Military Tells Bush of Troop Strains

Behind the Pentagon's closed doors, U.S. military leaders told President Bush Wednesday they are worried about the Iraq war's mounting strain on troops and their families. But they indicated they'd go along with a brief halt in pulling out troops this summer.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff did say senior commanders in Iraq should make more frequent assessments of security conditions, an idea that appeared aimed at increasing pressure for more rapid troop reductions.

The chiefs' concern is that U.S. forces are being worn thin, compromising the Pentagon's ability to handle crises elsewhere in the world.

In the war zone itself, two more American soldiers were killed Wednesday in separate attacks in Baghdad, raising the U.S. death toll to at least 4,003, according to an Associated Press count. Volleys of rockets also slammed into Baghdad's Green Zone for the third day this week, and the U.S. Embassy said three Americans were seriously wounded. At least eight Iraqis were killed elsewhere in the capital by rounds that apparently fell short.

Wednesday's 90-minute Pentagon session, held in a secure conference room known as "the Tank," was arranged by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to provide Bush an additional set of military views as he prepares to decide how to proceed in Iraq once his troop buildup, which began in 2007, runs its course by July.

"Armed with all that, the president must now decide the way ahead in Iraq," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. The discussion covered not only Iraq but Afghanistan, where violence has spiked, and broader military matters, said Morrell, who briefed reporters without giving details of the discussion. Some specifics were provided by defense officials, commenting on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely.

Click to read more ...

Threat of a Re-Surge in Iraq

Could Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attempts to re-establish control over Basra backfire? There is a growing possibility that it could become a wider intra-Shi'ite war, drawing in the forces loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose ceasefire has been key to the success of the U.S. "surge"? If so, the consequences for American military strategy in Iraq in an all-important political year will be grave.

Maliki's government targeted Basra because it could. Unlike many other southern cities where fighting has escalated in recent weeks, Maliki has built an independent power base among the security forces there. But Tuesday's sweep of Basra could turn sour in other southern cities where the central government's power is weak. Indeed, many Shi'ites are seeing this not just as an example of the Shi'ite Maliki taking on other Shi'ites (including Sadrists) but of America backing the Prime Minister up in a de facto Shi'a civil war. Iraqi government forces have attacked Shi'ite militias and gangs in at least seven major southern Iraq cities in the past two weeks. And America has been there to support Maliki's troops every time.

In response, Sadr loyalists have already taken to the streets in Baghdad, where U.S. troops will have to deal with the backlash. U.S. officials have so far shied away from blaming Sadr for the recent rise of violence (including an Easter attack on the Green Zone), mostly because Sadr's ceasefire has been key to the success of the surge. (General David Petraeus has pointed the finger at Iran instead.) But as clashes increase, they may not be able to dance around it for much longer.

Click to read more ...

Taxpayers May Be Liable From Bear, Mortgage Rescue!!!

Even as the Bush administration insists it won't risk public funds in a bailout, American taxpayers may already be liable for billions of dollars stemming from Federal Reserve and Treasury efforts to quell a financial crisis.

History suggests the Fed may not recover some of the almost $30 billion investment in illiquid mortgage securities it received from Bear Stearns Cos., said Joe Mason, a Drexel University professor who has written on banking crises. Treasury's push to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy more mortgage bonds reduces the capital the government-chartered companies hold in reserve at a time when foreclosures and defaults are surging. Senators are promising to investigate.

Officials ``are playing with fire,'' said Allan Meltzer, a Fed historian and economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. ``With good luck, none of these liabilities will come due. We can't expect that good luck, and we haven't had it.''

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were forced to respond after capital markets seized up and Bear Stearns faced a run by creditors. In an emergency action that jeopardizes the dividend it pays the Treasury, the Fed authorized a $29 billion loan against illiquid mortgage- and asset-backed securities from Bear Stearns that will be held in a Delaware corporation. JPMorgan Chase & Co. contributed $1 billion.

Click to read more...

FDIC Plans for Rise In Bank Failures

Anticipating a surge in troubled financial institutions, federal regulators aim to increase by 60 percent the number of workers who handle bank failures.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to add 140 workers in the division that handles bank failures, bringing the total to 360, said John Bovenzi, the agency's chief operating officer.

"We want to make sure that we're prepared," Bovenzi said yesterday, adding that most of the hires will be temporary and based in Dallas.

There have been five bank failures since February 2007 following an uneventful stretch of more than two years. The last time the agency was hit hard with failures was during the 1990-91 recession, when 502 banks failed in three years.

Analysts predict more failures but said they don't think they will reach early-1990s levels.

Gerard Cassidy, managing director of bank equity research at RBC Capital Markets, projects 150 bank failures over the next three years, with the highest concentration coming from states such as California and Florida where an overheated real estate market is in a fast freeze.

