Gates Steps In To Defuse Clinton-Pentagon Dispute

Not really.

The Washington Post reports:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sought to defuse a row between a top Pentagon aide and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday over her request for details of plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

In May, the New York Democrat sought information about the Pentagon's plans for pulling troops out of the war zone. In response to her inquiry, Undersecretary Eric S. Edelman dispatched a letter accusing her of reinforcing "enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies" by discussing a timetable, an answer that Clinton deplored yesterday as "an unacceptable and outrageous political attack."

Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, capitalized on the contretemps all day, announcing that she will introduce legislation with Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) that would require the military to plan for a troop withdrawal from Iraq and issuing a letter to Gates demanding further answers about the military's exit strategy. Though Clinton voted for the war and has never apologized for her vote, she has sharpened her criticism of its execution while playing catch-up on the issue with Democratic rivals, particularly Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who opposed the invasion from the start.

In a statement, Gates said that he had not seen Clinton's original letter, but he added that he welcomes congressional involvement.

"I have long been a staunch advocate of Congressional oversight, first at the CIA and now at the Defense Department," Gates said. "I have said on several occasions in recent months that I believe that Congressional debate on Iraq has been constructive and appropriate. I had not seen Senator Clinton's reply to Ambassador Edelman's letter until today. I am looking into the issues she raised and will respond to them early next week."

"Redeploying out of Iraq will be difficult and requires careful planning," Clinton said. "I continue to call on the Bush administration to immediately provide a redeployment strategy that will keep our brave men and women safe as they leave Iraq -- instead of adhering to a political strategy to attack those who rightfully question their competence and preparedness after years of mistakes and misjudgments."

Bob Gates is a tool. He just bought Bush and Cheney one week, in which time it's hoped that everyone will forget the Bush administration's blowing off of a United States' Senator on the Armed Services Committee (Hillary Clinton) and the Constitutionally required role of oversight of this administration by that Senator, on that committee, of the Congress of the United States.

Senate Tied In Knots By Filibusters

More accurately, the threat of filibusters by a (relatively) new rule change, the procedural filibuster. Adopted, ostensibly, to "save time," the procedural filibuster, in reality, serves the physical comfort of senators, by not requiring them to stand up in the chamber and speak for as long as sixty senators can't be found to end the debate and vote on the issue. It has other attractions for politicians, among which procedural filibusters enable incumbents to serve their own interests and not those of their constituents - it's a great bluff and cover mechanism by which politicians can avoid going on the record.

Last week, under increasing pressure from the left, Harry Reid finally required Republicans to carry out an actual filibuster of the Levin-Reed amendment to H.R. 1585, the DoD Authorization Act, which would have set a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq. Harry Reid ought to do everything he can to block Republican obstruction, including denying them procedural filibusters.

McClatchy reports:

This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in — and could increase — the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats' razor-thin win in last year's election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans' exile to the minority.

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 "cloture" votes aimed at shutting off extended debate — filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one — and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority's right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they've fallen short 22 times so far this year. That's largely why they haven't been able to deliver on their campaign promises.

By sinking a cloture vote this week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.

This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

Nearly 1 in 6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes. If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record number of cloture votes — 58 each in the two Congresses from 1999-2002, according to the Senate Historical Office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., forced an all-night session on the Iraq war this week to draw attention to what Democrats called Republican obstruction.

"The minority party has decided we have to get to 60 votes on almost everything we vote on of substance," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "That's not the way this place is supposed to work."

Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who's served in Congress since 1973, complained that "the Senate is spiraling into the ground to a degree that I have never seen before, and I've been here a long time. All modicum of courtesy is going out the window."

But many Republicans say the Senate's very design as a more deliberative body than the House of Representatives is meant to encourage supermajority deal-making. If Democrats worked harder to seek bipartisan deals, Republicans say, there wouldn't be so many cloture votes.

"You can't say that all we're going to do around here in the United States Senate is have us govern by 51 votes — otherwise we might as well be unicameral, because then we would have the Senate and the House exactly the same," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

To which Reid responds: "The problem we have is that we don't have many moderate Republicans. I don't know what we can do to create less cloture votes other than not file them, just walk away and say, 'We're not going to do anything.' That's the only alternative we have."

Some Republicans say that Reid forces cloture votes just so he complain that they're obstructing him.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., called the all-nighter on Iraq "meaningless, insulting" and "an indignity." "There is no doubt that there are not 67 votes present to override a veto. There is little doubt that there are not 60 votes present to bring the issue to a vote."

Republicans also say that Democrats are forgetting how routinely they threatened filibusters only a few years ago when they were the minority, especially to block many of President Bush's judicial nominees. Back then, Republicans were so mad that they considered trying to change Senate rules to eliminate filibusters — but didn't.

"The suggestion that it's somehow unusual in the Senate to have controversial matters decided by 60 votes is absurd on its face," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Although this year's Congress is taking it to a new level, the frequency of cloture votes has been climbing for decades — the result of more polarized politics in Congress and also evolving Senate rules and practices.

Associate Senate Historian Don Ritchie said that since the nation's start, dissident senators have prolonged debate to try to kill or modify legislation. The word "filibuster" — a translation of the Dutch word for "free-booter" or pirate — appears in the record of an 1840s Senate dispute about a patronage job.

From Reconstruction to 1964, the filibuster was largely a tool used by segregationists to fight civil rights legislation. Even so, filibusters were employed only rarely; there were only three during the 88th Congress, which passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 after two months of filibustering.

Filibusters were infrequent partly because the Senate custom of civility prompted consideration of minority views — and partly because they were so hard to overcome that compromises were struck. In 1917 cloture rules for ending filibusters were put in place, but required a two-thirds vote — so high it was rarely tested.

Post-Watergate, in 1975, the bar was lowered to three-fifths, or 60 votes, and leaders began to try it more often.

By the early 1990s, tensions between then-Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas upped the ante, and the filibuster-cloture spiral has soared ever since as more partisan politics prevailed. The use of filibusters became "basically a tool of the minority party," Ritchie said.

The current Senate has two other complications: the 51-49 Democratic majority, which includes a pro-war independent and an absent Democrat recuperating from brain surgery, makes it harder to find 60 votes. And the presidency and Congress are controlled by opposing parties, which increases confrontation.

The Senate "has always been a cumbersome and frustrating and slow body because that's what the Constitution wanted," Ritchie said. The new majority's decisions are: "How often are you willing to lose on these issues? Would you rather campaign on the other side being obstructionists? What's a tolerable compromise? They're still working these things out."

Republican Senate leader McConnell said Friday in a news conference that when he became minority leader, "it was not my goal to see us do nothing. I mean, you can always use the next election as a rationale for not doing anything. But as you all know, we've had a regularly scheduled election every two years since 1788, so there's always an election right around the corner."

"A divided government has frequently done important things: Social Security in the Reagan period, when (Democrat) Tip O'Neill was speaker; welfare reform when Bill Clinton was in the White House when there was a Republican Congress. There's no particular reason why divided government can't do important things. We haven't yet, but it's not too late.

"And I think clearly the way to accomplish things is in the political middle, and I would challenge our friends on the other side of the aisle to step up and take a chance on something big and important for our country."

Of course, Democrats say similar things — but then neither side often compromises.

Bush Signs New CIA Interrogation Rules . . . .

