The Political Chase

The landing in Bosnia followed by current recollections

Warning. You may be subjected to sniper fire while viewing this video.

The first part of the video is a 1996 newscast of Hillary Clinton’s reception in Bosnia. The second part is Hillary’s current recollection of said trip.

Courtesy of heathj82

Hmm…No greeting ceremony and told to run to their cars?

Did Clinton really bring peace in Northern Ireland?

More proof, for the record, that Hillary Clinton is a liar.

Recalling just one of Hillary’s fabricated experience claims in an interview with CNN last week:

I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Not true according to high-level officials in the U. K. that, unlike Hillary the Prevaricator, were intimately involved in the activities and can attest to Hillary’s involvement and influence (or lack of).

Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a “wee bit silly” for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.

“I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around,” he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely “the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets” during elections. “She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.”

Lord Trimble shared the Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, in 1998. Conall McDevitt, an SDLP negotiator and aide to Mr Hume during the talks, said: “There would have been no contact with her either in person or on the phone. I was with Hume regularly during calls in the months leading up to the Good Friday Agreement when he was taking calls from the White House and they were invariably coming from the president.”

So, Hillary’s celebrated peacemaking experience that eminently qualifies her to be ready on Day 1 (including passing the “Commander in Chief threshold”) lies somewhere in the range of no interaction whatsoever to cheerleader. I suppose Lord Trimble was trying to be a gentleman and avoid getting sucked into Hillary’s lies and mudslinging, because it appears his perspective may have been a wee-bit gratuitous.

Steven King, a negotiator with Lord Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party, argued that Mrs Clinton might even have helped delay the chances of peace. “She was invited along to some pre-arranged meetings but I don’t think she exactly brought anybody together that hadn’t been brought together already,” he said. Mrs Clinton was “a cheerleader for the Irish republican side of the argument”, he added.

“She really lost all credibility when on Bill Clinton’s last visit to Northern Ireland [in December 2000] when she hugged and kissed [Sinn Fein leaders] Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.”

Damn Obama Kool-Aid has apparently gone global. No one really expects the dignitaries across the Pond to actually know anything about their own lives, experiences, or observations.

Responding to inquiries from this newspaper, Hillary Clinton’s campaign issued a statement from Mr Hume. “I am quite surprised that anyone would suggest that Hillary Clinton did not perform important foreign policy work as First Lady,” the statement said.

“I can state from firsthand experience that she played a positive role for over a decade in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland. She visited Northern Ireland, met with very many people and gave very decisive support to the peace process.

“There is no doubt that the people of Northern Ireland think very positively of Hillary Clinton’s support for our peace process, due to her visits to Northern Ireland and her meetings with so many people. In private she made countless calls and contacts, speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, urging them to keep moving forward.”

Musharraf Defeated in Pakistan

From the New York Times:

Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.

Almost all the leading figures in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that has governed for the last five years under Mr. Musharraf, lost their seats, including the leader of the party, the former speaker of Parliament and six ministers.

Official results are expected Tuesday, but early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a Parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

Early results showed equal gains for the Pakistan Peoples Party, whose leader, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated on Dec. 27, and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the faction led by Nawaz Sharif, like Ms. Bhutto a former prime minister. Each party may be in a position to form the next government.

The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed him for more than six years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.

(Emphasis added.)

North Korea to disable nukes

North Korea has agreed to “disable key nuclear facilities by the end of the year and start disclosing details of its nuclear programs,” but is this just another promise they will break?

TPC Afternoon Roundup - Global Criticism

HEADLINES

• Washington: Press questions Bush’s language skills; Military tribunals to continue
• Congress: Iran sanctioned; Children’s health care program extended
• Supreme Court: Voter-ID laws and lethal injections to be reviewed
• Iraq: Pending legislation regulating private companies; Killing Insurgents via “Baiting Program”
• Nation: Violent crime increases
• World: Bush announces sanctions at U.N.; Monk demonstrations continue

TPC MOST POPULAR

Has anybody seen my nuke?
Anything but a mistake
Will Wes Clark be Hillary’s VP?
Video proves Blackwater attack unprovoked
Biden Breaks Away in Dems Iowa Debate

WASHINGTON

• “White House spokeswoman Dana Perino on Tuesday called a question that indicated President Bush might have trouble pronouncing foreign countries’ names “offensive,” the Hill reports. “The issue arose after the United Nations posted a draft of Bush’s speech to the General Assembly on its website, complete with phonetic spellings of countries that the president spoke about.”
• “A special military appeals court, overturning a lower court ruling, on Monday removed a legal hurdle that has derailed war crime trials for detainees at Guantanámo Bay, Cuba,” the New York Times reports. “The ruling allows military prosecutors to address a legal flaw that had ground the prosecutions to a halt.”
• “The Bush administration took the gloves off Monday in its fight over immigration enforcement, suing the state of Illinois for banning use of a federal system that checks whether workers are in the United States legally,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “The United States of America vs. the State of Illinois is the latest court battle the administration is waging with immigrant advocates and business groups over its crackdown on workers here illegally and the companies that hire them.”

