Which Side Are You On?
The Nation

Rarely does the response to a State of the Union address create more buzz than the presidential pontification itself. But that's what happened with the sharp lesson in populist economics delivered by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. Webb's indictment of the Iraq War was direct and powerful, but it was his use of the language of class conflict in discussing domestic policy that really had the country buzzing after January 23. Talk-radio host Laura Ingraham referred to Webb's response, warning the National Review Institute Conservative Summit, "The party that comes off as the party that represents the American worker best is the party that wins in 2008."

Republicans are right to fear Webb's words. Blunt talk of America "drifting apart along class lines" and the observation that "it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day" connect with voters soured on the GOP, as even George W. Bush implicitly acknowledged when he told a Wall Street crowd a week later that corporate boards "need to pay attention"to executive compensation. As proven by Webb's upset victory in November, and the victories of Ohio's Sherrod Brown, Vermont's Bernie Sanders and Montana's Jon Tester, candidates willing to break with the bosses can draw working-class voters out of the clutches of moralizing right-wingers and back into the Democratic fold.

Now Democrats need to prove with deeds that match Webb's rhetoric just which side they're on. With moves to raise the minimum wage and tax Big Oil, House Democrats have taken some significant steps. Senate Democrats have done the same with efforts to raise taxes on executive pay. But much more is possible.

Take the question of what to do about healthcare, our most critical domestic issue. George W. Bush's answer in his speech was to tax workers whose employers offer high-quality plans ("gold-plated" in Bush's snide reference) in order to cover a small number of the currently uninsured, while offering the wealthy yet another new tax deduction if they buy their own plans.

The Democrats should counter Bush with a plan that's already backed by seventy-eight House members, HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act, introduced by Representatives John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich. Some 225 labor unions back the bill, which would expand Medicare to every US resident. A tax on the top 5 percent of income earners, among other measures, would pay for the program.

Too radical? Consider that in September, an ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey found that 56 percent of Americans would prefer a government-run universal healthcare system "like Medicare" to our current system.

Or take the matter of education. The median income of workers with a BA or higher is about double that of those with only a high school diploma. But as Jeff Madrick noted here recently, thanks to rising costs and inadequate aid, the march to higher graduation rates has stalled in America as other countries have surpassed us. How should Congress respond? It could start with the plan, proposed by Edward Kennedy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, to forgive all college loans if graduates work in public service for ten years.

There's more. How about dusting off legislation to deny corporations tax deductions when executive compensation exceeds twenty-five times the pay of the lowest-paid full-time worker? How about responding to Bush's request for fast-track authority on free-trade agreements by requiring the inclusion of labor, environmental and human rights standards in any new deals?

Senator Webb invoked the example of Teddy Roosevelt's progressive reforms in the early twentieth century. That's a good place for Democrats to look for inspiration in turning Webb's message into enthusiasm for their party in 2008. More important, they can begin work now on an economic program that, to borrow Webb's phrase, will insure that the benefits of our immense wealth are "properly shared among all Americans."

1000 KILLED IN IRAQ IN ONE WEEK

Bush and Cheney's dirty secrets
By Georg Mascolo and Holger Stark

Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up - New York Times
The New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 4, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up
By
FRANK RICH

IN the days since Dick Cheney
lost it on CNN
, our nation's armchair shrinks have had a blast. The vice president who
boasted of "enormous successes" in Iraq and barked "hogwash" at the
congenitally
mild Wolf Blitzer has been roundly judged delusional, pathologically
dishonest or just plain nuts. But what else is new? We identified those
diagnoses
long ago. The more intriguing question is what ignited this particularly
violent public flare-up.

The answer can be found in the timing of the CNN interview, which was
conducted the day after the
start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney's former top aide
, Scooter Libby. The vice president's on-camera crackup reflected his
understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that
sworn
testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details
about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq. He
knew
that those revelations could cripple the White House's current campaign to
escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. Scariest of
all,
he knew that he might yet have to testify under oath himself.

Mr. Cheney, in other words, understands the danger this trial poses to the
White House even as some of Washington remains oblivious. From the start,
the
capital has belittled the Joseph and Valerie Wilson affair as "a tempest in
a teapot,"
as David Broder of The Washington Post reiterated
just five months ago. When "all of the facts come out in this case, it's
going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,"
Bob Woodward said in 2005
. Or, as Robert Novak suggested in 2003 before he revealed Ms. Wilson's
identity as a C.I.A. officer in his column, "weapons of mass destruction or
uranium
from Niger" are "little elitist issues that don't bother most of the
people." Those issues may not trouble Mr. Novak, but they do loom large to
other people,
especially those who sent their kids off to war over nonexistent weapons of
mass destruction and nonexistent uranium.

In terms of the big issues, the question of who first leaked Ms. Wilson's
identity (whether Mr. Libby, Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove)
to
which journalist (whether Mr. Woodward, Mr. Novak, Judith Miller or Matt
Cooper) has always been a red herring. It's entirely possible that the White
House
has always been telling the truth when it says that no one intended to
unmask a secret agent. (No one has been charged with that crime.) The White
House
is also telling the truth when it repeatedly says that Mr. Cheney did not
send Mr. Wilson on his C.I.A.-sponsored African trip to check out a supposed
Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. (Another red herring, since Mr. Wilson didn't
make that accusation in the first place.)

But if the administration is telling the truth on these narrow questions and
had little to hide about the Wilson trip per se, its wild overreaction to
the
episode was an incriminating sign it was hiding something else. According to
testimony in the Libby case, the White House went berserk when Mr. Wilson
published his
Op-Ed article in The Times in July 2003
about what he didn't find in Africa. Top officials gossiped incessantly
about both Wilsons to anyone who would listen, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby
conferred
about them several times a day, and finally Mr. Libby, known as an
exceptionally discreet White House courtier, became so sloppy that his
alleged lying

landed him with five felony counts.

The explanation for the hysteria has long been obvious. The White House was
terrified about being found guilty of a far greater crime than outing a
C.I.A.
officer: lying to the nation to hype its case for war. When Mr. Wilson, an
obscure retired diplomat, touched that raw nerve, all the president's men
panicked
because they knew Mr. Wilson's modest finding in Africa was the tip of a far
larger iceberg. They knew that there was still far more damning evidence of
the administration's W.M.D. lies lurking in the bowels of the bureaucracy.

Thanks to the commotion caused by the leak case, that damning evidence has
slowly dribbled out. By my count we now know of at least a half-dozen
instances
before the start of the Iraq war when various intelligence agencies and
others signaled that evidence of Iraq's purchase of uranium in Africa might
be
dubious or fabricated. (These are detailed in the timelines at
frankrich.com/timeline.htm
.) The culmination of these warnings arrived in January 2003, the same month
as the president's State of the Union address, when the White House received
a memo from the National Intelligence Council, the coordinating body for all
American spy agencies, stating unequivocally that
the claim was baseless
. Nonetheless President Bush brandished that fearful "uranium from Africa"
in his
speech to Congress
as he hustled the country into war in Iraq.

If the war had been a cakewalk, few would have cared to investigate the
administration's deceit at its inception. But by the time Mr. Wilson's Op-Ed
article
appeared - some five months after the State of the Union and two months
after "Mission Accomplished" - there was something terribly wrong with the
White
House's triumphal picture. More than
60 American troops had been killed
since Mr. Bush celebrated the end of "major combat operations" by prancing
about an aircraft carrier. No W.M.D. had been found, and we weren't even
able
to turn on the lights in Baghdad. For the first time, more than half of
Americans told a
Washington Post-ABC News poll
that the level of casualties was "unacceptable."

It was urgent, therefore, that the awkward questions raised by Mr. Wilson's
revelation of his Africa trip be squelched as quickly as possible. He had to
be smeared as an inconsequential has-been whose mission was merely a trivial
boondoggle arranged by his wife. The C.I.A., which had actually resisted the
uranium fictions, had to be strong-armed into taking the blame for the 16
errant words in the State of the Union speech.

What we are learning from Mr. Libby's trial is just what a herculean effort
it took to execute this two-pronged cover-up after Mr. Wilson's article
appeared.
Mr. Cheney was the hands-on manager of the 24/7 campaign of press
manipulation and high-stakes character assassination, with Mr. Libby as his
chief hatchet
man. Though Mr. Libby's lawyers are now arguing that their client was a
sacrificial lamb thrown to the feds to shield Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby actually
was
- and still is - a stooge for the vice president.

Whether he will go to jail for his misplaced loyalty is the human drama of
his trial. But for the country there are bigger issues at stake, and they
are
not, as the White House would have us believe, ancient history. The
administration propaganda flimflams that sold us the war are now being
retrofitted
to expand and extend it.