. . . . That are remarkably like the old ones.

The LATimes reports:

President Bush signed an order Friday that clears the way for the CIA to resume some of the harsh interrogation methods it has used against terrorism suspects, but the order prohibits techniques that had caused an international outcry, including sexual humiliation and the denigration of religious symbols.

The executive order ends months of legal skirmishing in the government over how to comply with laws barring mistreatment of detainees and a Supreme Court ruling last year requiring the government to treat terrorism prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

In practical terms, the document places significant new limits on the CIA while making it clear that the agency will continue to operate under special rules that set it apart from the rest of the government. The order places no restriction on employing coercive methods — such as sleep deprivation and the use of so-called stress positions — that are expressly off-limits for the military and domestic law enforcement agencies.

On another level, the order represents an attempt by the Bush administration to straddle two competing mandates by bringing the CIA program into line with court rulings and legislative requirements without disabling an operation that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have defended as one of the most valuable weapons in the war on terrorism.

The order does not specifically address one of the most controversial methods employed by the CIA: water-boarding, a technique in which a prisoner is strapped to a board and doused with water to simulate the sensation of drowning. A separate document spelling out specific techniques remains classified.

Human rights groups said the order brought the United States closer to international standards on the treatment of prisoners but still gave the CIA significant latitude to employ methods that other countries and organizations had condemned.

"It certainly was a positive thing to see express prohibitions on things like sexual humiliation," said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for Amnesty International in Washington. "But the places where [the document] is silent speak volumes."

In a statement issued to the CIA workforce Friday, agency Director Michael V. Hayden said that because of the order, "we can focus on our vital work, confident that our mission and authorities are clearly defined."

The agency suspended its use of harsh methods three years ago as the Bush administration's legal justifications for them began to crumble and CIA operatives working in secret detention facilities abroad became worried that they might face lawsuits or even criminal prosecution for the techniques they were being told to use.

Bush administration officials involved in drafting the order said it was designed to preserve flexibility for the CIA and to avoid spelling out boundaries that might be studied by Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations.

In a telephone briefing with reporters, an administration official refused to elaborate on what the order will allow CIA interrogators to do, saying: "That will only enable Al Qaeda to train against those [methods] they know are on or off." The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing the internal development of the policy, stressed that the order contained "red lines which I think we can all agree are beyond the pale," but acknowledged that there were no provisions for allowing the Red Cross to visit CIA facilities or allowing prisoners to be in contact with their families.

The order prohibits acts deemed "beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation." It forbids "acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices or religious objects of the individual," a provision that appears designed to address complaints that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba had mistreated prisoners' copies of the Koran.

It also requires that detainees "receive the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care." Asked what might constitute extreme heat or cold, the administration official said, "We're not talking about forcibly induced hypothermia or any use of extreme temperatures as a practice in a program like this."

The provision requiring "essential medical care" might have applied to Abu Zubayda, an Al Qaeda operative who reportedly was denied pain medication after he was badly injured in a shootout during his capture in Pakistan in 2002.

Former U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged that water-boarding was used on Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed after he was taken into custody in Pakistan in 2003. But officials have said the method was abandoned years ago.

Critics called Bush's order frustratingly vague and said its most specific language addressed abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib and other military facilities that were never part of the CIA's interrogation program.

"The stuff they rule out is stuff they've always been willing to rule out," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch.

U.S. officials said the executive order was accompanied by a separate document prepared by the Justice Department that spelled out the specific interrogation methods and procedures that the CIA would be allowed to use in the secret detention program. That document is classified and will not be released to the public, officials said.

"The White House is basically saying: 'Trust us. Everything in that other document we're not showing you is legal,' " Malinowski said. "But the people in charge of interpreting this document don't have a particularly good track record of reasonable legal analysis."

The executive order is designed to bring the CIA program into compliance with the Supreme Court ruling last year in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld.

In that case, which was brought against the government by a detainee, the court said that even if detainees did not deserve full status as prisoners of war, they still must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention's Common Article 3, which prohibits, among other things, "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."

The executive order released Friday represents the Bush administration's effort to spell out what the CIA must do to comply with Common Article 3.

The Bush administration previously had contended that terrorism suspects were unlawful combatants and did not warrant the protections of the Geneva Convention.

In the wake of the Hamdan ruling, Bush declared that all of the prisoners in CIA custody had been transferred to the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The agency has since taken other prisoners into custody, including an alleged Al Qaeda operative named Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who was transferred to Guantanamo in April. U.S. officials declined to say whether other prisoners were being held by the CIA now.

In his statement Friday, Hayden stressed that the CIA program "always operated in strict accord with American law," that "fewer than 100 hardened terrorists" had been held in the program and that "well under half" were ever subjected to "enhanced" interrogation methods.

Congress has also sought to bring the CIA program under greater scrutiny. The Senate Intelligence Committee passed a measure this year questioning whether a CIA detention program that operated under different rules than those applicable to military and U.S. law enforcement was "necessary, lawful and in the best interests of the United States."

Committee Chairman John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said in a statement Friday that the committee would evaluate how Bush's order would "translate into actual conduct by the CIA" and would seek information from the Justice Department on the legal analysis underpinning the order.

Hanging Crepe

BREAKING NEWS: A federal judge appointed by George W. Bush throws out Valerie Plame's lawsuit.

The LATimes reports:

A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband seeking damages against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and two others she accused of conspiring to disclose her identity.

Plame and her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, had alleged that Cheney, Libby, White House political advisor Karl Rove and former State Department official Richard L. Armitage had violated their constitutional rights in the events that led to Plame being identified in news reports in the summer of 2003.

U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected the lawsuit in a 41-page ruling today.

Without offering an opinion on the merits of the case, Bates said it was barred by other statutes that Congress had enacted to cover instances of alleged harm to CIA operatives and other federal employees.

The Honorable John D. Bates

"The court finds that, under controlling Supreme Court precedent, special factors — particularly the remedial scheme established by Congress in the Privacy Act — counsel against the recognition of an implied damages remedy for plaintiffs' constitutional claims," the judge ruled.

Bates also wrote that he was concerned about "creating a private right of action for the disclosure of covert identity," and that such lawsuits could "inevitably require judicial intrusion into matters of national security."

Lawyers for Cheney and the other defendants had argued in court filings that the lawsuit would be "inimical" to the ability of the executive branch to protect national security information.

Libby was convicted in March of lying to a grand jury and federal investigators about his role in the CIA leak case, and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. President Bush commuted his prison sentence this month, but left in place a $250,000 fine and two years' supervisory release.

Lawyers for Wilson and Plame said they would appeal the decision.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and one of the couple's lawyers, said Bates' decision recognized that the Wilsons' claims posed "important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials."

But, she said, the judge dismissed their lawsuit on a threshold legal issue centered on the difficulty of suing a federal official.

"While we are obviously very disappointed by today's decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court." Sloan said. "We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends."

Meet the judge:

John D. Bates was appointed United States District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by President George W. Bush in December 2001. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1968 and received a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1976. From 1968 to 1971, he served in the United States Army, including a tour in Vietnam. Judge Bates clerked for Judge Roszel C. Thomsen of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland from 1976 to 1977 and was an associate at Steptoe & Johnson from 1977 to 1980. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1980 to 1997, and was Chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office from 1987 to 1997.

Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997. In 1998, he joined the Washington law firm of Miller & Chevalier, where he was Chair of the Government Contracts/Litigation Department and a member of the Executive Committee. Judge Bates has served on the Advisory Committee for Procedures of the D.C. Circuit and on the Civil Justice Reform Committee for the District Court, and as Treasurer of the D.C. Bar, Chairman of the Publications Committee of the D.C. Bar, and Chairman of the Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. In 2005, he was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to serve on the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management. In February 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. (Ed. Note - The preceding paragraph was copied from his official biography.)

As a District Court Judge, Bates dismissed the GAO's effort to learn with whom Cheney's energy task force conferred.

Judge Bates spent two years working for Kenneth Starr and the Independent Counsel's office during the investigation into President Bill Clinton, specifcially Deputy Independent Counsel under Ken Starr from September 1995 until leaving in March 1997.

Of Bates' appointment to the FISA court, Steven Aftergood at FAS.org reports:

Judge Bates of the D.C. District is the eleventh member of the secretive Court, which processes applications for domestic intelligence search and surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

He replaces Judge James Robertson who resigned in December 2005 in what was widely viewed as a protest against the President's warrantless surveillance program.

The appointment of Judge Bates to the FISA Court has not previously been reported.

When questioned by Secrecy News earlier this week, Justice Department officials refused to divulge the name of the newest FISA Court judge. The Justice officials suggested filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

But Judge Bates himself disclosed the February 2006 appointment in his online bio at the D.C. District Courthouse (thanks to S).

Judge Bates, a Republican appointee, has a distinctly conservative cast to his resume. From 1995-1997, he served as Deputy Independent Counsel to the intensely partisan Whitewater investigation. In 2002, he dismissed a lawsuit brought by the congressional General Accounting Office seeking disclosure of records of the Vice President's Energy Task Force.

But he has also ruled occasionally in favor of Freedom of Information Act litigants. And in 2004, he rejected the Bush Administration's argument that a U.S. citizen detained abroad under U.S. control cannot invoke habeas corpus.

"The Court concludes that a citizen cannot be so easily separated from his constitutional rights," Judge Bates memorably ruled in Abu Ali v. John Ashcroft.

An FAS roster of FISA Court judges, now including Judge Bates, can be found here.

The story broke about an hour ago, and not one cable news channel has reported this breaking news. Their top (and only) stories today are: "Oprah and Obama"; "Hip Hop - Russell Simmons on poverty in America and the candidates"; "What if John Edwards wins?"; "Bill Clinton comes to Hillary's defense, fires back at Elizabeth Edwards"; "Broken steam pipe clean-up in New York"; "Mayor Bloomberg talks about steam pipe explosion, toxic danger"; "Pentagon says, 'Hillary Clinton is boosting enemy propaganda by asking how the administration plans to win the war in Iraq'"; "US Iraq envoy warns skeptical senators on pullout"; "Body found in nose of United Airlines plan at SFO"; "Bush creates panel to review import safety"; "Harry Potter Threatens Sabbath - Outrage Over Saturday Release"....Everything but this story.

It will take months, if not years, for an appeal to make its way through the courts. Bush and Cheney will be long gone from office should it ever make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. And if it does make it through to the U.S.S.C., can there be any doubt how a Roberts Court would decide?

The same ending is true for all of the Congressional committee hearings: Congress subpoenas testimony and documents, Bush-Cheney stonewall. The only recourse then is the courts, which are either unlikely to get involved (declaring it a political issue, to be worked out between the executive and legislative branches), or overrule Bush's claims of executive privilege, but again, it would take months/years, beyond Bush-Cheney's term in office. Once Bush-Cheney are out of office, a court could dismiss the case(s) on grounds that it's "moot," because Bush-Cheney are no longer in office.

The fix is in. The Bush-Cheney cabal is resting safely knowing that they have covered all of their tracks, and that their backs are covered by their appointed watchdogs.

The Democratically-controlled 110th Congress, just as the Republican-controlled Congresses preceding it, have failed the American people. All roads lead to the same place: The Judiciary --> Legislative --> Judiciary --> Legislative, etc., bouncing back and forth, with neither of these branches willing to save the democracy for the country and the world.

For whatever reason (and obviously there is some other reason than the stock answers we've been given as to why Democrats haven't begun impeachment proceedings) impeachment is a non-starter.

Whereas Nixon went relatively easily, there is nothing remotely approaching easy when it comes to Bush-Cheney; they play for keeps and probably wouldn't vacate even after the Senate reached a verdict to remove them from office. Just as they're resisting all efforts to leave Iraq, Bush-Cheney seem to have gone to great lengths to make sure impeachment won't happen. If I had to guess (and that's all I can do, guess) at what their public moves indicate, some hints loom menacingly in a document that's gotten no media or Congressional reaction: The "National Continuity Policy."

Released by the White House on May 9, 2007, the "National Continuity Policy" announced National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51) and the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20 (HSPD-20). In it, Bush establishes a policy for the continuity of "our form of government" in the event of "a catastrophic emergency" (defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function”). Whereas this directive identifies "our form of government" includes "the functioning of three separate branches of government," Bush declares, “The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.”

The legalization of the Unitary Executive, aka 'King George, and his regent, Dick.'

With NSPD 51 and HSPD-20 (and Michael Chertoff's announcement last week of his 'gut feeling' that a terrorist attack on the U.S. is imminent), I think it's fair to assume a repeat of 9/11, should momentum build for (or any investigations, legal actions gain ground that might lead toward) impeachment.

It's either that, or the Democrats in Congress aren't sly enough, smart enough to unravel this knots of the Bush-Cheney conspiracy, are lazy and lack the fortitude, and thus, lack the courage and loyalty to fight for the Constitution.

From Joseph Heller's Catch 22:

"America," he said, "will lose the war. And Italy will win it."

"America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth," Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. "And the American fighting man is second to none."

"Exactly," agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. "Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that's exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly."

"I'm sorry I laughed at you. But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don't call that doing very well, do you?"

"But of course I do," exclaimed the old man cheerfully. "The Germans are being driven out, and we're still here. In a few years, you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that's what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying anymore. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I'm quite certain Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed."

"America is not going to be destroyed!" he shouted passionately.

"Never?" prodded the old man softly.

"Well..." Nately faltered.

"Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so."

"I don't believe anything you tell me," Nately replied... "The only thing I do believe is that America is going to win the war."

"You put so much stock in winning wars. The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we've done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn't a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated."

Nately gaped at him in undisguised befuddlement. "Now I really don't understand what you're saying. You talk like a madman."

"But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I am anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American...When the Germans marched into the city, I danced in the streets like a ballerina and shouted `Heil Hitler!'... When the Germans left the city, I rushed out to welcome the Americans with a bottle of excellent brandy and a basket of flowers. The brandy was for myself, of course, and the flowers were to sprinkle upon our liberators... ".

"There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country," [Nately] declared.

"Isn't there?" asked the old man. "What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England. Americans are dying for America. Germans are dying for Germany. Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Sure so many countries can't all be worth dying for."

"Anything worth living for," Nately said, "is worth dying for."

"And anything worth dying for," answered the sacrilegious old man, "is certainly worth living for."