CONGRESS

• “Congress signaled its disapproval of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a vote Tuesday to tighten sanctions against his government and a call to designate his army a terrorist group,” the AP via TPM reports. “The overwhelming bipartisan vote of 397 - 16 “reflected lawmakers’ long-standing nervousness about Tehran’s intentions in the region, particularly toward Israel _ a sentiment fueled by the pro-Israeli lobby whose influence reaches across party lines in Congress.”
• “Congressional Democrats unveiled legislation Tuesday to keep the government running until mid-November, giving them more time to bridge gaping differences with President Bush over the budget,” the AP via TPM reports. “the bill temporarily extends health coverage for children from low-income families as Congress and Bush wrangle over how much to expand the program, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP.”
• “Republicans are decrying what they say are changes to newly enacted Senate earmark rules eliminating a ban on new earmarks being inserted into authorizing bills during conference,” Roll Call reports (sub. req.). GOP Members also complain “that key disclosure requirements that mandate Members publicly disclose who their earmarks will benefit and what the purpose of the spending is have been seriously weakened.”

SUPREME COURT

• “The Supreme Court agreed today to consider whether voter-identification laws unfairly keep poor people and members of minority groups from going to the polls,” the New York Times reports. “The justices will hear arguments from an Indiana case, in which a federal district judge and a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in January upheld a state law requiring, with certain exceptions, that someone wanting to vote in person in a primary or general election present a government-issued photo identification.”
• The Court also “agreed today to hear constitutional challenges brought by two death-row inmates in Kentucky, who assert that the state’s lethal-injection procedures amount to cruel and unusual punishment, the New York Times reports. “The step could have the effect of postponing executions across the country scheduled to be performed by lethal injection, the method is used by nearly all states with a death penalty, as well as by the federal government.”

IRAQ

• “The Iraqi interior ministry has said it has drafted legislation regulating private security companies following a shooting allegedly involving a US firm,” the BBC reports. “The new code would require contractors to be subject to Iraqi law and to be monitored by the Iraqi government.”
• “Under a program developed by a Defense Department warfare unit, Army snipers have begun using a new method to kill Iraqis suspected of being insurgents, using fake weapons and bomb-making material as bait and then killing anyone who picks them up, according to testimony presented in a military court,” the New York Times reports. “The existence of the classified ‘baiting program,‘ as it has come to be known, was disclosed as part of defense lawyers’ efforts to respond to murder charges the Army pressed this summer against three members of a Ranger sniper team.”
• “Sunni extremists appear to have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers and other Interior Ministry officials throughout Iraq, with at least 10 attacks in the last 48 hours,” the New York Times reports. “Eight policemen have been killed, among them the police chief of Baquba in Diyala Province.”

NATION

• “Violent crime in the United States rose more than previously believed in 2006, continuing the most significant increase in more than a decade, according to an FBI report released yesterday, the Washington Post reports. “The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program found that robberies surged by 7.2 percent and homicides rose 1.8 percent from 2005 to 2006. Violent crime overall rose 1.9 percent.”
• “Investigators used a ruse to question a man later charged with aiding terrorists, an FBI agent testified Tuesday at a hearing over admissibility of the conversation and a search of the defendant’s luggage,” the AP reports. “FBI agent Michael Scherck said he and another law enforcement officer approached Ehsanul Sadequee as he got off a flight from Atlanta to New York on Aug. 18, 2005, and told him they wanted to talk to him about passenger complaints that he had acted suspiciously on the plane.” Instead, “Scherck said that in fact there were no complaints, but investigators wanted biographical information from Sadequee as part of a terrorism probe involving him.

WORLD

• Addressing the United Nations General Assembly today, President Bush “chided nations to live up to the rights and freedoms the United Nations promised six decades ago, announced new sanctions on Myanmar and denounced the governments of Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe as ‘brutal regimes,’ ” the New York Times reports. The president “called on members of the United Nations to do more to support nascent democracies and to oppose autocratic and tyrannical governments.”
• “Tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and supporters today defied a government warning in Myanmar and returned to the streets for an eighth day of peaceful antigovernment protests, the New York Times reports. “For the first time since protests began on Aug. 19, the government began to issue warnings and to move security forces into positions in Yangon, the largest city and former capital.”
• “Iranians on Tuesday called the combative introduction of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the head of Columbia University “shameful” and said the harsh words only added to their image of the United States as a bully,” AP reports. “In a region where the tradition of hospitality outweighs personal opinions about people, many here thought Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s aggressive tone — including telling Ahmadinejad that he exhibited the signs of a ‘petty and cruel dictator’ — was over the top.”
• Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto criticized U.S. support for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf as a strategic miscalculation,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “Backing Musharraf, a close U.S. ally who seized power in a 1999 coup, makes the fight against extremists operating along the Pakistani-Afghan border more difficult, she said today.”