In a replay of the run-up to the original invasion, a
new National Intelligence Estimate
, requested by Congress in August to summarize all intelligence assessments
on Iraq, was mysteriously delayed until last week, well after the president
had set his surge. Even the declassified passages
released on Friday
- the grim takes on the weak Iraqi security forces and the spiraling
sectarian violence - foretell that the latest plan for victory is doomed. (
As a White House communications aide testified at the Libby trial
, this administration habitually releases bad news on Fridays because "fewer
people pay attention when it's reported on Saturday.")

A Pentagon inspector general's report,
uncovered by Business Week last week
, was also kept on the q.t.: it shows that even as more American troops are
being thrown into the grinder in Iraq, existing troops lack the guns and
ammunition
to "effectively complete their missions." Army and Marine Corps commanders
told The Washington Post that both armor and trucks were in such short
supply
that their best hope is that "
five brigades of up-armored Humvees fall out of the sky
."

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of
Colin Powell's notorious W.M.D. pantomime
before the United Nations Security Council, a fair amount of it a
Cheney-Libby production. To mark this milestone, the White House is reviving
the same
script to rev up the war's escalation, this time hyping Iran-Iraq
connections instead of Al Qaeda-Iraq connections.
In his Jan. 10 prime-time speech on Iraq
, Mr. Bush said that Iran was supplying "advanced weaponry and training to
our enemies," even though the evidence suggests that Iran is actually in bed
with our "friends" in Iraq, the Maliki government. The administration
promised a dossier to back up its claims, but that too has been delayed
twice amid
reports of what
The Times calls
"a continuing debate about how well the information proved the Bush
administration's case."

Call it a coincidence - though there are no coincidences - but it's only
fitting that the Libby trial began as news arrived of
the death of E. Howard Hunt
, the former C.I.A. agent whose bungling of the Watergate break-in sent him
to jail and led to the unraveling of the Nixon presidency two years later.
Still,
we can't push the parallels too far. No one died in Watergate. This time
around our country can't wait two more years for the White House to be
stopped
from playing its games with American blood.

Copyright 2007
The New York Times Company

Posted by Miriam V.

Bush's Medicare Budget Would Raise Premiums - New York Times
The New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 4, 2007
Bush's Medicare Budget Would Raise Premiums
By
ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 - More and more Medicare beneficiaries would have to pay
higher premiums for coverage of prescription drugs and doctors' services
under
President Bush's 2008 budget, to be unveiled on Monday.

Single people with annual incomes over $80,000 and married couples with
incomes over $160,000 already have to pay higher premiums for the part of
Medicare
that covers doctors' services. The income thresholds rise with inflation.

Budget documents show that Mr. Bush will propose a similar surcharge on
premiums for Medicare's new prescription drug benefit. In addition, the
president
will ask Congress to "eliminate annual indexing of income thresholds," so
that more people would eventually have to pay the higher premiums.

The proposal, expected to raise $10 billion over the next five years, is one
of many advanced by Mr. Bush in a $2.8 trillion budget that aims to
eliminate
the deficit by 2012.

In his budget request, Mr. Bush expresses alarm about what he calls "the
unsustainable growth of federal entitlement programs," and he proposes
savings
in Medicare and Medicaid that far surpass what he or any other president has
sought.

The president contends that he can make the rule changes without any action
by Congress. But Congress could try to block some or all of the changes.

Democrats immediately denounced the proposals. "This is exactly the wrong
approach," said Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton
of New York, who cited the proposals as evidence of what she called "the
president's misplaced priorities."

Many
Republicans
like the idea of an "income-related premium," saying affluent beneficiaries
can afford to pay a larger share of Medicare's costs. Democrats are divided.
Some see it as a progressive way to finance the program. But others say it
is fundamentally at odds with the idea of social insurance, and they fear
that
it could prompt some wealthy people to leave Medicare.

Administration officials said earlier this week that Mr. Bush would ask
Congress to squeeze more than $70 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over
five years.
But the budget documents show that the actual figure is much larger: $101.5
billion of savings over five years.

The president's budget includes legislative proposals that would save $78.6
billion over the next five years - $65.6 billion in Medicare and $13 billion
in Medicaid.

In addition, the budget documents say that Mr. Bush will propose changes in
federal regulations to save $22.9 billion more over the next five years:
$10.2
billion in Medicare and $12.7 billion in Medicaid.

Lobbyists for hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers plan
a huge campaign to kill the president's proposals, which they say will
ultimately
harm beneficiaries.

Mr. Bush said his proposals would just slow the programs' growth. "Our
budget reduces Medicare's average annual growth rate over five years to 5.6
percent,
from 6.5 percent," Mr. Bush said, while Medicaid would grow 7.1 percent a
year, instead of 7.3 percent.

In the past, Mr. Bush has proposed trimming Medicare payments to health care
providers for a few years, but now he proposes to make the cutbacks
permanent,
so that hospitals and nursing homes would never receive a full update for
inflation.

For the Children's Health Insurance Program, Mr. Bush requests $5.4 billion
in 2008, a reduction of $223 million, or 4 percent, from this year's level.
Beyond the current levels of spending, the White House is seeking an
"additional allotment" of $5 billion over the next five years, which is less
than
half of what would be needed to maintain coverage for children currently
enrolled.

Mr. Bush said he wanted to return the program to its "original objective" of
covering children with family incomes less than twice the poverty level.
Budget
documents note that 16 states cover children above that level, and "one
state, New Jersey, covers children up to 350 percent of the federal poverty
level."
A family of four is considered poor if its annual income is less than
$20,650.

In a visit to the
National Institutes of Health
last month, Mr. Bush said, "The N.I.H. is one of America's greatest assets,
and it needs to be nourished," adding, "It makes sense to spend taxpayers'
money on
cancer
research."

But the president's budget for biomedical research is basically flat. He is
requesting $28.9 billion for the health institutes in 2008, an increase of
$232
million, or less than 1 percent. For the
National Cancer Institute
, Mr. Bush is requesting $4.8 billion, which is $9 million less than this
year's level.

To fight childhood
obesity
, Mr. Bush asks Congress to set aside $17 million for a new program to
promote "healthy behavior" among adolescents. But at the same time, he asks
Congress
to eliminate the preventive health services block grant, which provides $99
million a year to help states prevent obesity and other chronic conditions.

Mr. Bush proposes an 18 percent cut in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance
Program, which provides $2.2 billion to help people pay heating bills this
year. At a time of high fuel prices, many lawmakers are likely to resist the
cut.

Copyright 2007
The New York Times Company

Posted by Miriam V.

In Washington, Contractors Play Biggest Role Ever - New York Times
The New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 4, 2007
In Washington, Contractors Play Biggest Role Ever
By
SCOTT SHANE
and RON NIXON

WASHINGTON
, Feb. 3 - In June, short of people to process cases of incompetence and
fraud by federal contractors, officials at the
General Services Administration
responded with what has become the government's reflexive answer to almost
every problem.

They hired another contractor.

It did not matter that the company they chose, CACI International, had
itself recently avoided a suspension from federal contracting; or that the
work,
delving into investigative files on other contractors, appeared to pose a
conflict of interest; or that each person supplied by the company would cost
taxpayers $104 an hour. Six CACI workers soon joined hundreds of other
private-sector workers at the G.S.A., the government's management agency.

Without a public debate or formal policy decision, contractors have become a
virtual fourth branch of government. On the rise for decades, spending on
federal
contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion
last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic
security
and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing
almost everything government does.

Contractors still build ships and satellites, but they also collect income
taxes and work up agency budgets, fly pilotless spy aircraft and take the
minutes
at policy meetings on the war. They sit next to federal employees at nearly
every agency; far more people work under contracts than are directly
employed
by the government. Even the government's online database for tracking
contracts, the Federal Procurement Data System, has been outsourced (and is
famously
difficult to use).

The contracting explosion raises questions about propriety, cost and
accountability that have long troubled watchdog groups and are coming under
scrutiny
from the Democratic majority in Congress. While flagrant cases of fraud and
waste make headlines, concerns go beyond outright wrongdoing. Among them:

¶Competition, intended to produce savings, appears to have sharply eroded.
An analysis by The New York Times shows that fewer than half of all
"contract
actions" - new contracts and payments against existing contracts - are now
subject to full and open competition. Just 48 percent were competitive in
2005,
down from 79 percent in 2001.

¶The most secret and politically delicate government jobs, like intelligence
collection and budget preparation, are increasingly contracted out, despite
regulations forbidding the outsourcing of "inherently governmental" work.
Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a
watchdog
group, said allowing CACI workers to review other contractors captured in
microcosm "a government that's run by corporations."

¶Agencies are crippled in their ability to seek low prices, supervise
contractors and intervene when work goes off course because the number of
government
workers overseeing contracts has remained level as spending has shot up. One
federal contractor explained candidly in a conference call with industry
analysts
last May that "one of the side benefits of the contracting officers being so
overwhelmed" was that existing contracts were extended rather than put up
for new competitive bidding.