"Why don't you use some sense and try to be more like me? You might live to be a hundred and seven too."

"Because it's better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees. I guess you're heard that saying before."

"Yes I certainly have," mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. "But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees. That is the way the saying goes.

"Are you sure?" Nately asked with sober confusion. "It seems to make more sense my way."

"No, it makes more sense my way..."

'Just Released' NIE = Bush's Failed Report Card

For the second time ever, and after leaking an advance copy to the Associated Press, Bush-Cheney are releasing a 'declassified version' of the latest National Intelligence Estimate. It describes a "persistent and evolving" threat from al-Qaida over the next three years as the terrorist organization uses its enhanced power in Iraq to plot a possible attack on U.S. soil.

The last time the Bush-Cheney administration leaked an NIE, it was "selective"; only the parts that bolstered the administration's claims, and none of what called their claims into question.

This partial NIE is even less informative, containing nothing new, just more of the same rhetoric of fear. It is the stuff of Michael Chertoff's 'gut.'

According to AP, which has obtained an advance copy of the NIE, "the report makes clear that al-Qaida in Iraq, which has not yet posed a direct threat to U.S. soil, could become a problem here."

"Could become."

With enough bleach and plastic surgery, I could become a blonde with big breasts.

I do have to hand it to Bush-Cheney-Rove, though, for their breathtakingly colossal chutzpah. Normal, mentally fit, decent leaders would be mortified by this report and realize it's an indictment of their administration's failed policies.

After six years, BushCo hasn't lost its ability or will to try to spin negatives into positives. To release this NIE as an exhibit in BushCo's latest campaign to thwart efforts to change course and bring the troops out of Iraq, when it's the best evidence of how the U.S. occupation of Iraq is making worldwide terrorism worse, is no question about it, brass without equal.

BushCo has been given a blank check to do anything and everything it wanted to do to wage a "war on terror" (and what Bush-Cheney weren't given, they just took). We're back to 9/10/01. Trillions of dollars spent and committed long into the future, money which was supposed to go towards making us safer, but actually went into BushCo's pockets (their friends' and patrons' corporations) through privatization schemes. Our Constitutional rights, protections and guarantees are in shreds, and we're bigger targets, more exposed and vulnerable, and hated by many more throughout the world.

But is that what Bush-Cheney-Rove and the Republicans who are still firmly behind them see when they read this NIE? Is their response, "My bad, we blew it, let's change direction"? No. Their plan is "More of the same," more war (Iran), more legislation (they're now trying to tie their immigration reform legislation as "necessary to fight the war on terror"), "...and put a little hustle in it."

I hate to be a spoilsport, but when you live in Bush-Cheneyville long enough, it becomes second nature. Given the Bush-Cheney track record for lies and incompetence (blaming Al Qaeda and terrorism on Clinton first, and U.S. intelligence agencies second), and Congress's failure to do the work of oversight, I want to know what these "new and improved" intelligence agencies know and how they know it. A redacted NIE isn't going to cut it.

But, here it is, the NIE entitled, "Terrorist Threat To The U.S. Homeland," or, more accurately, "From The Desk of Cheney|Bush: "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...Don't Make Us Have To Set Another 9/11 in Motion":

The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland

July 2007

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

The Director of National Intelligence serves as the head of the Intelligence Community (IC), overseeing and directing the implementation of the National Intelligence Program and acting as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is charged with:

• Integrating the domestic and foreign dimensions of US intelligence so that there are no gaps in our understanding of threats to our national security;

• Bringing more depth and accuracy to intelligence analysis; and

• Ensuring that US intelligence resources generate future capabilities as well as present results.

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL
Since its formation in 1973, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) has served as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities, a source of deep substantive expertise on critical national security issues, and as a focal point for Intelligence Community collaboration. The NIC's key goal is to provide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information. Its primary functions are to:

• Support the DNI in his role as Principal Intelligence Advisor to the President and other senior policymakers.

• Lead the Intelligence Community's effort to produce National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and other NIC products that address key national security concerns.

• Provide a focal point for policymakers, warfighters, and Congressional leaders to task the Intelligence Community for answers to important questions.

• Reach out to nongovernment experts in academia and the private sector—and use alternative analyses and new analytic tools—to broaden and deepen the Intelligence Community's perspective.

NIEs are the DNI's most authoritative written judgments concerning national security issues. They contain the coordinated judgments of the Intelligence Community regarding the likely course of future events.

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATES AND THE NIE PROCESS

National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are the Intelligence Community’s (IC) most authoritative written judgments on national security issues and designed to help US civilian and military leaders develop policies to protect US national security interests. NIEs usually provide information on the current state of play but are primarily “estimative”—that is, they make judgments about the likely course of future events and identify the implications for US policy.

The NIEs are typically requested by senior civilian and military policymakers, Congressional leaders and at times are initiated by the National Intelligence Council (NIC). Before a NIE is drafted, the relevant National Intelligence Officer is responsible for producing a concept paper, or terms of reference (TOR), and circulates it throughout the Intelligence Community for comment. The TOR defines the key estimative questions, determines drafting responsibilities, and sets the drafting and publication schedule. One or more IC analysts are usually assigned to produce the initial text. The NIC then meets to critique the draft before it is circulated to the broader IC. Representatives from the relevant IC agencies meet to hone and coordinate line-by-line the full text of the NIE. Working with their Agencies, representatives also assign the level of confidence they have in key judgments. IC representatives discuss the quality of sources with collectors, and the National Clandestine Service vets the sources used to ensure the draft does not include any that have been recalled or otherwise seriously questioned.

All NIEs are reviewed by National Intelligence Board, which is chaired by the DNI and is composed of the heads of relevant IC agencies. Once approved by the NIB, NIEs are briefed to the President and senior policymakers. The whole process of producing NIEs normally takes at least several months.

The NIC has undertaken a number of steps to improve the NIE process under the DNI. These steps are in accordance with the goals and recommendations set out in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and WMD Commission reports and the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Prevention of Terrorism Act. Most notably, over the last two years the IC has:

• Created new procedures to integrate formal reviews of source reporting and technical judgments. The Director of CIA, as the National HUMINT Manager, as well as the Directors of NSA, NGA, and DIA and the Assistant Secretary/INR are now required to submit formal assessments that highlight the strengths, weaknesses, and overall credibility of their sources used in developing the critical judgments of the NIE.

• Applied more rigorous standards. A textbox is incorporated into all NIEs that explains what we mean by such terms as “we judge” and that clarifies the difference between judgments of likelihood and confidence levels. We have made a concerted effort to not only highlight differences among agencies but to explain the reasons for such differences and to display them prominently in the Key Judgments.

THE US HOMELAND THREAT ESTIMATE: HOW IT WAS PRODUCED

The Estimate, Terrorist Threats to the US Homeland, followed the standard process for producing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), including a thorough review of sourcing, in-depth Community coordination, the use of alternative analysis, and review by outside experts. Starting in October 2006, the NIC organized a series of roundtables with IC experts to scope out terms of reference (TOR) for the Estimate. Drafters from throughout the Community contributed to the draft. In May, a draft was submitted to IC officers in advance of a series of coordination meetings that spanned several days. The National Clandestine Service, FBI, and other IC collection officers reviewed the text for the reliability and proper use of the sourcing. As part of the normal coordination process, analysts had the opportunity--and were encouraged--to register “dissents” and provide alternative analysis. Reactions by the two outside experts who read the final product were highlighted in the text. The National Intelligence Board, composed of the heads of the 16 IC agencies and chaired by the ODNI, reviewed and approved the Estimate on 21 June. As with other NIEs, it is being distributed to senior Administration officials and Members of Congress.

