Curious… the Chinese take over but the dogs don't bark
By Niall Ferguson
(Filed: 23/04/2006)
In the old days, Chinese emperors sat in splendour in the Forbidden City, and waited for the barbarians to come to them. That only changed in 1979, that annus mirabilis which changed the world in so many ways - more, I would argue, than the celebrated turning point that came 10 years later with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Margaret Thatcher came to power to turn the British economy around. The Ayatollah Khomeini came to power to turn the Iranian clock back. But the biggest revolution of 1979 was when Deng Xiaoping turned Chinese history on its head, becoming the first leader of the People's Republic of China to visit the United States - the first emperor to pay court to the barbarians.
In 1979 it was a novelty - even an amusing curiosity - to see the pint-sized heir of Mao donning a 10-gallon hat. Now, however, when President Hu Jintao visits Washington he is treated with the respect due to an equal. Is he an equal? The answer is more "Yes" than "No".
True, the annual output of the American economy is more than six times larger than that of China when measured in dollar terms. True, the average American is around 30 times richer than the average Chinese. Yet that latter statistic is partly because there are four times as many Chinese as Americans. More importantly, the Chinese economy is growing at a rate roughly three times that of the US. According to some projections, it could catch up in terms of gross domestic product as early as 2041.
So China may not be America's equal yet. But of all the contenders for that accolade in the foreseeable future, it has to be the favourite. (You can forget the European Union; India is some way behind, and Russia is now just a glorified gas station.) President Bush does not yet need to be obsequious to Chinese visitors. No need for the pomp and ceremony of a full state visit. No need to soft pedal on human rights. And no need to make security so tight that the lady from Falun Gong couldn't do some heckling from the press gallery on the White House lawn (surely a deliberate security lapse). On the other hand, don't expect anything more than these ritual tweaks.
The reality is that the US and the renascent Chinese empire have become - to an extent not even Deng could have imagined - deeply interdependent. The US is currently running the mother of all trade deficits, equivalent to around 7 per cent of GDP. A large part of that deficit - more than a quarter - is being financed by China in the form of purchases of American bonds. Why do the Chinese want to accumulate so many dollar-denominated securities? The answer is that it prevents their currency from appreciating against the dollar, and thereby keeps their exports cheap. As China's share of global exports has surged from 1 per cent to nearly 8 per cent, access to the American market has been crucial.
So China may be a rival in some respects, increasingly competing with the US for access to the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. But it is also a vital prop of American prosperity, financing America's borrowing habit at a remarkably reasonable rate of interest.
It's a weird kind of interdependence, when you think about it. The average American has an income of close to $40,000 a year and has personal savings of zero per cent of his income. The average Chinese earns barely $1,500 per year, but has personal savings of 23 per cent of his income - a chunk of which he is lending to the much richer average American.
The catch is that if the average American wants a long-term job in manufacturing, he is likely to be disappointed. The price of financing this huge American overdraft at the People's Bank of China would seem to be the inexorable relocation of manufacturing industry from West to East.
Just look at the things Americans are now importing from China. Don't kid yourselves into thinking it's just toys and trainers: Chinese manufacturing exports have been racing up the value chain in recent years. In 2003, for example, more than two fifths of the US trade deficit with China was accounted for by electrical machinery and power generation equipment. Virtually no new jobs are being created in manufacturing in the US these days; American firms would rather out-source production in Asia. The biggest engine of job creation in the US has become the real estate business and associated financial-services.
This is where the Sino-American relationship gets really interesting. Because, if history is any guide, we ought currently to be witnessing a wave of China-bashing in the United States. Of 12 senatorial elections that look like being close this November, no fewer than nine have substantial industrial sectors, with between 10 and 20 per cent of employees in manufacturing. And yet, to judge by their websites, not one of the candidates, including those in states where a change of party is in prospect, is willing to play the anti-China card. The nearest anyone comes to raising the issue is the anodyne phrase "fair trade".
What makes this especially puzz-ling is that for two years running, Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York who doesn't have to stand again until 2010, has toyed with the idea of legislation that would slap a whopping tariff on Chinese imports in retaliation for alleged Chinese currency manipulation. Why is this idea not seen by others as a vote winner?
It wasn't like this in the 1980s. Then, American fears of Japanese competition unleashed a wave of Japan-bashing and punitive tariffs on Japanese goods. So what's different this time? One answer is that the trade traffic is not all one way. There has been significant growth in US exports to China, albeit not on the scale of Chinese exports to the US. Another answer is that American consumers are just too happy with cheap Chinese imports to complain about the erosion of America's manufacturing base. A third possibility is that the Chinese are now using some of their accumulated dollars to invest in the United States, thereby creating new jobs. It's no coincidence that in advance of Hu Jintao's visit, Chinese companies went on an American investment spree (though the reality remains that Britain is by far the biggest source of foreign investment in the US; China is only just beginning to register in the statistics).
Perhaps the best explanation is that American voters just don't see China as a problem. Polls make it clear that the most pressing problem in their minds is Iraq (the Number One issue facing the country for 22 per cent of voters). Only 10 per cent of voters give first place to the economy, and just 7 per cent cite unemployment. The trade deficit is nowhere.
Does this mean that Americans have learned from history not to resort to protectionism when they encounter Asian competition? Perhaps. But another possibility is that the urge to bash China is merely dormant. After all, 85 per cent of voters regard "protecting the jobs of US workers" as the number one goal of American foreign policy. And the recent storm over immigration has shown how readily Congressmen will strike protectionist attitudes when they see an opportunity to make political hay.
A few years ago Senator Schumer asked a nice question at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. As more and more manufacturing jobs move to China: "What's going to be left here - restaurants?" My hunch is that more and more of his fellow Congressmen in both houses could soon start asking similar questions.
At this point China-bashing reminds me of Sherlock Holmes's "curious incident of the dog in the night-time". But the dog did nothing in the night-time, Watson objects. "That was the curious incident," replies Holmes.
It will be even more curious when it starts barking - though let's hope it has the courtesy to wait until the emperor is safely back in the Middle Kingdom.
• Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University www.niallferguson.org
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Iraq settles for 'tough-talking' PM
By Toby Harnden
(Filed: 23/04/2006)
Iraq's President has endorsed a tough-talking Shia as the country's new prime minister, ending months of deadlock since the country's elections at the end of last year.
Jawad al-Maliki, 56, a trenchant critic of "criminal" American military action and who opposed the United States-led invasion, was called upon by Jalal Talabani, who was re-elected as the country's president yesterday, to form a government.
Mr Maliki emerged as a compromise candidate after the previous leader of the Shia alliance agreed to stand aside. As a supporter of the death penalty for insurgents, Mr Maliki said he would work to form a "national unity government that will face the challenges of terrorism and corruption". Mr Maliki fled Iraq in 1980, to return after the 2003 invasion and become a leading Shia political figure.
Unlike most of his fellow Dawa Party members, however, Mr Maliki was against the invasion, outlining a rationale to a Lebanese newspaper in late 2002 that now appears remarkably prescient. "The danger to Iraq lies in the possibility of the US administration making mistakes in its supervision of this crisis," he told al-Nahar.
"Those who will rule Iraq after Saddam Hussein cannot be envied. Don't fight for ruling an Iraq full of widows and orphans, and burdened with heavy debt." (THE DEBT WAS HALVED AT LEAST THANKS, AGAIN, TO USA)
Mr Maliki now finds himself in just that unenviable position. His task is complicated by suspicions among Sunni politicians that he is a sectarian, and by grave reservations within the Pentagon over his level of support for US military actions.
Responding to Sunni complaints about under-representation following the December elections, he said: "Democracy means accepting the opinion of the majority. The Sunnis need to take this into consideration."
Yesterday he was more conciliatory, however. Speaking in the knowledge that he had support from all three main religious groups, he pledged: "We are going to form a family that will not be based on sectarian or ethnic backgrounds."
Last month, Mr Maliki caused consternation by describing American actions, in a raid allegedly on a Shia mosque that left 22 people dead, as part of a "policy of aggression", and demanding "a full investigation of this crime."
American officials said that the building was not a mosque and that US special forces had been there only as advisers to Iraqi troops.
Previously the Dawa Party's official spokesman, Mr Maliki may also be hampered by his closeness to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who stepped down as Iraqi premier last week.
Dr Jaafari was viewed by coalition officials as heavily influenced by Teheran and too close to Moqtadr al-Sadr, the anti-American rebel cleric, whose Mehdi Army has killed scores of coalition troops.
By Toby Harnden
(Filed: 23/04/2006)
Iraq's President has endorsed a tough-talking Shia as the country's new prime minister, ending months of deadlock since the country's elections at the end of last year.
Jawad al-Maliki, 56, a trenchant critic of "criminal" American military action and who opposed the United States-led invasion, was called upon by Jalal Talabani, who was re-elected as the country's president yesterday, to form a government.
Mr Maliki emerged as a compromise candidate after the previous leader of the Shia alliance agreed to stand aside. As a supporter of the death penalty for insurgents, Mr Maliki said he would work to form a "national unity government that will face the challenges of terrorism and corruption". Mr Maliki fled Iraq in 1980, to return after the 2003 invasion and become a leading Shia political figure.
Unlike most of his fellow Dawa Party members, however, Mr Maliki was against the invasion, outlining a rationale to a Lebanese newspaper in late 2002 that now appears remarkably prescient. "The danger to Iraq lies in the possibility of the US administration making mistakes in its supervision of this crisis," he told al-Nahar.
"Those who will rule Iraq after Saddam Hussein cannot be envied. Don't fight for ruling an Iraq full of widows and orphans, and burdened with heavy debt." (THE DEBT WAS HALVED AT LEAST THANKS, AGAIN, TO USA)
Mr Maliki now finds himself in just that unenviable position. His task is complicated by suspicions among Sunni politicians that he is a sectarian, and by grave reservations within the Pentagon over his level of support for US military actions.
Responding to Sunni complaints about under-representation following the December elections, he said: "Democracy means accepting the opinion of the majority. The Sunnis need to take this into consideration."
Yesterday he was more conciliatory, however. Speaking in the knowledge that he had support from all three main religious groups, he pledged: "We are going to form a family that will not be based on sectarian or ethnic backgrounds."
Last month, Mr Maliki caused consternation by describing American actions, in a raid allegedly on a Shia mosque that left 22 people dead, as part of a "policy of aggression", and demanding "a full investigation of this crime."
American officials said that the building was not a mosque and that US special forces had been there only as advisers to Iraqi troops.
Previously the Dawa Party's official spokesman, Mr Maliki may also be hampered by his closeness to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who stepped down as Iraqi premier last week.
Dr Jaafari was viewed by coalition officials as heavily influenced by Teheran and too close to Moqtadr al-Sadr, the anti-American rebel cleric, whose Mehdi Army has killed scores of coalition troops.
Russia Rejects U.S. Appeal on Iran
Disputed Sale of Missile System to Proceed, Moscow Says
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006; A17
The United States appealed anew to Russia yesterday to stop the sale of air-defense missile systems to Iran, but Moscow reiterated its intention to proceed with the deal.
The public dispute underscored the considerable difficulty still confronting the Bush administration as it looks for ways to intensify international pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
At a news conference in Washington yesterday, the State Department's third-highest-ranking officer, R. Nicholas Burns, said the time has come for countries "to use their leverage with Iran" and halt exports of weapons and nuclear-related technologies. He singled out the sale of 29 Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract announced by Russia in December.
"We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward, because this is not time for business as usual with the Iranian government," said Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs.
Burns made the same appeal earlier in the week during a visit to Moscow, and he acknowledged yesterday that the Kremlin had already rejected it. Indeed, hours before Burns spoke, a senior Russian official was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency making clear his government's determination to follow through with the delivery of the weapons, which the Russians stress are defensive in nature.
"There are no circumstances that would obstruct fulfillment of our obligations in military-technical cooperation with Iran," said Nikolai Spassky, the deputy head of the Kremlin's Security Council. "This goes for all the obligations we have made, including the commitment to provide Iran with Tor-M1 air defense systems."
In raising the case again yesterday, Burns said the aim was to show that the United States has no intention of dropping it.
In addition to refusing to give up the weapons sale, Russia this week rejected a U.S. call to end cooperation in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran. The Russians say the plant has no relation to any Iranian effort to develop weapons. Iran insists that its entire nuclear program is aimed at producing energy, not arms.
Despite the U.S.-Russian tensions, Burns played down the international divisions over what to do about Iran's nuclear ambitions. After Iran's announcement last week that it had begun the enrichment of uranium, Burns said he detected a "change in atmosphere" and a new "sense of urgency" among the major world powers during his discussions about Iran this week in Moscow with officials representing not only Russia but also China, Britain, France and Germany.
"We all agreed that while we're willing to support efforts to see civil nuclear power made available to the Iranian people, none of us are willing to see a nuclear weapons capability produced," Burns said.
At the same time, Burns acknowledged a lack of agreement on "the specific tactical way forward."
With diplomacy now centered in the U.N. Security Council, council members are due to receive on April 28 a report on Iran's nuclear activities from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States, along with Britain and France, expect the report to open the way to U.N. sanctions against Iran.
But Russia appeared to harden its opposition to sanctions yesterday. A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said such measures should be considered only if "concrete facts" emerge that Iran's nuclear program is not exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Burns said a meeting of senior political officers from the Security Council's five permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- has been scheduled May 2 to consider the next diplomatic moves against Iran. In addition, he said, the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations intend to focus on Iran during their July summit.
But given the potential for continued stalemate, Burns raised the possibility that some nations might act against Iran without waiting for a Security Council agreement.
"It's not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future, a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action or collective action on sanctions," he said. "That's important, because those that might prevent the Security Council from acting effectively need to understand that the international community has to find a way, and will find a way, to express our displeasure with the Iranians."
Joining Burns at the news conference yesterday, Robert Joseph, the State Department's arms control chief, sought to underscore a sense of urgency. He said the Iranians "have put both feet on the accelerator" toward developing nuclear weapons. He expressed particular concern that Iran's announcement about enriched uranium signals that it is acquiring the capability of running centrifuges over a sustained period of time.
"We are very close to that point of no return," which will enable Iran to make nuclear weapons, Joseph said.
On Thursday, the administration's director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, called Iran's enrichment claims "troublesome." But, in a talk at the National Press Club, he added that Iran is "a number of years off . . . probably the next decade" before it would have enough fissile material for a weapon, and that "we need to keep this in perspective."
Disputed Sale of Missile System to Proceed, Moscow Says
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006; A17
The United States appealed anew to Russia yesterday to stop the sale of air-defense missile systems to Iran, but Moscow reiterated its intention to proceed with the deal.
The public dispute underscored the considerable difficulty still confronting the Bush administration as it looks for ways to intensify international pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program.
At a news conference in Washington yesterday, the State Department's third-highest-ranking officer, R. Nicholas Burns, said the time has come for countries "to use their leverage with Iran" and halt exports of weapons and nuclear-related technologies. He singled out the sale of 29 Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract announced by Russia in December.
"We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward, because this is not time for business as usual with the Iranian government," said Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs.
Burns made the same appeal earlier in the week during a visit to Moscow, and he acknowledged yesterday that the Kremlin had already rejected it. Indeed, hours before Burns spoke, a senior Russian official was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency making clear his government's determination to follow through with the delivery of the weapons, which the Russians stress are defensive in nature.
"There are no circumstances that would obstruct fulfillment of our obligations in military-technical cooperation with Iran," said Nikolai Spassky, the deputy head of the Kremlin's Security Council. "This goes for all the obligations we have made, including the commitment to provide Iran with Tor-M1 air defense systems."
In raising the case again yesterday, Burns said the aim was to show that the United States has no intention of dropping it.
In addition to refusing to give up the weapons sale, Russia this week rejected a U.S. call to end cooperation in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran. The Russians say the plant has no relation to any Iranian effort to develop weapons. Iran insists that its entire nuclear program is aimed at producing energy, not arms.
Despite the U.S.-Russian tensions, Burns played down the international divisions over what to do about Iran's nuclear ambitions. After Iran's announcement last week that it had begun the enrichment of uranium, Burns said he detected a "change in atmosphere" and a new "sense of urgency" among the major world powers during his discussions about Iran this week in Moscow with officials representing not only Russia but also China, Britain, France and Germany.
"We all agreed that while we're willing to support efforts to see civil nuclear power made available to the Iranian people, none of us are willing to see a nuclear weapons capability produced," Burns said.
At the same time, Burns acknowledged a lack of agreement on "the specific tactical way forward."
With diplomacy now centered in the U.N. Security Council, council members are due to receive on April 28 a report on Iran's nuclear activities from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States, along with Britain and France, expect the report to open the way to U.N. sanctions against Iran.
But Russia appeared to harden its opposition to sanctions yesterday. A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said such measures should be considered only if "concrete facts" emerge that Iran's nuclear program is not exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Burns said a meeting of senior political officers from the Security Council's five permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- has been scheduled May 2 to consider the next diplomatic moves against Iran. In addition, he said, the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations intend to focus on Iran during their July summit.
But given the potential for continued stalemate, Burns raised the possibility that some nations might act against Iran without waiting for a Security Council agreement.
"It's not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future, a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action or collective action on sanctions," he said. "That's important, because those that might prevent the Security Council from acting effectively need to understand that the international community has to find a way, and will find a way, to express our displeasure with the Iranians."
Joining Burns at the news conference yesterday, Robert Joseph, the State Department's arms control chief, sought to underscore a sense of urgency. He said the Iranians "have put both feet on the accelerator" toward developing nuclear weapons. He expressed particular concern that Iran's announcement about enriched uranium signals that it is acquiring the capability of running centrifuges over a sustained period of time.
"We are very close to that point of no return," which will enable Iran to make nuclear weapons, Joseph said.
On Thursday, the administration's director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, called Iran's enrichment claims "troublesome." But, in a talk at the National Press Club, he added that Iran is "a number of years off . . . probably the next decade" before it would have enough fissile material for a weapon, and that "we need to keep this in perspective."
CIA Officer Is Fired for Media Leaks
The Post Was Among Outlets That Gained Classified Data
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006; A01
The CIA fired a long-serving intelligence officer for sharing classified information with The Washington Post and other news organizations, officials said yesterday, as the agency continued an aggressive internal search for anyone who may have discussed intelligence with the news media.
CIA officials said the career intelligence officer failed more than one polygraph test and acknowledged unauthorized contacts with reporters. The "officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information" with journalists, the agency said in a statement yesterday.
The CIA did not reveal the identity of the employee, who was dismissed Thursday, but NBC News reported last night she is Mary McCarthy. An intelligence source confirmed that the report was accurate.
McCarthy began her career in government as an analyst at the CIA in 1984, public documents show. She served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs at the White House during the Clinton administration and the first few months of the Bush administration. She later returned to the CIA. Attempts to reach her last night were unsuccessful.
The CIA's statement did not name the reporters it believes were involved, but several intelligence officials said The Post's Dana Priest was among them. This week, Priest won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for articles about the agency, including one that revealed the existence of secret, CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate intelligence committee in February that the agency was determined to get to the bottom of recent leaks, and wanted journalists brought before a federal grand jury to reveal their sources. Regarding disclosures about CIA detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects at secret sites abroad, Goss, the former chairman of the House intelligence committee, said that "the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission."
The CIA has filed several reports to the Justice Department since last fall regarding the publication of classified information and has launched its own internal inquiries which include administering polygraphs to dozens of employees. The intelligence agency is sharing its findings with the Justice Department but is continuing to pursue some avenues of investigation on its own.
"It's up to the Justice Department to decide whether they want to pursue investigations separately," an intelligence source said.
The Justice Department is conducting several leak inquiries, including one into reports last December in the New York Times about a secret domestic surveillance program by the National Security Agency. Officials said it is possible the department could file criminal charges in connection with that investigation and others, but it is unclear whether the department is also investigating the disclosures about CIA-run prisons.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse declined to comment yesterday. "We do not confirm investigations on intelligence-related matters," he said, because of the information's sensitivity.
Intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the dismissed officer identified by others as McCarthy has not been charged with any crime and is not believed to be the subject of a Justice Department investigation.
The officer's employment was terminated for violating a secrecy agreement all employees are required to sign when they join the agency. The agreement prohibits them from sharing classified information with unauthorized individuals.
The CIA said the firing was the result of an internal investigation initiated in late January of all "officers who were involved in or exposed to certain intelligence programs."
"Through the course of these investigations a CIA official acknowledged having unauthorized discussion with the media" and was terminated, the CIA statement said.
Priest, who also won the George Polk Award and a prize from the Overseas Press Club this week for her articles, declined to comment yesterday.
Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said people who provide citizens the information they need to hold their government accountable should not "come to harm for that." (HUH? WHO NEEDS WHAT? WHOSE DECISION IS THAT TO MAKE?)
"The reporting that Dana did was very important accountability reporting about how the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government have been conducting the war on terror," Downie said. "Whether or not the actions of the CIA or other agencies have interfered with anyone's civil liberties is important information for Americans to know and is an important part of our jobs." (AND IT IS NOT YOUR DECISION TO MAKE, HERO)
In an effort to stem leaks, the Bush administration launched several initiatives earlier this year targeting journalists and national security employees. They include FBI probes, extensive polygraphing inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
The effort has been widely seen among members of the media, and some legal experts, as the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and has worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House. (OH NO, IS YOUR JOB HARDER BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT HAND YOU CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ON A SILVER PLATTER?)
Dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office. Others have been prohibited, in writing, from discussing even unclassified issues related to the domestic surveillance program. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering tougher penalties for leaking.
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate intelligence panel, welcomed the CIA's actions. In a statement, he said leaks had "hindered our efforts in the war against al Qaeda," although he did not say how.
"I am pleased that the Central Intelligence Agency has identified the source of certain unauthorized disclosures, and I hope that the agency, and the [intelligence] community as a whole, will continue to vigorously investigate other outstanding leak cases," Roberts said.
Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
The Post Was Among Outlets That Gained Classified Data
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006; A01
The CIA fired a long-serving intelligence officer for sharing classified information with The Washington Post and other news organizations, officials said yesterday, as the agency continued an aggressive internal search for anyone who may have discussed intelligence with the news media.
CIA officials said the career intelligence officer failed more than one polygraph test and acknowledged unauthorized contacts with reporters. The "officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information" with journalists, the agency said in a statement yesterday.
The CIA did not reveal the identity of the employee, who was dismissed Thursday, but NBC News reported last night she is Mary McCarthy. An intelligence source confirmed that the report was accurate.
McCarthy began her career in government as an analyst at the CIA in 1984, public documents show. She served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs at the White House during the Clinton administration and the first few months of the Bush administration. She later returned to the CIA. Attempts to reach her last night were unsuccessful.
The CIA's statement did not name the reporters it believes were involved, but several intelligence officials said The Post's Dana Priest was among them. This week, Priest won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for articles about the agency, including one that revealed the existence of secret, CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate intelligence committee in February that the agency was determined to get to the bottom of recent leaks, and wanted journalists brought before a federal grand jury to reveal their sources. Regarding disclosures about CIA detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects at secret sites abroad, Goss, the former chairman of the House intelligence committee, said that "the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission."
The CIA has filed several reports to the Justice Department since last fall regarding the publication of classified information and has launched its own internal inquiries which include administering polygraphs to dozens of employees. The intelligence agency is sharing its findings with the Justice Department but is continuing to pursue some avenues of investigation on its own.
"It's up to the Justice Department to decide whether they want to pursue investigations separately," an intelligence source said.
The Justice Department is conducting several leak inquiries, including one into reports last December in the New York Times about a secret domestic surveillance program by the National Security Agency. Officials said it is possible the department could file criminal charges in connection with that investigation and others, but it is unclear whether the department is also investigating the disclosures about CIA-run prisons.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse declined to comment yesterday. "We do not confirm investigations on intelligence-related matters," he said, because of the information's sensitivity.
Intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the dismissed officer identified by others as McCarthy has not been charged with any crime and is not believed to be the subject of a Justice Department investigation.