¶The most successful contractors are not necessarily those doing the best
work, but those who have mastered the special skill of selling to Uncle Sam.
The
top 20 service contractors have spent nearly $300 million since 2000 on
lobbying and have donated $23 million to political campaigns. "We've created
huge
behemoths that are doing 90 or 95 percent of their business with the
government," said Peter W. Singer, who wrote a book on military outsourcing.
"They're
not really companies, they're quasi agencies." Indeed, the biggest federal
contractor, Lockheed Martin, which has spent $53 million on lobbying and $6
million on donations since 2000, gets more federal money each year than the
Departments of Justice or Energy.

¶Contracting almost always leads to less public scrutiny, as government
programs are hidden behind closed corporate doors. Companies, unlike
agencies, are
not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Members of Congress have
sought unsuccessfully for two years to get the Army to explain the contracts
for
Blackwater USA security officers in Iraq, which involved several costly
layers of subcontractors.

Weighing the Limits

The contracting surge has raised bipartisan alarms. A just-completed study
by experts appointed by the White House and Congress, the Acquisition
Advisory
Panel, found that the trend "poses a threat to the government's long-term
ability to perform its mission" and could "undermine the integrity of the
government's
decision making."

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose new Democratic
chairman,
Representative Henry A. Waxman
of California, added the word "oversight" to signal his intentions, begins
a series of investigative hearings on Tuesday focusing on contracts in Iraq
and at the
Department of Homeland Security.

"Billions of dollars are being squandered, and the taxpayer is being taken
to the cleaners," said Mr. Waxman, who got an "F" rating last year from the
Contract
Services Association, an industry coalition. The chairman he succeeded,
Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, earned an "A."

David M. Walker, who as comptroller general of the United States leads the
Government Accountability Office
, has urged Congress to take a hard look at the proper limits of
contracting. Mr. Walker has not taken a stand against contractors - his
agency is also
dependent on them, he admits - but he says they often fail to deliver the
promised efficiency and savings. Private companies cannot be expected to
look
out for taxpayers' interests, he said.

"There's something civil servants have that the private sector doesn't," Mr.
Walker said in an interview. "And that is the duty of loyalty to the greater
good - the duty of loyalty to the collective best interest of all rather
than the interest of a few. Companies have duties of loyalty to their
shareholders,
not to the country."

Even the most outspoken critics acknowledge that the government cannot
operate without contractors, which provide the surge capacity to handle
crises without
expanding the permanent bureaucracy. Contractors provide specialized skills
the government does not have. And it is no secret that some government
executives
favor contractors because they find the federal bureaucracy slow, inflexible
or incompetent.

Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, which
represents government contractors, acknowledged occasional chicanery by
contractors
and too little competition in some areas. But Mr. Soloway asserted that
critics had exaggerated the contracting problems.

"I don't happen to think the system is fundamentally broken," he said. "It's
remarkable how well it works, given the dollar volume."

Blurring the Lines

Wariness of government contracting dates at least to 1941, when
Harry S. Truman
, then a senator, declared, "I have never yet found a contractor who, if not
watched, would not leave the government holding the bag."

But the recent contracting boom had its origins in the "reinventing
government" effort of the Clinton administration, which slashed the federal
work force
to the lowest level since 1960 and streamlined outsourcing. Limits on what
is "inherently governmental" and therefore off-limits to contractors have
grown
fuzzy, as the General Services Administration's use of CACI International
personnel shows.

"Hi Heinz," Renee Ballard, a G.S.A. official, wrote in an e-mail message to
Heinz Ruppmann, a CACI official, last June 12, asking for six "contract
specialists"
to help with a backlog of 226 cases that could lead to companies being
suspended or barred from federal contracting. The CACI workers would review
files
and prepare "proposed responses for review and signature," she wrote.

Mr. Amey, of the Project on Government Oversight, which obtained the
contract documents under the Freedom of Information Act, said such work was
clearly
inherently governmental and called it "outrageous" to involve contractors in
judging the misdeeds of potential competitors. CACI had itself been reviewed
in 2004 for possible suspension in connection with supplying interrogators
to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The company was ultimately cleared, though
the G.S.A. found that CACI employees had improperly written parts of the
"statements of work" for its own Iraq contract.

The price of $104 an hour - well over $200,000 per person annually - was
roughly double the cost of pay and benefits of a comparable federal worker,
Mr.
Amey said.

Asked for comment, the G.S.A. said decisions on punishments for erring
contractors "is indeed inherently governmental." But the agency said that
while the
CACI workers assisted for three months, "all suspension/debarment decisions
were made by federal employees." A CACI spokeswoman made the same point.

The G.S.A., like other agencies, said it did not track the number or total
cost of its contract workers. The agency administrator, Lurita Doan, who
previously
ran a Virginia contracting firm, has actively pushed contracting. Ms. Doan
recently clashed with her agency's inspector general over her proposal to
remove
the job of auditing contractors' proposed prices from his office and to hire
contractors to do it instead.

On some of the biggest government projects, Bush administration officials
have sought to shift some decision making to contractors. When Michael P.
Jackson,
deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, addressed potential
bidders on the huge Secure Border Initiative last year, he explained the new
approach.

"This is an unusual invitation," said Mr. Jackson, a contracting executive
before joining the agency. "We're asking you to come back and tell us how to
do our business."

Boeing, which won the $80 million first phase of the estimated $2 billion
project, is assigned not only to develop technology but also to propose how
to
use it, which includes assigning roles to different government agencies and
contractors. Homeland Security officials insist that they will make all
final
decisions, but the department's inspector general, Richard L. Skinner,
reported bluntly in November that "the department does not have the capacity
needed
to effectively plan, oversee and execute the SBInet program."

A 'Blended Work Force'

If the government is exporting some traditional functions to contractors, it
is also inviting contractors into agencies to perform delicate tasks. The
State
Department, for instance, pays more than $2 million a year to BearingPoint,
the consulting giant, to provide support for Iraq policy making, running
software,
preparing meeting agendas and keeping minutes.

State Department officials insist that the company's workers, who hold
security clearances, merely relieve diplomats of administrative tasks and
never influence
policy. But the presence of contractors inside closed discussions on war
strategy is a notable example of what officials call the "blended work
force."

That blending is taking place in virtually every agency. When Polly Endreny,
29, sought work last year with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration,
she was surprised to discover that most openings were with contractors.

"The younger generation is coming in on contracts," said Ms. Endreny, who
likes the arrangement. Today, only the "Oak Management" on her ID badge
distinguishes
her from federal employees at the agency's headquarters.

She said her pay was "a little higher" than that of comparable federal
workers, and she gets dental coverage they do not. Such disparities can
cause trouble.
A recent study of one NOAA program where two-thirds of the work force were
contractors found that differences in salary and benefits could "
substantially
undermine staff relations and morale."

The shift away from open competition affects more than morale. One example
among many: with troops short in Iraq, Congress in 2003 waived a ban on the
use
of private security guards to protect military bases in the United States.
The results for the first $733 million were dismal, investigators at the
Government
Accountability Office found.

The Army spent 25 percent more than it had to because it used sole-source
contracts at 46 of 57 sites, the investigators concluded. And screening of
guards
was so lax that at one base, 61 guards were hired despite criminal records,
auditors reported. Yet the Army gave the contractors more than $18 million
in incentive payments intended to reward good performance. (The Army did not
contest G.A.O.'s findings and has changed its methods.)

A Coalition for Contracting

Mr. Soloway, of the contracting industry group, argues that the contracting
boom has resulted from the collision of a high-technology economy with an
aging
government work force - twice as many employees are over 55 as under 30. To
function, Mr. Soloway said, the government must now turn to younger, skilled
personnel in the private sector, a phenomenon likely to grow when what
demographers call a "retirement tsunami" occurs over the next decade.

"This is the new face of government," Mr. Soloway said. "This isn't
companies gouging the government. This is the marketplace."

But Paul C. Light of
New York University
, who has long tracked the hidden contractor work force to assess what he
calls the "true size of government," says the shift to contractors is driven
in
part by federal personnel ceilings. He calls such ceilings a "sleight of
hand" intended to allow successive administrations to brag about cutting the
federal
work force.

Yet Mr. Light said the government had made no effort to count contractors
and no assessment of the true costs and benefits. "We have no data to show
that
contractors are actually more efficient than the government," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, a potent coalition keeps contracting growing: the
companies, their lobbyists and supporters in Congress and many government
managers,
who do not mind building ties to contractors who may hire them someday. "All
the players with any power like it," he said.