Click to read more...

Trustees: Social Security, Medicare Face Financial Trouble

Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing enormous financial challenges, with the threats to Medicare far more severe.

The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.

Both those dates were the same as in last year's report. But the trustees warned that financial pressures will begin much sooner when the programs begin paying out more in benefits each year than they collect in payroll taxes. For Medicare, that threshhold is projected to be reached this year and for Social Security it is projected to occur in 2017.

The first year that payments will exceed income for Social Security will occur in 2017, just nine years from now, reflecting growing demands from the retirement of 78 million baby boomers. Medicare is projected to pay out more than it receives in income starting this year.

"The financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare pose enormous challenges," the trustees said in their report. "The sooner these challenges are addressed, the more varied and less disruptive their solutions can be."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, one of the trustees, warned that the country was facing a fiscal train wreck unless something is done.

Click to read more...

Another Govt Data Security Breach

First it was the Department of Veterans Affairs. Then, the Internal Revenue Service. Now, the National Institutes of Health is the latest federal agency that failed to encrypt laptop computers containing sensitive private information.

The recent theft of a laptop that had medical test results for 2,500 patients in an NIH heart imaging study shows that the government is still not guarding private information, despite new rules, privacy specialists say.

"The issue isn't so much with the policy; it's with the policy being followed in practice," said Joy Pritts, a Georgetown University researcher who specializes in health care privacy.

The laptop was reported stolen from Dr. Andrew E. Arai's locked car trunk Feb. 23, but the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute alerted patients to the data theft only last week.

Their names, birth dates and test results from an ongoing heart imaging study were not encrypted because the agency hadn't gotten around to securing Arai's laptop, said Dr. Susan Shurin, the institute's deputy director. Officials said there was a delay in informing patients of the breach of confidential information because it wasn't initially clear that the laptop held personal information.

"This justifies a hard look at the whole system as well as the individual," said Shurin, who said the institute had begun checking every laptop for encryption and reminding staff to avoid keeping private information on laptops unless necessary.

Click to read more...

21 Nations More Prosperous Than U.S.

The United Kingdom has been ranked as one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world, beating the United States, France and even Switzerland in a global assessment of every nation’s achievements and standards.

A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.

The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.

The bottom ten, surprisingly, do not include Iraq. They are listed as Gaza and the West Bank, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

The UK received high marks despite the deployment of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, the continuing threat from home-grown terrorists and the collapse of the Northern Rock bank.

The global check on every country recognised as an individual state or territory by the United Nations was carried out by Jane’s Information Group and is published today.

Click to read more...

U.S. says Missile Parts Mistakenly Sent to Taiwan

The U.S. Defense Department accidentally shipped non-nuclear ballistic missile components to Taiwan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Four nose-cone fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles were shipped instead of helicopter batteries that Taiwan had requested, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said.

The fuses were shipped to Taiwan in the fall of 2006 and kept in a warehouse there. The Taiwanese military informed the United States last week about their presence on the island.

"There are no nuclear or fissile materials associated with these items," Wynne said. "The United States is making all appropriate notifications in the spirit of candor and openness in an effort to avoid any misunderstanding."

An investigation is under way, he added.

"In an organization as large as DOD, the largest and most complex in the world, there will be mistakes. But they can not be tolerated in the arena in strategic systems, whether they are nuclear or only associated equipment, as was in this case," Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Ryan Henry said.

He said the parts were 1960s technology, designed for use with Minuteman ballistic missiles.

Click to read more ...

U.S. Consumers Most Pessimistic Since Nixon

US house prices have fallen at the sharpest rate in more than 20 years, and American consumers are now at their most pessimistic since Richard Nixon was in the White House, according to figures published today.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index showed that prices in 20 US metropolitan areas fell 10.7pc in January, compared with the same month last year.

That followed a 9pc decline in December and was the sharpest fall since the index was created in 1987.

In a further sign that the economic crisis appears to be is deepening, consumer confidence in the US fell to a five-year low of 64.5, as turmoil in the financial markets, the threat of recession, and falling housing prices heightened fear among Americans.

The survey's gauge of confidence for the next six months also showed consumers are more nervous about the future than at any time since December 1973, when Richard Nixon was President.

In January the housing market was worst affected in Las Vegas and Miami, where the average house price fell by 19.3pc. In New York house prices fell by 5.8pc, year-on-year.

Click to read more...

Americans Oppose Government Aid for Banks!

A majority of Americans are opposed to the federal government helping out banks that made bad loans or homeowners who borrowed more than they could afford, a Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen poll reported yesterday.

Despite moves by the Federal Reserve Board and other federal agencies to provide cash, low interest, short-term loans and other assistance to investment banks and a troubled mortgage industry, Americans opposed such actions 61 percent to 15 percent, the survey found. Another 23 percent were undecided on the issue.