SCANDALS

• A Minnesota judge will be hearing Sen. Larry Craig’s petition to overturn his guilty plea on a disorderly conduct charge in Minneapolis on Wednesday, but the Idaho Republican will not be at the hearing,” CNN reports. ” ‘I have been advised not to. I will not be attending,’ Craig said.”

TPC Roundup - Congressional Bombs and Syrian Bombs

HEADLINES

• Washington: Bush No Comment on Syria, Will Veto Child Health Bill
• Washington: Bush “Received B in Econ 101, A in Keeping Taxes Low”
• Congress: Iraq War Funding Bill Fails, Senate Condemns MoveOn.org
• Iraq: Blackwater Unprovoked According to Iraq Probe
• Nation: Thousands March Protesting “Jena 6″

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Will Wes Clark be Hillary’s VP? (on the top all week)
Biden Breaks Away in Dems Iowa Debate
Gates Doesn’t Know if Iraq Invasion Was Good Idea
Clinton Video: ‘Darth Vader Emerges’
Give me, Give me, Give me

WASHINGTON

• “Israel’s decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said,” the Washington Post reports. “The Bush administration has not commented on the Israeli raid or the underlying intelligence.”
• President Bush threatened yesterday, “to veto a bill expanding a popular children’s health insurance program, calling it “a step toward federalization of health care,” the New York Times reports. “The program expires Sept. 30, and Congress is on the verge of renewing it by providing coverage to an additional 4 million children over the 6.6 million already enrolled — at an additional cost of $35 billion over five years.”
• “President Bush pointedly declined on Thursday to discuss an Israeli airstrike in northern Syria,” the New York Times reports. “Mr. Bush did, however, warn North Korea that the United States expected it to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs and to stop selling weapons or expertise abroad, as it promised to do this year.”
• “Sidestepping the turmoil in the housing market and the credit problems associated with it, President Bush said Thursday that the nation’s economy was strong and would remain so if Congress steered clear of tax increases,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “But he would not rate the risk of recession, saying, ‘You need to talk to economists. I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low.’”
• “President Bush acknowledged “some unsettling times” in the country’s troubled housing and credit markets, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke offered more assurances steps would be taken to curb the fallout,” the Boston Globe reports. “The housing slump, the worst in 16 years, is likely to drag on well into 2008, when the nation will be voting for a new president. Home foreclosures - now at record highs - and delinquencies are likely to get worse, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee yesterday.”
• Bush “plans to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York on Monday during the U.N. General Assembly meetings, the White House said,” Reuters reports. “The meeting will be to ‘continue discussions on helping the Palestinian Authority and on issues related to an eventual two-state solution of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security,’ White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said on Thursday.”

CONGRESS

• “Underscoring his resolve,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “revived a proposal to cut off funding for most U.S. military operations in Iraq by next summer — the most drastic antiwar measure in the legislative mix, and the biggest long shot for passage,” the Washington Post reports. “With only a few votes changing since May 16, when similar language died on a 67 to 29 vote.”
• “Congress gave final approval Thursday to legislation designed to transform the Food and Drug Administration from a passive monitor to an active detective seeking out medications that have been approved for sale but turn out to be hazardous — a problem linked to an estimated 15,000 deaths a year,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “The drug-safety provisions were the centerpiece of a massive bill that also would renew industry user fees that fund the FDA’s review of medications and medical devices submitted for approval.”
• “Democrats are disappointed they have been unable to force President Bush to change course in Iraq, but they will keep pushing — with or without Republican help,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Thursday, CNN reports. “GOP senators have filibustered every Democratic-led push to bring troops home from Iraq.”
• The Senate on Thursday “overwhelmingly condemned the liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org for its newspaper ad that last week accused the top U.S. general in Iraq of lying and misrepresenting the situation on the ground, a measure on which Democratic leaders had refused to allow a vote last week,” the Washington Times reports. “The nonbinding measure, offered by Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, passed by a vote of 72-25, with 24 Democrats and one independent, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, voting against it.”
• “The FBI has taped conversations between Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and an oil company executive who has pleaded guilty to bribery, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation,” CNN reports. “The calls were between Stevens, who is up for re-election in 2008, and Bill Allen, then CEO of oilfield services firm VECO Corp., the source said Thursday.”
• “A Washington watchdog group on Thursday asked the Justice Department to investigate Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) for possible tax violations and improper use of his House office and staff,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) filed the complaint here just two days after declaring Scott among the 25 ‘most corrupt’ congressmen here for mingling personal and campaign interests, failing repeatedly to pay personal and business taxes and, as one of his former aides claimed, using his House staff to work on his campaign.”