That is evident wherever in Washington contractors gather to scout new
opportunities. There is no target richer than the Homeland Security
Department, whose
Web site, in a section called "Open for Business," displays hundreds of open
contracts, including "working with selected cities to develop and exercise
their catastrophic plans" ($500,000 to $1 million) and "Conduct studies and
analyses, systems engineering, or provide laboratory services to various
organizations
to support the DHS mission" ($20 to $50 million).

One crisp morning in an office building with a spectacular view of the
Capitol, Alfonso Martinez-Fonts Jr., the agency's assistant secretary for
the private
sector, addressed a breakfast seminar on "The Business of Homeland
Security." The session drew a standing-room crowd.

Mr. Martinez-Fonts, a banker before joining the government, said he could
not personally hand out contracts but could offer "tips, hints and
directions"
to companies on the hunt.

Joe Haddock, a Sikorsky Helicopters executive, summed up the tone of the
session. "To us contractors," Mr. Haddock said, "money is always a good
thing."

Copyright 2007
The New York Times Company

Posted by Miriam V.

A Fallen Star
Condoleezza Rice Is Not the Woman She Once Was
Lexington/The Economist, January 20, 2007

A couple of years ago Dick Morris, an estranged former Clinton adviser, published “Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race”, which argued that Condoleezza Rice was the only person who could save America from a Clinton restoration. Since then Mrs Clinton has gone from strength to strength, and is preparing to announce her presidential candidacy any day now. Ms Rice has taken a relentless battering.

The secretary of state spent this week on a tour of the Middle East before touching down in Germany and Britain. Her aim is to encourage Arab moderates to side with America in stabilising Iraq and the wider Middle East. Her bait is a promise to the Arab world that she will put more American muscle behind the creation of a Palestinian state. All worthy goals. But few people think that she can make much difference.

Ms Rice left home with a flea in her ear. On January 11th the Senate Foreign Relations Committee savaged her for the administration's failures in Iraq. Criticism from the newly ascendant Democrats was perhaps predictable. But she got more of the same from her Republican colleagues. Chuck Hagel said that the administration's new plan in Iraq might be “the most dangerous foreign-policy blunder in this country since Vietnam”.

The secretary of state kept her famous poise throughout the grilling, even when Barbara Boxer cattily remarked that she did not have any children who might be killed in Iraq (Ms Rice is unmarried and childless). But the criticisms were nevertheless telling: as national security adviser in George Bush's first term, Ms Rice bears almost as much responsibility for the mess in Iraq as Mr Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Her fingerprints are on some of the worst mistakes of the first Bush term. She claimed the White House was unaware of the CIA's doubts about whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger, for example, despite the fact that her office had received two memos on the subject and a call from the CIA director. But her culpability is deeper than that. When Ms Rice ran the National Security Council (NSC), it was hopelessly dysfunctional—torn asunder by disputes between the hawks (Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld) and the doves (then secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage).

Dealing with a feud between such big political beasts was probably too much for anybody, let alone a relatively inexperienced newcomer. And Mr Bush bears ultimate responsibility for the acts of his administration. Still, Ms Rice spent more time with her boss than anybody else, briefing him every day and spending weekends with his family. She could have done more to force him to listen to Mr Powell's warnings, which he was temperamentally inclined to ignore. She could also have done more to warn him about the lack of preparation for post-Saddam Iraq.

Ms Rice was given a chance to redeem her reputation when she was made secretary of state in the second Bush term. Mr Bush signalled that he wanted a different foreign-policy approach from his first, which Mr Armitage once characterised as “Look, fucker, you do what we want.” She dreamed of reinforcing the expansion of America's hard power with an expansion of its soft power. And she brought valuable resources to her mission: a close relationship with the president, a penchant for multilateralism, a collection of deputies who wanted to reach out to the UN, and, for a while, an adoring press. But her bubble was burst by Israel's invasion of Lebanon. The administration started by trying to give Israel the time it needed to destroy Hizbullah. Ms Rice declared that the world was witnessing “the birth pangs of a new Middle East”. The policy was a disaster: America eventually had to broker a deal that left Hizbullah triumphantly in place. Ms Rice's words continue to haunt her on her current tour of the Middle East. If she is so keen on democracy, why is she cosying up to dictators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia?

Ms Rice has also proved a disappointing manager of the State Department—the institution that was supposed to be the engine of a new diplomatic offensive. She has lost her number two, Robert Zoellick, and her personal adviser, Philip Zelikow, both impressive men, and still has a significant number of positions to fill. The department spent an unprecedented six months finding a replacement for Mr Zoellick.

These failures are surprising given Ms Rice's career before she entered government. As a child growing up in segregated Alabama, she concluded that she needed to be “twice as good” as whites in order to succeed, and notched up a stunning record of achievement—becoming a fine pianist and figure-skater as a child, graduating from university with top honours at 19, earning tenure at Stanford University at a tender age, and becoming provost of the university at 38.

But the traits that made Ms Rice such a perfect protégée may be working against her now she is at the top of the tree. Ms Rice made her career by impressing powerful establishment figures—from Brent Scowcroft (who brought her into the NSC when she was 34) to Messrs Bush senior and junior. But what happens when your patrons disagree about fundamentals? Ms Rice tried a dose of fudge during the first Bush administration (you can find people on both sides of the diplomatic wars of the first term who believed that she was on their side). But mostly she chose to flatter her current patron.

Ms Rice started her career as a tough-minded realist who was sceptical about nation-building and democratisation. She might have chosen to restrain her boss's Manichaean instincts with a dose of that realism. Instead she went along with him. Being a perfect protégée can get one a long way up the greasy pole. But it is not the best qualification for being a successful secretary of state—let alone a candidate for president.

Sacrificial Surge

January 30, 2007, 8:37PM EST
Military Equipment: Missing in Action
A new Defense audit says the Pentagon has failed to properly equip soldiers in Iraq—just as the President struggles to find support for a troop increase

by Dawn Kopecki

The Inspector General for the Defense Dept. is concerned that the U.S. military has failed to adequately equip soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially for nontraditional duties such as training Iraqi security forces and handling detainees, according to a summary of a new audit obtained by BusinessWeek.

The findings come as the Pentagon prepares to send another 21,500 troops to Iraq and as Democratic leaders levy threats to restrict funding for a war that's already cost about $500 billion. The Army alone expects to spend an extra $70 billion on an additional 65,000 permanent troops from fiscal year 2009 through 2013. According to Army officials, $18 billion of that will be spent on equipment.
Soldiers Poorly Equipped

The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn't been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to "effectively complete their missions" and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General's office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found.

"As a result, service members performed missions without the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed missions while waiting to receive equipment," reads the executive summary dated Jan. 25. Service members often borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed supplies, according to the summary.

Pentagon officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

The audit supports news reports and other evidence that U.S. troops have been stretched too thin or have performed tasks for which they were ill-prepared. It is likely to add fuel to the opposition to President George W. Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq in an effort to quell the violence there.
Controls Needed

Already, support for the troop increase is tepid in the Senate, where Democrats are preparing to vote on a nonbinding statement against the President's plan. While lawmakers have threatened to reduce funding for the war, few have publicly committed to using the "power of the purse" to block funding for the troop surge. "The thing we're going to do now is very important, to show the American people that the United States Senate, on a bipartisan basis, does not support an escalation," says Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "Even the Republicans are very timid in their support for the President at this stage."

In the summary of the Inspector General's audit, the equipment shortages were attributed to basic management failures among military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Central Command lacked standard policies for requesting and tracking equipment requirements or for equipping units to perform nontraditional duties. Auditors surveyed 1,100 service members stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan from all four military branches, the National Guard, and Reserves.

The Inspector General recommended that the Pentagon establish new internal controls and policies to address the funding, equipping, and sustaining forces performing nontraditional duties.

Kopecki is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Washington bureau.

