Gates warns DoD of ‘next-war-itis’

The Pentagon must focus on current war demands, even if it means straining the U.S. armed forces and devoting less time and money on future threats, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

Meeting the war-fighting needs of the troops now and taking care of them properly when they get home must be the priority, Gates said in a speech to journalists at a seminar here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called Next-War-itis — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict,” Gates said.

But in a world of limited resources, he said, the Pentagon must concentrate on building a military that can defeat the current enemies: smaller, terrorist groups and militias waging irregular warfare.

If it means putting off more expensive weapons for the future or adding to the stress on the Army — that is a risk worth taking, he said.

“The risk of overextending the Army is real,” said Gates. “But I believe the risk is far greater — to that institution as well as to our country — if we were to fail in Iraq. That is the war we are in. That is the war we must win.”

In a question-and-answer session with his audience, Gates was asked whether the U.S. would at some point feel compelled to take military action against Iran for its support of Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Gates said the U.S. has a number of activities under way “to deal particularly with what the Iranians were doing in support of the special groups and others in Iraq.” The term “special groups” refers to extremist elements of Shiite militias that U.S. officials say are funded and trained by Iranians.

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Federal Spending Rising Twice as Fast as Taxes

Federal spending is rising more than twice as fast as receipts so far this fiscal year, reflecting the economic slump and the rising costs of the military and other government programs, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

The U.S. government took in a record $404 billion in revenue in April, up 5% from a year earlier, but outlays rose 19% to $244.5 billion, cutting the monthly surplus down to $159.3 billion, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

The surplus in April was close to the $160 billion estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The surplus fell from $177.7 billion a year ago primarily because of a shift in the calendar, which affected the timing of some payments. The government also sent out $3.4 billion in tax-rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus program during the month.

Excluding the surplus in Social Security and Medicare, the on-budget surplus was $134 billion in April, compared with $155.2 billion last April.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, the total deficit of $152.2 billion jumped 88% from the $80.8 billion through the first six months of last fiscal year. The on-budget deficit increased 39% to $267.8 billion. For all of fiscal 2008, the Bush administration expects a total deficit of $410 billion, and an on-budget deficit of $602 billion.

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U.S. Infrastructure: Army Corps says Condition of Many Levees Unknown

Across America, earthen flood levees protect big cities and small towns, wealthy suburbs and rich farmland. But the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that oversees levees, lacks an inventory of thousands of them and has no idea of their condition, the corps' chief levee expert told The Associated Press.

The uncertainty, amid an unusually wet spring that has already caused significant flooding across many states, is creating worry even within the corps.

"We have to get our arms around this issue and understand how many levees there are in the country, who's watching over them, what populations and properties are behind them," Eric Halpin, the corps' special assistant for dam and levee safety, said in an interview last month. "What is the risk posed to the public?"

Critics are troubled that the government doesn't know the answer.

Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley levee expert, said many levees are old, with rusting infrastructure and built to protect against relatively common floods — not the big ones like the Great Flood of 1993, when 1,100 levees were broken or had water spill over their tops.

"Once they do get an inventory," Bea said, "I think we're not going to like what we find."

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AARP: 1 in 10 Boomers Borrowing for Everyday Expenses

The economic downturn is hitting roughly one in 10 middle-aged and older Americans especially hard, compelling them to borrow money for everyday living expenses and to seek help from family, friends or charities, according to a survey released Tuesday by the AARP.

In the telephone survey of 1,002 adults 45 and older, nearly four in 10 said they had helped a child pay bills or expenses. Among retirees, one-third said they'd helped their children pay bills. Eight percent said they'd helped a parent pay bills or expenses. The survey's margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

One-third of survey participants said they stopped putting money into their 401(k) or retirement account and 14 percent said they had cut back on their medications.

"We have patients coming in fewer times," said registered nurse Tucky Franz of Salisbury, Md. "They'll cut back because of the copay."

The majority of baby boomers said they were finding it more difficult to pay for essentials and utilities, and six in 10 said they had cut back on eating out and entertainment.

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Ex-Officials: Bush Admin. Ignored Iraq Corruption

By ANNE FLAHERTY / Associated Press

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government," Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy "effort against corruption — including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency — was little more than 'window dressing,'" he added.

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U.S. Troops and Other Coalition Forces are Exempt From Iraqi Law

Baghdad’s green zone rightly has the reputation as the most secure area in a city best known for its violence and lawlessness.

But the relative security comes at a cost. Ever since the green zone was created in the aftermath of the US-led invasion five years ago, to protect the American and British embassies and their officials, the area has existed in a legal limbo.

America supposedly handed sovereignty back to the Iraqis in June 2004 with the disbandment of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran Iraq for the first year after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the handover was deceptive. The 130,000 US troops and other coalition forces are exempt from Iraqi law and answer only to their own governments.