What We Mean When We Say: An Explanation of Estimative Language

When we use words such as “we judge” or “we assess”—terms we use synonymously—as well as “we estimate,” “likely” or “indicate,” we are trying to convey an analytical assessment or judgment. These assessments, which are based on incomplete or at times fragmentary information are not a fact, proof, or knowledge. Some analytical judgments are based directly on collected information; others rest on previous judgments, which serve as building blocks. In either type of judgment, we do not have “evidence” that shows something to be a fact or that definitively links two items or issues.

Intelligence judgments pertaining to likelihood are intended to reflect the Community’s sense of the probability of a development or event. Assigning precise numerical ratings to such judgments would imply more rigor than we intend. The chart below provides a rough idea of the relationship of terms to each other.

We do not intend the term “unlikely” to imply an event will not happen. We use “probably” and “likely” to indicate there is a greater than even chance. We use words such as “we cannot dismiss,” “we cannot rule out,” and “we cannot discount” to reflect an unlikely—or even remote—event whose consequences are such it warrants mentioning. Words such as “may be” and “suggest” are used to reflect situations in which we are unable to assess the likelihood generally because relevant information is nonexistent, sketchy, or fragmented.

In addition to using words within a judgment to convey degrees of likelihood, we also ascribe “high,” “moderate,” or “low” confidence levels based on the scope and quality of information supporting our judgments.

• “High confidence” generally indicates our judgments are based on high-quality information and/or the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment.

• “Moderate confidence” generally means the information is interpreted in various ways, we have alternative views, or the information is credible and plausible but not corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.

• “Low confidence” generally means the information is scant, questionable, or very fragmented and it is difficult to make solid analytic inferences, or we have significant concerns or problems with the sources.

Key Judgments

We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years. The main threat comes from Islamic terrorist groups and cells, especially al-Qa’ida, driven by their undiminished intent to attack the Homeland and a continued effort by these terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.

We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11.

• We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge.

Al-Qa’ida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qa'ida senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qa’ida will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.

• As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment.

We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.

We assess that al-Qa’ida’s Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the US population. The group is proficient with conventional small arms and improvised explosive devices, and is innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles.

• We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.

We assess Lebanese Hizballah, which has conducted anti-US attacks outside the United States in the past, may be more likely to consider attacking the Homeland over the next three years if it perceives the United States as posing a direct threat to the group or Iran.

We assess that the spread of radical—especially Salafi—Internet sites, increasingly aggressive anti-US rhetoric and actions, and the growing number of radical, self-generating cells in Western countries indicate that the radical and violent segment of the West’s Muslim population is expanding, including in the United States. The arrest and prosecution by US law enforcement of a small number of violent Islamic extremists inside the United States— who are becoming more connected ideologically, virtually, and/or in a physical sense to the global extremist movement—points to the possibility that others may become sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence here as legitimate. We assess that this internal Muslim terrorist threat is not likely to be as severe as it is in Europe, however.

We assess that other, non-Muslim terrorist groups—often referred to as “single-issue” groups by the FBI—probably will conduct attacks over the next three years given their violent histories, but we assess this violence is likely to be on a small scale.

We assess that globalization trends and recent technological advances will continue to enable even small numbers of alienated people to find and connect with one another, justify and intensify their anger, and mobilize resources to attack—all without requiring a centralized terrorist organization, training camp, or leader.

• The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment will challenge current US defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt plots. It will also require greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local level relate to strategic threat information and how best to identify indicators of terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions.

A Peace Owl

Shaul Aviel, center, an Israeli from Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, Jordanian veterinary surgeon Dr.Safwan Fawzi Al Hussein, right, and Jordanian agricultural engineer Baker Hasan Barakat examine a barn owl in this recent undated picture taken south of the Sea of Galilee. In the midst of seemingly endless Mideast violence, Israelis and Jordanians are sharing ideas for protecting nature, using owls instead of harmful pesticides to keep the rats out of the crops. (AP Photo)

The LATimes reports:

For years, Ibrahim Alayyan watched in frustration as rats ravaged the date crop at his lush family farm.

Having no luck with pesticides, the retired Jordanian heart surgeon was only too eager to try a pest control agent widely used in fields just across the Jordan River in Israel -- owls.

"There used to be so many rats," Alayyan said. "But after we put in the owls, thank God, this is the first time we have had a full date harvest."

To the world, the symbol of peace may be a dove, but to farmers on either side of the Jordan, it's Tyto alba, the common barn owl.

Alayyan is one of dozens of Jordanians working in cooperation with Israeli colleagues, targeting rodents with a natural predator instead of with chemicals.

The effort still faces suspicions and superstitions, but organizers hope the message of their partial success will spread to Lebanon, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries, and demonstrate the fruits of the 1994 peace treaty that ended a 46-year state of war between Israel and Jordan.

Political benefits aside, the project is driven foremost by environmental concerns.

In the late 1970s, chemicals killed hundreds of birds in northern Israel, said Yossi Leshem, an Israeli ornithologist and director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration.

So Leshem persuaded Sde Eliyahu, a kibbutz south of the Sea of Galilee, to try owls, which can eat up to 10 rodents a day. All the farmers needed was to build boxes where the birds could mate and raise their young.

"I put up 14 barn owl boxes, and everybody laughed at me," said Shauli Aviel, who oversees the effort at the collective farm.

A few years later, Sde Eliyahu's rat problem had vanished, he said. More than 60 nesting boxes now sit on the grounds of the kibbutz, and the technique has caught on with other farmers along the Jordan.

Yet as the owl population grew, the birds increasingly began flying -- and looking to nest -- across the nearby border with Jordan, where pesticide use remains rampant. Chemicals seeped into the water table, and owls were poisoned by eating contaminated rodents.

Then came the peace treaty, Israelis and Jordanians got used to being good neighbors, and in late 2002 Aviel and fellow Israeli farmers planned a regional conference on barn owls to explain their advantages to colleagues across the Jordan River.

The response was discouraging. Many Arabs consider owls the same way others view black cats -- as bad luck. Word came back to the Israelis that no Jordanians would attend.

So the organizers changed the title of the conference to focus on organic farming, and two dozen Jordanians turned up. Midway through the gathering they were given a demonstration on owls, and soon Jordanian farmers were asking how they could attract owls to their fields, Aviel said.

With funding from the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, Ohio, the kibbutz gave the Jordanians advice and building materials. More than three dozen nesting boxes have since been put up in Jordan, organizers said.

Among the most eager participants was Alayyan, a former chief of cardiovascular surgery at a Jordanian hospital. He agreed to build a nesting box at his family's farm in the village of Sheik Hussein, six miles from Aviel's kibbutz.

"For me, it was a real pleasure to find a man like that on the other side of the border," said Aviel, as he and Alayyan surveyed a group of newborn owl nestlings. Unable to communicate in their own languages, the two men spoke to each other in English, but when it came to nature and conservation, "He spoke in my language," Aviel said.