The officer's employment was terminated for violating a secrecy agreement all employees are required to sign when they join the agency. The agreement prohibits them from sharing classified information with unauthorized individuals.
The CIA said the firing was the result of an internal investigation initiated in late January of all "officers who were involved in or exposed to certain intelligence programs."
"Through the course of these investigations a CIA official acknowledged having unauthorized discussion with the media" and was terminated, the CIA statement said.
Priest, who also won the George Polk Award and a prize from the Overseas Press Club this week for her articles, declined to comment yesterday.
Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said people who provide citizens the information they need to hold their government accountable should not "come to harm for that." (HUH? WHO NEEDS WHAT? WHOSE DECISION IS THAT TO MAKE?)
"The reporting that Dana did was very important accountability reporting about how the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government have been conducting the war on terror," Downie said. "Whether or not the actions of the CIA or other agencies have interfered with anyone's civil liberties is important information for Americans to know and is an important part of our jobs." (AND IT IS NOT YOUR DECISION TO MAKE, HERO)
In an effort to stem leaks, the Bush administration launched several initiatives earlier this year targeting journalists and national security employees. They include FBI probes, extensive polygraphing inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
The effort has been widely seen among members of the media, and some legal experts, as the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and has worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House. (OH NO, IS YOUR JOB HARDER BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT HAND YOU CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ON A SILVER PLATTER?)
Dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office. Others have been prohibited, in writing, from discussing even unclassified issues related to the domestic surveillance program. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering tougher penalties for leaking.
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate intelligence panel, welcomed the CIA's actions. In a statement, he said leaks had "hindered our efforts in the war against al Qaeda," although he did not say how.
"I am pleased that the Central Intelligence Agency has identified the source of certain unauthorized disclosures, and I hope that the agency, and the [intelligence] community as a whole, will continue to vigorously investigate other outstanding leak cases," Roberts said.
Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu and research editor Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
Top Shiites Nominate A Premier For Iraq
Al-Maliki Opposed Hussein And the U.S.-Led Invasion
By Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 22, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, April 21 -- Jawad al-Maliki, an experienced political operator and advocate for Iraq's Shiite Muslims, won the approval of Shiite party leaders for the post of prime minister on Friday, a day after the parties' original nominee bowed out under political pressure.
The move could end the political paralysis that has gripped Iraq since national elections were held on Dec. 15. Maliki, a senior member of the coalition of Shiite parties that holds the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliament, is now on course to lead Iraq's first long-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If ultimately chosen, the former exile would inherit grave challenges, among them an economy in tatters, an insurgent movement that continues to attack Iraq's government and its U.S. backers, and ethnic and sectarian tensions that threaten to tear the country apart.
Leaders of the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, said Friday night that Maliki's nomination by the alliance's political committee would face a vote by the full membership on Saturday morning. If approved, his name would be formally presented to Iraq's parliament, along with a list of nominees for other top posts, that afternoon.
But events rarely proceed so smoothly in the Iraqi political process, which has been held up for months by the debate over who would be prime minister. The incumbent, Ibrahim al-Jafari, won the alliance's nomination in February, only to be opposed by Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties. Jafari, who like Maliki is a leader of the Dawa party, gave in to weeks of heavy pressure and surrendered his nomination on Thursday.
On Friday night, leaders of the Shiite alliance said they had gained support for Maliki from the leaders of the Sunni Arab and Kurdish political blocs. The Associated Press quoted Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the main Sunni Arab coalition in parliament, as saying: "If anyone is nominated except al-Jafari, we won't put any obstacles in his way. He will receive our support."
The Shiite leaders also said they had reached an understanding with other factions over who would hold other top posts in the next government, including those of the president and two deputy presidents, who hold the formal power to nominate a prime minister. An aide to Jafari, Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, said the Shiites had agreed to yield the presidential post to the incumbent, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. His two deputies, they said, would be Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Sunni Arab coalition, and Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite economist who had been a rival to Jafari.
Maliki appears to hold a stronger mandate within the Shiite alliance than did Jafari, who was chosen over Abdul Mahdi in February by a single vote. Maliki's only remaining opponent among the Shiite parties is Nadim al-Jabiri, a candidate of the Fadhila Party, whose representative abstained from the political committee's vote on Maliki.
Party officials said Maliki won the support of the other six members of the alliance's political committee, including representatives of the alliance's most powerful factions -- the Dawa party; the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which had supported Abdul Mahdi; and the group led by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who had backed Jafari.
Maliki was "chosen for his acceptability both by groups inside the alliance and outside it," Ridha Jawad Taqi, a spokesman for the Supreme Council, said at a news conference broadcast on Iraqi television. "We want to have a government of national unity and partnership, a government that includes all components of Iraqi society, one that will be accepted by any ethnicity or group."
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the choice of Maliki was "a good step in the right direction. He's an Iraqi patriot. He's a strong leader."
Yet Maliki, born in 1950 near the Shiite holy city of Karbala, possesses credentials that may not endear him to Sunni Arabs or U.S. officials wary of foreign influence. He joined the Shiite-dominated Dawa party in 1968, soon falling foul of Iraq's Baath Party government. He fled Iraq in 1980, a year after Hussein rose to the presidency, and spent his years in exile in Iran and Syria. He was sentenced to death in absentia, returning to Iraq only after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Hussein in 2003.
Although he was a strident opponent of Hussein, he also opposed the invasion that ultimately forced the ruler from power.
"The danger to Iraq lies in the possibility of the U.S. administration making mistakes in its supervision of this crisis," he said in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar in December 2002 that was translated by the U.S. government's Open Source Center. "Those who will rule Iraq after Saddam Hussein cannot be envied. Don't fight for ruling an Iraq full of widows and orphans and burdened with heavy debt."
After Hussein fell, Maliki and the Dawa party quickly claimed a powerful role in Iraqi politics. Like many Shiites, Maliki supported the removal of Baathists from the government. In 2004, he served as a mediator in talks between U.S. representatives and Sadr, a popular leader who led a Shiite uprising. (SAY ONE THING - DO ANOTHER)
Maliki also served as deputy chairman of the committee that wrote the Iraqi constitution. He has argued against splitting Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines -- a stance that could lead to conflict not only with the Kurds in the north, who have governed their own region for years, but with Shiite parties that favor establishing their own mini-state in the south.
Maliki will also have to deal with a shaken society in which the fear of violence has almost become routine. A U.S. Marine was killed in combat west of Baghdad on Friday, military authorities reported, and more than a dozen Iraqis were killed in bombings and shootings, according to police officials and news reports.
If Maliki is approved, he will have a month to form his cabinet. The interior, defense and oil ministries, responsible for the police, the army and the economy respectively, are likely to require the same painstaking negotiations that the choice of prime minister required.
"Of course there will be some difficult issues to deal with in the coming weeks, particularly the security ministers," Khalilzad said in a telephone interview. "But we had to have this. It's been a good day."
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi, Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
Al-Maliki Opposed Hussein And the U.S.-Led Invasion
By Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 22, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, April 21 -- Jawad al-Maliki, an experienced political operator and advocate for Iraq's Shiite Muslims, won the approval of Shiite party leaders for the post of prime minister on Friday, a day after the parties' original nominee bowed out under political pressure.
The move could end the political paralysis that has gripped Iraq since national elections were held on Dec. 15. Maliki, a senior member of the coalition of Shiite parties that holds the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliament, is now on course to lead Iraq's first long-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If ultimately chosen, the former exile would inherit grave challenges, among them an economy in tatters, an insurgent movement that continues to attack Iraq's government and its U.S. backers, and ethnic and sectarian tensions that threaten to tear the country apart.
Leaders of the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, said Friday night that Maliki's nomination by the alliance's political committee would face a vote by the full membership on Saturday morning. If approved, his name would be formally presented to Iraq's parliament, along with a list of nominees for other top posts, that afternoon.
But events rarely proceed so smoothly in the Iraqi political process, which has been held up for months by the debate over who would be prime minister. The incumbent, Ibrahim al-Jafari, won the alliance's nomination in February, only to be opposed by Sunni Arab and Kurdish political parties. Jafari, who like Maliki is a leader of the Dawa party, gave in to weeks of heavy pressure and surrendered his nomination on Thursday.
On Friday night, leaders of the Shiite alliance said they had gained support for Maliki from the leaders of the Sunni Arab and Kurdish political blocs. The Associated Press quoted Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the main Sunni Arab coalition in parliament, as saying: "If anyone is nominated except al-Jafari, we won't put any obstacles in his way. He will receive our support."
The Shiite leaders also said they had reached an understanding with other factions over who would hold other top posts in the next government, including those of the president and two deputy presidents, who hold the formal power to nominate a prime minister. An aide to Jafari, Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, said the Shiites had agreed to yield the presidential post to the incumbent, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. His two deputies, they said, would be Tariq al-Hashimi, a leader of the Sunni Arab coalition, and Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite economist who had been a rival to Jafari.
Maliki appears to hold a stronger mandate within the Shiite alliance than did Jafari, who was chosen over Abdul Mahdi in February by a single vote. Maliki's only remaining opponent among the Shiite parties is Nadim al-Jabiri, a candidate of the Fadhila Party, whose representative abstained from the political committee's vote on Maliki.
Party officials said Maliki won the support of the other six members of the alliance's political committee, including representatives of the alliance's most powerful factions -- the Dawa party; the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which had supported Abdul Mahdi; and the group led by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who had backed Jafari.
Maliki was "chosen for his acceptability both by groups inside the alliance and outside it," Ridha Jawad Taqi, a spokesman for the Supreme Council, said at a news conference broadcast on Iraqi television. "We want to have a government of national unity and partnership, a government that includes all components of Iraqi society, one that will be accepted by any ethnicity or group."
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the choice of Maliki was "a good step in the right direction. He's an Iraqi patriot. He's a strong leader."
Yet Maliki, born in 1950 near the Shiite holy city of Karbala, possesses credentials that may not endear him to Sunni Arabs or U.S. officials wary of foreign influence. He joined the Shiite-dominated Dawa party in 1968, soon falling foul of Iraq's Baath Party government. He fled Iraq in 1980, a year after Hussein rose to the presidency, and spent his years in exile in Iran and Syria. He was sentenced to death in absentia, returning to Iraq only after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Hussein in 2003.
Although he was a strident opponent of Hussein, he also opposed the invasion that ultimately forced the ruler from power.
"The danger to Iraq lies in the possibility of the U.S. administration making mistakes in its supervision of this crisis," he said in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar in December 2002 that was translated by the U.S. government's Open Source Center. "Those who will rule Iraq after Saddam Hussein cannot be envied. Don't fight for ruling an Iraq full of widows and orphans and burdened with heavy debt."
After Hussein fell, Maliki and the Dawa party quickly claimed a powerful role in Iraqi politics. Like many Shiites, Maliki supported the removal of Baathists from the government. In 2004, he served as a mediator in talks between U.S. representatives and Sadr, a popular leader who led a Shiite uprising. (SAY ONE THING - DO ANOTHER)
Maliki also served as deputy chairman of the committee that wrote the Iraqi constitution. He has argued against splitting Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines -- a stance that could lead to conflict not only with the Kurds in the north, who have governed their own region for years, but with Shiite parties that favor establishing their own mini-state in the south.
Maliki will also have to deal with a shaken society in which the fear of violence has almost become routine. A U.S. Marine was killed in combat west of Baghdad on Friday, military authorities reported, and more than a dozen Iraqis were killed in bombings and shootings, according to police officials and news reports.
If Maliki is approved, he will have a month to form his cabinet. The interior, defense and oil ministries, responsible for the police, the army and the economy respectively, are likely to require the same painstaking negotiations that the choice of prime minister required.
"Of course there will be some difficult issues to deal with in the coming weeks, particularly the security ministers," Khalilzad said in a telephone interview. "But we had to have this. It's been a good day."
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi, Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
U.S. Wants Embargo on Arms to Iran
An official urges nations to 'use their leverage' to halt Tehran's nuclear program. Russia says it intends to proceed with missile sales.
By Paul Richter and Kim Murphy
Times Staff Writers
April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, trying to increase pressure on Iran, called Friday for an international embargo on sales of arms to Tehran until the regime agrees to suspend its nuclear program.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said the United States believed it was "time for countries to use their leverage," including banning the sale of arms and "dual use" technologies that could be employed in Tehran's nuclear program to generate electricity or make a weapon.
Burns singled out Russia, a longtime military supplier to Iran that has announced its plans to proceed with a $900-million sale of Tor M-1 antiaircraft missiles over U.S. objections.
"It doesn't stand to reason that Russia would continue with the arms sale, particularly of the type envisioned, Tor missiles," said Burns, the administration's point man on the Iran issue. "Iran is a country that is violating every international agreement it's made on the nuclear issue…. We hope and trust that the deal will not go forward."
But Russian officials Friday repeated their intention to deliver the weapons, which they said were not the subject of any international sanctions.
"Currently, nothing is preventing the fulfillment of our obligations in the area of military and technical cooperation with Iran. This deals with all the agreements made," Nikolai Spassky, deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, told reporters in Moscow.
"As far as the future is concerned, military and technical cooperation with any country may be limited only after the U.N. Security Council imposes the relevant sanctions," he said.
The Tor surface-to-air missiles are designed for use against aircraft and guided missiles at low and medium altitudes. They could theoretically be used against U.S. forces in the event of an American attack on Iran.
Russia also signaled its unwillingness to discuss possible U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran pending a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. On March 29, the Security Council demanded that Iran suspend enrichment and asked the IAEA to report back in 30 days. U.N. nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei is due to deliver a report by Friday on whether Iran is meeting the IAEA's demands for a halt to uranium enrichment.
The U.S. has been pressing Russia and China to at least abstain on a resolution calling for targeted sanctions.
"Our position [on sanctions] is quite clear and does not require further clarification. At this stage, we consider it unproductive to discuss the issue of sanctions," Spassky told The Times.
"When we get the report, we'll review what's written in it. Moreover, we will be reviewing concrete issues, concrete items — not abstractly 'Do we like Iran or not?' or 'What's it doing with centrifuges?' " Spassky said. "The primary issue, the source of this whole story, is the issue of Iran's failure to fulfill its obligations, the issue of doubts on the part of the IAEA about its past nuclear program.
"As soon as this dossier gets closed, the mechanisms of Iran's normal IAEA membership can immediately be fully restored, as can the normal, full-fledged development of its peaceful nuclear program."
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, speaking at an international security conference in Moscow, said there were no conditions under which Iran would be willing to give up its nuclear power program. He emphasized again that the program did not have a weapons component.
"You would be surprised if I said we have a common agreement with the United States, [but] I'm saying that Iran should not have nuclear weapons," Soltanieh said. "But there should be a distinction. Iran will have nuclear technology for peaceful uses, and will never give up."
He said Iran would be announcing bids in the next few weeks for construction over the next 20 years of two nuclear power plants capable of generating 20 megawatts of power.
"European or other potential suppliers are welcome for the bid," he said.
Richter reported from Washington and Murphy from Moscow. Natasha Yefimova of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.
An official urges nations to 'use their leverage' to halt Tehran's nuclear program. Russia says it intends to proceed with missile sales.
By Paul Richter and Kim Murphy
Times Staff Writers
April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, trying to increase pressure on Iran, called Friday for an international embargo on sales of arms to Tehran until the regime agrees to suspend its nuclear program.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said the United States believed it was "time for countries to use their leverage," including banning the sale of arms and "dual use" technologies that could be employed in Tehran's nuclear program to generate electricity or make a weapon.
Burns singled out Russia, a longtime military supplier to Iran that has announced its plans to proceed with a $900-million sale of Tor M-1 antiaircraft missiles over U.S. objections.
"It doesn't stand to reason that Russia would continue with the arms sale, particularly of the type envisioned, Tor missiles," said Burns, the administration's point man on the Iran issue. "Iran is a country that is violating every international agreement it's made on the nuclear issue…. We hope and trust that the deal will not go forward."
But Russian officials Friday repeated their intention to deliver the weapons, which they said were not the subject of any international sanctions.
"Currently, nothing is preventing the fulfillment of our obligations in the area of military and technical cooperation with Iran. This deals with all the agreements made," Nikolai Spassky, deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, told reporters in Moscow.
"As far as the future is concerned, military and technical cooperation with any country may be limited only after the U.N. Security Council imposes the relevant sanctions," he said.
The Tor surface-to-air missiles are designed for use against aircraft and guided missiles at low and medium altitudes. They could theoretically be used against U.S. forces in the event of an American attack on Iran.
Russia also signaled its unwillingness to discuss possible U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran pending a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. On March 29, the Security Council demanded that Iran suspend enrichment and asked the IAEA to report back in 30 days. U.N. nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei is due to deliver a report by Friday on whether Iran is meeting the IAEA's demands for a halt to uranium enrichment.
The U.S. has been pressing Russia and China to at least abstain on a resolution calling for targeted sanctions.
"Our position [on sanctions] is quite clear and does not require further clarification. At this stage, we consider it unproductive to discuss the issue of sanctions," Spassky told The Times.
"When we get the report, we'll review what's written in it. Moreover, we will be reviewing concrete issues, concrete items — not abstractly 'Do we like Iran or not?' or 'What's it doing with centrifuges?' " Spassky said. "The primary issue, the source of this whole story, is the issue of Iran's failure to fulfill its obligations, the issue of doubts on the part of the IAEA about its past nuclear program.
"As soon as this dossier gets closed, the mechanisms of Iran's normal IAEA membership can immediately be fully restored, as can the normal, full-fledged development of its peaceful nuclear program."
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, speaking at an international security conference in Moscow, said there were no conditions under which Iran would be willing to give up its nuclear power program. He emphasized again that the program did not have a weapons component.
"You would be surprised if I said we have a common agreement with the United States, [but] I'm saying that Iran should not have nuclear weapons," Soltanieh said. "But there should be a distinction. Iran will have nuclear technology for peaceful uses, and will never give up."
He said Iran would be announcing bids in the next few weeks for construction over the next 20 years of two nuclear power plants capable of generating 20 megawatts of power.
"European or other potential suppliers are welcome for the bid," he said.
Richter reported from Washington and Murphy from Moscow. Natasha Yefimova of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.
China's Hu Says His Nation, U.S. Destined to Be Partners
In response to a query after his speech at Yale, the president asserts that political rights will be expanded 'prudently.'
By Maggie Farley
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2006
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Chinese President Hu Jintao told an audience at Yale University on Friday that his nation's rapid economic development was not a threat to the United States and that the two countries' shared strategic interests should inevitably make them partners.
Yale was his last stop on a four-day visit to the United States meant to quell Washington's concerns about China's burgeoning trade surplus and growing political muscle, as well as build business ties.
His speech to an audience of about 600 students and professors was also broadcast live in China except for a brief question-and-answer session in which Hu was asked whether Beijing views the United States as an ally or adversary, and if China's economic development comes at the cost of political rights.
Hu answered that China would open its political system gradually and "prudently," but that the decades of booming growth "demonstrated that China's political system suits its development."
Hu, 63, did not directly address issues that were the focus of his Thursday meeting with President Bush: China's trade imbalance with the U.S., the value of Beijing's currency and its reluctance to press Iran to rein in its nuclear program. But he portrayed America and China as equals and allies, and seemed to answer Bush's call for China to become a responsible "stakeholder" in world affairs.
"Both China and the United States are of significant influence in the world," he said. "Our two countries must not only become stakeholders, but should also become partners in constructive cooperation."
The audience at Yale, Bush's alma mater and the university that played host to America's first Chinese graduate in 1854, was receptive and polite.
Students giggled when Hu's translation earpiece fell out of his ear and when he clapped along with the audience applauding him. But his speech was uninterrupted by hecklers — unlike the previous day at the White House when a protester in the news media stands diverted cameras from Hu with her shouts.
Hu's motorcade in New Haven passed through a gantlet of, on one side of the street, thousands of supporters waving red Chinese flags in pride and, on the other, protesters who hoisted banners denouncing the treatment of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement in China. Falun Gong members have dogged Hu's every stop, and a Chinese official said he was infuriated by Thursday's disruption.
This time, the demonstrators were matched by bused-in supporters who blared the Chinese national anthem in counterpoint to the protesters' bullhorns. Dong Liang, a 28-year-old art student from Providence, R.I., boarded a bus before sunrise with four friends to see the president.
"There is a perception here that China is a threat to America. He is here to say that is not true and good relations are very important to each other," he said.
The language of business leaders Hu met with this week in Seattle seemed to have rubbed off on him; he talked about "win-win outcomes" in joint ventures in China, and how his country's economic development lifted markets around the world.
He spoke about China's consistent 9% annual growth over two decades that had lifted millions of its 1.3 billion people out of poverty.
But in an effort to downplay the power of the surging economy as Beijing holds a growing trade surplus with the U.S., he noted that China's per-capita gross domestic product was about $1,700 and that his country did not rank in the world's top 100.
"China's development will not compromise the interests of other nations, nor will China's development threaten anyone," he said.
Hu asserted that China's attention was focused not on exercising influence on world affairs, but on the internal struggle to resolve imbalances between wealthy urban centers and poor rural areas and maintain "social harmony."
"We need to concentrate our energy and resources on resolving those problems, and that's why we hope to see a peaceful international environment," he said.
In response to a query after his speech at Yale, the president asserts that political rights will be expanded 'prudently.'
By Maggie Farley
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2006
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Chinese President Hu Jintao told an audience at Yale University on Friday that his nation's rapid economic development was not a threat to the United States and that the two countries' shared strategic interests should inevitably make them partners.
Yale was his last stop on a four-day visit to the United States meant to quell Washington's concerns about China's burgeoning trade surplus and growing political muscle, as well as build business ties.
His speech to an audience of about 600 students and professors was also broadcast live in China except for a brief question-and-answer session in which Hu was asked whether Beijing views the United States as an ally or adversary, and if China's economic development comes at the cost of political rights.
Hu answered that China would open its political system gradually and "prudently," but that the decades of booming growth "demonstrated that China's political system suits its development."
Hu, 63, did not directly address issues that were the focus of his Thursday meeting with President Bush: China's trade imbalance with the U.S., the value of Beijing's currency and its reluctance to press Iran to rein in its nuclear program. But he portrayed America and China as equals and allies, and seemed to answer Bush's call for China to become a responsible "stakeholder" in world affairs.
"Both China and the United States are of significant influence in the world," he said. "Our two countries must not only become stakeholders, but should also become partners in constructive cooperation."
The audience at Yale, Bush's alma mater and the university that played host to America's first Chinese graduate in 1854, was receptive and polite.
Students giggled when Hu's translation earpiece fell out of his ear and when he clapped along with the audience applauding him. But his speech was uninterrupted by hecklers — unlike the previous day at the White House when a protester in the news media stands diverted cameras from Hu with her shouts.
Hu's motorcade in New Haven passed through a gantlet of, on one side of the street, thousands of supporters waving red Chinese flags in pride and, on the other, protesters who hoisted banners denouncing the treatment of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement in China. Falun Gong members have dogged Hu's every stop, and a Chinese official said he was infuriated by Thursday's disruption.
This time, the demonstrators were matched by bused-in supporters who blared the Chinese national anthem in counterpoint to the protesters' bullhorns. Dong Liang, a 28-year-old art student from Providence, R.I., boarded a bus before sunrise with four friends to see the president.
"There is a perception here that China is a threat to America. He is here to say that is not true and good relations are very important to each other," he said.
The language of business leaders Hu met with this week in Seattle seemed to have rubbed off on him; he talked about "win-win outcomes" in joint ventures in China, and how his country's economic development lifted markets around the world.
He spoke about China's consistent 9% annual growth over two decades that had lifted millions of its 1.3 billion people out of poverty.
But in an effort to downplay the power of the surging economy as Beijing holds a growing trade surplus with the U.S., he noted that China's per-capita gross domestic product was about $1,700 and that his country did not rank in the world's top 100.
"China's development will not compromise the interests of other nations, nor will China's development threaten anyone," he said.
