad weapons chaos. U.S. loss of control over the flood of weapons into Iraq was highlighted again Sunday when it emerged that Italian anti-Mafia investigators had uncovered an alleged shipment of 105,000 rifles of which the American high command was unaware. The Italian team, in an investigation codenamed Operation Parabellum, stopped the £20 million ($40 million) sale and have made four arrests. The consignment appears to have been ordered by the Iraqi interior ministry. The U.S. high command in Baghdad admitted that it had no knowledge of any such order, even though the ministry is supposed to inform the Americans before making any arms purchases. Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Williams, of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, which is responsible for training the Iraqi security army and policy, said: "Iraqi officials did not make MNSTC-I aware that they were making purchases." Read The Full Story Editorial: Wrong Way Out Of Iraq 2007-08-13 02:37:28 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Sunday, August 12, 2007. As Americans argue about how to bring the troops home from Iraq, British forces are already partway out the door. Four years ago, there were some 30,000 British ground troops in southern Iraq. By the end of this summer, there will be 5,000. None will be based in urban areas. Those who remain will instead be quartered at an airbase outside Basra. Rather than trying to calm Iraq’s civil war, their main mission will be training Iraqis to take over security responsibilities, while doing limited counterinsurgency operations. That closely follows the script some Americans now advocate for American forces in Iraq: reduce the numbers - and urban exposure - but still maintain a significant presence for the next several years. It’s a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal without acknowledging that the mission has failed. If anyone outside the White House truly believes this can work - that the United States can simply stay in Iraq in reduced numbers, while ignoring the civil war and expecting Iraqi forces to impose order - the British experience demonstrates otherwise. There simply aren’t reliable, effective and impartial Iraqi forces ready to keep the cities safe, nor are they likely to exist any time soon. And insurgents are not going to stop attacking Americans just because the Americans announce that they’re out of the fight. Read The Full Story Fundraising's Murky Corners - Candidates See Little Of Millions Collected Linda Chavez's Family 2007-08-13 02:36:58 Linda Chavez rose to prominence in the 1980s as a tart-tongued Reagan administration official and candidate for the Senate, eventually becoming a well-known Latina voice on social issues and President Bush's choice to lead the Labor Department. With her conservative celebrity came book deals, a syndicated column, regular appearances on the Fox News Channel - and a striking but little-known success at political fundraising. In the years since she was forced to pull her nomination as Bush's labor secretary after admitting payments to an illegal immigrant, Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the "fight to save unborn lives," a vigorous struggle against "big labor bosses" and a crippling of "liberal politics in the country." That's not where the bulk of the money wound up being spent, however. Of the $24.5 million raised by the PACs from January 2003 to December 2006, $242,000 - or 1 percent - was passed on to politicians, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal election reports. The PACs spent even less - $151,236 - on independent political activity, such as mailing pamphlets. Read The Full Story Britain's Cover-Up Plan On Energy Targets To Reduce Global Warming 2007-08-13 02:36:03 British government officials have secretly briefed ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new European Union renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring - and have suggested that they find ways of wriggling out of it. In contrast to the government's claims to be leading the world on climate change, officials within the former Department of Trade and Industry have admitted that under current policies Britain would miss the E.U.'s 2020 target of 20% energy from renewables by a long way. And their suggestion that "statistical interpretations of the target" be used rather than new ways to reach it has infuriated environmentalists. An internal briefing paper for ministers, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, reveals that officials at the department, now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR), think the best the U.K. could hope for is 9% of energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro by 2020. It says the U.K. "has achieved little so far on renewables" and that getting to 9%, from the current level of about 2%, would be "challenging". The paper was produced in the early summer, around the time the government published its energy white paper. Read The Full Story U.S. Tumbles Down World Ratings List For Life Expectancy 2007-08-13 02:35:10 A combination of expensive health insurance and an ever-increasing rate of obesity appear to be behind a startling fall by the U.S. in the world rankings of life expectancy. Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, America has dropped from 11th to 42nd place in 20 years, according to official U.S. figures. Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said: "Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries." The lack of health care available to many Americans - 45 million have no health insurance - is set to be one of the biggest issues in next year's presidential election campaign. The Democratic contenders all promise universal health care. Read The Full Story How The Bush Administration's Fight For Vast New Spying Powers Was Won 2007-08-12 10:58:08 For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise." McConnell viscerally objected to a Democratic proposal to limit warrantless surveillance of foreigners' communications with Americans to instances in which one party was a terrorism suspect. McConnell wanted no such limits. "All foreign intelligence" targets in touch with Americans on any topic of interest should be fair game for U.S. spying, he said, according to two participants in the Aug. 2 conversation. McConnell won the fight, extracting a key concession despite the misgivings of Democratic negotiators. Shortly after that exchange, the Bush administration leveraged Democratic acquiescence into a broader victory: congressional approval of a Republican bill that would expand surveillance powers far beyond what Democratic leaders had initially been willing to accept. Yet both sides acknowledge that the administration's resurrection of virtually unchecked Cold War-era power to surveil foreign targets without warrants may be only temporary. The law expires in 180 days, and Democrats, smarting from their political defeat, have promised to alter it with new legislation to be prepared next month, when Congress returns from its recess. Read The Full Story Fatigue Cripples U.S. Army In Iraq 2007-08-12 03:00:18 Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis. Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command center, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6 a.m. and tries to go to sleep by 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., but there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up. When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by. The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, southeast Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq. Hanna and his men are not alone in being tired most of the time. A whole army is exhausted and worn out. You see the young soldiers washed up like driftwood at Baghdad's international airport, waiting to go on leave or returning to their units, sleeping on their body armor on floors and in the dust. Read The Full Story Iraq Security Cost Overruns Soar 2007-08-12 02:59:37 U.S. pays millions in cost overruns for security in Iraq. The U.S. military has paid $548 million over the past three years to two British security firms that protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects, more than $200 million over the original budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost of private security in Iraqhas mushroomed. The two companies, Aegis Defence Services and Erinys Iraq, signed their original Defense Department contracts in May 2004. By July of this year, the contracts supported a private force that had grown to about 2,000 employees serving the Corps of Engineers. The force is about the size of three military battalions. U.S. officials and company representatives attributed the overruns to the cost of protecting a largely civilian workforce amid an escalating insurgency, as Corps of Engineers commanders demanded more manpower and increasingly expensive armor to guard their field staff. Read The Full Story British Firm Under Scrutiny For Export Of Bosnian Guns To Iraq 2007-08-12 02:58:44 Parliament members and Amnesty International demand to know if a Nottingham-based company has breached the United Nations arms embargo. The British government was facing awkward questions Saturday night over an arms deal involving a British company licensed by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to import weapons but which was also selling machine guns to an Iraqi official later implicated in an alleged $1.1 billion (£545 million) corruption scandal. A committee of MPs (members of Parliament) and Amnesty International have both demanded to know whether the deal breaches either the United Nations arms embargo on Iraq or British government export laws. They want to know who was involved in the deal and what safeguards are in place to ensure arms exports negotiated by British companies through foreign intermediaries reach their intended destination. Documents obtained by The Observer show Procurement Management Services (PMS) had a contract to provide assault rifles to Ziad Cattan, the former head of military procurement at the Iraq Defense Ministry. PMS was licensed by the DTI, now known as the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), to import at least 40,000 assault rifles and AK-47s to Britain from the former Yugoslavia. Read The Full Story	Commentary: Military Families Live In Dread, While The Rest Of America Is Busy Shopping 2007-08-13 02:37:42 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by journalist Gary Younge and appears in the Guardian newspaper's edition for Monday, August 13, 2007. This is well worth the read. Mom, I had another friend die today from a massive ied [improvised explosive device] and many more wounded with shattered bones and scrapes. We used to be in the same platoon. 1st platoon and the same squad when I first arrived at fort hood for a good 7 months or so. He was 17 then and barely a day over 19 now that he has passed away. It's tearing me up so badly inside. I just can't stand it. I can't get rid of the feeling that I probably won't make it home from this war. I have this horrible feeling that his fate will soon become my own. I don't want to die here Mom. Don't tell Erin bc I know it will devastate her. But if somehow I don't make it, I want you Mom and Dad and all the family and especially Erin to know I love you all so so much and appreciate everything you all have done for me in the thick and thin. The most important thing I want you all to do, is to use all of your connections to do everything in your will to use my death as a tool with the media to end this pointless war. Contact Michael Moore or whomever it may be to get the word out about how disgusted with our government I am about forcing us to come here to wait for death to claim us. I want it to end. How many more friends, sons, daughters, mothers, and dads must die here before they say it's enough? And if you don't die, the worst part you have to live with is the guilt of surviving. Surviving this war and not dying like your buddies to your left and to your right in combat. I love you all so so much. love, Zach Wednesday August 8 2007, Baghdad 'Death," said Donald Rumsfeld, the former United States defence secretary, "has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." Read The Full Story Inspection Finds Debris Penetrated Endeavour's Heat-Resistant Tiles 2007-08-13 02:37:10 A close-up laser inspection by astronauts on the space shuttle Endeavour revealed on Sunday that a three-and-a-half-inch gouge penetrates all the way through thermal tiles on the shuttle’s belly, and left NASA officials urgently calculating whether a spacewalk for repairs is needed. A chunk of insulating foam ricocheted off a fuel tank and smacked the shuttle during liftoff last week, carving out the gouge. The unevenly shaped gouge, which straddles two side-by-side heat shield tiles and the corner of a third, is 3.5 inches long and just over 2 inches wide. The inspection on Sunday showed that the damage went through the one-inch-thick thermal tiles, exposing the felt material sandwiched between the