The poll also found that Americans — 53 percent to 29 percent — were opposed to helping out people who bought homes they could not afford. The issue left 17 percent undecided.

Sharp differences about the topics were found between men and women, and whites and blacks.

On whether the government should help out credit-strapped financial institutions, 70 percent of men were opposed, compared with 53 percent of women, while 64 percent of whites were opposed compared with 45 percent of blacks.

Incomes also influenced responses, with opposition strongest among higher-income Americans. The survey found 53 percent of Americans earning less than $20,000 opposed any help for ailing banks, compared with 70 percent opposition among people making more than $100,000.

Click to read more...

MoD Using Propaganda to Lure Vulnerable Students into the Military

Teachers today vowed to oppose military recruitment campaigns in schools that are based on Ministry of Defense "propaganda".

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) voted to back any school staff who want to boycott Armed Forces recruitment campaigns.

Delegates at the union's annual conference in Manchester lined up to condemn the tactics of the MoD in targeting teenagers with "misleading" information that they said glamorizes war.

The union backed a motion committing the NUT to "support teachers and schools in opposing Ministry of Defence recruitment activities that are based upon misleading propaganda".

Paul McGarr, a delegate from east London, told the conference: "Personally I find it difficult to imagine any recruitment material that is not misleading."

He said: "Let's just try and imagine what that recruitment material would have to say were it not to be misleading.

Click to read more...

Supreme Court says Bush Overstepped in Texas

President Bush overstepped his authority when he ordered a Texas court to reopen the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday.

In a case that mixes presidential power, international relations and the death penalty, the court sided with Texas 6-3.

Bush was in the unusual position of siding with death row prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen whom police prevented from consulting with Mexican diplomats, as provided by international treaty.

An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country's consular officials. The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

Bush, who oversaw 152 executions as Texas governor, disagreed with the decision. But he said it must be carried out by state courts because the United States had agreed to abide by the world court's rulings in such cases. The administration argued that the president's declaration is reason enough for Texas to grant Medellin a new hearing.

Click to read more ...

Dr Robert Bowman: 'U.S. #1 Rogue Nation'

By Dr Robert Bowman / thepatriots.us

The truth about 9/11 is that we don't KNOW the truth about 9/11, and we should. I will sponsor (and have already lined up co-sponsors for) legislation initiating a truly independent investigation of 9/11.

Click to read more ...

73,000+ Vets Killed in Iraq?

How come the government number of 4,000 dead vets is so low? The answer is simple, the government does not want the 73,000+ dead to be compared to the 58,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam Iraq = Vietnam. What the government is doing is only counting the soldiers that die in action on the ground before they can get them into a hummer, helicopter or ambulance. If a vet is injured in Iraq but dies enroute to or at a hospital in Kuwait, Italy, the U.S. or Germany...technically the vet did not die in Iraq.

More than 1,820 tons of radio active nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters (also known as dirty bombs), representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster ever. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust by mass represents between fourteen and twenty eight thousand Hiroshima’s from a uranium poisoning perspective.

In Hiroshima 70 thousand died from the blast and 70 thousand died from uranium poisoning. The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and could wipe out a third of life on earth. Winds can and will blow the uranium dust from the U.S. weapons around the world. Gulf War Veterans and civilians who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off from uranium poisoning over a number of decades.

So far, more than one million people have been slaughtered and four million are homeless as a consequence of the U.S.'s illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Birth defects are up 600% in Iraq – the same will apply to U.S. Veterans children.

Click to read more...

Dr Robert Bowman: Confronting the Evidence of High Treason

Robert M. Bowman was Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force in the Ford and Carter administrations, and is a former United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with 101 combat missions. He holds a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. When a guy with these credentials says 9/11 was an inside job and that the Bush Administration is guilty of TREASON, listen to him!

Visit: thepatriots.us

Secret U.S. Bases in Mindanao

The Philippine military has denied Friday reports by a Filipino fact-finding group that US troops have put up secret bases in Mindanao. The Citizens Peace Watch (CPW), an umbrella organization of political and human rights groups, said it has confirmed the presence of a fortified US military base inside the headquarters of the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City. It said the base is the headquarters of the US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, a unit of the US Special Forces that has been deploying troops to various parts of Mindanao since 2002. Lawyer Corazon Fabros, of the CPW, said her group was sent away by Filipino soldiers after they failed to get a permission to inspect the US facility. She said the base has communication facilities and is heavily guarded that even Filipino soldiers are not allowed without a pass. "The 'visitors' have not only stayed on, they have set up camp in our house and told us – their hosts – to go away," said Fabros in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.

She said the US military base stands out and is sealed from the rest of Western Mindanao Command by walls, concertina wire, and sandbags. The actual size of the area it occupies could not immediately be established from the outside. But communication facilities such as satellite dishes, antenna, and other instruments are visible.