Hu asserted that China's attention was focused not on exercising influence on world affairs, but on the internal struggle to resolve imbalances between wealthy urban centers and poor rural areas and maintain "social harmony."
"We need to concentrate our energy and resources on resolving those problems, and that's why we hope to see a peaceful international environment," he said.
CIA Officer Sacked for Leaking Detention-Site Secrets to Media
By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — The CIA has fired a senior officer for leaking classified information to news organizations, including material for Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in the Washington Post that said the agency maintained a secret network of prison facilities overseas for high-ranking terror suspects.
The termination, announced Friday, marks the latest in a series of high-profile crackdowns on spy agency and Bush administration officials accused of unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
The CIA would not disclose the identity of the fired officer, citing Privacy Act protections. But current and former intelligence officials identified her as Mary O. McCarthy, a former White House aide who until this week held a senior position in the CIA's inspector general's office.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would say only that an unnamed individual had admitted to having contacts with the press and discussing classified information. "That is a violation of the secrecy agreement that everyone signs as a condition of employment with the CIA," Gimigliano said.
U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not at liberty to discuss the case, said McCarthy's admission came after she failed a polygraph test conducted as part of several ongoing CIA investigations into leaks. She was fired Thursday and escorted from the agency's campus in Langley, Va., the officials said.
The officials said that McCarthy could face criminal prosecution, and that the Justice Department had been apprised of developments in the internal CIA probes. One U.S. official indicated that she had engaged in a "pattern of contacts" with more than one reporter. (BYE-BYE TRAITOR; HOPE YOU EAT **IT AND . . .)
McCarthy has held a series of high-level positions in the intelligence community during a career spanning two decades, according to a short biography posted on the website of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where she was a visiting fellow in 2001 before returning to intelligence work.
According to the biography, McCarthy served as senior director for intelligence programs at the White House's National Security Council under President Clinton and, until July 2001, for President Bush.
Previously, she held positions with the National Intelligence Council, which formerly was based at the CIA and is responsible for producing assessments on major national security issues.
McCarthy holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Minnesota and had taught there; she also worked at Yale University before joining the government.
McCarthy could not be reached for comment Friday.
The rare, but not unprecedented, dismissal is likely to send fresh waves of anxiety through an agency battered in recent years for intelligence failures surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks and erroneous prewar assessments of Iraq. The CIA also has seen a series of high-level officers quit over confrontations with senior aides to Director Porter J. Goss.
During his tenure, Goss has emphasized upholding the CIA's tradition of secrecy — and he often has complained publicly about the damage caused by leaks. In recent congressional testimony, Goss said: "It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information."
Goss was referring in part to stories in the Post last year that alleged the CIA was operating secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe, where high-value terrorist operatives were being interrogated. On Monday, Post reporter Dana Priest was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for those stories in the beat reporting category. (WHAT A HERO)
The stories triggered a fierce reaction in Europe, including investigations into whether governments were secretly cooperating by allowing the CIA to use European facilities and airstrips to detain and transfer prisoners to other countries known to engage in torture.
Disclosures about that program and other operations in recent months, U.S. intelligence officials said, have damaged the United States' ability to win cooperation from European countries and other allies in the fight against terrorism. (A DIRECT, ADVERSE EFFECT ON THE ABILITY OF THE USA TO FIGHT TERRORISTS. SOUNDS LIKE TREASON)
"When liaison countries agree to do things with us and we can't keep that secret, that is damaging," said one U.S. official. "They're much less willing to cooperate on a wide range of subjects."
A former senior CIA officer said that Goss sent an e-mail to agency workers Friday, saying the dismissed employee had failed a polygraph test and subsequently admitted to making unauthorized disclosures.
CIA employees are subjected to polygraph examinations every five years as part of routine evaluations for their security clearances. But several officials said McCarthy had been subjected to a "single-issue" polygraph, meaning one specifically conducted to question agency employees about whether they were involved in leaking information that has appeared in the media in recent months.
Several former CIA officers said the agency's internal investigations had focused on lists of employees who were in a position to know details about the agency's detention operations.
Whenever a program is as closely held as the detention operation, said one former CIA officer, staff must sign a special nondisclosure agreement in order to be briefed on the program.
"So there's a list of people who know," one former officer said.
Employees in the CIA's inspector general's office, where McCarthy worked, would have been familiar with some aspects of the detention operations, which the inspector general has reviewed in recent years.
One former senior CIA official said the inspector general's office often was suspected by other agency employees of being the source of many leaks. The "IG's office," as it is known, is an independent, internal watchdog organization with wide latitude to investigate sensitive programs and call attention to problems.
Washington has been racked by a series of high-profile leaks and subsequent investigations in recent years. (GEE, I WONDER WHY - TARGET BUSH)
The White House recently was forced to acknowledge that Bush — a frequent critic of leaks — had authorized the declassification of sensitive material that was shared with a reporter as part of the administration's effort to rebut criticism of its case for war in Iraq.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, has been indicted as part of a probe into whether administration officials leaked the identity of then-CIA officer Valerie Plame.
And intelligence officials have launched investigations into the source of leaks that Bush had authorized the wiretapping of U.S. residents — without court warrants — as part of the administration's counterterrorism efforts in the wake of Sept. 11.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a statement Friday praising the CIA's efforts to combat leaks.
"At a time in which intelligence is more important than ever, leaks have hindered our efforts in the war against Al Qaeda," Roberts said. "Those guilty of improperly disclosing classified information should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — The CIA has fired a senior officer for leaking classified information to news organizations, including material for Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in the Washington Post that said the agency maintained a secret network of prison facilities overseas for high-ranking terror suspects.
The termination, announced Friday, marks the latest in a series of high-profile crackdowns on spy agency and Bush administration officials accused of unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
The CIA would not disclose the identity of the fired officer, citing Privacy Act protections. But current and former intelligence officials identified her as Mary O. McCarthy, a former White House aide who until this week held a senior position in the CIA's inspector general's office.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would say only that an unnamed individual had admitted to having contacts with the press and discussing classified information. "That is a violation of the secrecy agreement that everyone signs as a condition of employment with the CIA," Gimigliano said.
U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not at liberty to discuss the case, said McCarthy's admission came after she failed a polygraph test conducted as part of several ongoing CIA investigations into leaks. She was fired Thursday and escorted from the agency's campus in Langley, Va., the officials said.
The officials said that McCarthy could face criminal prosecution, and that the Justice Department had been apprised of developments in the internal CIA probes. One U.S. official indicated that she had engaged in a "pattern of contacts" with more than one reporter. (BYE-BYE TRAITOR; HOPE YOU EAT **IT AND . . .)
McCarthy has held a series of high-level positions in the intelligence community during a career spanning two decades, according to a short biography posted on the website of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where she was a visiting fellow in 2001 before returning to intelligence work.
According to the biography, McCarthy served as senior director for intelligence programs at the White House's National Security Council under President Clinton and, until July 2001, for President Bush.
Previously, she held positions with the National Intelligence Council, which formerly was based at the CIA and is responsible for producing assessments on major national security issues.
McCarthy holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Minnesota and had taught there; she also worked at Yale University before joining the government.
McCarthy could not be reached for comment Friday.
The rare, but not unprecedented, dismissal is likely to send fresh waves of anxiety through an agency battered in recent years for intelligence failures surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks and erroneous prewar assessments of Iraq. The CIA also has seen a series of high-level officers quit over confrontations with senior aides to Director Porter J. Goss.
During his tenure, Goss has emphasized upholding the CIA's tradition of secrecy — and he often has complained publicly about the damage caused by leaks. In recent congressional testimony, Goss said: "It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information."
Goss was referring in part to stories in the Post last year that alleged the CIA was operating secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe, where high-value terrorist operatives were being interrogated. On Monday, Post reporter Dana Priest was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for those stories in the beat reporting category. (WHAT A HERO)
The stories triggered a fierce reaction in Europe, including investigations into whether governments were secretly cooperating by allowing the CIA to use European facilities and airstrips to detain and transfer prisoners to other countries known to engage in torture.
Disclosures about that program and other operations in recent months, U.S. intelligence officials said, have damaged the United States' ability to win cooperation from European countries and other allies in the fight against terrorism. (A DIRECT, ADVERSE EFFECT ON THE ABILITY OF THE USA TO FIGHT TERRORISTS. SOUNDS LIKE TREASON)
"When liaison countries agree to do things with us and we can't keep that secret, that is damaging," said one U.S. official. "They're much less willing to cooperate on a wide range of subjects."
A former senior CIA officer said that Goss sent an e-mail to agency workers Friday, saying the dismissed employee had failed a polygraph test and subsequently admitted to making unauthorized disclosures.
CIA employees are subjected to polygraph examinations every five years as part of routine evaluations for their security clearances. But several officials said McCarthy had been subjected to a "single-issue" polygraph, meaning one specifically conducted to question agency employees about whether they were involved in leaking information that has appeared in the media in recent months.
Several former CIA officers said the agency's internal investigations had focused on lists of employees who were in a position to know details about the agency's detention operations.
Whenever a program is as closely held as the detention operation, said one former CIA officer, staff must sign a special nondisclosure agreement in order to be briefed on the program.
"So there's a list of people who know," one former officer said.
Employees in the CIA's inspector general's office, where McCarthy worked, would have been familiar with some aspects of the detention operations, which the inspector general has reviewed in recent years.
One former senior CIA official said the inspector general's office often was suspected by other agency employees of being the source of many leaks. The "IG's office," as it is known, is an independent, internal watchdog organization with wide latitude to investigate sensitive programs and call attention to problems.
Washington has been racked by a series of high-profile leaks and subsequent investigations in recent years. (GEE, I WONDER WHY - TARGET BUSH)
The White House recently was forced to acknowledge that Bush — a frequent critic of leaks — had authorized the declassification of sensitive material that was shared with a reporter as part of the administration's effort to rebut criticism of its case for war in Iraq.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, has been indicted as part of a probe into whether administration officials leaked the identity of then-CIA officer Valerie Plame.
And intelligence officials have launched investigations into the source of leaks that Bush had authorized the wiretapping of U.S. residents — without court warrants — as part of the administration's counterterrorism efforts in the wake of Sept. 11.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a statement Friday praising the CIA's efforts to combat leaks.
"At a time in which intelligence is more important than ever, leaks have hindered our efforts in the war against Al Qaeda," Roberts said. "Those guilty of improperly disclosing classified information should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Accord on Iraqi Premier Is Close
Shiites select a close ally of the incumbent, but Sunni and Kurd factions do not object. The lawmaker is known for being tough and direct.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2006
BAGHDAD — An outspoken Shiite lawmaker secured his coalition's support and appeared to win over a broader political spectrum as well Friday, key steps toward becoming prime minister in a new government that must confront a growing sense of drift and chaos on the streets.
Jawad Maliki is a close ally of the incumbent interim prime minister, Ibrahim Jafari, but Iraqi politicians said his tough, direct manner and the perception that he's a competent enforcer makes him more acceptable to Sunnis and Kurds.
Maliki, 56, who played a key role in drafting Iraq's constitution last year, said in a brief telephone interview that he was humbled by the tasks that may lie before him as leader of Iraq's first permanent government since 2003.
"It's going to be a lot of responsibility if it happens," Maliki said. "I just want to serve my country and help the helpless people."
The failure to form a government more than four months after Dec. 15 parliamentary elections has stalled reconstruction projects, delayed legislation aimed at curbing the growth of armed groups and fed a growing sense of lawlessness.
Relieved U.S. and Iraqi officials, exhausted after weeks of negotiations over the government, hailed Maliki's expected elevation as a significant breakthrough, even though fractious discussions over the leadership of the security services remained.
"A major step has been taken with regard to the formation of a government of national unity, which already has a program agreement on a process for decision-making and new institutions," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said in an interview. "It's a significant step … in the right direction, but there will be difficult days ahead."
Jafari's bid to retain his post collapsed amid opposition by Kurds, Sunni Muslims and a secular list led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, as well as skepticism by the U.S. and others in the international community. Opposition by Shiite Muslim political leaders and clerics finally persuaded him to halt his efforts to remain in power. He agreed Thursday to reopen talks within his Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.
In a televised news conference, Humam Hamoodi, one of the alliance leaders, said Maliki had received the nomination after securing the votes from the leaders of six of seven groups within the coalition, which holds 130 of the 275 seats in the Council of Representatives.
The legislature is scheduled to convene today to discuss the formation of a government. Hamoodi said Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis would meet beforehand to discuss other key posts, including the renomination of Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president and the probable naming of Sunni Arab legislator Mahmoud Mashadani as speaker of parliament.
Hamoodi said Shiite leaders had canvassed Sunnis and Kurds about Maliki and won their acceptance. Maliki said he'd already spoken to leaders of other blocs, who told him he had their support.
"The Kurds called me, and they say they have no objection," he told The Times. "I called the Sunnis, and they said they have no objection and they will fully cooperate. Allawi's list also supports me."
Jafari, who has served as interim prime minister since last year, narrowly defeated a rival in a February vote to be renamed the Shiite nominee for premier, but failed to gain broader support.
Jafari's opponents accused him of being too weak in his management ability and too sectarian in his outlook to lead a country plagued by an explosion of inter-communal violence and a Sunni Arab-led insurgency.
"We know Jawad Maliki well," said Iyad Samarai, a leader of the main Sunni political bloc. "We know his opinions and views well, and we think that he can do the job in a better way" than Jafari.
Saadi Barzanchi, a member of the Kurdish coalition, called Maliki more "open" in his public demeanor and a stricter administrator.
"We think Jafari was not successful in his performance as a prime minister in the last year and during the period after December's election," he said. "Security, economy and services are deteriorating."
Khalilzad said he'd had long chats with Maliki and had been "encouraged" by his softening on issues such as keeping former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party out of the government, which many criticize as a cover for purging Sunnis.
"I hope that he rises to the occasion. I expect that he will," Khalilzad said in a telephone interview. "As prime minister, he's a national leader. I said to him, 'The challenge is to unify the country.' "
Maliki, a longtime Shiite Islamist, spent the years of Hussein's rule exiled in Iran and Syria. He has publicly accused Sunni politicians of being in league with insurgents and forcefully condemned any suggestion that the government negotiate with rebel Sunni Arab groups.
He has relished his role as a vocal proponent of de-Baathification. Mishaan Jaburi, a Sunni legislator facing corruption charges who has endorsed reconciliation with Baathists, once accused Maliki of threatening to dispatch a team of assassins against him.
In terms of ideology and personal history, Maliki and Jafari appear to be carbon copies. Both men are in their 50s and hail from the Shiite shrine city of Karbala. Both were idealistic and devout Shiite opponents of Iraq's Sunni Arab rulers and the Baath Party. They became underground members of the Islamic Dawa Party. Both fled into exile in Iran after Hussein came to power.
They spent their years abroad as spokesmen for the Dawa Party, once considered a radical group that claimed responsibility for bombings and assassinations against Hussein's government. The two became prominent figures in exile communities from London to Damascus, Syria, as they plotted against Hussein.
Both quickly rose to power in the initial months after the U.S.-led invasion three years ago.
Jafari became one of 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council handpicked by Americans, and last year Iraqi legislators elected him prime minister in the transitional government, while Maliki was his trusted and vocal deputy.
He was among those who helped hammer out the details of Iraqi sovereignty in 2004 with then-U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III. He was a fiery figure during negotiations over the constitution, dismissing Sunni concerns about a charter that redefined Iraq's relationship with the Arab world and its Sunni-dominated past.
Jafari, a physician and theologian, agreed to step down only after he was confronted with intense domestic and international pressure. Among several preconditions, he demanded that his successor be a member of the Dawa Party.
"Jafari's agreement wasn't without a price," said the aide to one high-level Shiite legislator. "Otherwise the floor might have been opened and another candidate might have been chosen."
Maliki holds a master's degree in Arabic language studies and worked in the Iraqi Education Ministry. He became a member of the Dawa Party in his youth and fled to Iran in 1980, moving to Syria in 1987, where he remained until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. He has three daughters and two sons.
In person, he is soft-spoken and even-tempered, working prayer beads as he contemplates questions, his eyes shaded by tinted sunglasses. A frequent talking head on Iraqi and Arab television, he has often been at the forefront of an increasing move among the country's Shiite majority against the U.S. military presence.
After a U.S.-backed raid last month on a Shiite house of worship allegedly used to torture and hold kidnapping victims in northern Baghdad, Maliki condemned the U.S. and called for an investigation. In an interview with The Times in February, he accused those who opposed Jafari of acting as dupes for Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador.
Meanwhile on Friday, violence in the country continued. In Iraq's far northeastern corner, Iranian planes and rockets targeted rebel Kurdish positions, Kurdish officials said. The Kurdish Firat News Agency reported that three guerrillas were killed.
Several separatist Kurdish groups who oppose the treatment of Kurds in Turkey and Iran have set up bases in the rugged mountain area.
Mostafa Said Qader, a Kurdish official in Sulaymaniya, said Iranian forces massed at the border had launched Katyusha missiles and airstrikes on an outpost of one of the Kurdish groups.
In Baghdad, police found seven bodies of men shot in the head, execution style. Shiite militias have been blamed in many similar slayings. Roadside bombs near the capital's Yarmouk Hospital injured 11. Two roadside bombs targeting police and army patrols in Mosul killed five Iraqis and injured four, said an Iraqi police officer in the northern city.
The U.S. military reported the death of a Marine in fighting in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad.
*
Times staff writers Zainab Hussein, Saif Hameed and Saif Rasheed and special correspondents in Mosul and Sulaymaniya contributed to this report.
Shiites select a close ally of the incumbent, but Sunni and Kurd factions do not object. The lawmaker is known for being tough and direct.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
April 22, 2006
BAGHDAD — An outspoken Shiite lawmaker secured his coalition's support and appeared to win over a broader political spectrum as well Friday, key steps toward becoming prime minister in a new government that must confront a growing sense of drift and chaos on the streets.
Jawad Maliki is a close ally of the incumbent interim prime minister, Ibrahim Jafari, but Iraqi politicians said his tough, direct manner and the perception that he's a competent enforcer makes him more acceptable to Sunnis and Kurds.
Maliki, 56, who played a key role in drafting Iraq's constitution last year, said in a brief telephone interview that he was humbled by the tasks that may lie before him as leader of Iraq's first permanent government since 2003.
"It's going to be a lot of responsibility if it happens," Maliki said. "I just want to serve my country and help the helpless people."
The failure to form a government more than four months after Dec. 15 parliamentary elections has stalled reconstruction projects, delayed legislation aimed at curbing the growth of armed groups and fed a growing sense of lawlessness.
Relieved U.S. and Iraqi officials, exhausted after weeks of negotiations over the government, hailed Maliki's expected elevation as a significant breakthrough, even though fractious discussions over the leadership of the security services remained.
"A major step has been taken with regard to the formation of a government of national unity, which already has a program agreement on a process for decision-making and new institutions," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said in an interview. "It's a significant step … in the right direction, but there will be difficult days ahead."
Jafari's bid to retain his post collapsed amid opposition by Kurds, Sunni Muslims and a secular list led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, as well as skepticism by the U.S. and others in the international community. Opposition by Shiite Muslim political leaders and clerics finally persuaded him to halt his efforts to remain in power. He agreed Thursday to reopen talks within his Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.
In a televised news conference, Humam Hamoodi, one of the alliance leaders, said Maliki had received the nomination after securing the votes from the leaders of six of seven groups within the coalition, which holds 130 of the 275 seats in the Council of Representatives.
The legislature is scheduled to convene today to discuss the formation of a government. Hamoodi said Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis would meet beforehand to discuss other key posts, including the renomination of Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, as president and the probable naming of Sunni Arab legislator Mahmoud Mashadani as speaker of parliament.
Hamoodi said Shiite leaders had canvassed Sunnis and Kurds about Maliki and won their acceptance. Maliki said he'd already spoken to leaders of other blocs, who told him he had their support.
"The Kurds called me, and they say they have no objection," he told The Times. "I called the Sunnis, and they said they have no objection and they will fully cooperate. Allawi's list also supports me."
Jafari, who has served as interim prime minister since last year, narrowly defeated a rival in a February vote to be renamed the Shiite nominee for premier, but failed to gain broader support.
Jafari's opponents accused him of being too weak in his management ability and too sectarian in his outlook to lead a country plagued by an explosion of inter-communal violence and a Sunni Arab-led insurgency.
"We know Jawad Maliki well," said Iyad Samarai, a leader of the main Sunni political bloc. "We know his opinions and views well, and we think that he can do the job in a better way" than Jafari.
Saadi Barzanchi, a member of the Kurdish coalition, called Maliki more "open" in his public demeanor and a stricter administrator.
"We think Jafari was not successful in his performance as a prime minister in the last year and during the period after December's election," he said. "Security, economy and services are deteriorating."
Khalilzad said he'd had long chats with Maliki and had been "encouraged" by his softening on issues such as keeping former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party out of the government, which many criticize as a cover for purging Sunnis.
"I hope that he rises to the occasion. I expect that he will," Khalilzad said in a telephone interview. "As prime minister, he's a national leader. I said to him, 'The challenge is to unify the country.' "
Maliki, a longtime Shiite Islamist, spent the years of Hussein's rule exiled in Iran and Syria. He has publicly accused Sunni politicians of being in league with insurgents and forcefully condemned any suggestion that the government negotiate with rebel Sunni Arab groups.
He has relished his role as a vocal proponent of de-Baathification. Mishaan Jaburi, a Sunni legislator facing corruption charges who has endorsed reconciliation with Baathists, once accused Maliki of threatening to dispatch a team of assassins against him.
In terms of ideology and personal history, Maliki and Jafari appear to be carbon copies. Both men are in their 50s and hail from the Shiite shrine city of Karbala. Both were idealistic and devout Shiite opponents of Iraq's Sunni Arab rulers and the Baath Party. They became underground members of the Islamic Dawa Party. Both fled into exile in Iran after Hussein came to power.
They spent their years abroad as spokesmen for the Dawa Party, once considered a radical group that claimed responsibility for bombings and assassinations against Hussein's government. The two became prominent figures in exile communities from London to Damascus, Syria, as they plotted against Hussein.
Both quickly rose to power in the initial months after the U.S.-led invasion three years ago.
Jafari became one of 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council handpicked by Americans, and last year Iraqi legislators elected him prime minister in the transitional government, while Maliki was his trusted and vocal deputy.
He was among those who helped hammer out the details of Iraqi sovereignty in 2004 with then-U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III. He was a fiery figure during negotiations over the constitution, dismissing Sunni concerns about a charter that redefined Iraq's relationship with the Arab world and its Sunni-dominated past.
Jafari, a physician and theologian, agreed to step down only after he was confronted with intense domestic and international pressure. Among several preconditions, he demanded that his successor be a member of the Dawa Party.
"Jafari's agreement wasn't without a price," said the aide to one high-level Shiite legislator. "Otherwise the floor might have been opened and another candidate might have been chosen."
Maliki holds a master's degree in Arabic language studies and worked in the Iraqi Education Ministry. He became a member of the Dawa Party in his youth and fled to Iran in 1980, moving to Syria in 1987, where he remained until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. He has three daughters and two sons.
In person, he is soft-spoken and even-tempered, working prayer beads as he contemplates questions, his eyes shaded by tinted sunglasses. A frequent talking head on Iraqi and Arab television, he has often been at the forefront of an increasing move among the country's Shiite majority against the U.S. military presence.
After a U.S.-backed raid last month on a Shiite house of worship allegedly used to torture and hold kidnapping victims in northern Baghdad, Maliki condemned the U.S. and called for an investigation. In an interview with The Times in February, he accused those who opposed Jafari of acting as dupes for Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador.
Meanwhile on Friday, violence in the country continued. In Iraq's far northeastern corner, Iranian planes and rockets targeted rebel Kurdish positions, Kurdish officials said. The Kurdish Firat News Agency reported that three guerrillas were killed.
Several separatist Kurdish groups who oppose the treatment of Kurds in Turkey and Iran have set up bases in the rugged mountain area.