IRAQ

• “Iraq’s Ministry of Interior has concluded that employees of a private American security firm fired an unprovoked barrage in the shooting last Sunday in which at least eight Iraqis were killed and is proposing a radical reshaping of the way American diplomats and contractors here are protected,” the New York Times reports. “In the first comprehensive account of the day’s events, the ministry said that security guards for Blackwater USA, a company that guards all senior American diplomats here, fired on Iraqis in their cars in midday traffic.”
• “Iraq wants to tighten control over security contractors after a deadly shooting incident involving the U.S. firm Blackwater, ending their long immunity from Iraqi prosecution, the Interior Ministry said” today, Reuters reports. “Spokesman Major-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the ministry had drafted legislation giving it wider powers over the contractors and calling for ’severe punishment for those who fail to adhere to the…guidelines on how they should operate.’”
• “Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan–including food, water and shelter–were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed,” the New York Times reports. “In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and materiel for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said.”
• “The first cases of cholera appeared in Baghdad on Thursday, in a sign the epidemic that has already sickened thousands in northern Iraq is now spreading more widely in a population made vulnerable by war to a normally preventable disease,” the New York Times reports. “The World Health Organization and Iraqi Red Crescent Society reported two cases here and Iraqi television reported another case, in a 7-month-old baby, in Basra, far to the south.”

NATION

• “Tens of thousands of chanting marchers descended on the small Louisiana town of Jena on Thursday to protest the treatment of six black teenagers who allegedly beat a white classmate after a series of racially tinged incidents at the local high school,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. “Hailing from as far as England, protesters arrived at sunrise by the busload to rally behind the ‘Jena Six,’ as the accused teens have come to be known, in a legal case that has drawn worldwide attention.”
• “Prominent Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu violated federal election laws by reimbursing several donors for the political checks they wrote, and extracted campaign donations from others by threatening to cut their ties with a highly lucrative Ponzi scheme he oversaw, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department” on Thursday, the Washington Post reports. “A federal fraud case that the U.S. attorney for New York’s Southern District unsealed against Hsu suggests for the first time why he in a short period of time became one of the nation’s most prolific bundlers of campaign funds.”
• “A big overhang of property will bring U.S. house prices down further, but it is too early to say if the economy will plunge into recession, former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan was quoted as saying” today, Reuters reports. “Greenspan said in an interview with Austrian magazine Format that low interest rates in the past 15 years were to blame for the house price bubble, but that central banks were powerless when they tried to bring it under control.”
• “A federal grand jury has subpoenaed House records connected to a one-time aide to” former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, “who has been caught up in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal,” AP reports. “The subpoena involving Ed Buckham was issued to the chief administrative officer of the House by a grand jury in Washington.”

WORLD

• “Hundreds of Islamists chanting slogans against Pakistan’s military leader rallied outside the Supreme Court” today “as judges heard petitions challenging President Gen. Pervez Musharraf right to run for re-election,” AP reports. “Opposition parties have promised to stage anti-Musharraf street protests across Pakistan” today, “claiming it would be illegal for the general, who seized power in a 1999 coup, to run.”
• “A bomb attack” today “against a convoy of French troops killed one soldier and caused many casualties among Afghans near the blast, while heavy fighting in southern Afghanistan killed about 75 Taliban fighters, officials said,” AP reports. “The attack in western Kabul blew the windows out of a civilian bus and set at least one vehicle on fire.”

Bin Laden calls for Pakistan holy war

From the BBC:

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has called on Pakistanis to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf.

In a new audio tape, Bin Laden promised what he called retaliation for the storming of the radical Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, in July.

He said the army operation, in which more than 100 people were killed, made Gen Musharraf an infidel.

TPC Roundup - White House v. Congress

HEADLINES

• Democrats Threaten to Delay Mukasey Confirmation
• Congress Continues Negotiation on Children’s Health Bill
• Clinton Releases Health Care Plan
• Iraq Withdraws Blackwater USA License
• Muslim Charity Trial Ends
• National Foreclosures Up 36%
• Musharraf Military Command in Limbo

TPC MOST POULAR

(updated 11:41 AM ET)

Telegraph: Bush-Cheney Planning War with Iran
Will Wes Clark be Hillary’s VP?
Bush Selects Mukasey for Attorney General
Judge Mukasey and the rule of law