I Remember Molly
By Charley James
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Friday 02 January 2007
It seems like a hundred lifetimes ago now but, sure enough, over in the
not-yet-dusty corner of my memory are the razor-sharp etchings of sitting in
a bar on the seedy corner of Hennepin Avenue and 9th Street in Minneapolis
after work one Saturday night, tossing back a few scotches with Dave Moore,
when in flew a very young Molly Ivins.
Well, we were all very young; after all, it was only the mid- or
late-1960s. Molly had just graduated from Smith College and was covering the
cops for
the Minneapolis Tribune, I was in my last year at university and working
part-time in the newsroom at WCCO-TV, and Dave was still building his
reputation
as the Upper Midwest's younger yet equally trustworthy version of Walter
Cronkite, just on a smaller stage.
Molly wanted to meet Dave because of "The Bedtime Newz," which aired
Saturday nights following a late movie. I helped Dave write the show, so he
invited
me to tag along. At the time, "The Bedtime Newz" was becoming a cultural
icon in Minneapolis. Deciding that no one really wanted to watch another
serious
report on the day's events at midnight on Saturday, Dave started playing
around with the stories and the commercials. The show became a
satire/parody/send-up
of the news, and this was a full decade before Lorne Michaels and Chevy
Chase created the "Saturday Night Update."
A few things still stand tall in my mind about that first encounter with
Molly: Her Texas twang - the first time I'd ever heard one for real and not
in a Western TV show or movie - and her sharp yet humane, witty observations
that later became her hallmark. She drank ferociously, yet never once
teetered
on the bar stool or stumbled when she politely excused herself to use the
john - Molly didn't say "powder room" or any other euphemism that proper
ladies
were expected to utter in those days. And she was already beginning to hone
her irascible view of politics and politicians.
That evening, Molly dazzled and wowed both Dave and me. As the three of
us separately drove off in the early morning bitter cold, I knew I wanted to
know this woman better.
A week or two later, I called her at the Trib and asked if she wanted to
meet for another drink "but at an even seedier place than Mousey's,"
referring
to the joint where Dave and I had met her originally. She accepted. Whether
it was for the friendship, the liquor, or the opportunity for a transplanted
Texan to savor more of the Twin Cities' low-life, I'll never know, but I
began counting the days.
We met at some dive on the edge of downtown, not far from the train
yards, where hard-drinking journalists rubbed elbows with union guys,
down-and-outers
and the decent, hard-working, thoroughly unpretentious Midwestern people
Garrison Keillor eventually turned into American folk heroes.
Although Molly covered the cops, during her second or third whiskey she
said was much more interested in politics. At the time, Minneapolis's mayor
was a liberal Democrat named Art Naftalin. In Minnesota, the party is called
the Democratic-Farmer Labor party. Before being elected, he taught political
science at the University of Minnesota, a post to which he returned after
several terms in office. Somehow, the conversation got around to Naftalin.
"He's a brilliant guy," I remember Molly saying. Having gone to high
school with one of Naftalin's sons, I had a special interest. "Got terrific
ideas,
could really do something for the city. Poor Art's problem is that he's a
typical academic who doesn't have a clue how to get anything done."
At one of those late-night drinking soirees, we talked about our
careers. I wanted to end up as a correspondent for CBS News, still the
tiffany network
with Cronkite and a stable of really solid journalists who had been schooled
in the Ed Murrow tradition. I assumed Molly would want to land at the New
York Times.
"Hell, no," she said. "I want to go back to Texas and cover politics.
With LBJ, John Connolly, Ralph Yarborough and a legislature full of cattle
ranchers,
oil men, honest-to-God bigots and good ol' boys to write about, why would I
want to go to New York?"
We continued to meet about once a month. I noticed that Molly was
gradually increasing the circle of people who would get together to swap
stories.
She included cops, people from the DA's office, other reporters and a few
gadabouts, and there were always assorted hangers-on who would appear and
disappear
for no apparent reason. Turns out, she was beginning her lifelong habit of
drawing people into her ever-widening circle.
After 10 months of being included in Molly's salon, I accepted a
reporting job on the West Coast and moved away. Molly soon returned to
Texas, got lured
to New York by the Times - which, I suspect, was a mutually-unhappy and
cheerless relationship that fortunately ended after a couple of years. We
kept
in touch with decreasing frequency, eventually losing contact altogether.
Actually, Molly lost contact with me but I didn't with her. I became a
regular reader of hers once she turned her attention from Texas politics to
focus
on George W. Bush - a childhood friend and neighbor in Houston - and other
topics of despair. She was what every great journalist needs to be: Honest,
truthful, possessing a low tolerance for bullshit and always ready to spit
vinegar - tempered by a gracious yet pointed wit.
Bill Moyers summed up Molly best when he paid tribute to her this
morning in a piece on the Texas Observer web site. He said he imagines her
in Heaven
with all of the other great journalists - Lincoln Steffans, Horace Greeley,
Johnny Apple and a long list of others. Moyers said he hopes they're having
a great time leaning over the marble railing and laughing at people like Tom
DeLay down below in Hades.
I hope she is having fun and is building a new circle around her,
drinking whiskey and giving Heaven hell.
-------
Charley James grew up in Minneapolis and is a writer now living in
Canada.
Go to Original
A Tribute to Molly
By Bill Moyers
The Texas Observer
Thursday 01 February 2007
What a foot-stompin' reunion there must be at this very moment in that
great Purgatory of Journalists in the Sky. I can see them now - Ida Tarbell,
Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Upton Sinclair, Henry Demarest Lloyd,
Ida B. Wells, David Graham Phillips, George Seldes, I. F. Stone, Walter
Karp,
Willie Morris - welcoming our darlin' to their bosoms. Oh, my, how she comes
trailing clouds of truth-telling glory! Look at her - big-hearted as ever,
leaning over the balustrade and reaching down to the tormented of Hades,
moistening Tom DeLay's lips, patting down Rick Perry's hair, erasing George
W's
sandstone scribblings. In the celestial light she glows as irrepressibly and
vividly as she did here on Earth, where she made the mighty humble, the
wicked
ashamed, and the good ol' boys reach for the barrel to hide their forlorn
nakedness. And, oh, the stories she must be telling as we speak.
At a PBS meeting a few years ago, she ended her talk with a joke that
would have gotten anyone else arrested or excommunicated. But she was
carried
out on the crowd's shoulders, as right now she is being ushered into the
Council of Ink-Stained Immortals, where the only religion is truth. Save
some
room up there, Molly: You have inspired us earthbound wretches to keep
trying to live up to your legacy in the hope of joining you there one day.
--------
Bill Moyers began his journalism career at the age of l6 as a cub
reporter for the Marshall News Messenger and over six decades has become one
of the
most influential journalists in America. Today, he is president of The
Schumann Center for Media and Democracy.
-------

gathered by Joe H
Posted by Miriam V.

The Racial Politics of Speaking Well
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN’S characterization of his fellow Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” was so painfully clumsy that it nearly warranted pity.

There are not enough column inches on this page to parse interpretations of each of Mr. Biden’s chosen adjectives. But among his string of loaded words, one is so pervasive — and is generally used and viewed so differently by blacks and whites — that it calls out for a national chat, perhaps a national therapy session.

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is. Black people get a little testy when white people call them “articulate.”

Though it was little noted, on Wednesday President Bush on the Fox News Channel also described Mr. Obama as “articulate.” On any given day, in any number of settings, it is likely to be one of the first things white people warmly remark about Oprah Winfrey; Richard Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Deval Patrick, the newly elected governor of Massachusetts; or a recently promoted black colleague at work.

A series of conversations about the word with a number of black public figures last week elicited the kind of frustrated responses often uttered between blacks, but seldom shared with whites.

“You hear it and you just think, ‘Damn, this again?’ ” said Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania.

Anna Perez, the former communications counselor for Ms. Rice when she was national security adviser, said, “You just stand and wonder, ‘When will this foolishness end?’ ”

Said Reginald Hudlin, president of entertainment for Black Entertainment Television: “It makes me weary, literally tired, like, ‘Do I really want to spend my time right now educating this person?’ ”

So what is the problem with the word? Whites do not normally object when it is used to describe them. And it is not as if articulate black people do not wish to be thought of as that. The characterization is most often meant as a form of praise.

“Look, what I was attempting to be, but not very artfully, is complimentary,” Mr. Biden explained to Jon Stewart on Wednesday on “The Daily Show.” “This is an incredible guy. This is a phenomenon.”

What faint praise, indeed. Being articulate must surely be a baseline requirement for a former president of The Harvard Law Review. After all, Webster’s definitions of the word include “able to speak” and “expressing oneself easily and clearly.” It would be more incredible, more of a phenomenon, to borrow two more of the senator’s puzzling words, if Mr. Obama were inarticulate.

That is the core of the issue. When whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment. It is similar to praising a female executive or politician by calling her “tough” or “a rational decision-maker.”

“When people say it, what they are really saying is that someone is articulate ... for a black person,” Ms. Perez said.

Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the “compliment” is notably different from other black people.

“Historically, it was meant to signal the exceptional Negro,” Mr. Dyson said. “The implication is that most black people do not have the capacity to engage in articulate speech, when white people are automatically assumed to be articulate.”

And such distinctions discount as inarticulate historically black patterns of speech. “Al Sharpton is incredibly articulate,” said Tricia Rose, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. “But because he speaks with a cadence and style that is firmly rooted in black rhetorical tradition you will rarely hear white people refer to him as articulate.”

While many white people do not automatically recognize how, and how often, the word is applied, many black people can recall with clarity the numerous times it has stopped them in their tracks.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, said her first notable encounter with the word was back in high school in Chester, Va., when she was dating the school’s star football player. In post-game interviews and news stories she started to notice that he was always referred to as articulate.

“They never said that about the white quarterback,” she said, “yet they couldn’t help but say it about my boyfriend.”