Mostafa Said Qader, a Kurdish official in Sulaymaniya, said Iranian forces massed at the border had launched Katyusha missiles and airstrikes on an outpost of one of the Kurdish groups.
In Baghdad, police found seven bodies of men shot in the head, execution style. Shiite militias have been blamed in many similar slayings. Roadside bombs near the capital's Yarmouk Hospital injured 11. Two roadside bombs targeting police and army patrols in Mosul killed five Iraqis and injured four, said an Iraqi police officer in the northern city.
The U.S. military reported the death of a Marine in fighting in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad.
*
Times staff writers Zainab Hussein, Saif Hameed and Saif Rasheed and special correspondents in Mosul and Sulaymaniya contributed to this report.
Shias agree on nominee for Iraq's prime minister
By Jim Muir in Baghdad
(Filed: 22/04/2006)
Shia factions in Iraq last night agreed on a new nominee for prime minister, clearing the way for the formation of a long-delayed national unity government that many see as the last hope of pulling the country back from the brink of civil war.
The new man is Jawad al-Maliki, the spokesman of the Shia religious faction, the Daawa party, that is led by the outgoing interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Mr Jaafari's re-nomination by the Shia coalition in February was rejected by Sunni, Kurdish and secular factions.
Iraqi political sources in Baghdad said last night that Mr Maliki's nomination had not met any objections either from the non-Shia factions or from any of the outside nations with influence, such as the Americans and Iran.
The expectation is that the new Iraqi parliament will meet this afternoon to endorse his appointment as prime minister.
While some factional haggling still remains over the distribution of other senior posts, the hope is that a national unity government may now not be far off. That could not come soon enough. More than four months have passed since the December general elections.
Sectarian violence and fears of civil war have risen sharply.
Mr Maliki is regarded as a powerful figure within the Daawa party, having been in charge of its internal political organisation. The Daawa - meaning "Islamic Call" - is Iraq's oldest Shia party and was repressed by Saddam Hussein.
An Islamic militant, he fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the early 1980s and took refuge in neighbouring Syria.
Despite his sectarian reputation, Sunni groups last night welcomed his nomination.
Mr Maliki played an active part in founding a national unity government, including its political programme.
Under arrangements being worked out last night, it looks as if Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would remain as president for a second term.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, would become parliament speaker.
By Jim Muir in Baghdad
(Filed: 22/04/2006)
Shia factions in Iraq last night agreed on a new nominee for prime minister, clearing the way for the formation of a long-delayed national unity government that many see as the last hope of pulling the country back from the brink of civil war.
The new man is Jawad al-Maliki, the spokesman of the Shia religious faction, the Daawa party, that is led by the outgoing interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Mr Jaafari's re-nomination by the Shia coalition in February was rejected by Sunni, Kurdish and secular factions.
Iraqi political sources in Baghdad said last night that Mr Maliki's nomination had not met any objections either from the non-Shia factions or from any of the outside nations with influence, such as the Americans and Iran.
The expectation is that the new Iraqi parliament will meet this afternoon to endorse his appointment as prime minister.
While some factional haggling still remains over the distribution of other senior posts, the hope is that a national unity government may now not be far off. That could not come soon enough. More than four months have passed since the December general elections.
Sectarian violence and fears of civil war have risen sharply.
Mr Maliki is regarded as a powerful figure within the Daawa party, having been in charge of its internal political organisation. The Daawa - meaning "Islamic Call" - is Iraq's oldest Shia party and was repressed by Saddam Hussein.
An Islamic militant, he fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the early 1980s and took refuge in neighbouring Syria.
Despite his sectarian reputation, Sunni groups last night welcomed his nomination.
Mr Maliki played an active part in founding a national unity government, including its political programme.
Under arrangements being worked out last night, it looks as if Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would remain as president for a second term.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, would become parliament speaker.
Distance Grows Between Middle East, U.S.
As Security Tightens, Arab Nations Turn Away in Tourism, Education, Health Care
By Yasmine El-Rashidi
The Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 21, 2006; D05
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- The economic rift that opened between the Middle East and the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has widened into a chasm. While the United States was once the first stop for goods and services, Middle Easterners are turning to what many see as more Arab-friendly environments in Europe and Asia.
Attention in recent months has focused on Arab investment, after security concerns derailed the acquisition of U.S. port operations by an Arab company, Dubai Ports World. But a decline in Middle Eastern spending has also hit service sectors including tourism, education and health care, triggering business-strategy shifts in such places as Cleveland and Rochester, Minn.
A hallmark of past oil booms was that money America spent on oil and gas got cycled back into the U.S. economy as investment and spending on U.S. goods and services.
Middle Eastern investors and consumers aren't completely ignoring the United States this time: They are major buyers of U.S. government bonds and have purchased U.S. hotels, such as New York's Essex House, and real estate in the South.
But America's allure appears to be waning, and travel to the United States from the Mideast has dropped. U.S. visits by Saudi Arabians, for example, fell to 18,573 in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, from 72,891 in 1999, U.S. Commerce Department figures show. That represents an especially pronounced drop in tourist dollars because Saudi visitors spend three times more per person than any other group of U.S. tourists: $9,368 per trip, according to the Commerce Department.
Visa hassles have hurt export businesses, too, Arabs and Americans say, by placing a wall between U.S. companies and prospective clients who may turn to countries where travel is easier.
Arab tourists, deterred in part by U.S. visa hassles, are flocking to other burgeoning destinations close to home, such as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which offers resort hotels, theme parks and shopping malls patterned on U.S.-style attractions.
Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, has been outspoken about how the visa process deters tourists. Rasulo told a recent travel-industry gathering that the U.S. share of international travel has dropped by "about $20 billion a year" since 2000, to its all-time low.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it does its best to process visas quickly. "We definitely want to make it easier for those who are trusted to enter the U.S. to come in the time they want," said department spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez. "But if decreasing wait time means softening security, then [the wait time] is not our problem," she said.
In the health-care industry, the number of Arab patients at high-end U.S. medical centers such as the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic fell immediately after Sept. 11, by 20 percent to 50 percent, according to industry officials.
The fallout hit more than the clinics. High-profile Arab patients often came to the United States for lengthy treatments accompanied by large families and staffs.
When former UAE president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan traveled to Cleveland in 2000 for a kidney transplant, he and his entourage of hundreds stayed for four months. All needed to be fed, transported and housed.
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where King Hussein of Jordan received treatment in the late 1990s, has worked hard to draw patients, flying doctors to the Mideast after Sept. 11. Recently it opened a cardiovascular clinic in Dubai, which coordinates travel to the United States for further treatment, if necessary.
As for education, U.S. colleges and universities, once highly desirable destinations for wealthy Arabs, have seen a steep drop in Middle Eastern students, losing as much as $43 million a year.
The steepest decline comes consistently from Saudi Arabia, which sent 14 percent fewer students to the United States last year, according to the Institute of International Education. Enrollment by students from Muslim nations in general has fallen steeply, evidence that Middle Easterners aren't alone in finding America a more forbidding destination since Sept. 11.
Robert M. Gates, a former director of the CIA who is president of Texas A&M University, has been a forceful voice for improving the visa process. Gates's worry extends beyond monetary losses.
"In the last half-century, allowing students from other countries to study here has been the most positive thing America has done to win friends from around the world," he said.
But the U.S. consulate in Jiddah has been closed since November due to security concerns; another consulate in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, hasn't been open since 1999. This has meant applicants have to travel long distances to Riyadh, where the workload has kept applicants waiting up to several months for appointments.
Even among students who go to the United States, the experience is often mixed these days. Saeed Abdullah, a PhD student from the United Arab Emirates who is studying at Texas A&M, said that before Sept. 11, his friends used to prolong their studies -- taking seven years to complete four-year degrees. "America was about the social life as well," he said. Now they often try to squeeze the four years into three. "Now we come for a mission -- to work as hard as we can to get our degrees as fast as we can and then leave."
Students point to new options. In Qatar, for example, the state-supported Qatar Foundation has provided funds to bring U.S. universities -- including Texas A&M, Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Cornell University's medical school -- to its capital, Doha. And Saudi Arabia's minister of higher education recently unveiled a "look East" strategy for education. An increasing number of students, he said, will be sent to China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.
As Security Tightens, Arab Nations Turn Away in Tourism, Education, Health Care
By Yasmine El-Rashidi
The Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 21, 2006; D05
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- The economic rift that opened between the Middle East and the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has widened into a chasm. While the United States was once the first stop for goods and services, Middle Easterners are turning to what many see as more Arab-friendly environments in Europe and Asia.
Attention in recent months has focused on Arab investment, after security concerns derailed the acquisition of U.S. port operations by an Arab company, Dubai Ports World. But a decline in Middle Eastern spending has also hit service sectors including tourism, education and health care, triggering business-strategy shifts in such places as Cleveland and Rochester, Minn.
A hallmark of past oil booms was that money America spent on oil and gas got cycled back into the U.S. economy as investment and spending on U.S. goods and services.
Middle Eastern investors and consumers aren't completely ignoring the United States this time: They are major buyers of U.S. government bonds and have purchased U.S. hotels, such as New York's Essex House, and real estate in the South.
But America's allure appears to be waning, and travel to the United States from the Mideast has dropped. U.S. visits by Saudi Arabians, for example, fell to 18,573 in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, from 72,891 in 1999, U.S. Commerce Department figures show. That represents an especially pronounced drop in tourist dollars because Saudi visitors spend three times more per person than any other group of U.S. tourists: $9,368 per trip, according to the Commerce Department.
Visa hassles have hurt export businesses, too, Arabs and Americans say, by placing a wall between U.S. companies and prospective clients who may turn to countries where travel is easier.
Arab tourists, deterred in part by U.S. visa hassles, are flocking to other burgeoning destinations close to home, such as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which offers resort hotels, theme parks and shopping malls patterned on U.S.-style attractions.
Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, has been outspoken about how the visa process deters tourists. Rasulo told a recent travel-industry gathering that the U.S. share of international travel has dropped by "about $20 billion a year" since 2000, to its all-time low.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it does its best to process visas quickly. "We definitely want to make it easier for those who are trusted to enter the U.S. to come in the time they want," said department spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez. "But if decreasing wait time means softening security, then [the wait time] is not our problem," she said.
In the health-care industry, the number of Arab patients at high-end U.S. medical centers such as the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic fell immediately after Sept. 11, by 20 percent to 50 percent, according to industry officials.
The fallout hit more than the clinics. High-profile Arab patients often came to the United States for lengthy treatments accompanied by large families and staffs.
When former UAE president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan traveled to Cleveland in 2000 for a kidney transplant, he and his entourage of hundreds stayed for four months. All needed to be fed, transported and housed.
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where King Hussein of Jordan received treatment in the late 1990s, has worked hard to draw patients, flying doctors to the Mideast after Sept. 11. Recently it opened a cardiovascular clinic in Dubai, which coordinates travel to the United States for further treatment, if necessary.
As for education, U.S. colleges and universities, once highly desirable destinations for wealthy Arabs, have seen a steep drop in Middle Eastern students, losing as much as $43 million a year.
The steepest decline comes consistently from Saudi Arabia, which sent 14 percent fewer students to the United States last year, according to the Institute of International Education. Enrollment by students from Muslim nations in general has fallen steeply, evidence that Middle Easterners aren't alone in finding America a more forbidding destination since Sept. 11.
Robert M. Gates, a former director of the CIA who is president of Texas A&M University, has been a forceful voice for improving the visa process. Gates's worry extends beyond monetary losses.
"In the last half-century, allowing students from other countries to study here has been the most positive thing America has done to win friends from around the world," he said.
But the U.S. consulate in Jiddah has been closed since November due to security concerns; another consulate in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, hasn't been open since 1999. This has meant applicants have to travel long distances to Riyadh, where the workload has kept applicants waiting up to several months for appointments.
Even among students who go to the United States, the experience is often mixed these days. Saeed Abdullah, a PhD student from the United Arab Emirates who is studying at Texas A&M, said that before Sept. 11, his friends used to prolong their studies -- taking seven years to complete four-year degrees. "America was about the social life as well," he said. Now they often try to squeeze the four years into three. "Now we come for a mission -- to work as hard as we can to get our degrees as fast as we can and then leave."
Students point to new options. In Qatar, for example, the state-supported Qatar Foundation has provided funds to bring U.S. universities -- including Texas A&M, Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Cornell University's medical school -- to its capital, Doha. And Saudi Arabia's minister of higher education recently unveiled a "look East" strategy for education. An increasing number of students, he said, will be sent to China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.
U.S., China Stand Together but Are Not Equal
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A18
On the surface, the White House visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday was a celebration of improving Sino-U.S. ties. But the subtext was the future -- and how these two countries will share the international stage.
At every turn, Hu sought to stress the equality between the two nations, which, as he put it in a luncheon toast, are the "largest developing country and the largest developed country." Speaking to reporters after his meeting with President Bush, he said an "important agreement" was reached: "Under the new circumstances, given the international situation here, that China and the United States share extensive, common strategic interests."
For his part, Bush tried to signal that China is not all that equal. The White House would not grant Hu the state dinner he dearly wanted, offering instead a lunch that fell just short of the pomp and circumstance for close allies. Meeting with reporters, Bush simply said, "It's a very important relationship."
How the relationship evolves from this point is unclear. China's foreign policy now is influenced mainly by domestic considerations, especially its desperate need for energy and materials. While the Bush administration has been distracted by the war against terrorism and the invasion of Iraq, the Chinese have forged trade links around the world, even in South America, supposedly U.S. turf.
This trade has begun to give the Chinese enormous influence in many parts of the world, especially Southeast Asia. In the past year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sought to counter that influence, pursuing for instance a nuclear agreement with India that could result in much closer links with New Delhi, long a rival of China. Administration officials insist that they are not trying to box China in, but want it to use its influence in productive, non-threatening ways.
In the view of administration officials, China's rise will always be tempered by its poor human-rights record and the Communist Party's unwillingness to release its grip on political power.
Yet any notion that the two countries are fierce rivals is belied by the corporate executives who were invited to the lunch at the White House, including the chiefs of Cisco Systems, International Paper, Amway, Lucent Technologies, Cargill, Caterpillar and Motorola. An additional 900 people attended a dinner in Hu's honor last night sponsored by the U.S.-China Business Council and other organizations, where he urged that China and the United States "respect each other and treat each other as equals."
The contrasting ideas about the modern U.S.-China relationship were reflected in how the two leaders used language yesterday, including the word "stakeholder." Words are very important to the Chinese government -- much of Bush's conversation with Hu consisted of reciting stock phrases on such issues such as Taiwan, an aide said -- and nuance usually has a purpose and design.
Greeting Hu on the White House lawn, Bush said, "As stakeholders in the international system, our two nations share many strategic interests."
Bush's use of the word "stakeholder" was deliberate. For the past six months, the administration -- especially Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick -- has urged China to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, meaning that it shed its habit of looking at the world through its narrow commercial interests and instead take a broader view. In particular, U.S. officials want China to curtail its dealings with countries such as Iran and Sudan as a way to alter the behavior of those countries.
At the luncheon, Hu also mentioned the concept of the stakeholder, but he framed it differently, again appearing to place China on an equal level with the United States. "China and the United States are not only stakeholders, but they should also be constructive partners -- be parties of constructive cooperation."
A key test of that partnership will be how China reacts to U.S. efforts to counter the development of Iran's nuclear program -- and whether it can force its patron North Korea to return to six-nation talks on ending its nuclear ambitions. Hu suggested China wants to work with the Bush administration on those issues, but he also urged "flexibility" on North Korea -- Chinese code for the desire that the United States make concessions.
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A18
On the surface, the White House visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday was a celebration of improving Sino-U.S. ties. But the subtext was the future -- and how these two countries will share the international stage.
At every turn, Hu sought to stress the equality between the two nations, which, as he put it in a luncheon toast, are the "largest developing country and the largest developed country." Speaking to reporters after his meeting with President Bush, he said an "important agreement" was reached: "Under the new circumstances, given the international situation here, that China and the United States share extensive, common strategic interests."
For his part, Bush tried to signal that China is not all that equal. The White House would not grant Hu the state dinner he dearly wanted, offering instead a lunch that fell just short of the pomp and circumstance for close allies. Meeting with reporters, Bush simply said, "It's a very important relationship."
How the relationship evolves from this point is unclear. China's foreign policy now is influenced mainly by domestic considerations, especially its desperate need for energy and materials. While the Bush administration has been distracted by the war against terrorism and the invasion of Iraq, the Chinese have forged trade links around the world, even in South America, supposedly U.S. turf.
This trade has begun to give the Chinese enormous influence in many parts of the world, especially Southeast Asia. In the past year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sought to counter that influence, pursuing for instance a nuclear agreement with India that could result in much closer links with New Delhi, long a rival of China. Administration officials insist that they are not trying to box China in, but want it to use its influence in productive, non-threatening ways.
In the view of administration officials, China's rise will always be tempered by its poor human-rights record and the Communist Party's unwillingness to release its grip on political power.
Yet any notion that the two countries are fierce rivals is belied by the corporate executives who were invited to the lunch at the White House, including the chiefs of Cisco Systems, International Paper, Amway, Lucent Technologies, Cargill, Caterpillar and Motorola. An additional 900 people attended a dinner in Hu's honor last night sponsored by the U.S.-China Business Council and other organizations, where he urged that China and the United States "respect each other and treat each other as equals."
The contrasting ideas about the modern U.S.-China relationship were reflected in how the two leaders used language yesterday, including the word "stakeholder." Words are very important to the Chinese government -- much of Bush's conversation with Hu consisted of reciting stock phrases on such issues such as Taiwan, an aide said -- and nuance usually has a purpose and design.
Greeting Hu on the White House lawn, Bush said, "As stakeholders in the international system, our two nations share many strategic interests."
Bush's use of the word "stakeholder" was deliberate. For the past six months, the administration -- especially Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick -- has urged China to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, meaning that it shed its habit of looking at the world through its narrow commercial interests and instead take a broader view. In particular, U.S. officials want China to curtail its dealings with countries such as Iran and Sudan as a way to alter the behavior of those countries.
At the luncheon, Hu also mentioned the concept of the stakeholder, but he framed it differently, again appearing to place China on an equal level with the United States. "China and the United States are not only stakeholders, but they should also be constructive partners -- be parties of constructive cooperation."
A key test of that partnership will be how China reacts to U.S. efforts to counter the development of Iran's nuclear program -- and whether it can force its patron North Korea to return to six-nation talks on ending its nuclear ambitions. Hu suggested China wants to work with the Bush administration on those issues, but he also urged "flexibility" on North Korea -- Chinese code for the desire that the United States make concessions.
The Generals' Dangerous Whispers
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A23
Last time around, the antiwar left did not have a very high opinion of generals. A popular slogan in the 1960s was "war is too important to be left to the generals." It was the generals who had advocated attacking Cuba during the missile crisis of October 1962, while the civilians preferred -- and got -- a diplomatic solution. In popular culture, "Dr. Strangelove" made indelible the caricature of the war-crazed general. And it was I-know-better generals who took over the U.S. government in a coup in the 1960s bestseller and movie "Seven Days in May."
Another war, another take. I-know-better generals are back. Six of them, retired, are denouncing the Bush administration and calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as secretary of defense. The antiwar types think this is just swell.
I don't. There are three possible complaints that the military brass could have against a secretary of defense. The first is that he doesn't listen to or consult military advisers. The six generals make that charge, but it is thoroughly disproved by the two men who were closer to Rumsfeld day to day, week in, week out than any of the accusing generals: former Joint Chiefs chairman Richard Myers and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong. Both attest to Rumsfeld's continual consultation and give-and-take with the military.
A second complaint is that the defense secretary disregards settled, consensual military advice. The military brass recommends X and SecDef willfully chooses Y. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Rumsfeld's crusade to "transform" a Cold War-era military into a fast and lean fighting force has met tremendous resistance within the Pentagon. His canceling several heavy weapons systems, such as the monstrous Crusader artillery program, was the necessary overriding of a hidebound bureaucracy by an innovating civilian on a mission.
In his most recent broadside, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste accuses the administration of "radically alter[ing] the results of 12 years of deliberate and continuous war planning" on Iraq. Well, the Bush administration threw out years and years and layer upon layer of war planning on Afghanistan, improvised one of the leanest possible attack plans and achieved one of the more remarkable military victories in recent history. There's nothing sacred about on-the-shelf war plans.
As for Iraq, it is hardly as if the military was of a single opinion on the critical questions of de-Baathification, disbanding Saddam Hussein's army or optimal coalition troop levels. There were divisions of opinion within the military as there were among the civilians and, indeed, among the best military experts in the country. Rumsfeld chose among the different camps. That's what defense secretaries are supposed to do.
What's left of the generals' revolt? A third complaint: He didn't listen to me . So what? Lincoln didn't listen to McClellan, and fired him. Truman had enough of listening to MacArthur and fired him, too. In our system of government, civilians fire generals, not the other way around.
Some of the complainers were on active duty when these decisions were made. If they felt so strongly about Rumsfeld's disregard of their advice, why didn't they resign at the time? Why did they wait to do so from the safety of retirement, with their pensions secured?
The Defense Department waves away the protesting generals as just a handful out of more than 8,000 now serving or retired. That seems to me too dismissive. These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.
But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.
We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.
That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?
It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A23
Last time around, the antiwar left did not have a very high opinion of generals. A popular slogan in the 1960s was "war is too important to be left to the generals." It was the generals who had advocated attacking Cuba during the missile crisis of October 1962, while the civilians preferred -- and got -- a diplomatic solution. In popular culture, "Dr. Strangelove" made indelible the caricature of the war-crazed general. And it was I-know-better generals who took over the U.S. government in a coup in the 1960s bestseller and movie "Seven Days in May."
Another war, another take. I-know-better generals are back. Six of them, retired, are denouncing the Bush administration and calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as secretary of defense. The antiwar types think this is just swell.
I don't. There are three possible complaints that the military brass could have against a secretary of defense. The first is that he doesn't listen to or consult military advisers. The six generals make that charge, but it is thoroughly disproved by the two men who were closer to Rumsfeld day to day, week in, week out than any of the accusing generals: former Joint Chiefs chairman Richard Myers and retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong. Both attest to Rumsfeld's continual consultation and give-and-take with the military.
A second complaint is that the defense secretary disregards settled, consensual military advice. The military brass recommends X and SecDef willfully chooses Y. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Rumsfeld's crusade to "transform" a Cold War-era military into a fast and lean fighting force has met tremendous resistance within the Pentagon. His canceling several heavy weapons systems, such as the monstrous Crusader artillery program, was the necessary overriding of a hidebound bureaucracy by an innovating civilian on a mission.
In his most recent broadside, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste accuses the administration of "radically alter[ing] the results of 12 years of deliberate and continuous war planning" on Iraq. Well, the Bush administration threw out years and years and layer upon layer of war planning on Afghanistan, improvised one of the leanest possible attack plans and achieved one of the more remarkable military victories in recent history. There's nothing sacred about on-the-shelf war plans.
As for Iraq, it is hardly as if the military was of a single opinion on the critical questions of de-Baathification, disbanding Saddam Hussein's army or optimal coalition troop levels. There were divisions of opinion within the military as there were among the civilians and, indeed, among the best military experts in the country. Rumsfeld chose among the different camps. That's what defense secretaries are supposed to do.
What's left of the generals' revolt? A third complaint: He didn't listen to me . So what? Lincoln didn't listen to McClellan, and fired him. Truman had enough of listening to MacArthur and fired him, too. In our system of government, civilians fire generals, not the other way around.
Some of the complainers were on active duty when these decisions were made. If they felt so strongly about Rumsfeld's disregard of their advice, why didn't they resign at the time? Why did they wait to do so from the safety of retirement, with their pensions secured?
The Defense Department waves away the protesting generals as just a handful out of more than 8,000 now serving or retired. That seems to me too dismissive. These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.
But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.
We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.
That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?