WASHINGTON

• “Two Senate Democrats warned Monday that the Judiciary Committee would delay confirmation of President Bush’s choice for attorney general unless the White House turned over documents that the panel was seeking for several investigations,” the New York Times reports. “Mr. Bush announced the selection of Michael B. Mukasey, a retired federal judge from New York who has presided over several high-profile terrorism trials, during a morning Rose Garden ceremony.”
• “The White House on Monday rejected demands by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that the administration release thousands of documents related to the U.S. attorneys scandal and other Justice Department controversies before hearings begin on” Bush’s nomination of Mukasey, Roll Call  (sub. req.) reports. “A showdown between Leahy and President Bush over largely procedural matters could turn what is widely seen as a relatively noncontroversial nomination into a political lightning rod for both parties.”
• “The White House in recent days told nearly a dozen Cabinet secretaries to send letters to Capitol Hill rejecting Democrats’ proposed new funds for their agencies, escalating a confrontation between lawmakers and President Bush over domestic spending priorities,” the Washington Post reports. “The Democratic Congress is considering 2008 spending bills that increase funding for politically popular programs including health care for veterans, education, medical research and infrastructure improvements.”
• “The top U.S. intelligence official is asking Congress for even more changes to a law that he says limited the government’s ability to eavesdrop, not just on terrorists but also on more traditional potential adversaries,” AP reports. “Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, says China and Russia are aggressively spying on sensitive U.S. facilities, intelligence systems and development projects, and their efforts are approaching Cold War levels.”
• “The White House threatened on Monday to veto a bill that would add 15 years to a post-Sept. 11 government insurance program that supporters say is critical for major projects like the new World Trade Center,” the New York Times reports. “The legislation, known as the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, was originally passed by Congress after the 2001 attacks. It is due to expire this year, and the House had planned to vote this week on a 15-year extension.”

CONGRESS

• Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday “unveiled a proposal to provide health insurance to all Americans, placing herself at the center of an issue that provided perhaps the greatest setback of her political career,” the Washington Post reports. “In a speech in Des Moines, the Democratic front-runner said she would expand insurance to the 47 million people who do not already have coverage and would attempt to reduce costs for others without spawning a massive new bureaucracy.”
• “Key lawmakers in the House and Senate negotiated into the night” on Monday “on a deal that would expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over the next five years,” the Washington Post reports. “That would set up a clash with President Bush, who has promised to veto such a plan.”
• “Three senators who are considered potential swing votes on war policy said Monday that a weekend visit to Iraq left them discouraged about prospects for political reconciliation there and convinced that the United States must quickly shift more responsibility for security to the Iraqi Army,” the New York Times reports. “‘We must take decisive action to force the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to secure the peace for Iraq,’ said Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, as the Senate opened a pivotal debate on the war.”
• “Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) are among the biggest winners in the 2008 Appropriations defense bill, according to data gathered by The Hill and the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS),” The Hill reports. “Senate appropriators disclosed about 936 earmarks worth a combined $5.1 billion in the 2008 defense-spending bill, with top committee members in both parties securing the highest dollar amounts.”

IRAQ

• “At least 12 people were killed and 37 wounded today after Baghdad was hit by two parked car bombs and two roadside bombs, police said,” the Guardian reports. “A car bomb blew up in the centre of the Iraqi capital at 9.30am in a car park near the health ministry and the so-called Medical City complex of buildings, which includes several hospitals and a forensic institute.”
• “Blackwater USA, an American contractor that provides security to some of the top American officials in Iraq, has been banned from working in the country by the Iraqi government after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead and involved an American diplomatic convoy,” the New York Times reports. “A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, said Monday that authorities had canceled the company’s license and that the government would prosecute the participants.”
• “Despite efforts by U.S. forces to recruit and train women for jobs in the Iraqi security forces, just over 1,000 have been trained, many have quit and those who remain say they are struggling for acceptance,” the LA Times reports. “We’re in our posts because the Americans are here,” the army commander said. “Once they leave, we will all be out.”

NATION

• “As the government’s signature terrorism-financing trial moved toward a close here Monday, federal prosecutors reaffirmed their charge that the largest Muslim charity in the United States was not simply trying to help poor Palestinians but was in fact an arm of the radical Islamic group Hamas,” the New York Times reports. “The charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, and five of its officers have been on trial here since July 16, charged with conspiracy, money laundering and providing financial support to a foreign terrorist organization.”
• “National foreclosure filings in August were up 36 percent from July and 115 percent from August 2006, according to a market forecast out today,” the Boston Globe reports. “Nevada, California, and Florida posted the top state foreclosure rates in August, and Massachusetts was ranked 12th, said RealtyTrac, which defines foreclosure filings as default notices, auction sale notices, and bank repossessions.”

WORLD

• “In a controversial step, election officials Monday announced a rule change under which President Pervez Musharraf would be allowed to stand for reelection while still serving as head of Pakistan’s military,” the LA Times reports. “At the same time, though, the Supreme Court began hearing legal challenges to Musharraf’s plan to remain army chief as he seeks reelection by lawmakers as head of state early next month.”
• “France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, sought Monday to tone down remarks he made in a radio and television interview the day before that the world had to prepare for possible war against Iran,” the New York Times reports. “Attacked verbally by Iran and quietly criticized within his own government, Mr. Kouchner shifted the focus away from the threat of war and back to a call for hard negotiations as the way to force Iran to abandon key nuclear activities.”
• “Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran, a recently retired commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Monday,” AP reports. “John Abizaid, the retired Army general who headed Central Command for nearly four years, said he was confident that if Iran gained nuclear arms, the United States could deter it from using them.”
• “The Sept. 6 attack by Israeli warplanes inside Syria struck what Israeli intelligence believes was a nuclear-related facility that North Korea was helping to equip, according to current and former American and Israeli officials,” the New York Times reports. “Details about the Israeli assessment emerged as China abruptly canceled planned diplomatic talks in Beijing that were to set a schedule to disband nuclear facilities in North Korea.”