US Marines provided protection for the facility; some workers were seen wore IDs identifying them with DynCorp, a controversial US military contractor.

The group said other facilities inside the base were unknown. "What exactly are they hiding here? Why all this secrecy?" asked Amabella Carumba, of the Mindanao People's Peace Movement, a member of the fact-finding mission.

Click to read more ...

Japan's Okinawans Rally Against U.S. Military Crimes

Thousands of Okinawans rallied on Sunday to protest crimes by U.S. troops and demand a smaller U.S. military presence on the southern Japanese island after last month's arrest of a Marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.

"Crimes and accidents due to the bases have happened over and over and Okinawa has protested with intense anger to both the U.S. and Japanese governments," Kyodo quoted Okinawa City Mayor Mitsuko Tomon as telling a crowd gathered in heavy rain in the town of Chatan, where the February incident occurred.

"But each time, our voices have been trampled and there has been no end to the heinous crimes," the mayor added.

Organizers estimated about 6,000 people took part in the rally, Kyodo news agency said. Police declined to give an estimate.

The arrest of U.S. Marine Tyrone Hadnott, 38, on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl sparked outrage on Okinawa, the reluctant host to a huge chunk of U.S. troops in Japan, and stirred memories of the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl that prompted huge anti-base protests and jolted the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Participants in Sunday's rally adopted a resolution demanding consolidation of the U.S. bases and revisions to a pact governing the status of the nearly 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan to give Japanese authorities greater legal jurisdiction.

Both Tokyo and Washington have so far rejected demands to revise the Status of Forces Agreement.

Click to read more ...

Envoy to U.N. Recounts Threats of Retaliation by U.S. in Run-Up to Invasion

In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.

The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Mu¿oz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month.

"In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Mu¿oz writes.

But the tough talk dissipated as the war situation worsened, and President Bush came to reach out to many of the same allies that he had spurned. Mu¿oz's account suggests that the U.S. strategy backfired in Latin America, damaging the administration's standing in a region that has long been dubious of U.S. military intervention.

Mu¿oz details key roles by Chile and Mexico, the Security Council's two Latin members at the time, in the run-up to the war: Then-U.N. Ambassadors Juan Gabriel Vald¿s of Chile and Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico helped thwart U.S. and British efforts to rally support among the council's six undecided members for a resolution authorizing the U.S.-led invasion.

Click to read more...

Jailed American Citizens Say They Have Right to Access U.S. Legal System

In a jail guarded by U.S. military police on the outskirts of Baghdad, at a base where U.S. interrogators do the questioning, Iraqi American Mohammad Munaf and Jordanian American Shawqi Ahmad Omar are stuck in a peculiar legal limbo.

Munaf and Omar say their jailers at Camp Cropper are under U.S. Army command, and therefore they are entitled to challenge their detention under U.S. law. But the Bush administration has argued in court that the prison belongs to the international military coalition called Multi-National Force-Iraq and that Munaf and Omar are, therefore, beyond the reach of U.S. courts.

The dispute is scheduled to be taken up by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and the outcome could have broad implications for the rights of U.S. citizens held on international battlefields. Until the court rules, the extent of U.S. constitutional protections overseas remains unclear.

"Habeas corpus, the power of the courts to review detention by the executive, has existed in some form for over seven hundred years," American Bar Association President William H. Neukom told the court in a brief. "It remains, in the context of military detentions of this country's citizens, a vital protection of the rule of law."

The largely parallel legal claims of the two men are complicated by their controversial personal sagas. Munaf was jailed in Camp Cropper as the result of a strange kidnapping incident involving three Romanian journalists he was escorting through Baghdad.

Click to read more...

Terminal 5 Chaos Threat Over Fingerprint Plan in UK

The opening of Heathrow's new Terminal 5 was under threat last night after its management was warned that a plan to fingerprint passengers may be illegal.

The £4.3billion terminal is due to open on Thursday.

But the Information Commissioner has told Spanish-owned airport operator BAA that its plan to fingerprint all passengers may breach the Data Protection Act.

The Commissioner's office says passengers ordered to give their prints should do so "under protest" and that such a scheme would normally be considered "intrusive".

It has launched an investigation into whether BAA "took account of the data protection implications of its proposal".

Unless Heathrow provides evidence that the move is necessary, the Commissioner has the power to order it to stop fingerprinting passengers or face legal action.

Last night there were fears that Terminal 5's opening could be delayed, potentially causing flight chaos at Heathrow.

David Smith, the Deputy Information Commissioner, said: "We want to know why Heathrow needs to fingerprint passengers at all.

"Taking photographs is less intrusive. So far we have not heard BAA's case for requesting fingerprints.

"If we find there is a breach of data protection legislation, we would hope to persuade them to put things right.

Click to read more...