Bush Iraq Plan Is Condemned by Senate Panel

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: January 25, 2007

Smuggler’s Plot Highlights Fear Over Uranium

By LAWRENCE SCOTT SHEETS and WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: January 25, 2007

Stability, not democracy...

Rice Speaks Softly in Egypt, Avoiding Democracy Push

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: January 16, 2007

Some quotes from the article linked above:

Cellphone videos posted on the Internet showed the police sodomizing a bus driver with a broomstick. Another showed the police hanging a woman by her knees and wrists from a pole for questioning. A company partly owned by a member of the governing party distributed tens of thousands of bags of contaminated blood to hospitals around the country. And just 24 hours before Ms. Rice arrived, the authorities arrested a television reporter on charges of harming national interests by making a film about police torture. The reporter was released, but the authorities kept the tapes.

Ms. Rice, who once lectured Egyptians on the need to respect the rule of law, did not address those domestic concerns. Instead, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit by her side, she talked about her appreciation for Egypt’s support in the region.

It was clear that the United States — facing chaos in Iraq, rising Iranian influence and the destabilizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict — had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority, Egyptian political commentators, political aides and human rights advocates said.

5 Years in Limbo...

Some at Guantanamo Mark 5 Years in Limbo
Big Questions About Low-Profile Inmates

By Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate

Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 16, 2007; Page A01

Quotes from the article linked above:

"I never had a war against the United States, and I am surprised I'm here," Ruhani told his captors during his first chance to hear the military's reasons for holding him, three years after he arrived at Guantanamo. "I tried to cooperate with Americans. I am no enemy of yours."

Now prison and prisoner are forever linked, joined by hasty decisions made in war and trapped by that fateful beginning.

Insurgent TV channel Iraq's newest cult hit Michael Howard in Baghdad Monday January 15, 2007 The Guardian

Today's Headlines

Sometimes reading the headlines can really give you a wake-up call...

From CNN.com

U.S. official:
Chinese test missile obliterates satellite


From NPR.org:

...senators also wanted to know if there's anything to growing talk of a possible U.S. attack on Iran. Former U.S. Centcom commander Gen. Joseph Hoar would not dismiss that possibility. "I don't know why you have two carrier battle groups in the Gulf," Hoar said, "when fixed-wing air — while an essential part of any campaign — doesn't require a lot of airplanes on a day-to-day basis; and why you would have an admiral in charge of Centcom when you have two essentially ground combat operations going in two separate campaigns."

Hoar said those discrepancies "would all indicate to me that there's something moving right now towards Iran."

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Joseph Biden said he plans to redraft the use-of-force legislation to make clear it does not authorize an attack on Iran.

Court to Oversee Wiretap Program - USA Today

The following is from today's USA Today website:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration said Wednesday that it will allow an independent court to oversee its controversial surveillance program in which the National Security Agency has electronically eavesdropped on Americans and others without obtaining court warrants.

It's about time...

Over 34,000 Civilians Died in Iraq Last Year

The following information comes from an article in this morning's New York Times by SABRINA TAVERNISE.

Iraqi Death Toll Exceeded 34,000 in '06, U.N. Says.

According to a UN report released yesterday, more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in violence last year, that is an average of 94 Iraqis died every day. About half the deaths occurred in the capital. A majority died from gunshot wounds, execution-style, killings that are a common method for both Sunni and Shiite death squads.

Most of the deaths are due to violence between Sunnis and Shiites, which was virtually unheard of in the early years of the war. Military commanders have acknowledged that they underestimated the seriousness of the sectarian killings, which took off after the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra last year drew Shiites into the war. Up until then, Sunni militants had done most of the killing. Now, the capital is mired in violence, as the two groups fight over territory.

In the shootings, bodies surface days later in sewers and garbage dumps. The report said that most unidentified bodies were found in six neighborhoods of Baghdad, three Sunni — Dora, Rashidiya and Adhamiya — and three Shiite — Sadr City, New Baghdad and the hardscrabble slum of Shuala.

One result, described by the report, is a society in collapse. At least 470,094 Iraqis have fled their homes since February. The number of displaced Iraqis was the highest in the embattled Sunni province of Anbar, where 10,105 families fled, followed by Karbala in the south, Baghdad, and Dohuk in the north.

Iraqi government forces also suffered painful losses. The report cited an Interior Ministry figure of 12,000 Iraqi security forces killed, both the Army and the police, since 2003.The report provided details on the outcomes of a number of mass kidnappings throughout the fall. The attacks seem to be a signature of Shiite militias. Around 70 Iraqis, almost all Sunnis, are still missing after being kidnapped in November from the Ministry of Higher Education in downtown Baghdad. The attack took place on a day when teachers from the Sunni areas of Anbar, Salahuddin and Mosul were visiting.

The kidnappings have completely redrawn the composition of neighborhoods. Sinek, a wholesale market in the heart of Baghdad, once thoroughly mixed, is slowly emptying of Sunnis. Men in uniforms seized around 50 merchants on Dec. 2. About 29 were later released. All were Shiite.

Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in U.S.

Military Is Expanding Its Intelligence Role in U.S.

Just an article that reports some information that I believe everyone ought to be aware of.

A quote from this article in the New York Times:

"Some national security experts and civil liberties advocates are troubled by the C.I.A. and military taking on domestic intelligence activities, particularly in light of recent disclosures that the Counterintelligence Field Activity office had maintained files on Iraq war protesters in the United States in violation of the military’s own guidelines. Some experts say the Pentagon has adopted an overly expansive view of its domestic role under the guise of “force protection,” or efforts to guard military installations.

“There’s a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement,” said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the C.I.A. who is the dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. “They’re moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating.”"

From the reporting, it seems that this information is only being sought and utilized in a limited number of cases. That is, I suppose, somewhat comforting.

And, another article worth reading might be this one:
Deletions in Army Manual Raise Wiretapping Concerns

Pentagon Disavows Comment on Detainees

I can't even believe that the comments that are being disavowed were ever made by a government official in THIS country in the first place! Wait a minute... yes I can.

Pentagon Disavows Comment on Detainees

Here is a link to the audio of the interview:
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/emedia/59677.wma

If this doesn't leave you incredulous or make you angry... I don't know if anything about what is going on in our world today will. At least the Pentagon is disavowing his comments.

Here are some quotes from what Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs had to say in this interview:

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking,"

He then names off a list of firms who are representing the Guantanamo detainees.

Afterwards he says:

"I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

When asked where the lawyers were getting their funding he responded:

"It's not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

About Guantanamo he described it as: "certainly, probably the most transparent and open location in the world"

When commenting on protests regarding Guantanamo, he described the "small little protests around the world" that were "orchestrated by a small group of folks, and they're really quite minor - the media play is much more the actual protests" "my understanding is that it is being drummed up by Amnesty International, and they're trying to get their loyal ardent followers to show up at various locations around the country, my understanding is that these are, you know, a couple dozen here, a couple dozen folks there, but, you know, this is not a popular subject and so the, certainly the left-leaning press will make it look like the Million-Man March."

Listen to the interview here.