The project also has gotten support from political and former military leaders in both countries, including Mansour Abu Rashed, the former head of Jordanian intelligence.

Rashed, who heads the Amman Center for Peace and Development, said organizers are "under no illusions" the owl project will ease Mideast tensions; the goal is simply "to bring people together, to let them talk and build confidence."

But obstacles remain. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Israeli farmers delayed the initial delivery of building materials to Jordan for the owl boxes because of the tense atmosphere. Arabic posters promoting the benefits of barn owls make no mention of Israel.

Some Israeli organizers have expressed frustration at the pace of progress in Jordan. And last month, some nesting boxes on Jordanian farms were stolen or vandalized. Although it was unclear whether the vandalism was driven by owl-phobia or by Israel's involvement, it upset Leshem, the Israeli ornithologist.

"We are wasting our money and time, coming and putting boxes -- and then, suddenly, they are destroyed," he said after a recent meeting with the Jordanians.

"It's a new project in our area," explained Abu Rashed, the retired general. "Nobody knows what's inside" the boxes.

Organizers also say the project has gained little traction among Palestinians, because of security restrictions that make it hard for them and Israelis to travel to each other's territory for meetings.

Still, even when tensions run high, the environment is one of the few areas where Israelis and Arabs cooperate. The owl conference went ahead at a time when the Palestinian uprising against Israel was at its peak, and during that uprising, Israeli and Palestinian officials maintained contacts on issues such as water quality and waste removal.

The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in southern Israel trains Jewish and Arab students, including Jordanians and Palestinians, in solving ecological problems.

Friends of the Earth-Middle East, an organization of Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists, leads joint efforts to clean up the Jordan River and promote eco-tourism packages on both sides of the border.

"We're doing something our governments are not able to do," says Mira Edelstein, an organization spokeswoman. "If people know how to highlight the environmental benefits that can come out of this type of cooperation, then it's not political anymore."

When it's in their mutual interest, people find a way to get along.

Feel Good

Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

Will Georgia Kill An Innocent Man?

A snapshot from a family visit to Troy Davis, who is on Georgia's death row.

Time reports:

The pending execution of Troy Anthony Davis, scheduled to take place on July 17, is raising serious questions about his guilt — and about the Newt Gingrich-era federal law that has limited his appeals options and prevented him, say his supporters, from getting a fair shake.

Davis, 38, a former coach in the Savannah Police Athletic League who had signed up for the Marines, was convicted in the 1989 murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a Savannah, Ga., police officer. MacPhail was off-duty when he was shot dead in a Savannah parking lot while responding to an assault. Davis was at the scene of the crime, and an acquaintance who was there with him accused Davis of being the shooter. Since his conviction in 1991, Davis has seen each of his state and federal appeals fail. But in the court of public opinion, Davis presents a compelling argument. Seven of the nine main witnesses whose testimony led to his conviction have since recanted. The murder weapon has never been found, and there is no physical evidence linking the crime to Davis, who has asserted his innocence throughout.

Earlier this month, two of the jurors who sentenced Davis to death signed sworn affidavits saying that based on the recanted testimony, he should not be executed. "In light of this new evidence," wrote one juror, "I have genuine concerns about the fairness of Mr. Davis' death sentence."

One of Davis' major obstacles has been the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), legislation championed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of his Contract with America and signed by former president Bill Clinton. The act was passed in 1996 as a way of reforming what Gingrich called "the current interminable, frivolous appeals process." Its major provisions reduced new trials for convicted criminals and sped up their sentences by restricting a federal court's ability to judge whether a state court had correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution.

Facing political pressure one year after the Oklahoma City bombing and seven months before the presidential election, Clinton signed the bill, but inserted a somewhat incongruous signing statement that called for the federal courts to continue their oversight role.

That was wishful thinking, say many legal experts. "President Clinton was trying to have his cake and eat it, too," said George Kendall, senior counsel at Holland and Knight and a board member of the Death Penalty Information Center. The reality since 1996, legal analysts say, has been a U.S. Supreme Court that has narrowly interpreted the act, further restraining the ability of federal courts to grant new trials (on June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to give Davis one last hearing). "The bottom line," said Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender in Arizona, "is that the AEDPA is very harsh and unforgiving."

So now there are serious questions whether, as Gingrich famously said, justice delayed is justice denied. The system of appeals can still stretch out over decades, but in Davis' case, many of those appeals are now being denied for procedural reasons. In his 2004 petition to the federal district court in Savannah, Davis presented recanted testimony, most of which involves witnesses who say police coercion caused them to wrongly implicate Davis. He also presented nine individuals' affidavits that suggested that the real murderer was actually the former acquaintance who first accused Davis of the crime.

The federal judge rejected the petition since, under the current law, the evidence must first be presented in state court. But Tom Dunn, the executive director of the Georgia Resource Center, which helped represent Davis, says that funding trouble prevented the center from presenting the evidence in state court in the first place. Tracking down witnesses costs money, but in 1995, just as Dunn's colleagues had been preparing Davis' appeal, Congress eliminated $20 million in funding to post-conviction defender organizations like the Georgia center, which lost 70% of its budget. Six of the center's eight lawyers left, as well as three of its four investigators, and Davis' case became one of about 80 that Beth Wells, then executive director, had to handle with her co-director.

"The work conducted on Mr. Davis' case was akin to triage," Wells wrote in an affidavit, "where we were simply trying to avert total disaster rather than provide any kind of active or effective representation...There were numerous witnesses that we knew should have been interviewed, but lacked the resources to do so."
Georgia officials insist that Davis' failed 2004 federal court hearing is proof he has had his opportunity in court with the new evidence. "They've had a chance to challenge the conviction," said David Lock, chief assistant district attorney in Chatham County, where Savannah is located.

Davis' attorney has been filing a flurry of requests for a stay of execution until a new trial can be held. Meanwhile Davis' sister, Martina Correia, has helped assemble an diverse group of advocates — from Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean to South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to former FBI director William S. Sessions (a death penalty supporter) — to petition the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Davis' sentence to life in prison when it meets on July 16, the day before he's scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Correia has watched her brother spend half his life in prison. This case is not only about him, she says, but it's also about a law that short-changes the convicted. "If for any reason [the last-minute appeal] doesn't go the right way, Georgia is going to be so shamed," she said. "I just don't want my brother to have to be executed to be the catalyst for change."

I've never understood Conservatives' lust for the death penalty. Especially with how fallible our system of justice is. But to have Bill Clinton, a Democratic president who has been so wrongly perceived as a liberal, play politics with this very imprecise system shatters what little faith remains in the notion of checks and balances in our form of government.

Continued U.S. Presence In Iraq Is Creating 'Next Generation' Of Trauma Victims

In Baghdad, even babies quickly learn to duck snipers.

A sniper's bullet pierced the window of Nawal Na'eem Karim's house last week in Baghdad, Iraq. (Abdul Wehab Hamad/MCT)

McClatchy reports:

Nawal Na'eem Karim was surprised this week to hear her toddler tell her, "Talaq inana! Talaq inana!" — "Bullets here! Bullets here!"

He was warning her to step cautiously past the windows. Their house is in a kill zone. At 18 months, her baby already had learned counterinsurgency survival. He still wears a diaper.