It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Nigeria Bombing Kills 2; Opposition Rallies in Capital
By Austin Ekeinde
Reuters
Friday, April 21, 2006; A17
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, April 20 -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo faced growing pressure on two fronts as militants in the oil-producing south killed two people in a car bomb attack and thousands of opposition supporters rallied against him in the capital.
In the capital, Abuja, thousands gathered Thursday to protest a campaign by the ruling party to change the constitution and allow Obasanjo to run for a third term.
"The two events are coincidental, but the instability created by the third-term campaign has allowed all sorts of interest groups to push their agendas," said John Adeleke, an independent analyst.
The rally drew prominent critics from other opposition parties, as well as disgruntled members of the ruling People's Democratic Party, in a sign that a broad alliance is forming against the pro-Obasanjo camp.
"There's a need for a very strong and united opposition that can take power in this country, since if we are factionalized we cannot win against the incumbent," Ahmed Bola Tinubu, governor of Lagos state, said on the sidelines of the rally.
Militants detonated a car bomb Wednesday night in the southern city of Port Harcourt, extending a four-month campaign of violence that has already cut output from the world's eighth-largest oil exporter by a fourth. The explosion blew the car 20 yards from its original site.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which demands more local control over the delta's oil resources, said in an e-mail that its members detonated about 66 pounds of dynamite using a cellular telephone.
"This act was symbolic rather than strategic and serves as a further warning to the Nigerian military, oil companies and those who are attempting to sell the birthright of the Niger Delta peoples for a bowl of porridge," the group said via e-mail, threatening similar attacks against oil targets.
The car bomb came just a day after Obasanjo promised to build a $1.8 billion highway through the Niger Delta and create 20,000 jobs to appease widespread feelings of marginalization and disenchantment in the region.
"The attack is not just a sign of escalating violence, but a signal that the militias are changing tactics," said Sebastian Spio-Gabrah of the U.S.-based Eurasia Group of investment analysts. "The car bomb is also a warning shot to President Olusegun Obasanjo that his promises of economic aid will not quiet the militias."
The group's demands, which include the release of two jailed leaders from the region and compensation for oil spills, are welcomed by millions in the delta, where most people live in poverty despite the riches being pumped from their land.
Obasanjo has ruled Africa's most populous country since it returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades of almost continuous military dictatorship. He has not said publicly whether he wants a third term, but his party has instructed members to support a constitutional amendment, which was submitted to the National Assembly on April 11, that would allow him to run.
By Austin Ekeinde
Reuters
Friday, April 21, 2006; A17
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, April 20 -- Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo faced growing pressure on two fronts as militants in the oil-producing south killed two people in a car bomb attack and thousands of opposition supporters rallied against him in the capital.
In the capital, Abuja, thousands gathered Thursday to protest a campaign by the ruling party to change the constitution and allow Obasanjo to run for a third term.
"The two events are coincidental, but the instability created by the third-term campaign has allowed all sorts of interest groups to push their agendas," said John Adeleke, an independent analyst.
The rally drew prominent critics from other opposition parties, as well as disgruntled members of the ruling People's Democratic Party, in a sign that a broad alliance is forming against the pro-Obasanjo camp.
"There's a need for a very strong and united opposition that can take power in this country, since if we are factionalized we cannot win against the incumbent," Ahmed Bola Tinubu, governor of Lagos state, said on the sidelines of the rally.
Militants detonated a car bomb Wednesday night in the southern city of Port Harcourt, extending a four-month campaign of violence that has already cut output from the world's eighth-largest oil exporter by a fourth. The explosion blew the car 20 yards from its original site.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which demands more local control over the delta's oil resources, said in an e-mail that its members detonated about 66 pounds of dynamite using a cellular telephone.
"This act was symbolic rather than strategic and serves as a further warning to the Nigerian military, oil companies and those who are attempting to sell the birthright of the Niger Delta peoples for a bowl of porridge," the group said via e-mail, threatening similar attacks against oil targets.
The car bomb came just a day after Obasanjo promised to build a $1.8 billion highway through the Niger Delta and create 20,000 jobs to appease widespread feelings of marginalization and disenchantment in the region.
"The attack is not just a sign of escalating violence, but a signal that the militias are changing tactics," said Sebastian Spio-Gabrah of the U.S.-based Eurasia Group of investment analysts. "The car bomb is also a warning shot to President Olusegun Obasanjo that his promises of economic aid will not quiet the militias."
The group's demands, which include the release of two jailed leaders from the region and compensation for oil spills, are welcomed by millions in the delta, where most people live in poverty despite the riches being pumped from their land.
Obasanjo has ruled Africa's most populous country since it returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades of almost continuous military dictatorship. He has not said publicly whether he wants a third term, but his party has instructed members to support a constitutional amendment, which was submitted to the National Assembly on April 11, that would allow him to run.
Google's Ad-Grabbing Pushes Profit Up 60%
By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; D01
Google Inc. continues to take advertising dollars from traditional media such as television and print classifieds and is doing so in greater amounts than online rivals Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, the company reported yesterday as it posted a 60 percent surge in profit.
The company is capitalizing on what it says is a broadening shift in the advertising industry toward marketing on the Web. Its quarterly revenue reflected that with year-over-year growth of 79 percent.
"For the foreseeable future, the majority of our growth will be through ads," Google chief executive Eric E. Schmidt said in an interview. The worldwide ad market is $600 billion to $800 billion, and online ads still make up only 5 to 10 percent of that, which means that Google and other online companies could still make massive gains, he said.
Internet advertising increased more than 30 percent last year over 2004, to $12.5 billion, as broadband gaming, video and television consumption increased, according to a recent study by trade association Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In January, local newspaper revenue was down 20 percent, cable television down 7 percent and network television down about 4 percent compared with the corresponding month last year, according to Nielsen-NetRatings.
"What you're seeing now is growth in all sectors of online advertising," including banner, search and classifieds, said IAB chief executive Greg Stuart. A year or two ago, only search was growing quickly, but the other forms are catching on, he said, particularly because some research indicates that Internet-based ads are more effective than their over-the-air or print counterparts.
"We have unmatched reach in audience, and that's why [advertisers] come to Google," Schmidt said in a conference call with stock analysts and reporters. One of Google's priorities in the future will be to target ads better and make them even more relevant to users.
Google continues to have the largest share of the U.S. search market, 49 percent in March, according to Nielsen-NetRatings. That grew 41 percent compared with March 2005, although Yahoo grew faster year-over-year at 47 percent.
Earlier this week, Yahoo reported an increase of 34 percent in revenue and 16 percent in profit, also boosted by online advertising sales.
Google beat Wall Street analysts' expectations for the quarter, reporting first-quarter profit of $592.3 million on revenue of $2.25 billion, a huge increase from profit of $369.2 million on revenue of $1.26 billion in the corresponding period a year earlier. The company issued its announcement after markets had closed. Google's stock had closed up $4.50, at $415 a share.
Google's largest gains came through its ad-sales network, which places ads onto other sites. It generated $928 million, or 59 percent more than the prior year.
Google is growing internationally, as well, and made a controversial decision last year to expand into China, despite that country's stipulation that it censor some search results that it considers politically sensitive.
During the quarter, Google spread its Web empire to include an online video store, a financial news Web site, various programs for Google Mobile and a site that delivers a collection of free software from other companies. It introduced the Google Calendar just last week, and it recently purchased a word-processingsoftware company and upgraded its e-mail and chat software.
But the company is also trying to expand its advertising into traditional media such as print, radio and television. It recently acquired Dmarc Broadcasting Inc., which places broadcast ads on radio, and has been experimenting with placing ads in magazines for various clients.
By Yuki Noguchi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; D01
Google Inc. continues to take advertising dollars from traditional media such as television and print classifieds and is doing so in greater amounts than online rivals Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, the company reported yesterday as it posted a 60 percent surge in profit.
The company is capitalizing on what it says is a broadening shift in the advertising industry toward marketing on the Web. Its quarterly revenue reflected that with year-over-year growth of 79 percent.
"For the foreseeable future, the majority of our growth will be through ads," Google chief executive Eric E. Schmidt said in an interview. The worldwide ad market is $600 billion to $800 billion, and online ads still make up only 5 to 10 percent of that, which means that Google and other online companies could still make massive gains, he said.
Internet advertising increased more than 30 percent last year over 2004, to $12.5 billion, as broadband gaming, video and television consumption increased, according to a recent study by trade association Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In January, local newspaper revenue was down 20 percent, cable television down 7 percent and network television down about 4 percent compared with the corresponding month last year, according to Nielsen-NetRatings.
"What you're seeing now is growth in all sectors of online advertising," including banner, search and classifieds, said IAB chief executive Greg Stuart. A year or two ago, only search was growing quickly, but the other forms are catching on, he said, particularly because some research indicates that Internet-based ads are more effective than their over-the-air or print counterparts.
"We have unmatched reach in audience, and that's why [advertisers] come to Google," Schmidt said in a conference call with stock analysts and reporters. One of Google's priorities in the future will be to target ads better and make them even more relevant to users.
Google continues to have the largest share of the U.S. search market, 49 percent in March, according to Nielsen-NetRatings. That grew 41 percent compared with March 2005, although Yahoo grew faster year-over-year at 47 percent.
Earlier this week, Yahoo reported an increase of 34 percent in revenue and 16 percent in profit, also boosted by online advertising sales.
Google beat Wall Street analysts' expectations for the quarter, reporting first-quarter profit of $592.3 million on revenue of $2.25 billion, a huge increase from profit of $369.2 million on revenue of $1.26 billion in the corresponding period a year earlier. The company issued its announcement after markets had closed. Google's stock had closed up $4.50, at $415 a share.
Google's largest gains came through its ad-sales network, which places ads onto other sites. It generated $928 million, or 59 percent more than the prior year.
Google is growing internationally, as well, and made a controversial decision last year to expand into China, despite that country's stipulation that it censor some search results that it considers politically sensitive.
During the quarter, Google spread its Web empire to include an online video store, a financial news Web site, various programs for Google Mobile and a site that delivers a collection of free software from other companies. It introduced the Google Calendar just last week, and it recently purchased a word-processingsoftware company and upgraded its e-mail and chat software.
But the company is also trying to expand its advertising into traditional media such as print, radio and television. It recently acquired Dmarc Broadcasting Inc., which places broadcast ads on radio, and has been experimenting with placing ads in magazines for various clients.
Gas From the Rain Forest
Pipeline Backers See Energy Potential, but Opponents See Environmental Peril
By David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; D01
Backers of a multibillion-dollar proposal to ship vast stores of liquid natural gas from Peru's Amazonian rain forest to the United States are seeking Bush administration support for international financing, but environmental questions are complicating the bid.
Leading the project is Hunt Oil Co., a private Texas firm whose owner has close ties to President Bush. It is seeking administration backing for as much as $800 million from the District-based Inter-American Development Bank, which has already agreed to consider it. If approved, it would be the largest project the bank has financed in Latin America. In addition, the project's backers say they intend to ask for financial help from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency.
The Hunt-led project involves an investment of $2.7 billion to build a pipeline, a gas liquefaction plant, marine terminal and other facilities to export 4.4 million tons of liquid natural gas annually. The bank is required to investigate its environmental impact before voting on it.
The Inter-American bank, however, is already looking into problems with an earlier phase of the project -- two gas pipelines it helped finance in 2003 with a $75 million loan. Hunt Oil has a stake in the consortium operating the lines, which were built by an Argentine company.
The pipelines carry gas 340 miles through the rain forest from Peru's Camisea Field, snaking across the 14,000-foot Andes Mountains to Pisco, a coastal fishing village south of the capital, Lima. One line carrying natural gas then extends on to Lima.
Since December 2004, there have been five leaks in the second natural gas liquids line, spilling thousands of barrels into pristine rivers and killing the fish upon which indigenous communities depend for their livelihood. The latest spill occurred March 4 and led to an explosion and fire that injured two residents. (NO MORE GAS OR OIL IS ALLOWED TO BE PUMPED. WE WILL NOW ONLY WALK)
Under pressure from U.S. and Peruvian environmental groups, the bank last month issued a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" about the pipeline's initial performance. The bank said it would conduct an "expanded review and analysis of the project design and construction" of the pipeline and perform another environmental study of the project.
The project has also been criticized by Ollanta Humala, the leading candidate in Peru's presidential race, who in an April 4 interview with an Argentine newspaper said the pipeline was "like Gruyere cheese, full of holes." He called for a revision of the contract with the pipeline's operators and higher royalty payments to the government.
Environmental groups say the problems with the pipelines illustrate the dangers of conducting such operations in the rain forest. Besides the spills, which the groups contend are the result of shoddy construction and defective materials, environmentalists point to a Peruvian government report that the gas development project is harming the once-isolated indigenous people living near the gas field and along the lines. (WHO DECIDES WHAT HAPPENS IN A GIVEN COUNTRY?)
The report from the state Office of the People's Defender said 17 deaths among them could be attributed to influenza brought by contact with outside workers. "The diseases contracted by these groups due to contact with the company's workers could be catastrophic," said the report, citing syphilis, influenza, diarrhea and respiratory ailments. (THERE WAS NO DIARRHEA BEFORE THIS?)
There are about 11,500 indigenous people living either in the gas concession areas or along the pipelines, according to Amazon Alliance, one of the environmental groups opposing the project. Last fall, local residents at one point along the line blockaded the Urubamba River for several weeks to keep company workers out in protest, according to the alliance.
Even as the pressure builds among environmental opponents, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Hunt Oil said efforts already are underway to gain the Bush administration's support for financing for the next phase.
The company's chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, has been a major financial backer for President Bush, his father and other Republican candidates. Jeanne Phillips, Hunt Oil's senior vice president for corporate and international affairs, headed Bush's 2005 inaugural committee after serving two years as Bush's ambassador to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (OOOOO, HUNT SUPPORTS CANDIDATES)
"There is a lot of dialogue with stakeholders inside the U.S. government," Phillips said. "We're doing everything we can to assure them this project is worthy of U.S. support."
Hunt was finance chairman of the Republicans' Victory 2000 Committee and is a member of the National Petroleum Council, an advisory group to Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, as well as Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Together with his wife, Nancy, and his companies, Hunt has contributed about $1 million to President Bush and other Republican campaign committees since 1998.
Still, Hunt's political credentials did not prove strong enough to win U.S. support three years ago for financing of the pipelines, in which Hunt holds a smaller stake than in the new proposal. The Bush administration delegate at the Inter-American bank refused to support the financing, and the Export-Import Bank turned down the project.
Market conditions have changed radically since then, with a domestic natural gas shortage focusing attention on foreign sources. Since the last vote, the administration has also appointed a new executive director to the Inter-American bank, Hector E. Morales Jr., who has publicly called for the bank to play a more active role in facilitating Latin America's gas exports to the United States.
Hunt, which holds a 50 percent share in the new project, Peru LNG, plans to seek $400 million in loans from the Inter-American bank directly, as well as the bank's help in facilitating up to $400 million from private commercial banks. Hunt's partners in the project are SK Corp. of South Korea and Repsol YPF of Spain.
The company has not yet formally submitted applications at either the Inter-American bank or the Export-Import Bank, but officials at both institutions said preliminary discussions were underway.
Company spokeswoman Phillips said she did not anticipate any problems with the environmental impact study because the project was "not in an environmentally sensitive area." But environmental groups say the planned export terminal in Paracas Bay poses a threat to Peru's only marine reserve there.
A coalition of environmental groups wrote to Hunt in December condemning his company's failures to prevent "unnecessary harm" to the local people and the tropical rain forest by failing to use certain advanced drilling technology to minimize the number of wells. The coalition includes Amazon Watch, Amazon Alliance, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam America and the World Wildlife Fund.
Steve Suellentrop, the official in charge of Hunt's liquid natural gas projects, said the consortium had addressed all issues raised by the indigenous people and that "the alleged impact is much greater than the real impact."
"Nobody was directly impacted," he said. "Maybe indirect."
Suellentrop said the consortium operating the field, in which Hunt holds a 25 percent interest, had used "directional drilling" techniques, which he said were similar to the "extended reach drilling" advocated by environmental groups.
The Peruvian energy regulatory authority has so far imposed five fines totaling $2.8 million on Transportadora de Gas del Peru, the Argentine company that operates the pipeline, though the company has so far not paid any of them.
The company has, however, sent food to several affected communities and is building fish farms to compensate for their losses due to river pollution. It has also adopted a $25 million plan to reduce the risk of more spills.
A California-based nonprofit engineering consultancy, E-Tech International, hired by the environmental coalition issued a report in February alleging that the first four leaks were the result of poor quality pipes, shoddy workmanship and inadequate soil stabilization under parts of the pipeline. It warned of "a high potential for future ruptures" at half a dozen other locations.
The Argentine builder has denied the allegations but launched its own new inspection of the pipeline, while Peru's Congress has ordered a full-scale investigation into the causes of the leaks.
Robert Montgomery, who heads the environmental unit in the Inter-American bank's private sector department, said that "most" of the new pipelines recently built in Latin America had not experienced similar problems but that the Peru line was "somewhat unique" because it was built along mountain ridges to avoid populated areas.
At a February meeting at the bank's District headquarters, the president of the Argentine pipeline operator, Ricardo Markous, blamed the spills on heavy rainfall and landslides and said all the pipe was brand new and built specifically for the Peru project. On March 10, the company issued a 100-page point-by-point rebuttal of the E-Tech report, including documents tracking the history of the 188,000 tons of pipe used in the project.
But the report also pointed out that the complicated geography of the pipeline route made it "impossible to assure that there will not occur any incidents that might affect the system." (WHAT THE **** IS THIS SUPPOSED TO PROVE? ACCIDENTS MAY OCCUR BECAUSE OF THE DEMANDS MADE THE ENVIRON GROUPS MAY RESULT IN ACCIDENTS NOW PROVES THAT THE ENVIRON GROUPS ARE CORRECT? ARE YOU CRAZY?)
Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Pipeline Backers See Energy Potential, but Opponents See Environmental Peril
By David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; D01
Backers of a multibillion-dollar proposal to ship vast stores of liquid natural gas from Peru's Amazonian rain forest to the United States are seeking Bush administration support for international financing, but environmental questions are complicating the bid.
Leading the project is Hunt Oil Co., a private Texas firm whose owner has close ties to President Bush. It is seeking administration backing for as much as $800 million from the District-based Inter-American Development Bank, which has already agreed to consider it. If approved, it would be the largest project the bank has financed in Latin America. In addition, the project's backers say they intend to ask for financial help from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency.
The Hunt-led project involves an investment of $2.7 billion to build a pipeline, a gas liquefaction plant, marine terminal and other facilities to export 4.4 million tons of liquid natural gas annually. The bank is required to investigate its environmental impact before voting on it.
The Inter-American bank, however, is already looking into problems with an earlier phase of the project -- two gas pipelines it helped finance in 2003 with a $75 million loan. Hunt Oil has a stake in the consortium operating the lines, which were built by an Argentine company.
The pipelines carry gas 340 miles through the rain forest from Peru's Camisea Field, snaking across the 14,000-foot Andes Mountains to Pisco, a coastal fishing village south of the capital, Lima. One line carrying natural gas then extends on to Lima.
Since December 2004, there have been five leaks in the second natural gas liquids line, spilling thousands of barrels into pristine rivers and killing the fish upon which indigenous communities depend for their livelihood. The latest spill occurred March 4 and led to an explosion and fire that injured two residents. (NO MORE GAS OR OIL IS ALLOWED TO BE PUMPED. WE WILL NOW ONLY WALK)
Under pressure from U.S. and Peruvian environmental groups, the bank last month issued a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" about the pipeline's initial performance. The bank said it would conduct an "expanded review and analysis of the project design and construction" of the pipeline and perform another environmental study of the project.
The project has also been criticized by Ollanta Humala, the leading candidate in Peru's presidential race, who in an April 4 interview with an Argentine newspaper said the pipeline was "like Gruyere cheese, full of holes." He called for a revision of the contract with the pipeline's operators and higher royalty payments to the government.
Environmental groups say the problems with the pipelines illustrate the dangers of conducting such operations in the rain forest. Besides the spills, which the groups contend are the result of shoddy construction and defective materials, environmentalists point to a Peruvian government report that the gas development project is harming the once-isolated indigenous people living near the gas field and along the lines. (WHO DECIDES WHAT HAPPENS IN A GIVEN COUNTRY?)
The report from the state Office of the People's Defender said 17 deaths among them could be attributed to influenza brought by contact with outside workers. "The diseases contracted by these groups due to contact with the company's workers could be catastrophic," said the report, citing syphilis, influenza, diarrhea and respiratory ailments. (THERE WAS NO DIARRHEA BEFORE THIS?)
There are about 11,500 indigenous people living either in the gas concession areas or along the pipelines, according to Amazon Alliance, one of the environmental groups opposing the project. Last fall, local residents at one point along the line blockaded the Urubamba River for several weeks to keep company workers out in protest, according to the alliance.
Even as the pressure builds among environmental opponents, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Hunt Oil said efforts already are underway to gain the Bush administration's support for financing for the next phase.
The company's chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, has been a major financial backer for President Bush, his father and other Republican candidates. Jeanne Phillips, Hunt Oil's senior vice president for corporate and international affairs, headed Bush's 2005 inaugural committee after serving two years as Bush's ambassador to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (OOOOO, HUNT SUPPORTS CANDIDATES)
"There is a lot of dialogue with stakeholders inside the U.S. government," Phillips said. "We're doing everything we can to assure them this project is worthy of U.S. support."
Hunt was finance chairman of the Republicans' Victory 2000 Committee and is a member of the National Petroleum Council, an advisory group to Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, as well as Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Together with his wife, Nancy, and his companies, Hunt has contributed about $1 million to President Bush and other Republican campaign committees since 1998.
Still, Hunt's political credentials did not prove strong enough to win U.S. support three years ago for financing of the pipelines, in which Hunt holds a smaller stake than in the new proposal. The Bush administration delegate at the Inter-American bank refused to support the financing, and the Export-Import Bank turned down the project.
Market conditions have changed radically since then, with a domestic natural gas shortage focusing attention on foreign sources. Since the last vote, the administration has also appointed a new executive director to the Inter-American bank, Hector E. Morales Jr., who has publicly called for the bank to play a more active role in facilitating Latin America's gas exports to the United States.
Hunt, which holds a 50 percent share in the new project, Peru LNG, plans to seek $400 million in loans from the Inter-American bank directly, as well as the bank's help in facilitating up to $400 million from private commercial banks. Hunt's partners in the project are SK Corp. of South Korea and Repsol YPF of Spain.
The company has not yet formally submitted applications at either the Inter-American bank or the Export-Import Bank, but officials at both institutions said preliminary discussions were underway.
Company spokeswoman Phillips said she did not anticipate any problems with the environmental impact study because the project was "not in an environmentally sensitive area." But environmental groups say the planned export terminal in Paracas Bay poses a threat to Peru's only marine reserve there.
A coalition of environmental groups wrote to Hunt in December condemning his company's failures to prevent "unnecessary harm" to the local people and the tropical rain forest by failing to use certain advanced drilling technology to minimize the number of wells. The coalition includes Amazon Watch, Amazon Alliance, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam America and the World Wildlife Fund.
Steve Suellentrop, the official in charge of Hunt's liquid natural gas projects, said the consortium had addressed all issues raised by the indigenous people and that "the alleged impact is much greater than the real impact."
"Nobody was directly impacted," he said. "Maybe indirect."
Suellentrop said the consortium operating the field, in which Hunt holds a 25 percent interest, had used "directional drilling" techniques, which he said were similar to the "extended reach drilling" advocated by environmental groups.
The Peruvian energy regulatory authority has so far imposed five fines totaling $2.8 million on Transportadora de Gas del Peru, the Argentine company that operates the pipeline, though the company has so far not paid any of them.
The company has, however, sent food to several affected communities and is building fish farms to compensate for their losses due to river pollution. It has also adopted a $25 million plan to reduce the risk of more spills.