William E. Kennard, a managing director of the Carlyle Group and a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recalled that in his days as partner at a Washington law firm in the early 1990s written reviews of prospective black hires almost always included the words, “articulate and poised.” The characterization was so consistent and in such stark contrast to the notes taken on white job applicants that he mentioned it to his fellow partners.

“It was a law firm; all of the people interviewing for jobs were articulate,” said Mr. Kennard, 50, who is also on the board of The New York Times Company. “And yet my colleagues seemed struck by that quality in black applicants.”

The comedian and actor D. L. Hughley, a frequent guest on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” says that every time he appears on the show, where he riffs on the political and social issues of the day, people walk up to him afterward and tell him how “smart and articulate” his comments were.

“Everyone was up in arms about Michael Richards using the N-word, but subtle words like this are more insidious,” Mr. Hughley said. “It’s like weight loss. The last few pounds are the hardest to get rid of. It’s the last vestiges of racism that are hard to get rid of.”

Sometimes the “articulate” moniker is merely implied. My colleague Rachel Swarns and I chuckle wearily about the number of times we have finished interviews or casual conversations with people — always white, more often male — only to have the person end the meeting with some version of the statement, “something about you reminds me of Condoleezza Rice.”

Neither Rachel nor I look anything like Ms. Rice, or each other for that matter, so the comparison is clearly not physical. The comment seems more a vocalized reach by the speaker for some sort of reference point, a context in which to understand us.

It is unlikely that whites will quickly or easily erase “articulate” and other damning forms of praise from the ways in which they discuss blacks. Listen for it in post-Super Bowl chatter, after the Academy Awards, at the next school board meeting or corporate retreat.

But here is a pointer. Do not use it as the primary attribute of note for a black person if you would not use it for a similarly talented, skilled or eloquent white person. Do not make it an outsized distinction for Brown University’s president, Ruth Simmons, if you would not for the University of Michigan’s president, Mary Sue Coleman. Do not make it the sole basis for your praise of the actor Forest Whitaker if it would never cross your mind to utter it about the expressive Peter O’Toole.

With the ballooning size of the black middle and upper class, qualities in blacks like intelligence, eloquence — the mere ability to string sentences together with tenses intact — must at some point become as unremarkable to whites as they are to blacks.

“How many flukes simply constitute reality?” Mr. Hudlin asked, with amused dismay.

1) (On an infant's shirt): Already smarter than Bush.
>
2) 1/20/09: End of an Error
>
3) That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway
>
4) Let's Fix Democracy in This Country First
>
5) Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.
>
6) You Can't Be Pro-War And Pro-Life At The Same Time
7) If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President
>
8) Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?
>
9) George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to fight
>
10) Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore
>
11) America : One Nation, Under Surveillance
>
12) They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It
>
13) Which God Do You Kill For?
>
14) Jail to the Chief
>
15) Who Would Jesus Torture?
>
16) No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade?
>
17) Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap
18) Bad president! No Banana.
>
19) We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language
20) We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them
>
21) Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Blood
>
22) Is It Vietnam Yet?
>
23) Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either
>
24) Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?
25) You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.
>
26) Impeach Cheney First
>
27) Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too
>
28) When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46
>
29) The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century
>
30) 2004: Embarrassed, 2005: Horrified, 2006: Terrified

Posted by Miriam V.

The US Role in Iraq's Sectarian Violence

The US Role in Iraq's Sectarian Violence

by Stephen Zunes

AntiWar.com, March 7, 2006

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/zunes.php?articleid=8668

The sectarian violence that has swept across Iraq following last month's
terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara is yet another example of
the tragic consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Until
the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation, Iraq had maintained a long-standing
history of secularism and a strong national identity among its Arab
population despite its sectarian differences.

Not only has the United States failed to bring a functional democracy to
Iraq, neither U.S. forces nor the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad
have been able to provide the Iraqi people with basic security. This has led
many ordinary citizens to turn to extremist sectarian groups for protection,
further undermining the Bush administration's insistence that American
forces must remain in Iraq in order to prevent a civil war.

Top analysts in the CIA and State Department, as well as large numbers of
Middle East experts, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could result in a
violent ethnic and sectarian conflict. Even some of the war's intellectual
architects acknowledged as much: In a 1997 paper, prior to becoming major
figures in the Bush foreign policy team, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, and
Douglas Feith predicted that a post-Saddam Iraq would likely be "ripped
apart" by sectarianism and other cleavages but called on the United States
to "expedite" such a collapse anyway.

As a result, the tendency in the United States to blame "sectarian conflict"
and "long-simmering hatreds" for the Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq is, in
effect, blaming the victim.

Fostering Fragmentation and Conflict

One of the long-standing goals of such neoconservative intellectuals has
been to see the Middle East broken up into smaller ethnic or sectarian
mini-states, which would include not only large stateless nationalities like
the Kurds, but Maronite Christians, Druze, Arab Shi'ites, and others. Such a
policy comes not out of respect for the right of self-determination -
indeed, the neocons have been steadfast opponents of the Palestinians'
desire for statehood, even alongside a secure Israel - but out of an
imperial quest for divide-and-rule. The division of the Middle East has long
been seen as a means of countering the threat of pan-Arab nationalism and,
more recently, pan-Islamist movements. Given the mosaic of ethnicities and
sects in the Middle East, with various groupings having mixed together
within both urban and rural settings for many generations, the establishment
of such ethnic or sectarian mini-states would almost certainly result in
forced population transfers, ethnic cleansing, and other human suffering.

The risk of Iraq breaking up into a Sunni Kurdish state, a Sunni Arab state,
and a Shi'ite Arab state is now very real. And, given the intermixing of
these populations in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and scores of other cities, the
potential exists for the most violent breakup of a country since the
partition of India 60 years ago. Recent weeks have shown ominous signs of
what may be yet to come on a massive scale, as scores of Shi'ite families
were forced to flee what were once mixed neighborhoods in and around
Baghdad.

Even barring a formal breakup of the country, the prospects of a stable
unified country look bleak. As the Los Angeles Times reported on Feb. 26,
"The outlines of a future Iraq are emerging: a nation where power is
scattered among clerics turned warlords; control over schools, hospitals,
railroads, and roads is divided along sectarian lines; graft and corruption
subvert good governance; and foreign powers exert influence only over a weak
central government."

Much of Iraq's current divisions can be traced to the decision of U.S.
occupation authorities immediately following the conquest to abolish the
Iraqi army and purge the government bureaucracy - both bastions of
secularism - thereby creating a vacuum that was soon filled by sectarian
parties and militias. In addition, the U.S. occupation authorities - in an
apparent effort of divide-and-rule - encouraged sectarianism by dividing up
authority based not on technical skills or ideological affiliation but
ethnic and religious identity. As with Lebanon, however, such efforts have
actually exacerbated divisions, with virtually every political question
debated not on its merits, but on which group it potentially benefits or
harms. This has led to great instability, with political parties,
parliamentary blocs, and government ministries breaking down along sectarian
lines.

Even army divisions are separated, with parts of western Baghdad being
patrolled by army units dominated by Sunnis while eastern Baghdad is being
patrolled by Shi'ite-dominated units. Without unifying national
institutions, the breakup of the country remains a real possibility.

Sectarian Conflicts

Theologically, there are fewer differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites than
there are between Catholics and Protestants. In small Iraqi towns of mixed
populations with only one mosque, Sunnis and Shi'ites worship together.
Intermarriage is not uncommon. This harmony is now threatening to unravel.

Shi'ite Muslims, unlike the Sunni Muslims, have a clear hierarchy.
(Ayatollahs, for example, are essentially the equivalent of Catholic
cardinals.) As a result, the already existing clerical-based social
structures in the Shi'ite community were among the few organizations to
survive Saddam's totalitarian regime and were therefore more easily capable
of organizing themselves politically when U.S. forces overthrew the
government in Baghdad in 2003. Sunni and secular groupings, then, found
themselves at a relative disadvantage when they suddenly found themselves
free to organize.

As a result, the United States initially insisted on indefinite rule by
Iraqis picked directly or indirectly by Washington. However, when hundreds
of thousands of Shi'ites took to the streets in January 2004 demanding the
right to choose their country's leaders, the Bush administration reluctantly
agreed to hold direct elections. Having been dominated by Sunnis under the
Ba'athists, the Hashemites, and the Ottomans, the Shi'ite majority was eager
to rule. Not surprisingly, elections have brought Shi'ite religious parties
to power which have since marginalized other groups and imposed their
repressive and misogynist version of Islamic law in parts of Iraq where they
dominate, particularly in the south of the country.

Sunni opposition to Shi'ite dominance does not just stem from resentment at
losing their privileged position in Iraqi political life under the former
dictatorship. Indeed, Saddam Hussein suppressed his fellow Sunni Arabs along
with Sunni Kurds and Shi'ite Arabs.