tiles and the shuttle’s aluminum frame. Mission managers expect to decide Monday or Tuesday whether to send astronauts out to patch the gouge. Engineers are trying to determine whether the marred area can withstand the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry at the flight’s end. Heating tests will be conducted on similarly damaged samples. Read The Full Story Upkeep Of Security Devices A Financial Burden On U.S. Cities 2007-08-13 02:36:24 In 2003, the FBI used a $25 million grant to give bomb squads across the nation state-of-the-art computer kits, enabling them to instantly share information about suspected explosives, including weapons of mass destruction. Four years later, half of the Washington area's squads can't communicate via the $12,000 kits, meant to be taken to the scene of potential catastrophes, because they didn't pick up the monthly wireless bills and maintenance costs initially paid by the FBI. Other squads across the country also have given up using them. "They worked, and it was a good idea - until the subscription ran out," said Mike Love, who oversees the bomb squad in Montgomery County'sfire department. At the local level, he said, "there is not budget money for it." Read The Full Story 9th Body Found At Minneapolis Bridge Site 2007-08-13 02:35:35 Divers found another body in the Mississippi River on Sunday, 11 days after a highway bridge collapsed into the fast-flowing water, raising the official death toll to nine. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office identified the body as 20-year-old Richard Chit of St. Anthony. His mother, 50-year-old Vera Peck of Bloomington, is still missing. The other three people known to be missing are Christine Sacorafas, 45, of White Bear Lake; Greg Jolstad, 45, of Mora; and Scott Sathers, 29, of Maple Grove. As divers resumed their search Sunday, a crane working removed a school bus and other vehicles from one end of the ruined span. Read The Full Story Tommy Thompson Drops Presidential Bid 2007-08-13 02:34:46 Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll. "I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign. "I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America." The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing. Read The Full Story Tight Credit Could Stall U.S. Buyout Boom 2007-08-12 03:00:33 The severe turmoil in the credit markets last week has raised serious questions about the future of the buyout craze that gave rise to the biggest deals in U.S. corporate history. For the past few years, a group of elite Wall Street players have been buying up major American icons and taking them private. These massive acquisitions have depended on access to cheap credit, which is supplied by a complex relationship between investment banks and hedge funds. But with credit markets tightening, the pace of these deals, at least in the short run, is expected to dramatically slow. Already-announced multibillion-dollar buyouts, like Tribune Co., Sallie Mae and Hilton Hotels, are likely to be far more complicated to close, said analysts. If one or two of these big deals were to collapse, it might not send the economy into a downturn. But it would profoundly shake investors' confidence in a financial system already under siege from billions of dollars in losses from home mortgage defaults. That could make it even more difficult for companies and home buyers to get loans. Read The Full Story Back Home, More Frustration 2007-08-12 02:59:51 The woman stood waiting amid the lunch counter clatter at the Grand City Variety Store to confront Olympia J. Snowe. "We need to get out," Stephanie Slocum told Snowe, one of Congress's most conflicted members over the war in Iraq. It was the Maine Republican's first week of her summer break, and Slocum was among the first of many constituents who would tell her the time to act is now. The self-described "proud mother of an Army cavalry scout," Slocum is taking Iraq personally. She told Snowe in a matter-of-fact voice about her 27-year-old son, who is now home but shouts angrily at her, whose body trembles, who at times feels he is still in Iraq and who, if Congress does not begin to redeploy troops by September, will be sent back. She spoke of her son's leave that never came, the goggles to protect him that she had to buy herself and the mental health treatment he has just given up. Because, he told his mom, "what's the sense" if he has to go back. "Outrageous," Snowe said of the problems. "I would encourage him to continue to get his care." "I do, but you know how it is," said Slocum. "In the Army ... if you get the therapy, it's shame on you." Read The Full Story In U.K. Fears That U.S. Mortgage Crisis Will Hit Home 2007-08-12 02:59:10 Investors are expected to suffer this week as fears grow that the global financial crisis, sparked by Americans defaulting on their mortgages, could have serious repercussions in Britain. Shares went into freefall round the world on Friday and experts are concerned the meltdown could soon be felt by British householders in the form of depressed house prices and lower income from investments. Pension funds which had been boosted by the strong performance of the stock market by this year's gains have been wiped out, sending some schemes back into the red. All eyes are now trained on how the Asian markets react when they open for business tomorrow to see how confidence has been shaken in global markets. "When confidence is hit and markets start to wobble there is the danger of contagion from one to another," said Dr. Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered. But he says people shouldn't panic: "The market is reacting to the prospect of a slowdown in America and higher interest rates. What happens in the City (London) eventually has an impact on the high street but the housing market isn't about to crash." Read The Full Story Hurricane Flossie Upgraded To Category 4 2007-08-12 02:57:42 Hurricane Flossie strengthened to a Category 4 storm Saturday as it spun more than 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. The hurricane could pass by Hawaii late Tuesday or early Wednesday, said forecasters, but by then cooler waters should weaken Flossie considerably to a tropical storm. At 5 p.m. EDT, Flossie had intensified with maximum sustained winds near 135 mph about 1,035 miles southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. "Flossie continues to be an impressive system," the Central Pacific Hurricane Center said in a statement. Read The Full Story
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