Karim's family is among hundreds in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim-dominated Amil neighborhood who are under siege in their homes; in this case from two local snipers, one apparently stationed in a minaret of a nearby Sunni Muslim mosque.

Her experience shows that the U.S. troop buildup has yet to penetrate everywhere in Baghdad, as President Bush pressed Thursday for more time for the increase to show results.

"Leaving now will be dangerous for Iraq, the region and the United States," he said.

The U.S. military spokesman here on Wednesday and President Bush on Thursday described the war mainly as a battle against al Qaida. Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner cited "hundreds" of insurgents from the group al Qaida in Iraq who'd been captured or killed since June, when American-led forces launched offensives in provinces north and east of the capital.

But Karim and her neighbors wish U.S. or Iraqi forces would concentrate on the local snipers. Because of that failing, from her perspective, the American troops can't leave soon enough. There's vigorous debate on this point, however, and some of her neighbors say U.S. troops are the only force that's still preserving order.

American military officials said they'd had reports of a sniper just outside Amil but were unable to confirm whether the shots came from a mosque. They recommended that residents call a Baghdad hot line. The number wasn't in service when McClatchy reporters called several times Thursday.

The shooter took up shop a few months ago, presumably in a minaret of the Abu Bakar mosque, a couple of blocks from Karim's house. The mosque is in the al Janabat area, the only parcel in Amil — due west and just south of the fortified Green Zone — that Shiites don't control.

This sniper works the morning and evening shifts, although lately he's been taking the mornings off. It's unclear how many he's killed or wounded. Residents can set their watches to the shooting.

"In the morning he starts at 6:30, when students and people go to work, until 7:30," said Ahmed Talib Hassan, 22, a medical student. The sniper typically resumes from 7 p.m. until sundown, he said, "when people start coming back home."

For the past few days, the morning routine from the Sunni enclave has started with mortar attacks, Hassan said, "as kind of a reminder" for the sniper to start firing.

Last week, another sniper took up a position to the west of the first shooter. This one targeted Karim's home, where the former schoolteacher lives with her husband, who makes a living working on generators, and their three sons. The older boys are 6 and 4.

On July 4, sniper bullets hit the backyard fence and the outside wall of her bedroom and came through a window, smashing a mirror in the kitchen.

Karim, 34, who wears her dark hair flowing down her back, sometimes pokes her head through doorways before scampering from room to room. She's afraid to wash dishes in the kitchen sink. She tells her children not to play in the backyard garden, not to play out front, not to play by the windows.

She's frustrated, and looks forward to the day that U.S. troops will leave Iraq. "It will be a happy day when it comes," she said.

"You invaded Iraq in 20 days but the Amil neighborhood is still suffering for more than two years," she added.

"Why couldn't they control a small area that a sniper has taken over, when they have all the technology to get rid of him within seconds?"

There's another side to the debate.

"There will be a real disaster if the American troops leave," said Zainab, 27, of Baghdad, who asked that her full name not be used to protect her safety. "It will open the way for the militias and insurgents to have open civil war. We live in a civil war now, but a hidden one because of U.S. troops. If they leave now, the civil war would be public. Innocent Iraqis would be the only losers."

Umran al Mosawi, 56, of Baghdad, disagreed. "Stability will come with (the U.S. troop) departure because they are the ones who protect all the criminals in Iraq," he said. A troop withdrawal would allow the Iraqi government to get tough and "have real strict decisions" against insurgents from neighboring countries.

Haidar al Azzawi, 37, of Baghdad, said Americans "have committed many mistakes and are part of the problem." However, "their departure now would be the biggest mistake."

Sara Taylor, Confused As To Whom/What She Swore An Oath To

The Washington Post's profile of Sara Taylor and her journey to the White House:

On a snowy evening in December 1998, Sara M. Taylor, the daughter of a former pipe fitter at a John Deere plant in Iowa, came to a meeting at the Capital Hilton. Washington had grown dark and quiet, and the hotel restaurant was empty, save two people: Omaha financial guru Warren Buffett, and the man she was there to meet -- Karl Rove. Rove had just helped reelect George W. Bush as governor of Texas, and now Rove and Bush had begun the slow process of building a presidential run.

Over the course of an hour Rove quizzed her on the politics of her home state. Her dad, before she was born, had done a stint in the Iowa legislature, and two years earlier she'd taken a year off from her studies at Drake University to work on the presidential campaign of Texas senator Phil Gramm. They spoke about the coalitions needed to win -- social conservatives and the agriculture constituency -- and about the need to meet people personally. Suddenly, Bush himself walked in, plopped down beside her and Rove and drilled her about what he needed to know to win Iowa. In a matter of months, Taylor moved back to Iowa, helping to set up Bush's 2000 win. She was 24.

That was the beginning of Taylor's relationship with the two men. The end is proving more difficult to resolve.

After eight years working with Bush and Rove through two presidential campaigns and two turbulent administrations, Taylor, now 32, finds herself unable to exit gracefully. After leaving her post as White House political director in May out of what she says was a search for normalcy, she now finds herself part of the unending congressional probe into the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

Yesterday, after the White House invoked executive privilege regarding any meetings, conversations and deliberations she had in the matter, Taylor became the latest high-level political appointee to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. These constraints led to a torturous session, and both sides expressed frustration over what she could and couldn't say. Under questioning yesterday, she refused to answer several questions and testified that she never spoke or met with President Bush about plans to fire the U.S. attorneys last year.

Said friend and former White House communications director Nicolle Wallace: "I just feel like it's incredibly unfair that she's being caught in what's really a struggle between Congress and the White House."

Taylor's been in tough fights before. Following her service for Bush in Iowa, she moved on to South Carolina, Washington state and Michigan. After the cliffhanger election, she was dispatched to Florida to help with recount efforts. Often pulling volunteers from Texas off the floor for not paying attention to their tasks, she eventually developed a pinpoint tracking system that literally traced each recounted ballot.

"It's methodical," Taylor said one evening last week over dinner on Capitol Hill. "You create a system to check every ballot and then you have a spreadsheet in place to tell you where you are. We always knew if we lost one vote or picked one up."

Described by her former colleagues as a tireless worker, Taylor's stature only grew after Bush took control of the White House in 2001. First charged with overseeing the Midwest in the political office led by Ken Mehlman, she joined the 2004 reelection campaign as a top strategist. Taylor was involved in everything from media planning and travel schedules to polling and research.

Asked about her rapid rise, Taylor, who was a finance major in college, said, "I would argue a lot of it had to do with my analytical ability. I think a lot of political operatives have good people skills and great social skills and work really hard, but everyone's not really good at math."

"I was the media director and her title was deputy strategist," said Mark McKinnon. "But functionally she basically did 80 percent of the work for me and [chief campaign strategist] Matthew Dowd. She knows polling, she knows media, she knows the field. For someone her age she has more knowledge than someone with a lifetime of campaigning."

Taylor's reward? A spot as the White House political director after the departure of Matthew Schlapp. From a mid-level staffer, Taylor came back to the White House to advise the senior staff and the president on domestic political issues and played an important role in anything involved with Bush's domestic agenda. Her new role meant constant contact with Rove, whose relationship with Taylor evolved from first "a teacher and leader to almost more of a partner," said Wallace.

"He makes you a better person because he's so methodical and is so smart and never misses anything and is demanding in a good way," Taylor said of her former boss. "He just doesn't have time for error. You can't put a value on the training process."