TPC Roundup - Bombs Literally and Figuratively

HEADLINES

• Bush Drawing Iran War Plans
• Bush to Nominate Ex-Judge Attorney General
• Greenspan Says Iraq War About Oil
• Crocker Blasts Refugee Process
• France Warns of War with Iran
• Gates Sees Extended Stay in Iraq
• Medicare Recipients May Be Denied Drugs

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Bush Speech Highlights
Bush Speech Filled With Lies
Counting the ‘Coalition of the Willing’
Few Rise to This Level
John Edwards Ad on Bush’s Iraq Speech

WASHINGTON

• “Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran,” the Telegraph reports.  “Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.” See TPC related post.
• “President Bush has decided to nominate Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge from New York…as his next attorney general,” the New York Times reports. If confirmed, “he would preside over a Justice Department that has been buffeted by Congressional inquiries into the firing of federal prosecutors and the resignation of the previous attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales.” See TPC related post.
• “Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been ‘essential’ to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq,” the Washington Post reports. “Greenspan … made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that ‘the Iraq War is largely about oil.’” See TPC related post.
• “The Justice Department inappropriately put pressure on a former” Alaska state representative Victor Kohring “to consider pleading guilty in a corruption case, said his lawyer, who wants a federal judge to review the department’s actions,” the New York Times reports. “The case has reached into Washington, where a senator and a member of the House have come under scrutiny.”
• “Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell heads to Capitol Hill this week seeking to extend the government’s power to read e-mails, listen to telephone calls and carry out other surveillance within the USA in national security cases,” USA Today reports. “Democrats, including” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., “are criticizing McConnell’s proposals.”

IRAQ

• “Militants stepped up attacks across Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 30 people in a spate of bombings and shootings that followed a threat by al Qaeda to launch a new phase of violence,” Reuters reports. “Besides the attacks by militants, Iraqi police said security contractors were involved in an incident in which up to 10 people were shot dead in Baghdad’s western Mansour district.”
• “The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned that it may take the U.S. government as long as two years to process and admit nearly 10,000 Iraqi refugees referred by the United Nations for resettlement to the United States, because of bureaucratic bottlenecks,” the Washington Post reports. “In a bluntly worded State Department cable titled ‘Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?’ Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker noted that the Department of Homeland Security had only a handful of officers in Jordan to vet the refugees.”
• “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he would advise President Bush to veto a Senate proposal that would effectively force a major drawdown of American forces in Iraq,” the Washington Times reports.  “The proposal, sponsored by Sen. James H. Webb Jr., Virginia Democrat, that would require that troops be given equal time off to match tours of duty, was dismissed by Mr. Gates as ‘a backdoor way to try and force the president to accelerate the drawdown.’ ”
• “The U.S. military said Sunday that its forces had captured an Iraqi suspected in the killing of a tribal leader who had helped organize local forces against Al Qaeda-linked insurgents in Anbar province,” the LA Times reports. “The slaying of Abdul Sattar Rishawi on Thursday was part of a plot by militants to kill leaders of the Anbar Salvation Council, a coalition of tribes, military officials said.”

NATION

• “An obscure provision slipped into a $120 billion Iraq spending bill in May threatens to leave some poor and disabled Medicaid recipients without prescription drugs in October,” USA Today reports. “In a case of unintended consequences, Congress inserted a rule cracking down on Medicaid fraud that requires that all non-electronic prescriptions for Medicaid patients be written on tamper-resistant paper.”
• “In the first major antiwar demonstration in the nation’s capital since January, several thousand protesters marched from the White House to the Capitol on Saturday, carrying signs and chanting slogans demanding an end to the Iraq war and the impeachment of President Bush,” the Los Angeles Times reports.  “A smaller group conducted a counter-demonstration to support the president and the war, leading to some heated confrontations. But the event was mostly peaceful — until more than 100 protesters jumped barriers around the Capitol and were arrested on the building’s steps late in the day.”

WORLD

• “French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran’s nuclear programme,” the BBC reports. ” ‘We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war,’ Mr Kouchner said in an interview on French TV and radio.”
• “A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a local government compound in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing four policemen and four civilians and wounding seven, the district chief said,” Reuters reports.   “He said the attack took place in the Naadali district of Helmand province, which has seen some of the worst violence between the resurgent Taliban on one side and Afghan and foreign troops on the other.”
• “Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf plans to stand down as army chief by 15 November, an official from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) says,” BBC News reports. “Musharraf will resign from the powerful post after the presidential elections, said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the PML’s secretary general.”