Similarly, the hundreds of Western officials in Iraq invariably enjoy diplomatic status and immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. And, most controversially, the contractors working for the US and British governments also enjoy immunity under a provision passed in the final days of the CPA’s rule.

The issue has caused huge resentment in Iraq and came to a head last summer when private security guards working for the American company Blackwater, and contracted to the US State Department, opened fire on a Baghdad street killing 17 Iraqi civilians. Nearly a year later none of the men has been prosecuted.

The same is true of the Iraqi staff at the British Embassy, who claim that they suffered abuse at the hands of contractors hired by KBR, the American company employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for catering and clearing services.

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Federal Judge Rules Iraq 'Gang-Rape Victim' Can Seek Trial in U.S.

An American woman who claims that she was gang-raped by coworkers in Baghdad while employed by Halliburton/KBR, a defence contractor, can take her case to trial, a federal judge has ruled.

The decision has opened the door for other American women who have reported sexual assaults in similar circumstances to challenge clauses in their employment contracts restricting such claims to private arbitration and keeping them out of court.

It comes at a time when the US Congress is examining whether the Government is adequately protecting contractors who allege sexual assault.

In Britain, MPs are investigating allegations of sexual harassment and abuse at the Embassy in Baghdad. The allegations also concern employees of KBR, which was hired to maintain the Embassy’s premises. The Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has written to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to ask for a full explanation.

The ruling in America centres on the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, a 23-year-old Texan who alleges she was drugged and raped in her mixed sleeping quarters by fellow contract workers while working in technical support for KBR at Camp Hope in July 2005. “I woke up naked and I knew something really wrong had happened to me,” Ms Jones told The Times. “I threw on my robe and I went to the restroom. I was bleeding between my legs.”

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Taking a Stand Against War!

By Scott Ritter / Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector

As someone who has been urging focused citizen activism for some time now, I find it heartening that there are those in the United States who put action to words and seek to lead by example. This is the case with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who, together with seven of his 49 colleagues (Toni Preckwinkle, Sandi Jackson, Eugene Schulter, Robert Fioretti, Freddrenna Lyle, Ricardo Munoz and Mary Ann Smith), has prepared a resolution for the Chicago City Council opposing war on Iran. By itself, this resolution most probably will not serve to alter the policies currently being pursued by the Bush administration. But when a great American city such as Chicago takes the lead in expressing its rejection of irresponsible national policy, other cities should, and will, take notice. 

I have been asked to be a witness, together with other experts on Iran and U.S. Middle East policy, before the City Council as it considers this resolution. I think it is of great importance that the representatives of the people of Chicago vote to adopt it in its entirety. I would also encourage other municipalities to consider similar resolutions opposing war on Iran, and to express their concern through the adoption of resolutions which, collectively, might serve as a notice to the United States Congress, as well as the administration of President Bush, that a war with Iran would not be supported by the citizens of this land.

In preparing for my role as witness, I carefully considered the Chicago resolution in its entirety, and offer my analysis of its content as a primer for interested parties.

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Domestic Spying Far Outpaces Terrorism Prosecutions

By Richard B. Schmitt / LA Times

The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court -- one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing -- has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously.

The trends, visible in new government data and a private analysis of Justice Department records, are worrisome to civil liberties groups and some legal scholars. They say it is further evidence that the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it.

The emphasis on spy programs also is starting to give pause to some members of Congress who fear the government is investing too much in anti-terrorism programs at the expense of traditional crime-fighting. Other lawmakers are raising questions about how well the FBI is performing its counter-terrorism mission.

The Senate Intelligence Committee last week concluded that the bureau was far behind in making internal changes to keep the nation safe from terrorist threats. Lawmakers urged that the FBI set specific benchmarks to measure its progress and make more regular reports to Congress.

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U.S. Government Drops Charges Against 9/11 Suspect!

By Ben Fox / AP

The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks, his U.S. military defense lawyer said Monday.

Mohammed al-Qahtani was one of six men charged by the military in February with murder and war crimes for their alleged roles in the 2001 attacks. Authorities say al-Qahtani missed out on taking part in the attacks because he was denied entry to the U.S. by an immigration agent.

But in reviewing the case, the convening authority for military commissions, Susan Crawford, decided to dismiss the charges against al-Qahtani and proceed with the arraignment for the other five, said Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, the Saudi's military lawyer.

Crawford dismissed the charges Friday without prejudice, meaning they can be filed again later, but the defense only learned about it Monday, Broyles told The Associated Press.