What U.S. officials have failed to recognize is that Iraq's Sunni Arab
minority, regardless of its feelings about Saddam Hussein's regime, has long
identified with Arab nationalism. Not surprisingly, the armed resistance
that emerged following Saddam's removal from power three years ago by U.S.
forces has come largely from the Sunni Arab community. The insurgency has
also targeted the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government, which came
to power as a result of the U.S. invasion and which many see as being
puppets of the U.S. occupation. They also fear that the Iraqi government may
identify more with their fellow Shi'ites of Iran than with other Arabs. More
radical Sunni chauvinists, many of whom are foreign Salafi extremists like
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have engaged in widespread terrorist attacks again
Shi'ite civilians and their holy places.

Despite its dependence on the United States and ties to Iran, however, the
Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government has its own agenda. Culturally and
linguistically, Iraq's Shi'ites are every bit as Arab as the Sunnis. Yet
while the vast majority of the country's Shi'ite Arab majority has no desire
to be pawns of either Iran or the United States, the response by the
Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government and Shi'ite militias has done little to
lessen Sunni fears and hostility. Seeing their government faced with a
growing insurgency and their community falling victim to terrorist violence,
the Shi'ites have responded with aggressive counter-insurgency and
counter-terrorist operations against the Sunni community. Human rights
abuses by Shi'ites against the Sunni minority have increased dramatically,
polarizing the country still further.

Even before the latest upsurge in sectarian violence, the Baghdad morgue was
reporting that dozens of bodies of Sunni men with gunshot wounds to the back
of the head would arrive at the same time every week, including scores of
corpses with wrists bound by police handcuffs.

Death Squads

John Pace, the outgoing head of the United Nations' human rights monitoring
group in Iraq, has reported that hundreds of Sunnis are being subjected to
summary execution and death from torture every month by Iraqi government
death squads, primarily controlled by the Ministry of the Interior.

High-ranking American officers have reported that radical cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr's Mahdi Army maintains a strong presence in the regular police
force, including up to 90 percent of the 35,000 officers currently working
in the northeastern part of Baghdad. In addition, the Iranian-trained Badr
Brigade dominates police commando units. A police unit known as the
Punishment Committee goes after civilians believed to be flouting Islamic
laws or the authority of Shi'ite militia leaders, particularly Sunnis.

The Shi'ite government of Iran, long cited for its human rights abuses by
both the Bush administration and reputable human rights organizations, has
actively supported Shi'ite militias within the Iraqi government and security
forces. (Despite this, the Bush administration and its supporters -
including many prominent Democrats - have been putting forth the ludicrous
theory that Iran is actually supporting the anti-Shi'ite and anti-American
Sunni insurgency.) Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was trained by Iran's
infamous Revolutionary Guards and later served as a leader of the Badr
Brigade, the militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq.

Americans have also trained Interior Ministry police and commandoes,
though - unlike some notorious cases in recent Latin American history -
there is little evidence to suggest that U.S. trainers have actively
encouraged death squad activity. Still, there is little question that
actions by U.S. occupation troops over the past three years - such as the
torture of detainees, the hair-trigger response at checkpoints, the liberal
use of force in heavily populated civilian neighborhoods, and the targeted
assassinations of suspected insurgent leaders - have contributed to the
climate of impunity exhibited by forces of the Iraqi government.

Mr. Pace has also observed how U.S. troops are making things worse by
rounding up large numbers of innocent young Sunni men and detaining them for
months. Noting how such "military intervention causes serious human rights
and humanitarian problems to large numbers of innocent civilians," he
lamented at the fact that many of these detainees, in reaction to their
maltreatment, later joined Sunni terrorist groups following their release.

Despite last month's terrorist bombing of the Shi'ite shrine and the tragic
killings that followed, however, there were also impressive signs of unity.
In cities throughout Iraq, Sunnis and Shi'ites mobilized to protect each
other's mosques and neighborhoods.

Even the young firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr emphasized to his
followers, "It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine ... but rather the
occupation [forces] and Ba'athists." He called on his followers not to
attack Sunni mosques and ordered his Mahdi Army to "protect both Shia and
Sunni shrines." He went on to say, "My message to the Iraqi people is to
stand united and bonded, and not to fall into the Western trap. The West is
trying to divide the Iraqi people." In a later interview, Sadr claimed, "We
say that the occupiers are responsible for such crisis [Golden Mosque
bombing] ... there is only one enemy. The occupier."

Similarly, Sunnis were quick to express their solidarity with Shias in a
series of demonstrations in Samara and elsewhere. Anti-American signs and
slogans permeated these marches. Indeed, there is a widespread belief that
it was the United States, not fellow Muslims or Iraqis, that bears
responsibility for the tragedy. Even Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi
claimed the United States was responsible for the bombing of the Golden
Mosque, "especially since occupation forces did not comply with curfew
orders imposed by the Iraqi government." He added, "Evidence indicates that
the occupation may be trying to undermine and weaken the Iraqi government."

Though charges of a U.S. conspiracy are presumably groundless, it does
underscore the growing opposition by both communities to the ongoing U.S.
military presence in their country and how the United States has little
credibility left with either community as a mediator, peacekeeper, overseer,
or anything else.

And it underscores the urgency for the United States to withdraw from Iraq
as soon as possible.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice
Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East
editor for Foreign Policy in Focus and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S.
Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).
Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus.

Bush Seeks Big Medicare and Medicaid Saving - New York Times
The New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 2, 2007
Bush Seeks Big Medicare and Medicaid Saving
By
ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 - President Bush will ask Congress in his budget next
week to squeeze more than $70 billion of savings from Medicare and Medicaid
over
the next five years, administration officials and health care lobbyists said
Thursday.

The proposals, part of a White House plan to balance the budget by 2012, set
the stage for a battle with Congress over entitlement spending. Even some
administration
officials say they cannot imagine approval of such large cutbacks in a
Congress now controlled by Democrats.

Mr. Bush is also expected to propose changes in the Children's Health
Insurance Program to sharpen its focus on low-income families. The changes
could reduce
federal payments to states that cover children with family incomes exceeding
twice the poverty level. Under federal guidelines, a family of four is
considered
poor if its annual income is less than $20,650.

The child health proposal, like those for Medicare and Medicaid, is likely
to touch off a fight on Capitol Hill. Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton
of New York and other Democrats are seeking major expansions of the
children's health program, though they have not said how they would pay for
the changes.

One measure of the political difficulty facing the president's plan for
Medicare and Medicaid is that he sought $20 billion less in savings from the
two
programs last year, when
Republicans
controlled Congress, and few of those proposals were adopted.

Representative
Charles B. Rangel
, the New York Democrat who heads the House Ways and Means Committee, said
Thursday: "There is a large area for potential compromise and agreement, but
with these latest Medicare proposals, the president is just asking for
controversy. He still acts as if Republicans were in complete control and
Democrats
had lost the election."

Mr. Bush has repeatedly said that Medicare has serious long-term financial
problems, and many experts share his concern.

"If you want to balance the budget eventually and you do not want tax
increases," said Joseph R. Antos, an economist at the American Enterprise
Institute,
"you have no choice but to propose substantial reductions in Medicare. The
president's budget is an opening bid, the start of negotiations with
Democrats
over health care and other programs."

Taken together, Medicare and Medicaid cover more than one in four Americans.
Federal spending for the two programs totaled $554 billion last year, or
about
21 percent of all federal spending - a little more than Social Security.
With no change in existing law, spending on the two health programs is
expected
to rise at a brisk pace, averaging more than 7 percent a year in the next
decade.

Representative Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the senior Republican on the Ways
and Means Committee, said: "The current rate of growth in Medicare, fueled
by
rising health costs and an aging population, is unsustainable. If Congress
does not undertake sensible reforms soon, the system will be swamped as the
baby boom generation begins to retire. Taxes will rise, benefits will be
cut, and the entire economy will suffer."

Under the president's plan, some Medicare beneficiaries would shoulder added
costs. At present, about 4 percent of the 43 million beneficiaries must pay
more than the standard monthly premium - it is $93.50 this year - because
they have high incomes: more than $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 for
married
couples. The president's budget would require more people to pay the higher
premiums, but administration officials would not immediately provide
details.

Most of the proposed savings, however, would come from health care
providers. Mr. Bush is expected to propose freezing Medicare payments to
home health
agencies and reducing the inflation allowance paid to hospitals, nursing
homes and other providers.

Hospitals plan to fight the president with lobbying and advertising.
"Two-thirds of hospitals already lose money treating Medicare
beneficiaries," said
Richard J. Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital
Association.

The president's budget also assumes that Medicare payments to doctors will
be cut at least 8 percent next year, as provided under a formula in existing
law.