A California-based nonprofit engineering consultancy, E-Tech International, hired by the environmental coalition issued a report in February alleging that the first four leaks were the result of poor quality pipes, shoddy workmanship and inadequate soil stabilization under parts of the pipeline. It warned of "a high potential for future ruptures" at half a dozen other locations.
The Argentine builder has denied the allegations but launched its own new inspection of the pipeline, while Peru's Congress has ordered a full-scale investigation into the causes of the leaks.
Robert Montgomery, who heads the environmental unit in the Inter-American bank's private sector department, said that "most" of the new pipelines recently built in Latin America had not experienced similar problems but that the Peru line was "somewhat unique" because it was built along mountain ridges to avoid populated areas.
At a February meeting at the bank's District headquarters, the president of the Argentine pipeline operator, Ricardo Markous, blamed the spills on heavy rainfall and landslides and said all the pipe was brand new and built specifically for the Peru project. On March 10, the company issued a 100-page point-by-point rebuttal of the E-Tech report, including documents tracking the history of the 188,000 tons of pipe used in the project.
But the report also pointed out that the complicated geography of the pipeline route made it "impossible to assure that there will not occur any incidents that might affect the system." (WHAT THE **** IS THIS SUPPOSED TO PROVE? ACCIDENTS MAY OCCUR BECAUSE OF THE DEMANDS MADE THE ENVIRON GROUPS MAY RESULT IN ACCIDENTS NOW PROVES THAT THE ENVIRON GROUPS ARE CORRECT? ARE YOU CRAZY?)
Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Iraq Leader Cedes His Nomination As Premier
Reversal by Al-Jafari Raises Hope of Ending Government Stalemate
By Nelson Hernandez, Bassam Sebti and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 21, 2006; A14
BAGHDAD, April 20 -- Iraq's prime minister on Thursday relinquished his nomination to a new term after weeks of intense pressure, capping a day of surprises that left many politicians here hopeful that a months-long stalemate over formation of a new government would finally end.
In a letter and a national television address at 11 p.m. Thursday, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said he would give up his hard-won nomination by the dominant coalition of Shiite parties, the United Iraqi Alliance, and allow its members to select another candidate if they chose.
"No one should attach my name to the delay in the process," the physician said in the half-hour address, standing before the library in his official residence. "I shall sacrifice everything in order to make the Alliance succeed and in order to strengthen its unity. . . . I leave it to them to decide what they want." Sunni and Kurdish groups have unanimously opposed his nomination.
It was a sudden turnabout for a man who the day before had said his withdrawal was "out of the question." And it was not the only surprise of the day, as dozens of politicians turned out for a long-delayed meeting of parliament only to find it was canceled.
At an impromptu news conference outside the room where the parliament members were to have met, Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite leaders said that Jafari's withdrawal could break the deadlock that has prevailed since the national elections of Dec. 15.
"We shall return on Saturday and we hope all the names will be ready," Hussain Shahristani, the spokesman for the Shiite alliance, said at the news conference. "There will be one full, complete package on Saturday."
Among the people mentioned as alternatives to Jafari are two members of his Dawa party: Jawad al-Maliki, its spokesman, and Ali al-Adeeb, a prominent politician whose ties to Iran disturb many Sunni Arabs.
But Jafari appeared to think that the alliance could renew his nomination. "All the people of Iraq are my sons, and they have provided me with the resolve and the insistence to go on, whether in government or in the political movement that I am a part of," he said.
Almost immediately after winning the nomination of the Shiite alliance by a single vote in February, Jafari came under pressure to give it up. While the Shiite coalition holds the most seats in Iraq's parliament -- and thus has first crack at choosing a prime minister -- it is unable to form a government without the support of at least some of Iraq's Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties.
Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties frustrated with Jafari's leadership since he became the transitional prime minister last year demanded that the Shiite coalition choose another nominee.
The political situation has been frozen as the rival coalitions have negotiated in lengthy closed meetings, promising almost daily that agreement was just around the corner. In addition to the difficulties in choosing a prime minister, they have grappled with questions of who will fill other key posts in the interior, defense and oil ministries.
While the talks drag on, Sunnis and Shiites have continued killing one another on the streets. At least 11 Iraqis died Thursday in shootings and bombings across the country, according to police officials and news reports.
In recent days, President Bush, Shiite religious authorities and a U.N. special envoy have all encouraged Iraqi politicians -- particularly members of the Shiite alliance -- to find a solution quickly.
"The absence of an effective national unity government is creating the conditions for the insurgency to do what it wants to do," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a U.S. military spokesman, said at a news conference Thursday.
The resolution to the crisis was supposed to be announced at a parliament meeting in the afternoon. Dozens of Iraqi politicians waited in the sweaty confines of the Baghdad convention center, where the air-conditioning system was broken on a 93-degree day. They were separated from an even larger crowd of reporters by a cordon of blue-shirted Iraqi police.
The politicians were still discussing whether to hold a meeting at all. After an hour-long wait, the parliament speaker, Adnan al-Pachachi -- who has called for a parliament meeting twice in recent days, only to postpone them -- came forward to announce that the meeting wouldn't happen.
"I believe this adjournment will provide a chance to discuss the issues, and I believe we will succeed in coming to parliament on Saturday in order to form the national unity government which the Iraqi people are waiting for urgently," Pachachi said.
"The ball is now in the Alliance's court," said Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni political leader. "I hope they will deal with the matter in a conscientious way to help the country overcome the crisis."
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and Naseer Nouri contributed to this report.
Reversal by Al-Jafari Raises Hope of Ending Government Stalemate
By Nelson Hernandez, Bassam Sebti and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 21, 2006; A14
BAGHDAD, April 20 -- Iraq's prime minister on Thursday relinquished his nomination to a new term after weeks of intense pressure, capping a day of surprises that left many politicians here hopeful that a months-long stalemate over formation of a new government would finally end.
In a letter and a national television address at 11 p.m. Thursday, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said he would give up his hard-won nomination by the dominant coalition of Shiite parties, the United Iraqi Alliance, and allow its members to select another candidate if they chose.
"No one should attach my name to the delay in the process," the physician said in the half-hour address, standing before the library in his official residence. "I shall sacrifice everything in order to make the Alliance succeed and in order to strengthen its unity. . . . I leave it to them to decide what they want." Sunni and Kurdish groups have unanimously opposed his nomination.
It was a sudden turnabout for a man who the day before had said his withdrawal was "out of the question." And it was not the only surprise of the day, as dozens of politicians turned out for a long-delayed meeting of parliament only to find it was canceled.
At an impromptu news conference outside the room where the parliament members were to have met, Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite leaders said that Jafari's withdrawal could break the deadlock that has prevailed since the national elections of Dec. 15.
"We shall return on Saturday and we hope all the names will be ready," Hussain Shahristani, the spokesman for the Shiite alliance, said at the news conference. "There will be one full, complete package on Saturday."
Among the people mentioned as alternatives to Jafari are two members of his Dawa party: Jawad al-Maliki, its spokesman, and Ali al-Adeeb, a prominent politician whose ties to Iran disturb many Sunni Arabs.
But Jafari appeared to think that the alliance could renew his nomination. "All the people of Iraq are my sons, and they have provided me with the resolve and the insistence to go on, whether in government or in the political movement that I am a part of," he said.
Almost immediately after winning the nomination of the Shiite alliance by a single vote in February, Jafari came under pressure to give it up. While the Shiite coalition holds the most seats in Iraq's parliament -- and thus has first crack at choosing a prime minister -- it is unable to form a government without the support of at least some of Iraq's Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties.
Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties frustrated with Jafari's leadership since he became the transitional prime minister last year demanded that the Shiite coalition choose another nominee.
The political situation has been frozen as the rival coalitions have negotiated in lengthy closed meetings, promising almost daily that agreement was just around the corner. In addition to the difficulties in choosing a prime minister, they have grappled with questions of who will fill other key posts in the interior, defense and oil ministries.
While the talks drag on, Sunnis and Shiites have continued killing one another on the streets. At least 11 Iraqis died Thursday in shootings and bombings across the country, according to police officials and news reports.
In recent days, President Bush, Shiite religious authorities and a U.N. special envoy have all encouraged Iraqi politicians -- particularly members of the Shiite alliance -- to find a solution quickly.
"The absence of an effective national unity government is creating the conditions for the insurgency to do what it wants to do," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a U.S. military spokesman, said at a news conference Thursday.
The resolution to the crisis was supposed to be announced at a parliament meeting in the afternoon. Dozens of Iraqi politicians waited in the sweaty confines of the Baghdad convention center, where the air-conditioning system was broken on a 93-degree day. They were separated from an even larger crowd of reporters by a cordon of blue-shirted Iraqi police.
The politicians were still discussing whether to hold a meeting at all. After an hour-long wait, the parliament speaker, Adnan al-Pachachi -- who has called for a parliament meeting twice in recent days, only to postpone them -- came forward to announce that the meeting wouldn't happen.
"I believe this adjournment will provide a chance to discuss the issues, and I believe we will succeed in coming to parliament on Saturday in order to form the national unity government which the Iraqi people are waiting for urgently," Pachachi said.
"The ball is now in the Alliance's court," said Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni political leader. "I hope they will deal with the matter in a conscientious way to help the country overcome the crisis."
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and Naseer Nouri contributed to this report.
As Iran Presses Its Ambitions, Its Young See Theirs Denied
Lack of Economic Opportunity Leads Many to Drugs
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 21, 2006; A01
SHAFT, Iran -- The question that preoccupies most of Iran lay coiled in the sullen stare of Abbas Kayhan, 25 years old and stuck behind the counter of his father's corner store. It pulled his heavy brow even lower and traveled down a forearm that shuddered in anger with each word.
"But what about me?" the young man demanded, smack in the colorless center of a generation whose complaints have driven Iranian politics for more than a decade, with no satisfaction in sight.
"You people, you have got a very good life in the U.S. What is this place?" He glanced down the main street of a town called Shaft, where young men with gelled hair and no jobs sauntered at aimless angles. "Everything is miserable."
While the world focuses on Iran's nuclear ambitions, Iranians focus on the unmet aspirations of the two-thirds of the population that is younger than 30. Nearly three decades after a revolution that swept aside a monarchist system grounded in privilege, the typical Iranian has seen average income shrink under a religious government that has cultivated an elite of its own atop a profoundly dysfunctional economy.
The 80 percent of the population working in the private sector struggles mightily to make a living in the 20 percent of the economy that is not controlled by the government. The end product is a frustration edging into resentment that informs every private conversation with ordinary Iranians and frames every public issue.
It explains the stunning landslide victory 10 months ago of a relative unknown named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only candidate in the presidential race who campaigned against the rich.
Dissatisfaction also accounts for much of the public support for Iran's nuclear program, despite widespread disdain for the ruling mullahs. In a country where time has seemed to stand still for a quarter-century, the public associates nuclear energy with economic development.
"The city of Shaft is just like anywhere else in the country," said Jafar Shalde, the owner of a housewares shop whose business on a recent morning consisted of one transaction: A woman returned the shelving she'd bought the day before, and Shalde gave her $3 back.
"There is not enough salary for the people," he said. "There is not enough income. They don't have enough money, so they don't buy anything.
"Normally, everything gets worse."
Shaft rests in the low-lying vermillion countryside below the Caspian Sea, its main street of tidy shops curving gently. The surrounding valley is checkered by rice paddies, and families lucky enough to own one eat the harvest themselves. Though economists call the region prosperous compared with most of Iran, residents say they need two jobs to survive. The local string factory, which used to employ 400, now has work for fewer than 100.
"Opium, yes. You can smell it in the evening," Shalde said of the drug many people in Iran -- more than in any other country in the world, according to U.N. figures -- use to fill days not filled by jobs.
At 64, Shalde is old enough to remember Iran's 1979 revolution, defined for Americans by the hostage crisis. Iranians recall it differently.
"It was because of the shah," Shalde said, referring to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose Peacock Throne the CIA restored in a 1953 coup. "There was no equality between classes. There was a gap between people, and our imam said the reason was the shah, and he asked us to demonstrate against him. And this is what we did."
The mullahs took control, but the gap remained, though the government declines to measure income differences.
"In my view, 1 percent may be getting equal to the next 30 percent of the population," said Ali Rashidi, a prominent economist and former Central Bank official. "You can see it."
Iranians say they do. They call a rich man "the son of a cleric," shorthand for the insider government connections crucial to any enterprise here. The richest person in Iran is believed to be Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a mid-level cleric who served two terms as president in the 1990s and outspent his opponents in an attempt to return to office last year.
His accession was preempted by Ahmadinejad, who surged ahead on the strength of a half-hour campaign video. Broadcast nationwide in a nightly candidate showcase, the video made no mention of wiping Israel off the map or even nuclear power -- issues that have since defined Ahmadinejad for the outside world.
It simply showed that he lived in a modest house, worked long hours as Tehran's mayor and clearly savored contact with the common folk.
"I saw him on television," said Shalde, in the stillness of his shop. "I didn't vote for his promises. I just looked at him and saw he was just like us. So I told everybody I knew -- for example, my kids -- I told them to vote for him."
That Ahmadinejad even made promises was unusual for a candidate in Iran. He vowed to "put oil money on the sofre ," the dining cloth that in an Iranian household is the equivalent of the kitchen table. Iran's petroleum reserves are the second largest of any OPEC country. And only Russia has more natural gas.
But great chunks of the income from oil already go to keeping public anger at bay. Iran will spend $25 billion this year to hold down the prices of flour, rice, even gasoline. With insufficient refining capacity of its own, Iran imports more gas than any nation except the United States.
"Instability and mental insecurity would result from increasing the price of such products in society," Ahmadinejad said in announcing retention of the subsidies. His first budget also included $19 billion to create the new jobs the economy is failing to generate at the rate young Iranians enter the marketplace, a staggering 1 million a year.
"Work," said Sassan Ataei, 18, "is in Tehran. That's where our peers go."
At 11 on a weekday morning, Ataei was headed down a barren side street toward a teahouse where the unemployed young men of Shaft put their effort into leisure. Everlast, Puma -- it's all about the shoes in the bare, tiled room where young men of working age pass the daylight hours smoking water pipes.
"We only get hopeful when we smoke hashish," said one, smiling as he made do with spiced-apple tobacco. "Otherwise, there's no hope."
The new president has brought a glimmer, however. Mojtaba Dejahang, 23, voted for a reformist candidate but now approves of the hard-line conservative who emphasized economic issues over personal freedoms.
"Bread is important," said Dejahang, who lives with his parents despite holding an engineering degree. "I think ordinary people do love him and trust him, especially with his position on the nuclear issue. He showed that he's a firm person.
"We believe that with nuclear power Iran will actually speed up development."
As he spoke, other young patrons chimed in, drawn by the novelty of a visiting American and the opportunity to be heard.
"I want to make one point clear," Mani Jalili announced, by way of introduction. "If Americans attack the city of Shaft, I will defend it."
Shop owner Ali Korshidi concurred: "If there's going to be any change in this country, it has to come from inside. I put no faith in foreign forces."
Atta Jafarzadeh, 17, wore suede sneakers and an injured look. "We are the generation born after the revolution," he implored. "We have no bad memories of the Americans."
The young men were either on their way to Tehran, 180 miles to the southeast, or had just come back empty-handed. Many of the overcrowded capital's perhaps 10 million residents are economic migrants.
"Unless you have jobs for everyone, democracy will never take root here," said Zirak Shafti, 39, who said his advertising business was faltering. "That's why no government ever succeeded here. It was always dependent on oil. It wanted to control everything."
Inside the airy, neatly arranged home of Fatemeh Jaberoodi, the grown children not at work took seats along the living room wall. Only the oldest has a job -- a bank clerk position inherited from his father. Except for another child in Germany, the entire brood, seven adults, survives on the rice from a small paddy plus Jaberoodi's husband's pension, equal to $77 a month.
The fixed amount shrinks with each uptick of inflation, a chronic condition in Iran that ran at 15 percent last year. Persistent price increases, which economists call a tax on the poor, will be aggravated by Ahmadinejad's budget, according to a wide range of analysts, including fellow conservatives.
Jaberoodi grew wistful recalling the years before 1979, when the Iranian rial held its value year to year. "It seemed that the money we got was just blessed," she said. "There was no inflation.''
Her daughters sat silently. Ameneh, at 30 the eldest, had a computer degree and a good lead on a job with an automaker, but the family lacked the clout "to push the matter through," her mother said.
"If people have got links inside the government, it's easy. For ordinary people, not a chance. There's a lot of talk about justice, but there's not equality of opportunity."
Sajad, the oldest son still at home, stood up. His mother frowned. He is 23. "We don't have enough money to start a business for him," she said. "That's a real problem."
She lowered her voice. "My main concern is that without a job he doesn't become addicted to any of these drugs. My concern is if they can't find a job, this kind of thing is inevitable."
He dressed as she spoke, a fit, handsome man discreetly opening a full-length cupboard door in the living room that becomes a bedroom at night. He pulled off a soccer jersey and buttoned up a dress shirt.
"He got up at 12, had his lunch, watched a bit of television. Now he's going out just to run around with his friends," his mother said. Her face was crossed, like Iran, by currents of knowing and helplessness.
"I can't stop him."
Lack of Economic Opportunity Leads Many to Drugs
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 21, 2006; A01
SHAFT, Iran -- The question that preoccupies most of Iran lay coiled in the sullen stare of Abbas Kayhan, 25 years old and stuck behind the counter of his father's corner store. It pulled his heavy brow even lower and traveled down a forearm that shuddered in anger with each word.
"But what about me?" the young man demanded, smack in the colorless center of a generation whose complaints have driven Iranian politics for more than a decade, with no satisfaction in sight.
"You people, you have got a very good life in the U.S. What is this place?" He glanced down the main street of a town called Shaft, where young men with gelled hair and no jobs sauntered at aimless angles. "Everything is miserable."
While the world focuses on Iran's nuclear ambitions, Iranians focus on the unmet aspirations of the two-thirds of the population that is younger than 30. Nearly three decades after a revolution that swept aside a monarchist system grounded in privilege, the typical Iranian has seen average income shrink under a religious government that has cultivated an elite of its own atop a profoundly dysfunctional economy.
The 80 percent of the population working in the private sector struggles mightily to make a living in the 20 percent of the economy that is not controlled by the government. The end product is a frustration edging into resentment that informs every private conversation with ordinary Iranians and frames every public issue.
It explains the stunning landslide victory 10 months ago of a relative unknown named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the only candidate in the presidential race who campaigned against the rich.
Dissatisfaction also accounts for much of the public support for Iran's nuclear program, despite widespread disdain for the ruling mullahs. In a country where time has seemed to stand still for a quarter-century, the public associates nuclear energy with economic development.
"The city of Shaft is just like anywhere else in the country," said Jafar Shalde, the owner of a housewares shop whose business on a recent morning consisted of one transaction: A woman returned the shelving she'd bought the day before, and Shalde gave her $3 back.
"There is not enough salary for the people," he said. "There is not enough income. They don't have enough money, so they don't buy anything.
"Normally, everything gets worse."
Shaft rests in the low-lying vermillion countryside below the Caspian Sea, its main street of tidy shops curving gently. The surrounding valley is checkered by rice paddies, and families lucky enough to own one eat the harvest themselves. Though economists call the region prosperous compared with most of Iran, residents say they need two jobs to survive. The local string factory, which used to employ 400, now has work for fewer than 100.
"Opium, yes. You can smell it in the evening," Shalde said of the drug many people in Iran -- more than in any other country in the world, according to U.N. figures -- use to fill days not filled by jobs.
At 64, Shalde is old enough to remember Iran's 1979 revolution, defined for Americans by the hostage crisis. Iranians recall it differently.
"It was because of the shah," Shalde said, referring to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose Peacock Throne the CIA restored in a 1953 coup. "There was no equality between classes. There was a gap between people, and our imam said the reason was the shah, and he asked us to demonstrate against him. And this is what we did."
The mullahs took control, but the gap remained, though the government declines to measure income differences.
"In my view, 1 percent may be getting equal to the next 30 percent of the population," said Ali Rashidi, a prominent economist and former Central Bank official. "You can see it."
Iranians say they do. They call a rich man "the son of a cleric," shorthand for the insider government connections crucial to any enterprise here. The richest person in Iran is believed to be Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a mid-level cleric who served two terms as president in the 1990s and outspent his opponents in an attempt to return to office last year.
His accession was preempted by Ahmadinejad, who surged ahead on the strength of a half-hour campaign video. Broadcast nationwide in a nightly candidate showcase, the video made no mention of wiping Israel off the map or even nuclear power -- issues that have since defined Ahmadinejad for the outside world.
It simply showed that he lived in a modest house, worked long hours as Tehran's mayor and clearly savored contact with the common folk.
"I saw him on television," said Shalde, in the stillness of his shop. "I didn't vote for his promises. I just looked at him and saw he was just like us. So I told everybody I knew -- for example, my kids -- I told them to vote for him."
That Ahmadinejad even made promises was unusual for a candidate in Iran. He vowed to "put oil money on the sofre ," the dining cloth that in an Iranian household is the equivalent of the kitchen table. Iran's petroleum reserves are the second largest of any OPEC country. And only Russia has more natural gas.
But great chunks of the income from oil already go to keeping public anger at bay. Iran will spend $25 billion this year to hold down the prices of flour, rice, even gasoline. With insufficient refining capacity of its own, Iran imports more gas than any nation except the United States.
"Instability and mental insecurity would result from increasing the price of such products in society," Ahmadinejad said in announcing retention of the subsidies. His first budget also included $19 billion to create the new jobs the economy is failing to generate at the rate young Iranians enter the marketplace, a staggering 1 million a year.
"Work," said Sassan Ataei, 18, "is in Tehran. That's where our peers go."
At 11 on a weekday morning, Ataei was headed down a barren side street toward a teahouse where the unemployed young men of Shaft put their effort into leisure. Everlast, Puma -- it's all about the shoes in the bare, tiled room where young men of working age pass the daylight hours smoking water pipes.
"We only get hopeful when we smoke hashish," said one, smiling as he made do with spiced-apple tobacco. "Otherwise, there's no hope."
The new president has brought a glimmer, however. Mojtaba Dejahang, 23, voted for a reformist candidate but now approves of the hard-line conservative who emphasized economic issues over personal freedoms.
"Bread is important," said Dejahang, who lives with his parents despite holding an engineering degree. "I think ordinary people do love him and trust him, especially with his position on the nuclear issue. He showed that he's a firm person.
"We believe that with nuclear power Iran will actually speed up development."
As he spoke, other young patrons chimed in, drawn by the novelty of a visiting American and the opportunity to be heard.
"I want to make one point clear," Mani Jalili announced, by way of introduction. "If Americans attack the city of Shaft, I will defend it."
Shop owner Ali Korshidi concurred: "If there's going to be any change in this country, it has to come from inside. I put no faith in foreign forces."
Atta Jafarzadeh, 17, wore suede sneakers and an injured look. "We are the generation born after the revolution," he implored. "We have no bad memories of the Americans."
The young men were either on their way to Tehran, 180 miles to the southeast, or had just come back empty-handed. Many of the overcrowded capital's perhaps 10 million residents are economic migrants.
"Unless you have jobs for everyone, democracy will never take root here," said Zirak Shafti, 39, who said his advertising business was faltering. "That's why no government ever succeeded here. It was always dependent on oil. It wanted to control everything."
Inside the airy, neatly arranged home of Fatemeh Jaberoodi, the grown children not at work took seats along the living room wall. Only the oldest has a job -- a bank clerk position inherited from his father. Except for another child in Germany, the entire brood, seven adults, survives on the rice from a small paddy plus Jaberoodi's husband's pension, equal to $77 a month.
The fixed amount shrinks with each uptick of inflation, a chronic condition in Iran that ran at 15 percent last year. Persistent price increases, which economists call a tax on the poor, will be aggravated by Ahmadinejad's budget, according to a wide range of analysts, including fellow conservatives.
Jaberoodi grew wistful recalling the years before 1979, when the Iranian rial held its value year to year. "It seemed that the money we got was just blessed," she said. "There was no inflation.''