The attorney said he could not comment on the reasons for the dismissal until discussing the case with lawyers for the other five defendants. Officials previously said al-Qahtani had been subjected to a harsh interrogation authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, confirmed the case was proceeding against the five defendants and that their arraignment will be within 30 days of the charges being served at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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Mary Tillman Denounces Cover-Up of Son’s “Friendly Fire” Killing in Afghanistan

Mary Tillman, the mother of former professional football player Patrick Tillman, denounced the continued cover-up and whitewash of her son’s “friendly fire” killing in Afghanistan. She spoke in Birmingham, Michigan last week as part of the promotion for her new book, Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman.

Tillman read a section of her book and discussed the death of her son and its aftermath. Pat Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004. Though officials within the military and Bush administration were soon aware that the death came at the hands of US soldiers, this fact was covered up for weeks. Pat Tillman’s death was exploited in an attempt to bolster support for US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“This deception was not just a deception of our family; it was a public deception used to rally the public behind the war,” Tillman said. “Pat would have been horrified that his life and death had been used in this way.” Mrs. Tillman said she had been disappointed by the reaction from both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

At the event, Tillman spoke about the history of her family, including her relationship with her own father, who was in the military. She discussed her opposition to the war in Vietnam and the first war against Iraq, in 1991.

Since the death of her son, Tillman has become vocal in demanding an investigation into those responsible for attempting to cover up the nature of his death.

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U.S. Environmental Regulatory Official Forced Out After Dispute with Dow Chemical

A regional US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator in a long-running fight with Dow Chemical over pollution announced her resignation May 1, after high-ranking federal officials stripped her of her enforcement powers and told her to quit or be fired by June 1. The ouster is the latest example of the Bush administration’s political interference into science and regulation at the EPA on behalf of big business.

The administrator, Mary Gade, headed the EPA’s Region 5 office in Chicago, which oversees federal enforcement throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Since she was appointed by Bush to the Midwest office in 2006, Gade had pressed for clean-up efforts and pursued penalties against Dow for dioxin contamination surrounding its Midland, Michigan plants.

For decades, Dow has dumped dioxin—a highly toxic byproduct of herbicides and chlorinated chemicals—into local rivers, contaminating fish and wildlife and saturating the water and soil within 50 miles of its plants. Dioxin is known to cause cancer, mutations, and serious skin diseases. The EPA considers the chemical dangerous to public health and the environment even at very low levels because it bioaccumulates, or builds up in the environment and in the body much faster than it breaks down.

Last July, Gade invoked emergency powers to order Dow to immediately clean up three so-called “hotspots” of dioxin near its factories. At one test site near a park in Saginaw, Michigan in November, the EPA found dioxin levels of a staggering 1.6 million parts per trillion.

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Pakistan Government Set to Split

One of the main parties in Pakistan has announced it is pulling out of the government, just three months after landmark general elections.

Ex-PM Nawaz Sharif says his PML-N is quitting because of differences over the reinstatement of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Sharif wants the judges, who became a focus of opposition to Mr Musharraf, to get all their old powers back.

But the biggest party, the PPP, wants limitations on their powers.

Both sides were eager to avoid the appearance of a major rift, but analysts called the pull-out a huge set-back that could lead to growing instability.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says further cracks in the alliance may give a lease of life to pro-Musharraf parties which were defeated in recent elections.

Issue-by-issue

"Our ministers will meet the prime minister tomorrow and will submit their resignations," Mr Sharif told journalists in Islamabad after meeting party colleagues.

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Cherie Blair Reveals How Tony Used Miscarriage for Iraq Spin

By Robert Winnett / Telegraph

In the latest extracts from her memoirs, Mrs Blair says she spoke to Alistair Campbell, the Prime Minister’s media chief, within hours of the miscarriage in 2002.

Mr Blair and Mr Campbell told her that they would be announcing news of the loss to avert false speculation about an early invasion of Iraq.

The extracts from Mrs Blair’s memoirs – Speaking for Myself – also reveal highly personal and embarrassing details about the couple’s private life, leaving very little to the imagination.

She says that the couple’s fourth baby, Leo, was conceived in 1999 during a trip to Balmoral during which she had failed to pack her usual contraception.

In the memoirs she also reveals details of some uncomfortable meetings with members of the Royal Family, although she says she found the Queen "very approachable”.

In 2002, she recounts how her radiographer was surprised to find that she was carrying a fifth child at the age of 47.

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Ex-State Officials Allege Corruption Cover Up!

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional staffer visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, the staffers were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government," Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy "effort against corruption — including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency — was little more than 'window dressing,'" he added.

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Growing Deficits Threaten Pensions

The funds that pay pension and health benefits to police officers, teachers and millions of other public employees across the country are facing a shortfall that could soon run into trillions of dollars.

But the accounting techniques used by state and local governments to balance their pension books disguise the extent of the crisis facing these retirees and the taxpayers who may ultimately be called on to pay the freight, according to a growing number of leading financial analysts.