TPC Roundup - Troop Interruptus

HEADLINES

• Bush Orders Withdrawal in Speech Filled with “Misstatements”; War Critics Not Amused
• White House Issues Iraq Report
• Key Sunni Leader Assassinated in Anbar
• NJ Refuses to Obey Federal SCIHP Rules
• Russia Confirms New Prime Minister
• Giuliani Attacks Clinton over MoveOn Ad
• Stevens Alaska Scandal Deepens

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WASHINGTON

• “President Bush tried to turn a corner in the fractious debate over Iraq last night by ordering the first limited troop withdrawals since voters elected an antiwar Congress last year,” the Washington Post reports. “But the move did little to appease Democratic leaders, who dismissed it as a token gesture masking an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops.”
• When discussing the status of Iraq, President Bush frequently refers to the “facts on the ground,” however, the President had difficulty with facts in his speech last night. The Washington Post reports, “President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words.
• “Congressional Democrats vowed Thursday to press for steeper troop reductions in Iraq than President Bush wants, but the top Senate Republican predicted they won’t have the votes to alter the White House proposal,” USA Today reports. “‘The president failed to provide either a plan to successfully end the war or a convincing rationale to continue it,’ said Sen. Jack Reed” of Rhode Island.
• “A new White House report on Iraq shows slim progress, moving just one more political and security goal into the satisfactory column: efforts to let former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to rejoin the political process,” AP reports via the Las Vegas Sun. “The latest conclusions, to be released” today, “largely track a comparable poor assessment in July on 18 benchmarks.” TPM Muckracker highlights some of the contradictions.
• “Democrats, anti-war groups and liberal bloggers are pounding on House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) for saying U.S. military deaths in Iraq are ‘a small price’ to pay to stop al Qaeda from carrying out more terrorist attacks and stabilizing the Middle East,’” The Politico reports. “Boehner made the comments during a Wednesday interview by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.”
• John Kerry lashed out at House Minority Leader John Boehner in a post at the Huffington Post. “What a stunningly cavalier statement about the lives of the young men and women who serve our country.Whether you support or oppose the Bush escalation, no American should ever for even a moment think the cost of war is small.”
• “After nine months of noisy controversy over his troubled tenure, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is leaving office quietly today with a low-key farewell address to Justice Department employees in Washington,” the Washington Post reports. “Gonzales, who has made only three public appearances since announcing his resignation on Aug. 27, is expected to dwell on his record in combating terrorism, child exploitation and other crimes rather than on the divisive issues that forced him from the job.”

IRAQ

• “A charismatic tribal leader who allied himself with the United States and rallied fractious Sunni groups against extremists who claim links to al-Qaeda was killed Thursday afternoon when a bomb exploded outside his house in Anbar province,” the Washington Post reports. “The efforts of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha became the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s campaign to prove its troop buildup in Iraq has been a success.”
• “An al-Qaida-linked insurgent group released a video Thursday showing the body of a U.S. pilot killed in Iraq last year, a photograph of his identification card and footage of his aircraft’s wreckage site, U.S. monitors said,” AP reports. “The video,” which “was first obtained by the IntelCenter monitoring group in suburban Washington,” shows “the ID card photograph of Air Force pilot Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, whose F-16CG crashed Nov. 27, 2006, some 20 miles northwest of Baghdad.”

NATION

• “Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine informed President Bush this week that New Jersey will not obey federal rules that would make it harder to enroll middle-income kids for a popular government-subsidized health insurance program,” the Washington Post reports. “His move escalated the growing confrontation between a number of states and the administration over the new rules imposed on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.”
• “A judge ordered a cash bond of $5 million for Norman Hsu, the shadowy Democratic fund-raiser, after Colorado authorities told the court here that Mr. Hsu might have been involved in another multimillion-dollar fraud investigation involving dozens of investors in Orange County, Calif.,” the New York Times reports. “The revelation that Mr. Hsu, a fugitive for 15 years in a California fraud case, might be implicated in another fraud investigation came after New York investors learned this week that $40 million they had invested with Mr. Hsu might be in jeopardy.”

INTERNATIONAL

• “Viktor Zubkov has been confirmed as Russia’s new prime minister and has pledged to wage a war on corruption,” BBC News reports. “The lower house of parliament voted 381 to 47 to approve his nomination, submitted by President Vladimir Putin in a surprise move on Wednesday.”
• “At least 15 soldiers from an elite commando unit were killed Thursday evening when a blast, apparently set off by a suicide bomber, tore through the dining hall of a military installation in northwestern Pakistan,” the New York Times reports. “At least 27 soldiers were wounded; six were in critical condition.”
• “NATO is ready to discuss bringing France back fully into the fold after signals from Paris it may reverse its decision 41 years ago to quit the alliance’s military structures,” Reuters reports. “President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone with a keynote foreign-policy speech last month, insisting NATO was no rival to France’s ambition of a robust European Union defense capability.”