Her daughters sat silently. Ameneh, at 30 the eldest, had a computer degree and a good lead on a job with an automaker, but the family lacked the clout "to push the matter through," her mother said.
"If people have got links inside the government, it's easy. For ordinary people, not a chance. There's a lot of talk about justice, but there's not equality of opportunity."
Sajad, the oldest son still at home, stood up. His mother frowned. He is 23. "We don't have enough money to start a business for him," she said. "That's a real problem."
She lowered her voice. "My main concern is that without a job he doesn't become addicted to any of these drugs. My concern is if they can't find a job, this kind of thing is inevitable."
He dressed as she spoke, a fit, handsome man discreetly opening a full-length cupboard door in the living room that becomes a bedroom at night. He pulled off a soccer jersey and buttoned up a dress shirt.
"He got up at 12, had his lunch, watched a bit of television. Now he's going out just to run around with his friends," his mother said. Her face was crossed, like Iran, by currents of knowing and helplessness.
"I can't stop him."
Negroponte Cites 'Innovations' in Integrating Intelligence
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A07
Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte defended his first year on the job yesterday by saying he has made progress in integrating the work of the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, adding it will take time "remaking a loose confederation into a unified enterprise."
Negroponte spoke at the National Press Club, after recent criticism in Congress and elsewhere that his growing organization is threatening to become another troublesome layer of bureaucracy atop the network of intelligence agencies, which collectively spend about $44 billion a year and involve about 100,000 people in the United States and abroad.
Negroponte said he has instituted "institutional innovations, most of which are system-wide procedural improvements" designed to "optimize the community's total performance."
His talk capped a week in which he and top associates have given interviews aimed at enhancing the public's understanding of the complex restructuring of U.S. intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the failure to accurately assess Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. Congress created his office in late 2004 to oversee and improve coordination of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, including those at the Pentagon.
One of the few specific actions Negroponte cited was his decision in July to change funding of the multibillion-dollar Future Imagery Architecture program, which involves the next generation of spy satellites. Negroponte moved the basic funding for the classified program from the Boeing Co. to Lockheed Martin Corp.
Without mentioning the companies or the details, Negroponte said that, after study, he "decided we were on the wrong track" and that his decision "broke a lengthy impasse and provided the intelligence community an imagery way ahead."
The report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released this month had focused on that move. The panel described it as a "tough decision" that had "certain positive aspects" but "one disadvantage" that may lead to "future gaps in capability." Legislatively the committee, in its classified annex, apparently put forward its own approach that it said will likely cause "some discomfort within the intelligence community."
"He may have made the decision, but it sounds like the House intelligence committee may have other ideas on this subject," said John Pike, a specialist in satellite programs and director of GlobalSecurity.org, an organization that conducts research on security issues and works to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons.
In contrast to some other administration officials, Negroponte gave a low-key description of the threat caused by Iran's recent statements about having begun nuclear enrichment, which could be a major step toward building a bomb. Negroponte used the word "troublesome," saying there is additional concern because of statements made by Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Overall, however, he said that Tehran is "a number of years off . . . probably the next decade" before it will have enough fissile material for a bomb, and "we need to keep this in perspective."
The only light moment came in response to Negroponte's statement that agencies are sharing intelligence more. Someone asked what he would do with a Pentagon official who stamps documents "for military eyes only." The usually serious former ambassador quickly responded, "I'd take away his stamp," gaining laughter for the first time from his rather passive audience. There was no follow-up about whether such a stamp exists.
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A07
Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte defended his first year on the job yesterday by saying he has made progress in integrating the work of the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, adding it will take time "remaking a loose confederation into a unified enterprise."
Negroponte spoke at the National Press Club, after recent criticism in Congress and elsewhere that his growing organization is threatening to become another troublesome layer of bureaucracy atop the network of intelligence agencies, which collectively spend about $44 billion a year and involve about 100,000 people in the United States and abroad.
Negroponte said he has instituted "institutional innovations, most of which are system-wide procedural improvements" designed to "optimize the community's total performance."
His talk capped a week in which he and top associates have given interviews aimed at enhancing the public's understanding of the complex restructuring of U.S. intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the failure to accurately assess Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. Congress created his office in late 2004 to oversee and improve coordination of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, including those at the Pentagon.
One of the few specific actions Negroponte cited was his decision in July to change funding of the multibillion-dollar Future Imagery Architecture program, which involves the next generation of spy satellites. Negroponte moved the basic funding for the classified program from the Boeing Co. to Lockheed Martin Corp.
Without mentioning the companies or the details, Negroponte said that, after study, he "decided we were on the wrong track" and that his decision "broke a lengthy impasse and provided the intelligence community an imagery way ahead."
The report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released this month had focused on that move. The panel described it as a "tough decision" that had "certain positive aspects" but "one disadvantage" that may lead to "future gaps in capability." Legislatively the committee, in its classified annex, apparently put forward its own approach that it said will likely cause "some discomfort within the intelligence community."
"He may have made the decision, but it sounds like the House intelligence committee may have other ideas on this subject," said John Pike, a specialist in satellite programs and director of GlobalSecurity.org, an organization that conducts research on security issues and works to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons.
In contrast to some other administration officials, Negroponte gave a low-key description of the threat caused by Iran's recent statements about having begun nuclear enrichment, which could be a major step toward building a bomb. Negroponte used the word "troublesome," saying there is additional concern because of statements made by Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Overall, however, he said that Tehran is "a number of years off . . . probably the next decade" before it will have enough fissile material for a bomb, and "we need to keep this in perspective."
The only light moment came in response to Negroponte's statement that agencies are sharing intelligence more. Someone asked what he would do with a Pentagon official who stamps documents "for military eyes only." The usually serious former ambassador quickly responded, "I'd take away his stamp," gaining laughter for the first time from his rather passive audience. There was no follow-up about whether such a stamp exists.
U.S. Suffers Setback in Case Of Alleged Enemy Combatant
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A03
With one of his fellow detainees transferred to a criminal court and another deported to Saudi Arabia, the last man held as an enemy combatant on U.S. soil is poised to take center stage in the ongoing fight over presidential powers in a time of war.
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 40, is a Qatari national who has been held in a military brig in South Carolina since June 2003. He is accused of being an al-Qaeda "sleeper" sent to the United States to mount attacks after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.
An immigrant student who lived in Peoria, Ill., Marri has maintained his innocence since he was first arrested on fraud charges in December 2001. He is challenging the government's right to hold him as an enemy combatant. His case has received relatively little attention, compared with the high-profile legal fights by Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, two U.S. citizens who took their claims all the way to the Supreme Court.
But that is likely to change, in part because of a remarkable document filed in federal court in South Carolina this month.
In the declassified 16-page document, the government portrays Marri as an important terrorist soldier who trained for more than a year at al-Qaeda camps. It says he met Osama bin Laden and was specifically chosen by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 hijackings, to help other operatives carry out attacks and to hack into computers or deliver poisons.
Mohammed allegedly favored Marri because, as a married father of five who had studied in the United States, he could blend in more easily than a single man, according to a sworn statement by Jeffrey N. Rapp, director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism.
Rapp's declaration, dated September 2004, was released only after a federal magistrate ordered the government to produce the evidence for Marri, and it provides a rare glimpse at the allegations against him. Magistrate Judge Robert C. Carr is slated to forward a recommendation to a higher-ranking judge, who will decide Marri's fate.
But the fact that the allegations were revealed at all is a setback for the government. It has argued in Marri's case and in others that enemy combatants have no right to see such evidence or even to challenge their confinement in criminal courts.
The Supreme Court decided in 2004 that Hamdi should have access to a lawyer and other rights, a ruling that formed the basis for the order to release evidence in Marri's case. Hamdi was deported to Saudi Arabia, of which he is also a citizen; Padilla was abruptly charged with supporting terrorism in federal court this year, and the high court declined this month to hear his challenge to his military confinement.
Many legal experts say that, given the Hamdi ruling and the order to produce evidence in the case, it may be difficult for the government to prevail against Marri.
"I really think this is more smoke than fire," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University who has advised the attorneys of some U.S. detainees. "If the district judge continues to pursue the path of implementing full-disclosure requirements, the government will either fold or lose."
Although Marri is not a U.S. citizen, the fact that he was arrested on U.S. soil probably gives him a stronger legal footing than that possessed by the hundreds of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who were picked up overseas. (Those detainees include Marri's brother, Jarallah, who is also alleged to have attended an al-Qaeda camp.)
Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and former Justice Department official, said that Marri has a "reasonable basis" to demand a proceeding to determine his status, but that his chances of forcing a release or transfer to a criminal court are small.
Justice Department and Pentagon officials have consistently declined to comment on the case.
Marri's attorneys dismiss the newly disclosed allegations as "triple hearsay evidence" inadmissible in court and say many of them may have been obtained through torture. Although the document does not identify its sources, much of the information revolves around two al-Qaeda leaders being held in overseas CIA prisons: Mohammed and alleged al-Qaeda financier Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.
"Thus far, there is no evidence," said Jonathan Hafetz of the New York University School of Law, one of the attorneys representing Marri. "All there is now is a hearsay statement, a list of allegations. . . . They think they can hold him without charge for essentially the rest of his life, and obviously we dispute that." (TOUGH **** GUY - ARE YOU A CITIZEN OR NOT?)
Marri lived in the United States in the 1990s and graduated from Bradley University in Peoria. He returned to the country on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He was arrested on credit-card fraud charges in December of that year, but a month before his trial was to start he was transferred into military custody.
Rapp's court filing calls Marri "an al Qaeda 'sleeper' agent sent to the United States for the purpose of engaging in and facilitating terrorist activities," and it alleges that he volunteered for a martyr mission during a meeting with bin Laden and trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan for as many as 19 months from 1996 to 1998. According to the filing, Marri was trained in the "use of poisons" at one camp.
During a search of Marri's laptop computer, the document says, the FBI found files on how to make a deadly toxin; more than 1,000 credit card numbers; and lists of Web sites related to jihad, weapons and satellites.
"The highly technical information found on Marri's laptop computer far exceeds the interests of a merely curious individual," the filing says.
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A03
With one of his fellow detainees transferred to a criminal court and another deported to Saudi Arabia, the last man held as an enemy combatant on U.S. soil is poised to take center stage in the ongoing fight over presidential powers in a time of war.
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 40, is a Qatari national who has been held in a military brig in South Carolina since June 2003. He is accused of being an al-Qaeda "sleeper" sent to the United States to mount attacks after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.
An immigrant student who lived in Peoria, Ill., Marri has maintained his innocence since he was first arrested on fraud charges in December 2001. He is challenging the government's right to hold him as an enemy combatant. His case has received relatively little attention, compared with the high-profile legal fights by Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla, two U.S. citizens who took their claims all the way to the Supreme Court.
But that is likely to change, in part because of a remarkable document filed in federal court in South Carolina this month.
In the declassified 16-page document, the government portrays Marri as an important terrorist soldier who trained for more than a year at al-Qaeda camps. It says he met Osama bin Laden and was specifically chosen by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 hijackings, to help other operatives carry out attacks and to hack into computers or deliver poisons.
Mohammed allegedly favored Marri because, as a married father of five who had studied in the United States, he could blend in more easily than a single man, according to a sworn statement by Jeffrey N. Rapp, director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism.
Rapp's declaration, dated September 2004, was released only after a federal magistrate ordered the government to produce the evidence for Marri, and it provides a rare glimpse at the allegations against him. Magistrate Judge Robert C. Carr is slated to forward a recommendation to a higher-ranking judge, who will decide Marri's fate.
But the fact that the allegations were revealed at all is a setback for the government. It has argued in Marri's case and in others that enemy combatants have no right to see such evidence or even to challenge their confinement in criminal courts.
The Supreme Court decided in 2004 that Hamdi should have access to a lawyer and other rights, a ruling that formed the basis for the order to release evidence in Marri's case. Hamdi was deported to Saudi Arabia, of which he is also a citizen; Padilla was abruptly charged with supporting terrorism in federal court this year, and the high court declined this month to hear his challenge to his military confinement.
Many legal experts say that, given the Hamdi ruling and the order to produce evidence in the case, it may be difficult for the government to prevail against Marri.
"I really think this is more smoke than fire," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University who has advised the attorneys of some U.S. detainees. "If the district judge continues to pursue the path of implementing full-disclosure requirements, the government will either fold or lose."
Although Marri is not a U.S. citizen, the fact that he was arrested on U.S. soil probably gives him a stronger legal footing than that possessed by the hundreds of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who were picked up overseas. (Those detainees include Marri's brother, Jarallah, who is also alleged to have attended an al-Qaeda camp.)
Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and former Justice Department official, said that Marri has a "reasonable basis" to demand a proceeding to determine his status, but that his chances of forcing a release or transfer to a criminal court are small.
Justice Department and Pentagon officials have consistently declined to comment on the case.
Marri's attorneys dismiss the newly disclosed allegations as "triple hearsay evidence" inadmissible in court and say many of them may have been obtained through torture. Although the document does not identify its sources, much of the information revolves around two al-Qaeda leaders being held in overseas CIA prisons: Mohammed and alleged al-Qaeda financier Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.
"Thus far, there is no evidence," said Jonathan Hafetz of the New York University School of Law, one of the attorneys representing Marri. "All there is now is a hearsay statement, a list of allegations. . . . They think they can hold him without charge for essentially the rest of his life, and obviously we dispute that." (TOUGH **** GUY - ARE YOU A CITIZEN OR NOT?)
Marri lived in the United States in the 1990s and graduated from Bradley University in Peoria. He returned to the country on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He was arrested on credit-card fraud charges in December of that year, but a month before his trial was to start he was transferred into military custody.
Rapp's court filing calls Marri "an al Qaeda 'sleeper' agent sent to the United States for the purpose of engaging in and facilitating terrorist activities," and it alleges that he volunteered for a martyr mission during a meeting with bin Laden and trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan for as many as 19 months from 1996 to 1998. According to the filing, Marri was trained in the "use of poisons" at one camp.
During a search of Marri's laptop computer, the document says, the FBI found files on how to make a deadly toxin; more than 1,000 credit card numbers; and lists of Web sites related to jihad, weapons and satellites.
"The highly technical information found on Marri's laptop computer far exceeds the interests of a merely curious individual," the filing says.
Bush, Hu Produce Summit of Symbols
Protester Screams At Chinese President
By Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 21, 2006; A01
President Bush pressed China's visiting President Hu Jintao yesterday to open up markets, expand freedom and do more to curb nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea but came away with no specific agreements in a summit emphasizing symbolism over breakthroughs.
Hosting the first White House visit of a Chinese president in nine years, Bush welcomed Hu with pageantry, marching bands and a 21-gun salute in a sun-splashed South Lawn ceremony, then escorted him inside for polite talks on a range of long-standing issues. In return, Hu offered vague assurances that he will address U.S. economic concerns while resisting tougher action on Iran and North Korea.
The one off-script moment in an otherwise meticulously choreographed day came when a member of the Falun Gong religious sect that is suppressed in China screamed at Hu for several long minutes as he addressed hundreds of Bush aides and ticketed guests on the lawn. "President Hu! Your days are numbered," she shouted. "President Bush! Stop him from killing!" A startled Hu paused until Bush leaned over and encouraged him to continue. "You're okay," Bush assured Hu.
Such a jarring disruption inside the White House gates is extremely rare and seen as deeply offensive to the protocol-sensitive Chinese leadership. Bush, described as angry by aides who saw him afterward, apologized to Hu when they sat down in the Oval Office. "This was unfortunate, and I'm sorry this happened," Bush said, according to a White House official.
The visit held deep meaning for the Chinese delegation, which broadcast the pomp -- but not the protest -- to its people back home as a sign of the nation's standing in the international community. Bush obliged to a point, serving an Alaska halibut luncheon in the East Room for Hu but not offering the black-tie state dinner Beijing wanted.
Bush had hoped to use the summit to soften Chinese opposition to his strategy of increasing pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program. In the Oval Office meeting, Bush pushed Hu to consider a Security Council resolution invoking Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter, which could lead to punitive action, including sanctions or force, if Tehran persists in enriching uranium.
But Hu, by his own account, spent much of his time talking about Taiwan and publicly insisted on sticking to "diplomatic negotiation" in dealing with Iran. As for North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons and refuses to give them up, Hu acknowledged that six-party talks "have run into some difficulties" but offered no ideas on how to break the logjam, other than urging negotiators "to further display flexibility."
"Both sides agreed to continue their efforts to facilitate the six-party talks to seek a proper solution to the Korean nuclear issue," Hu told reporters through an interpreter in a rare question-and-answer session after the Oval Office meeting. "And both sides agree to continue their efforts to seek a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue."
Although security and economic issues dominated the talks, Bush made his standard suggestion to reform China's autocratic system. "China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship," Bush said in welcoming remarks.
In private, aides said, Bush raised the case of a North Korean asylum seeker, Kim Chun Hee, who was deported back to her homeland despite Chinese obligations under U.N. refugee conventions. He asked again about a list of Chinese political prisoners that he first gave Hu during a meeting at the United Nations in September and gave a new list of six detainees he hopes will be released. But Bush did not mention the persecution of Falun Gong, even with hundreds of its followers outside the White House banging drums, holding up banners and chanting, "Stop the killing, stop the torture."
Hu insisted China is committed to democracy. "What I can tell you is that we've always believed in China that if there is no democracy, there will be no modernization," he told reporters during the brief question session. ". . . We have always been expanding the democracy and freedoms for the Chinese citizens."
Last night, Hu was feted at a dinner sponsored by the U.S.-China Business Council at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel as hundreds of pro- and anti-Chinese protesters faced off across Calvert Street with dueling banners wishing him a "happy journey" and denouncing "torture and death under communism." Former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger introduced Hu before the crowd of 900 people, saying the United States has "no more important relationship" than with China.
In the 25-minute speech, Hu broke little new ground but stressed his familiar themes that what China "needs most is a peaceful international environment" to thrive and deal with the growing inequalities between rural and urban areas of his country. He said China's relationship with the United States is a top priority for China, stressing it would strengthen protection of intellectual property copyrights and seek to increase imports to relieve the trade imbalance. He insisted that China will continue to "expand citizens' orderly participation in political affairs" and that his country "takes human rights seriously."
Hu, who was flanked by security personnel as he spoke, said: "Due to different national conditions, it is normal for China and the United States to disagree on some issues. We should seek common ground while shelving differences."
White House officials took note of Hu's linkage of democracy to economic progress, the line of argument Bush often uses with him. "He has heard enough from the president on this subject that he's starting to think about it," said Dennis Wilder, a top Asia specialist on the National Security Council.
That was not enough to satisfy Baihua Zhou, 49, a software engineer from Ohio, who was among hundreds of protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue. On her chest she wore a picture of a mutilated corpse whose organs had been sold off, representing what Falun Gong says is a campaign of abuse and murder of believers in China.
"We want to expose these crimes to the world," she said, comparing Hu to a murderer. "If he wants to invite him to his house, President Bush has to say what is right to say, not just to please him. He has to tell him the people's concerns."
Bush and Hu may not have heard her, but they heard the woman who interrupted the festivities on the White House lawn. Identified by authorities as Wenyi Wang, 47, of New York, she had gained admission with a press pass issued by a Falun Gong newspaper, Epoch Times, copies of which were passed out by protesters outside the gates.
When she screamed from a press riser where cameras were recording the event, it took several minutes before uniformed Secret Service officers could get through the throng of photographers to remove her. Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said she would likely be charged with attempting to intimidate, coerce, threaten or harass a foreign official in the performance of his duties, punishable by as much as six months in prison.
Congressional Democrats also used the Hu visit to criticize Bush's China policy. In a letter to Bush this week, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) complained that the administration "still has no coherent strategy for managing this nation's relationship with China." (HARRY - UNLESS YOU HAVE ONE, YOU'RE DONE TALKING ABOUT IT OK?)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) derided Bush's approach as wishful thinking. "We have pursued trickle-down liberty -- promoting economic freedom first, assuming that political freedom will follow," she wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "Reality exposes this policy as the illusion it is." (YAWN)
Economics permeated the discussions at the White House yesterday. Bush aides trumpeted Hu's comments about transforming China into a more consumer-driven economy, which would presumably benefit U.S. businesses at a time when the United States is running a $202 billion annual trade deficit. And they pronounced themselves encouraged that Hu said he would continue to loosen controls over the Chinese currency, which U.S. corporate leaders blame for hurting their business opportunities.
Bush made sure to surround Hu at the East Room luncheon with corporate titans, including top executives from General Motors, Home Depot, Motorola, Caterpillar, Daimler Chrysler, Avon Products and Goldman Sachs. Other guests included Kissinger, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), actor Ron Silver and skater Michelle Kwan.
White House officials acknowledged no breakthroughs were made, seeing the value of the summit as the next step in incremental change. Many of the statements and promises made by Bush and Hu mirrored the language from their other meetings. At a briefing afterward, Bush aides used words such as "reiteration," "rearticulation" and "renewed commitment" to describe yesterday's discussion.
In the end, the main purpose seemed to be to work on the relationship between Bush and Hu. The summit, scheduled for September but postponed after Hurricane Katrina, gave Hu the world's most prominent platform, even if not a formal state visit as his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, had with President Bill Clinton in 1997. Throughout the day, Hu kept using the term "win-win."
Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.
Protester Screams At Chinese President
By Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 21, 2006; A01
President Bush pressed China's visiting President Hu Jintao yesterday to open up markets, expand freedom and do more to curb nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea but came away with no specific agreements in a summit emphasizing symbolism over breakthroughs.
Hosting the first White House visit of a Chinese president in nine years, Bush welcomed Hu with pageantry, marching bands and a 21-gun salute in a sun-splashed South Lawn ceremony, then escorted him inside for polite talks on a range of long-standing issues. In return, Hu offered vague assurances that he will address U.S. economic concerns while resisting tougher action on Iran and North Korea.
The one off-script moment in an otherwise meticulously choreographed day came when a member of the Falun Gong religious sect that is suppressed in China screamed at Hu for several long minutes as he addressed hundreds of Bush aides and ticketed guests on the lawn. "President Hu! Your days are numbered," she shouted. "President Bush! Stop him from killing!" A startled Hu paused until Bush leaned over and encouraged him to continue. "You're okay," Bush assured Hu.
Such a jarring disruption inside the White House gates is extremely rare and seen as deeply offensive to the protocol-sensitive Chinese leadership. Bush, described as angry by aides who saw him afterward, apologized to Hu when they sat down in the Oval Office. "This was unfortunate, and I'm sorry this happened," Bush said, according to a White House official.
The visit held deep meaning for the Chinese delegation, which broadcast the pomp -- but not the protest -- to its people back home as a sign of the nation's standing in the international community. Bush obliged to a point, serving an Alaska halibut luncheon in the East Room for Hu but not offering the black-tie state dinner Beijing wanted.
Bush had hoped to use the summit to soften Chinese opposition to his strategy of increasing pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program. In the Oval Office meeting, Bush pushed Hu to consider a Security Council resolution invoking Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter, which could lead to punitive action, including sanctions or force, if Tehran persists in enriching uranium.
But Hu, by his own account, spent much of his time talking about Taiwan and publicly insisted on sticking to "diplomatic negotiation" in dealing with Iran. As for North Korea, which already has nuclear weapons and refuses to give them up, Hu acknowledged that six-party talks "have run into some difficulties" but offered no ideas on how to break the logjam, other than urging negotiators "to further display flexibility."
"Both sides agreed to continue their efforts to facilitate the six-party talks to seek a proper solution to the Korean nuclear issue," Hu told reporters through an interpreter in a rare question-and-answer session after the Oval Office meeting. "And both sides agree to continue their efforts to seek a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue."
Although security and economic issues dominated the talks, Bush made his standard suggestion to reform China's autocratic system. "China can grow even more successful by allowing the Chinese people the freedom to assemble, to speak freely and to worship," Bush said in welcoming remarks.