Another lesson learned?

"Even when you think an e-mail is private, it never is," she said, in reference to a disparaging e-mail involving the firing of Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

By last December, after the Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, Taylor had had enough. By her own account, she could never separate her personal and professional lives and found herself exhausted, ready to start a new life away from the White House. In May, she left.

A clean break it wasn't. After taking time off for the first time in years, she traveled to Europe and returned home to a subpoena.

She wasn't terribly surprised. Last year Taylor signed up for professional liability insurance after noting comments made by some Democrats on the 2006 campaign trail about wanting to investigate the White House.

But now she's on several hooks. This week she found out the insurance will not cover her legal costs. Moreover, she's restrained from fully telling her side of things, from moving on.

"It's a very difficult position to be in," she said. "The president has exerted executive privilege and I have great respect for the president. The problem for you as an individual is that this comes at a huge personal cost financially.

"But this is a bigger issue than me. I understand the president is doing what he believes is right."

Ms. Taylor is bound by no law which prevents her from testifying in full to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bush's claim of executive privilege is just that, a statement that carries no force of law. If Ms. Taylor decided to talk to the committee, Bush would have to go to court to get a restraining order preventing it.

So now, everybody waits.

For what? Nobody will actually say, but, like children lining up for the latest Harry Potter book or movie, everyone waits wishing for some kind of magical break. Absent Bush and Cheney having a "come to Jesus"-moment and confessing outright to six years of criminal acts, it doesn't look as if any break is on the horizon or anytime beyond that. Bush and Cheney have artfully, if not illegally, covered their tracks, and the Democratic Congress is afraid (or so they say) to challenge those tactics in the courts for fear that the last twenty-five years of conservative-stacking of the courts will settle these issues for all time in Bush's ("Unitary Executive") favor.

If that is the case, the sooner Americans learn that truth the better. We've been like the proverbial frog in the pot of water being brought to a boil on the stove. Democratic inaction has enabled Bush, Cheney and Republicans to rob and murder, both at home and abroad, in all of our names. If the people are ever to get our nation back, Democrats are going to have to be bold and stand up to every one of Bush's moves.

And citing Sara Taylor for contempt of Congress is a good place to start. Either way (her talking or not after being cited for contempt) works for Democrats. Americans would see a second woman (the first was Judith Miller) doing jail time so that these cowardly men can walk free. These are not sympathetic characters, any of them.

A contempt of Congress citation just might be the best thing to happen to Ms. Taylor. If she continues to believe that the oath she took was to Bush and not to the Constitution, perhaps some time in jail might help to clear her mind of neocon programming. Another secret defense fund, such as the one that neocons set up for Scooter Libby, would undoubtedly be established, and Ms. Taylor could wind up a very rich young woman. However this shakes out, I think it's a safe guess that Ms. Taylor's silence guarantees her a highly lucrative future.



Call Senator Leahy's office (202 224-4242) and urge him to ratchet up the heat.

Bush's War on Terror: Gross Incompetence or Simply Fraud?

The Washington Post reports:

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.

After counterfeiting copies of the license, the GAO undercover agents ordered portable moisture density gauges, which contain radioactive americium-241 and cesium-137 and are commonly used at construction sites to analyze the properties of soil, water and pavement. The investigators ordered 45 gauges -- enough to build a bomb with enough radioactive material to qualify as a level-3 threat on the International Atomic Energy Agency's scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the most hazardous.

The GAO investigators never took possession of the radioactive material, in part because they lacked the means to handle it safely. But the report notes that, armed with an arsenal of phony licenses, they could have secured contracts to buy much more than they did -- enabling them to make an even more lethal bomb.

"We altered the license so that it appeared our bogus company could purchase an unrestricted quantity" of radioactive material, the report says. A dirty bomb is designed to use conventional explosives to cause immediate injury to people nearby but also to cause a long-lasting threat by contaminating a wider area with radioactive material.

The GAO undertook the sting operation at the request of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), the top minority member of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, which since 2003 has been examining security gaps at the NRC and other federal agencies that could leave the country vulnerable to biological or nuclear attack. The report is to be the subject of hearings today before the subcommittee .

The GAO study is the latest of several government reports following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to warn of serious security gaps in NRC licensing procedures. A year ago, undercover GAO officials successfully bought enough radioactive material abroad to make two dirty bombs and smuggled them into the United States at two points, one on the Canadian border and one on the border with Mexico.

"It was as easy to get his material as a DVD at Netflix," Coleman said of the most recent investigation. "If al-Qaeda had set up a phony corporation in the U.S., they could have gathered enough material to make a dirty bomb. The problem is that the NRC is still operating on a pre-9/11 mentality. It boggles my mind that the NRC doesn't readily understand the threat we face."

NRC commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. said in an interview yesterday that the agency, while concerned about any security weakness, has had to allocate finite resources to what it thinks are the biggest potential threats to public safety. He said terrorists have looked for relatively simple ways to cause massive death and damage. Devices such as the moisture gauges, he said, pose a relatively low-level risk because they require a vast amount of work to fashion into a dangerous weapon.

"My sole concern, our sole concern, has been the safety of the American people," he said.

After the GAO presented the NRC with the results of its undercover operation, NRC officials on June 1 ordered an immediate, temporary halt in new licenses to handle radiation risks of 3 or lower. The agency lifted the ban two weeks later after modifying its procedures to require either a face-to-face meeting or site visit, McGaffigan said. The NRC already requires site visits before issuing licenses to handle material with risk levels of 1 and 2.

McGaffigan, who is to testify on behalf of the NRC at the hearing, acknowledged that one serious hurdle remains. "We have to fix the problem of people taking our licenses and counterfeiting them," he said.

In a report in 2006 and again this year, the NRC's inspector general criticized NRC officials for failing to detect and understand security flaws in its licensing process.

Coleman and other critics say the NRC essentially has ignored warnings for years and has done too little to remedy problems that would make it easier for someone to make a dirty bomb. Coleman called the NRC's efforts since June 1 "baby steps" that are insufficient and particularly outrageous because the agency has taken so long to act despite having been warned of serious flaws for more than four years.

When GAO investigators briefed Coleman on the results of the most recent operation, they said they focused the sting on West Virginia in part to show how close to the nation's capital a terrorist could build a bomb. Such proximity would reduce the chance of detection during transport to a target, the GAO briefers said, according to Senate staff members who heard the briefing.

In addition, by operating from West Virginia, the GAO undercover investigators were required to deal directly with the NRC. That's because West Virginia is one of more than a dozen states, including Virginia and the District of Columbia, that don't have their own system for issuing licenses for the handling of radioactive material and monitoring those who apply for them.

During the sting operation, an NRC official speaking to one of the phony businessmen on the phone said the agency needed to speak to the man's boss. The GAO agent put him on hold for a minute or two, then picked up the call without disguising his voice but pretending to be his boss, according to people familiar with the GAO investigation. The NRC reviewer accepted the calls at face value.

By contrast, the GAO investigators failed to obtain a license in Maryland, which is one of 34 states that under agreement with the NRC conduct their own licensing. Maryland officials told the disguised GAO employees that state inspectors would have to visit their company and perform other checks, which would take at least seven months. At that point, the phony businessmen withdrew their application, the report says.