ELECTIONS 2008

• “Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani on Thursday accused Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton of participating in ”character assassination” for questioning Gen. David Petraeus about his assessment of progress in Iraq,” AP reports. “Campaigning in Georgia, Giuliani assailed Clinton for the second straight day and tried to link her to a newspaper ad from the liberal anti-war group MoveOn that was critical of Petraeus. The ad accused Petraeus of ‘cooking the books’ for the White House. ‘General Petraeus or General Betray Us?’ it asked, playing off his name.”
• Although a link cannot be provided, Giuliani placed an ad in the New York Times in response to MoveOn’s ad on Petraeus.

SCANDALS

• The scandal surrounding Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AL) and his son continues to heat up. “The former head of an oil field service company admitted Thursday in court that he bribed three Alaska legislators, including the son of a U.S. senator who is the target of a federal investigation,” the Washington Post reports. “Former VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen, 70, testified Thursday in the federal corruption trial of former state House Speaker Pete Kott. Allen and a former company vice president, Rick Smith, have pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers, and await sentencing.”

Pakistan’s Musharraf to relinquish role of army chief

Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf agreed to resign as “army chief as part of a nearly completed deal that would allow him to serve another term as president if he is re-elected” and will allow the exiled former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan and run for prime minister.

In a six-month struggle to retain his position as president and military leader, Musharraf has suffered significant political blows in the past few weeks. A week ago, Pakistan’s Supreme Court began to reassert its power and ruled that Musharraf’s rival, Nawaz Sharif, whom he ousted as prime minister in a 1999 military coup, could return to Pakistan.

According to the NYT, the Bush administration supports the return of Bhutto and her potentially sharing power with Musharraf.

A power-sharing deal between General Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto would have the support of the United States and European governments, who see General Musharraf as an important ally in fighting terrorism but also want to encourage moderate political forces in Pakistan to counter religious extremists.

Apparently, Musharraf isn’t pleased with relinquishing his role as Pakistan’s army chief. He likes to wear the uniform.

[Musharraf's] minister of railways, Sheik Rashid Ahmed, said at a news conference covered by Reuters: ?There is no more uniform issue. It has been settled, and the president will make an announcement.?

Asked later if General Musharraf would take off his uniform before running for re-election, he said, ?Maybe.?

My question is, will the changing political dynamics in Pakistan facilitate the U.S. search for Osama bin Laden in northwest Pakistan?

US to press ahead with anti-missile plan

W. is doing a heckuva job making Putin mad.

See, I told you when Bush responded to Putin with, “interesting proposal — we have to have our experts look at it,” that is “no” in George Bush’s vernacular. 

Halliburton Will Move HQ to Dubai

Halliburton says it will move its headquarters from Houston to Dubai, U.A.E. to take advantage of the extensive business opportunities in the Middle East. I have no doubt that is a significant motivator and I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with reducing its U.S. tax liability. Furthermore, there’s no way it could have anything to do with Iraq easing towards an internal oil policy agreement and Halliburton’s existing presence in Iraq.

Also, several Middle Eastern countries and the U.S. have gotten together for the first time to discuss how to deal with Iraq. Perfect timing for Halliburton to insert itself into negotiations with virtually all of the world’s oil producing nations at once.

Moving the headquarters of a company the size of Halliburton is no small task…if they start their transition today, they should have most of the operations transferred and headaches eliminated right about the time Dick Cheney will leave the White House and needs a job. And, new stock options too.

N. Korea Agrees to Nuclear Disarmament

This is good news and I don’t intend to lessen the significance of the event, but think about this for a moment.

In a landmark international accord, North Korea promised Tuesday to close down and seal its lone nuclear reactor within 60 days in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil as a first step in abandoning all nuclear weapons and research programs.

North Korea also reaffirmed a commitment to disable the reactor in an undefined next phase of denuclearization and to discuss with the United States and other nations its plutonium fuel reserves and other nuclear programs that “would be abandoned” as part of the process. In return for taking those further steps, the accord said, North Korea would receive additional “economic, energy and humanitarian assistance up to the equivalent of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil.”

First, this is not the first time North Korea has promised to stop or reduce their nuclear weapons programs. If I remember correctly, they dismissed a prior agreement during or from the Clinton administration. Promises and sustained actions are two different things. Second, I can’t say just how much credit the U.S. can really take for this agreement, but let’s assume the current administration can put their Mission Accomplished banner up again and it is substantiative - one accomplishment spanning six years does not make a good resume.

And speaking of Mission Accomplished, it has been 1,401 days since George Bush declared major operations in Iraq were complete.

BREAKING: Tentative Deal with North Korea

New York Times:

Negotiators reached a draft agreement today on a deal to begin disarming North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, the chief American negotiator said. The deal is now being reviewed by the governments of the six nations in the talks.

Tags: North+Korea