State governments alone have reported they are already confronting a deficit of at least $750 billion to cover the cost of the retirement benefits they have promised. But that figure likely underestimates the actual shortfall because of the range of methods they use to make their calculations, including practices that have been barred in the private sector for decades.

Local governments use these same techniques for their pension funds and face deficits that further contribute to what some investors and analysts say may be shaping up to be a massive breach of faith with a generation of public employees.

This gap is growing more yawning with the years. It has already presented taxpayers with a whopping bill that is eating up a vast portion of government budgets at the cost of other services.

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Farm Bill Takes Prisoners

Congress and the White House appear headed for a final showdown on a new farm bill this week. Lawmakers say legislation is ready for a vote. The president says he will veto it. Whether the bill has enough support to override--two-thirds from both the House and Congress--remains unknown.

No one is more anxious for an outcome than the nation's food banks, which have found their future funding held hostage to endless rounds of political debate over the most controversial parts of the legislation, even as the lines at their doors grow weekly.

Only 20% of the $300 billion farm bill consists of farm programs, but that draws all the debate. The bill's most derided provision, the direct payment subsidy program, which doles out payments for wheat, cotton, corn and soybean growers, is just $5 billion a year. The majority of the funding, 60%, goes to various nutrition programs. The largest increase proposed in the bill: $10 billion of undisputed funding for food stamps.

Not that the debate over subsidies isn't worthwhile. Recipients rarely want to see them cut, but with most crops selling at record price levels and projected to stay high for years, many have argued the time to reduce these programs is now. A key sticking point between President Bush and Congress has been these supports. Currently, the subsidy goes to those earning as much as $2.5 million a year.

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Red Pill Movie

This is a short documentary film on the history of the shadow government within the United States and their role in the 9/11 attacks. The film, less than 20 minutes in length, is not meant for "the choir" and is instead meant as an introduction to the world of the shadow government, 9/11 truth and the importance of a new 9/11 investigation. The film can be viewed and downloaded for free at Google Video.

Global Positioning System Tracks Students in Texas

Jaime Pacheco rolled out of bed at dawn last week to the blaring chorus of two alarms. Then Jaime, a 15-year-old high school freshman, smoothed his striped comforter, dumped two scoops of kibble for the dogs out back and strapped a G.P.S. monitor to his belt.

By 7:15, Jaime was in the passenger seat of his grandmother’s sport-utility vehicle, holding the little black monitor out the window for the satellite to register. A few miles down the road, at Bryan Adams High School in East Dallas, he got out of the car, said goodbye to his grandmother and paused to press a button on the unit three times. A green light flashed, and then Jaime headed for the cafeteria with plenty of time before the morning bell.

It was not always like this. Jaime used to snooze until 2 p.m. before strolling into school. He fell so far behind that he is failing most of his classes and school officials sent him to truancy court.

Instead of juvenile detention, Jaime was selected by a judge to be enrolled in a pilot program at Bryan Adams in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically. Since Jaime started carrying the Global Positioning System unit April 1, he has had perfect attendance.

“I’m just glad they didn’t take him to jail,” said Jaime’s grandmother Diana Mendez, who raised him. “He’s a good kid. He was just on a crooked path.”

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Know, Rather Than Imagine, Your Enemy

By Lawrence Freedman / Financial Times

Know your enemy is the first rule of strategy, yet it is one that Americans have found difficult to follow over the past decade. Not knowing the enemy has unfortunate consequences: it can lead to being surprised by unanticipated strengths while failing to exploit neglected weaknesses.

Recent US experience bears this out. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime was said to be critical to the war on terror, yet Iraq’s links with al-Qaeda were minor. US forces were caught out by the intensity and multi-faceted character of the insurgency. When Iran was designated a member of the “axis of evil” in 2002 this was something of an afterthought, as Tehran and Washington had co-operated in Afghanistan and could have done so over Iraq. Since then the Bush administration has scrambled for a credible policy to deal with this “evil” and has appeared nonplussed as Iran emerged as the main beneficiary of its regional policies. There has also been uncertainty over the unity of the Taliban and whether it should be treated as indistinguishable from al-Qaeda. Until recently all Palestinian groups were treated as being as bad as each other, before the realisation that the Islamist Hamas was becoming more dangerous than the secular Fatah.

Why has knowing the enemy proved to be so hard? There are the normal problems with gathering intelligence and providing reliable interpretations. Aspects of the new strategic environment would challenge even the best informed and open-minded observer. For western policymakers to understand radical Islamist groups, for example, they must bridge a wide cultural gap and develop a grasp of different strands of Islamic thinking, complex historical narratives and the geopolitics of the Middle East and south Asia.

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