Administration officials said Mr. Bush would not try to curb payments to
private managed care plans, which currently enroll more than eight million
Medicare
beneficiaries. But many Democrats in Congress want to do so, because, they
maintain, Medicare overpays the plans, which they see as a step toward
privatizing
the program.

Insurance companies are mobilizing beneficiaries to lobby against any cuts
in Medicare payments to private plans. Mohit M. Ghose, a spokesman for
America's
Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said, "Any cuts would take away
benefits from millions of low-income people and members of minority groups,
who
enroll in private plans because they cannot afford the high out-of-pocket
costs in the traditional Medicare program."

Budget Asks Rise in Pell Grants

The president's budget will propose raising the maximum Pell grant - the
federal grant for low- and middle-income students to attend college - to
$4,600,
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced Thursday.

The announcement followed by only a day the Democratic-controlled House's
passage of a $260 increase in the current maximum grant, to $4,310, under a
catchall
spending bill needed to address budget matters remaining from last year.

Ms. Spellings's announcement suggests that the administration will try to
emphasize access to education, an issue that Democrats have seized upon as
the
cost and debt burden of higher education continue to rise. Democrats have
already proposed legislation in the Senate that, exceeding the
administration's
plan, calls for an increase to $5,100.

The last substantial increase was in 2001.

Copyright 2007
The New York Times Company

Posted by Miriam V.

How To End The War
by Russ Feingold

Our founders wisely kept the power to fund a war separate from the power to conduct a war. In their brilliant design of our system of government, Congress got the power of the purse, and the president got the power of the sword. As James Madison wrote, “Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued or concluded.”

Earlier this week, I chaired a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee to remind my colleagues in the Senate that, through the power of the purse, we have the constitutional power to end a war. At the hearing, a wide range of constitutional scholars agreed that Congress can use its power to end a military engagement.

The Constitution gives Congress the explicit power “[to] declare War,” “[t]o raise and support Armies,” “[t]o provide and maintain a Navy” and “[t]o make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” In addition, under Article I, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” These are direct quotes from the Constitution of the United States. Yet to hear some in the Administration talk, it is as if these powers were written in invisible ink. They were not. These powers are a clear and direct statement from the founders of our republic that Congress has authority to declare, to define and, ultimately, to end a war.

If and when Congress acts on the will of the American people by ending our involvement in the Iraq war, Congress will be performing the role assigned it by the founding fathers—defining the nature of our military commitments and acting as a check on a president whose policies are weakening our nation.

There is plenty of precedent for Congress exercising its constitutional authority to stop U.S. involvement in armed conflict.

In late December 1970, Congress prohibited the use of funds for introducing United States ground combat troops into Cambodia or providing U.S. advisors to Cambodian military forces. In late June 1973, Congress set a date to cut off funds for combat activities in Southeast Asia.

More recently, President Clinton signed into law language that prohibited funding after March 31, 1994, for military operations in Somalia, with certain limited exceptions. And in 1998, Congress passed spending legislation that prevented U.S. troops from serving in Bosnia after June 30, 1998, unless the president made certain assurances.

Congress has the power to end military engagements, and there is little doubt that decisive action from the Congress is needed to end U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq. Despite the results of the election, and two months of study and supposed consultation—during which experts and members of Congress from across the political spectrum argued for a new policy—the president has decided to escalate the war. When asked whether he would persist in this policy despite congressional opposition, he replied: “Frankly, that’s not their responsibility.”

Last week Vice President Cheney was asked whether the non-binding resolution passed by the Foreign Relations Committee that will soon be considered by the full Senate would deter the president from escalating the war. He replied: “It’s not going to stop us.”

In the United States of America, the people are sovereign, not the president. It is Congress’ responsibility to challenge an administration that persists in a war that is misguided and that the nation opposes. We cannot simply wring our hands and complain about the administration’s policy. We cannot just pass resolutions saying “your policy is mistaken.” And we can’t stand idly by and tell ourselves that it’s the president’s job to fix the mess he made. It’s our job to fix the mess, too, and if we don’t do so we are abdicating our responsibilities.

Yesterday, I introduced legislation that will prohibit the use of funds to continue the deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq six months after enactment. By prohibiting funds after a specific deadline, Congress can force the president to bring our forces out of Iraq and out of harm’s way.

This legislation will allow the president adequate time to redeploy our troops safely from Iraq, and it will make specific exceptions for a limited number of U.S. troops who must remain in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism and training missions and protect U.S. personnel. It will not hurt our troops in any way—they will continue receiving their equipment, training, salaries, etc. It will simply prevent the president from continuing to deploy them to Iraq. By passing this bill, we can finally focus on repairing our military and countering the full range of threats that we face around the world.

As the hearing I chaired in the Senate Judiciary Committee made clear, this legislation is fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States. Since the president is adamant about pursuing his failed policies in Iraq, Congress has the duty to stand up and use its constitutional power to stop him. If Congress doesn’t stop this war, it’s not because it doesn’t have the power. It’s because it doesn’t have the will.

Molly lives

Like Mark Twain, Molly Ivins treated us to the sound of America in her prose and style. She was the rare, gifted journalist whose work transcended the news that inspired it.

By Joe Conason

Impossible as it is to measure the magnitude of the loss of Molly Ivins, who died on Wednesday night of breast cancer at age 62, people across America are trying to express how important she was to them, what she meant to the nation, especially in recent years, and why we will miss her terribly. On the pages of newspapers, on the radio and on blogs, her passing has been marked with due respect.

Even her favorite goat, the president of the United States, understood that he must pay tribute to the tough Texas wiseass who saw right through "Dubya" and the political culture that produced him. I bet that would have made her chuckle.

What made Molly so special as a writer -- and raises her into an ink-stained pantheon alongside Mark Twain, A.J. Liebling, Murray Kempton, H.L. Mencken and other such greats -- was the American sound in her prose and the American style of her reporting. Her columns and essays -- and for that matter her wonderful, low, smoky voice, if you were lucky enough to hear her talk -- used her regional sensibility and experience to illuminate the wider world. She talked Texas but her subject was the universe.

Molly possessed the essential gifts of those few journalists whose work transcends the topical moment. With seemingly little effort and remarkably few words, she could pinpoint a scene or a character or an entire political system. She tossed off flashing observations like a circus knife thrower. When she put down a scoundrel, he stayed down (even if he won the next election). And of course she brought a woman's perspective into what was (and still remains) a male-dominated vocation, which made her insights into the boys club of politics sharper and deadlier.

Behind her beautiful, gleeful grin there was no real malice, however, not even toward the most deserving. She didn't hate anybody, not even the state representative whose intelligence she compared to that of a potted plant. Besides, they had to respect her because, back in the day, she could drink them all under the table.

What distinguished Molly from the few who might be considered her peers today were her indefatigable liberalism and her unfashionable idealism. Most political columnists, especially when they achieve her level of mainstream success, with syndication in more than 300 newspapers, tend to cultivate a certain emotional distance from such passions. They definitely prefer not to be tagged as liberal, perhaps because most newspapers continue to be controlled by conservative Republicans.

But she didn't pretend not to care, and she didn't pretend to be a centrist or an aloof observer. She despised pretension and pomposity of all kinds. (Indeed, she was as likely to make fun of herself as anybody else.) Just as she wouldn't dull down her prose to satisfy censorious editors, she saw no reason to soften her opposition to prejudice, poverty and war so she would seem more moderate.

Molly's freewheeling personality and radical honesty were reflected in her fundamental commitment to the Bill of Rights. When I spent an evening with her in Austin, Texas, two years ago, she said that she intended to devote more and more of her time to defense of the First Amendment, which she believed to be in real danger under corporate Republican rule.

As things turned out, unfortunately, she didn't have much time left and her remaining attention was usually drawn to more immediate issues. Often in the months before her death, she wrote about the war in Iraq, as one of a handful of prominent pundits who had correctly and courageously opposed that bloody misadventure from the beginning.

But her devotion to free speech, journalistic excellence and progressive politics lives on at the Texas Observer, the marvelous magazine that she edited for several years. Again unlike many of her peers in punditry, Molly believed firmly in building institutions that would nurture other talents. For three decades after she resigned from the magazine's editorship, she continued to raise the substantial amounts of money needed to sustain a liberal voice in her home state.

Those labors of love were repaid not only in the Observer's prizewinning reporting but at an amazing evening of tribute to her held by the magazine's supporters in Austin last October. The highlight of that raucous "BBQ" -- with a cast that included Garrison Keillor, Lewis Lapham, Roy Blount Jr., Jim Hightower and about 800 of her most ardent admirers -- was bald, brave, laughing Molly. Everybody who loved her is grateful today that we celebrated her life while she could still enjoy the occasion.

Now she is no longer among us. But in the pages of the Observer, and wherever people carry on in her generous, irrepressible, democratic spirit, Molly lives.