In private, aides said, Bush raised the case of a North Korean asylum seeker, Kim Chun Hee, who was deported back to her homeland despite Chinese obligations under U.N. refugee conventions. He asked again about a list of Chinese political prisoners that he first gave Hu during a meeting at the United Nations in September and gave a new list of six detainees he hopes will be released. But Bush did not mention the persecution of Falun Gong, even with hundreds of its followers outside the White House banging drums, holding up banners and chanting, "Stop the killing, stop the torture."
Hu insisted China is committed to democracy. "What I can tell you is that we've always believed in China that if there is no democracy, there will be no modernization," he told reporters during the brief question session. ". . . We have always been expanding the democracy and freedoms for the Chinese citizens."
Last night, Hu was feted at a dinner sponsored by the U.S.-China Business Council at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel as hundreds of pro- and anti-Chinese protesters faced off across Calvert Street with dueling banners wishing him a "happy journey" and denouncing "torture and death under communism." Former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger introduced Hu before the crowd of 900 people, saying the United States has "no more important relationship" than with China.
In the 25-minute speech, Hu broke little new ground but stressed his familiar themes that what China "needs most is a peaceful international environment" to thrive and deal with the growing inequalities between rural and urban areas of his country. He said China's relationship with the United States is a top priority for China, stressing it would strengthen protection of intellectual property copyrights and seek to increase imports to relieve the trade imbalance. He insisted that China will continue to "expand citizens' orderly participation in political affairs" and that his country "takes human rights seriously."
Hu, who was flanked by security personnel as he spoke, said: "Due to different national conditions, it is normal for China and the United States to disagree on some issues. We should seek common ground while shelving differences."
White House officials took note of Hu's linkage of democracy to economic progress, the line of argument Bush often uses with him. "He has heard enough from the president on this subject that he's starting to think about it," said Dennis Wilder, a top Asia specialist on the National Security Council.
That was not enough to satisfy Baihua Zhou, 49, a software engineer from Ohio, who was among hundreds of protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue. On her chest she wore a picture of a mutilated corpse whose organs had been sold off, representing what Falun Gong says is a campaign of abuse and murder of believers in China.
"We want to expose these crimes to the world," she said, comparing Hu to a murderer. "If he wants to invite him to his house, President Bush has to say what is right to say, not just to please him. He has to tell him the people's concerns."
Bush and Hu may not have heard her, but they heard the woman who interrupted the festivities on the White House lawn. Identified by authorities as Wenyi Wang, 47, of New York, she had gained admission with a press pass issued by a Falun Gong newspaper, Epoch Times, copies of which were passed out by protesters outside the gates.
When she screamed from a press riser where cameras were recording the event, it took several minutes before uniformed Secret Service officers could get through the throng of photographers to remove her. Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said she would likely be charged with attempting to intimidate, coerce, threaten or harass a foreign official in the performance of his duties, punishable by as much as six months in prison.
Congressional Democrats also used the Hu visit to criticize Bush's China policy. In a letter to Bush this week, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) complained that the administration "still has no coherent strategy for managing this nation's relationship with China." (HARRY - UNLESS YOU HAVE ONE, YOU'RE DONE TALKING ABOUT IT OK?)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) derided Bush's approach as wishful thinking. "We have pursued trickle-down liberty -- promoting economic freedom first, assuming that political freedom will follow," she wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "Reality exposes this policy as the illusion it is." (YAWN)
Economics permeated the discussions at the White House yesterday. Bush aides trumpeted Hu's comments about transforming China into a more consumer-driven economy, which would presumably benefit U.S. businesses at a time when the United States is running a $202 billion annual trade deficit. And they pronounced themselves encouraged that Hu said he would continue to loosen controls over the Chinese currency, which U.S. corporate leaders blame for hurting their business opportunities.
Bush made sure to surround Hu at the East Room luncheon with corporate titans, including top executives from General Motors, Home Depot, Motorola, Caterpillar, Daimler Chrysler, Avon Products and Goldman Sachs. Other guests included Kissinger, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), actor Ron Silver and skater Michelle Kwan.
White House officials acknowledged no breakthroughs were made, seeing the value of the summit as the next step in incremental change. Many of the statements and promises made by Bush and Hu mirrored the language from their other meetings. At a briefing afterward, Bush aides used words such as "reiteration," "rearticulation" and "renewed commitment" to describe yesterday's discussion.
In the end, the main purpose seemed to be to work on the relationship between Bush and Hu. The summit, scheduled for September but postponed after Hurricane Katrina, gave Hu the world's most prominent platform, even if not a formal state visit as his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, had with President Bill Clinton in 1997. Throughout the day, Hu kept using the term "win-win."
Staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.
Friday, April 21, 2006
GM's Loss Narrows; Its Share Price Jumps 10%
Record sales lessen the automaker's red ink, but its North American operations still struggle.
By John O'Dell
Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006
General Motors Corp. posted a sixth straight quarterly loss Thursday, but the automaker significantly narrowed its deficit and easily beat analysts' expectations. Its stock rose 10% in heavy trading.
Most of the improvement came from GM's financial and overseas automotive businesses. First-quarter revenue rose 14% to a record $52.2 billion, driven by big gains in China and Asia. GM also posted its first profit in Europe since 2000.
GM's unspoken strategy is "to try to hold as much ground as possible in the U.S. but take the fight overseas. That's where they are making strides now," said Daniel J. Genter, president of RNC Genter Capital Management in Los Angeles, whose $2.3 billion in assets include $50 million in General Motors Acceptance Corp. bonds.
Overall, GM lost $323 million in the period ended in March, or 57 cents a share, compared with a $1.3-billion loss, or $2.22, for the same period last year.
"It's a quarter of good, solid progress," GM Chief Financial Officer Frederick "Fritz" Henderson said.
GM's shares gained $2.07 to $22.64, marking the biggest one-day percentage jump in its stock since May.
GM's crucial North American automotive operations, however, continued to be a disappointment.
The company reported a $946-million loss on the continent, including a $484-million charge for adjustments to its retiree healthcare plan. That contrasts with a loss of $1.5 billion a year earlier.
GM's market share in the U.S. for the quarter fell to 24.1% from 25.7% a year earlier in the face of intense competition from import brands, led by Toyota Motor Corp.
GM's new strategy of reducing incentives and sticker prices, combined with buyer enthusiasm for its new large sport utility vehicles, helped boost revenue per vehicle in the U.S. by about $1,000 in the quarter to an average of $19,960, Henderson said.
"That's very positive," said auto industry analyst Rebecca Lindland of Global Insight economic forecasting in Lexington, Mass. "It shows that their pricing and product strategies are being effective."
Although the results surprised analysts, they cautioned that GM still faced considerable obstacles in its turnaround effort, including rising gasoline prices that could slow sales of the automaker's new big SUVs and pickup trucks. The average price at the pump Thursday passed $3 a gallon in California.
GM also faces a threatened strike at its largest parts supplier, Delphi Corp., that could cripple its North American production. Delphi, GM's former parts division, is in bankruptcy protection, and the automaker is expected to foot the bill for billions in Delphi's labor and pension costs.
Last year, GM lost $10.6 billion amid slowing U.S. sales and rising healthcare and other labor costs.
The company hopes to win concessions on healthcare, work restrictions and pension plans from its workers when talks begin late next year on a new labor contract.
Chief Executive Rick Wagoner previously announced plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close a dozen plants because of declining sales in North America.
To help speed up the job cuts and ease pressure on Delphi, GM last month offered buyouts and retirement incentives to more than 125,000 U.S. factory workers, including 13,000 at Delphi.
Delphi remains in talks with its unions on wage cuts as part of a reorganization plan, and GM executives have made avoiding a strike at the parts supplier a key priority. "We are confident we will find a solution. Work stoppage doesn't benefit anyone," Henderson said.
GM ended the quarter with $21.6 billion in available cash and equivalent assets. But it still burned through $1.2 billion during the period and has been selling assets to help raise more.
The automaker has agreed to sell a 51% stake in its GMAC financing arm for about $14 billion to an investment consortium. GMAC contributed $605 million in earnings to GM during the quarter.
Selling GMAC will raise much-needed cash "but will push GM's largest profit contributor for years out the door," Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy said in a note to investors.
GM also posted pretax income of $2 billion in the first quarter from the sale of its interest in Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp.
Record sales lessen the automaker's red ink, but its North American operations still struggle.
By John O'Dell
Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006
General Motors Corp. posted a sixth straight quarterly loss Thursday, but the automaker significantly narrowed its deficit and easily beat analysts' expectations. Its stock rose 10% in heavy trading.
Most of the improvement came from GM's financial and overseas automotive businesses. First-quarter revenue rose 14% to a record $52.2 billion, driven by big gains in China and Asia. GM also posted its first profit in Europe since 2000.
GM's unspoken strategy is "to try to hold as much ground as possible in the U.S. but take the fight overseas. That's where they are making strides now," said Daniel J. Genter, president of RNC Genter Capital Management in Los Angeles, whose $2.3 billion in assets include $50 million in General Motors Acceptance Corp. bonds.
Overall, GM lost $323 million in the period ended in March, or 57 cents a share, compared with a $1.3-billion loss, or $2.22, for the same period last year.
"It's a quarter of good, solid progress," GM Chief Financial Officer Frederick "Fritz" Henderson said.
GM's shares gained $2.07 to $22.64, marking the biggest one-day percentage jump in its stock since May.
GM's crucial North American automotive operations, however, continued to be a disappointment.
The company reported a $946-million loss on the continent, including a $484-million charge for adjustments to its retiree healthcare plan. That contrasts with a loss of $1.5 billion a year earlier.
GM's market share in the U.S. for the quarter fell to 24.1% from 25.7% a year earlier in the face of intense competition from import brands, led by Toyota Motor Corp.
GM's new strategy of reducing incentives and sticker prices, combined with buyer enthusiasm for its new large sport utility vehicles, helped boost revenue per vehicle in the U.S. by about $1,000 in the quarter to an average of $19,960, Henderson said.
"That's very positive," said auto industry analyst Rebecca Lindland of Global Insight economic forecasting in Lexington, Mass. "It shows that their pricing and product strategies are being effective."
Although the results surprised analysts, they cautioned that GM still faced considerable obstacles in its turnaround effort, including rising gasoline prices that could slow sales of the automaker's new big SUVs and pickup trucks. The average price at the pump Thursday passed $3 a gallon in California.
GM also faces a threatened strike at its largest parts supplier, Delphi Corp., that could cripple its North American production. Delphi, GM's former parts division, is in bankruptcy protection, and the automaker is expected to foot the bill for billions in Delphi's labor and pension costs.
Last year, GM lost $10.6 billion amid slowing U.S. sales and rising healthcare and other labor costs.
The company hopes to win concessions on healthcare, work restrictions and pension plans from its workers when talks begin late next year on a new labor contract.
Chief Executive Rick Wagoner previously announced plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close a dozen plants because of declining sales in North America.
To help speed up the job cuts and ease pressure on Delphi, GM last month offered buyouts and retirement incentives to more than 125,000 U.S. factory workers, including 13,000 at Delphi.
Delphi remains in talks with its unions on wage cuts as part of a reorganization plan, and GM executives have made avoiding a strike at the parts supplier a key priority. "We are confident we will find a solution. Work stoppage doesn't benefit anyone," Henderson said.
GM ended the quarter with $21.6 billion in available cash and equivalent assets. But it still burned through $1.2 billion during the period and has been selling assets to help raise more.
The automaker has agreed to sell a 51% stake in its GMAC financing arm for about $14 billion to an investment consortium. GMAC contributed $605 million in earnings to GM during the quarter.
Selling GMAC will raise much-needed cash "but will push GM's largest profit contributor for years out the door," Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy said in a note to investors.
GM also posted pretax income of $2 billion in the first quarter from the sale of its interest in Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp.
Shattering the China Dream
Unlawful Detentions Undermine Respect for Beijing
By Rebecca MacKinnon
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A25
On Feb. 16, Hu Jia, a Chinese AIDS activist, was asked to get in a car with men he didn't recognize. They put a black hood over his head and pushed him down so he couldn't see where he was being taken. Then they locked him in the inner room of a hotel suite and interrogated him for 41 days. He was given no access to a lawyer, and his family was given no information about his whereabouts. Then, on day 41, his captors once more put a black hood on him, drove him to a shopping center and dropped him off roughly an hour's walk from his home.
Hu's ordeal involved no courts, arrest warrants, official paperwork, police stations or jails. While his captors work for China's State Security Bureau, what happened can only be described as a kidnapping. He plans to sue the police for unlawful behavior, but he admits he's not optimistic about winning.
Hu's abduction was one of a growing number of such "cases." Their extralegality and the lack of official records make it impossible to count them. Human rights organizations try to keep count, but the outside world generally hears about only those victims whose friends and family manage to overcome police pressure to stay quiet and who are also well-connected or savvy enough to get the story out somehow.
Another victim of Chinese state kidnapping -- with whom I am personally connected -- is Wu Hao, an independent filmmaker, blogger and U.S. permanent resident. It is unclear why state agents abducted him on Feb. 22, but his friends think it may be related to his work on a documentary about China's underground Christians. He continues to be held -- this is the 58th day of his detention -- despite the fact that Chinese law limits the maximum detention without charge to 37 days.
About a month before his abduction, Hao (his first name) also took up the part-time role of Northeast Asia editor for an international bloggers' network that I co-founded, Global Voices Online ( http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ ). He was excited about introducing the perspectives of Chinese bloggers to an English-speaking audience. He also kept an English-language blog at http://beijingorbust.blogspot.com/ . While his writings were considerably more honest and edgy than those in the China Daily, he was by no means a dissident and often defended his government against Western criticism.
Hao turned 34 this week. He personifies a generation of urban Chinese who have flourished thanks to the Communist Party's embrace of market-style capitalism and greater cultural openness. He got his MBA from the University of Michigan and worked for EarthLink before returning to China to pursue his dream of becoming a documentary filmmaker. He and his sister, Nina Wu, who works in finance and lives a comfortable middle-class life in Shanghai, have enjoyed freedoms of expression, travel, lifestyle and career choice that their parents could never have dreamed of. They are proof of how U.S. economic engagement with China has been overwhelmingly good for many Chinese.
Problem is, the Chinese Dream can be shattered quickly if you step over a line that is not clearly drawn -- a line that is kept deliberately vague and that shifts frequently with the political tides. Those who were told by the Chinese media that they have constitutional and legal rights are painfully disabused of such fantasies when they seek to shed light on social and religious issues the state prefers to keep in the dark.
Since Hao's detention, Nina has spent countless hours pleading with police officers for information about his case, location and condition. After a month of getting nowhere, she started to chronicle her ordeal on a Chinese-language blog at http://spaces.msn.com/wuhaofamily . (You can read it in English at: http://ethanzuckerman.com/haowu .) It is a heartbreaking account of how China's regime eats its young. In her first entry she describes her disillusionment: "the people I dealt with never showed police credentials (despite repeated requests), and never called each other by name. . . . I was angry at myself for my political naiveté, and angry at this place that displayed the police insignia but did not actually 'Serve the People.' "
With Chinese President Hu Jintao in the United States this week, Americans have an opportunity to assess his regime. What is this country to think? On the one hand his government has raised the living standards of millions of its citizens with economic reform and international trade. On the other hand his underlings trample shamelessly on his people's basic human rights.
The careers of some politicians in both countries -- not to mention military budgets -- would no doubt benefit if our two nations became enemies. As an American who lived and worked in China for more than a decade, however, I continue to believe that peaceful engagement between the United States and China is in the best interest of both nations' people.
But we have a serious problem that won't go away: How can Americans respect or trust a regime that kidnaps our friends?
The writer was CNN's Beijing bureau chief from 1998 to 2001. She is now a research fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and is co-founder of Global Voices Online, an international bloggers' network.
Unlawful Detentions Undermine Respect for Beijing
By Rebecca MacKinnon
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A25
On Feb. 16, Hu Jia, a Chinese AIDS activist, was asked to get in a car with men he didn't recognize. They put a black hood over his head and pushed him down so he couldn't see where he was being taken. Then they locked him in the inner room of a hotel suite and interrogated him for 41 days. He was given no access to a lawyer, and his family was given no information about his whereabouts. Then, on day 41, his captors once more put a black hood on him, drove him to a shopping center and dropped him off roughly an hour's walk from his home.
Hu's ordeal involved no courts, arrest warrants, official paperwork, police stations or jails. While his captors work for China's State Security Bureau, what happened can only be described as a kidnapping. He plans to sue the police for unlawful behavior, but he admits he's not optimistic about winning.
Hu's abduction was one of a growing number of such "cases." Their extralegality and the lack of official records make it impossible to count them. Human rights organizations try to keep count, but the outside world generally hears about only those victims whose friends and family manage to overcome police pressure to stay quiet and who are also well-connected or savvy enough to get the story out somehow.
Another victim of Chinese state kidnapping -- with whom I am personally connected -- is Wu Hao, an independent filmmaker, blogger and U.S. permanent resident. It is unclear why state agents abducted him on Feb. 22, but his friends think it may be related to his work on a documentary about China's underground Christians. He continues to be held -- this is the 58th day of his detention -- despite the fact that Chinese law limits the maximum detention without charge to 37 days.
About a month before his abduction, Hao (his first name) also took up the part-time role of Northeast Asia editor for an international bloggers' network that I co-founded, Global Voices Online ( http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ ). He was excited about introducing the perspectives of Chinese bloggers to an English-speaking audience. He also kept an English-language blog at http://beijingorbust.blogspot.com/ . While his writings were considerably more honest and edgy than those in the China Daily, he was by no means a dissident and often defended his government against Western criticism.
Hao turned 34 this week. He personifies a generation of urban Chinese who have flourished thanks to the Communist Party's embrace of market-style capitalism and greater cultural openness. He got his MBA from the University of Michigan and worked for EarthLink before returning to China to pursue his dream of becoming a documentary filmmaker. He and his sister, Nina Wu, who works in finance and lives a comfortable middle-class life in Shanghai, have enjoyed freedoms of expression, travel, lifestyle and career choice that their parents could never have dreamed of. They are proof of how U.S. economic engagement with China has been overwhelmingly good for many Chinese.
Problem is, the Chinese Dream can be shattered quickly if you step over a line that is not clearly drawn -- a line that is kept deliberately vague and that shifts frequently with the political tides. Those who were told by the Chinese media that they have constitutional and legal rights are painfully disabused of such fantasies when they seek to shed light on social and religious issues the state prefers to keep in the dark.
Since Hao's detention, Nina has spent countless hours pleading with police officers for information about his case, location and condition. After a month of getting nowhere, she started to chronicle her ordeal on a Chinese-language blog at http://spaces.msn.com/wuhaofamily . (You can read it in English at: http://ethanzuckerman.com/haowu .) It is a heartbreaking account of how China's regime eats its young. In her first entry she describes her disillusionment: "the people I dealt with never showed police credentials (despite repeated requests), and never called each other by name. . . . I was angry at myself for my political naiveté, and angry at this place that displayed the police insignia but did not actually 'Serve the People.' "
With Chinese President Hu Jintao in the United States this week, Americans have an opportunity to assess his regime. What is this country to think? On the one hand his government has raised the living standards of millions of its citizens with economic reform and international trade. On the other hand his underlings trample shamelessly on his people's basic human rights.
The careers of some politicians in both countries -- not to mention military budgets -- would no doubt benefit if our two nations became enemies. As an American who lived and worked in China for more than a decade, however, I continue to believe that peaceful engagement between the United States and China is in the best interest of both nations' people.
But we have a serious problem that won't go away: How can Americans respect or trust a regime that kidnaps our friends?
The writer was CNN's Beijing bureau chief from 1998 to 2001. She is now a research fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and is co-founder of Global Voices Online, an international bloggers' network.
Jafari Says He'll Quit if Shiite Bloc Wishes
By Bruce Wallace
Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006
BAGHDAD — Beleaguered Iraqis were given new hope that the parliament they elected four months ago would finally form a long-term government after interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari loosened his grip on the top job Thursday. (A DAY AFTER SAYING HE WILL NEVER GIVE IT UP)
Jafari's fractious Shiite Muslim coalition is to vote today on whether to keep him as its candidate for prime minister or choose a fresh face who might win wider backing from Iraq's disparate ethnic and religious groups.
Jafari has become a polarizing figure whose determination to hang on to the Shiite bloc's nomination despite equally stubborn opposition has frozen the process of finding a powersharing formula and thereby improving conditions for eventual U.S. troop withdrawal.
The political paralysis has contributed to the explosion of street fighting in the last few weeks, notably a killing spree between Shiite and Sunni Muslim militias and gangs.
But Jafari's resistance to stepping aside cracked Thursday. In a statement, followed several hours later by a rambling, nationally televised speech, he asked the umbrella of Shiite parties that emerged from December's elections as the country's dominant political force to reconsider his candidacy.
Jafari promised to "not be an obstacle" if the Shiite bloc no longer wanted him as its candidate.
The coalition immediately seized upon his offer to announce that it would hold a vote on his candidacy today, and find an alternative if he was not reconfirmed.
"Jafari has left the decision about his candidacy with the alliance, which means he is no longer insisting on the post," Jawad Maliki, a senior member of Jafari's Islamic Dawa Party, said at a news conference in Baghdad after reading the prime minister's statement. "Now it will be the alliance which will decide."
Jafari had faced concerted resistance from minority Kurds and Sunni Arabs from the start of his candidacy, which he won in February by one vote from the 130-member nominating forum. More recently, he resisted back-room nudges from U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and impatience with political stalemate expressed by President Bush.
But Jafari apparently relented after members of his coalition and other prominent Shiites began breaking ranks, among them Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the nation's leading Shiite cleric.
Critics alternately accuse Jafari of being too weak and too sectarian as prime minister. He angered Kurds by excluding them from sensitive discussions with neighboring Turkey on Kurdish affairs. And Sunnis blamed him for failing to curb the rising number of Shiite attacks on Sunni targets and for extrajudicial killings by members of the Interior Ministry's Shiite-dominated police forces.
But until Thursday, Jafari had resisted all entreaties to withdraw his name. In his televised address, he scolded other politicians who criticized him in the media but who complimented him in private for the job he was doing.
His surprise reversal came just hours before parliament was scheduled to meet for only the second time since Iraqis defied insurgents and participated in the December balloting. Dawa members said Jafari bent to pressure from within the party, which feared that standing by him in the face of the fierce opposition could ultimately cost the party its claim to the post.
Jafari's offer of a revote on his candidacy offered the prospect a 4-month-long dispute over the prime minister's post could be resolved as soon as Saturday, when parliament is again scheduled to try to convene a session.
"Hopefully, we will have news that will make everyone happy on Saturday," said Jalal Talabani, Iraq's interim president, who has been a key figure in trying to herd the feuding groups toward an agreement.
"Frankly speaking, we have agreed on basics," he said, promising a "friendly session" and the beginnings of a national unity government. "What is left is to put the final touches."
Most observers suggested that the alternative to Jafari, if he were rejected by the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, would come from within the top ranks of his Dawa Party, with expectations generally pointing to either Maliki or Ali Adib. Both spent years in exile after then-President Saddam Hussein began a purge of Dawa members in the early 1980s. Neither carries great clout among ordinary Iraqis.
But though neither man would represent a move away from Dawa's hostility toward the U.S. military presence and Washington's wariness of Iranian influence in Iraq, many say new leadership might be acceptable to Sunni and Shiite parties simply because it was not Jafari.
"Jafari has been given a try and proved he is incapable of handling the security, economy and utilities files," said Hussein Faluji, a Sunni lawmaker. "We think these [issues] should be handled by someone more efficient."
Some, however, suggested that Jafari's move was a risky feint to force the Shiite bloc to reaffirm their support for his candidacy and reassert a message that it is the majority faction and won't be dictated to by Sunni Arabs, Kurds or Americans.
"His chances of becoming prime minister have increased now," said Kamal Saadi, a Dawa Party lawmaker. "Because of what he's done, we insist on Jafari more than we did before."
But the depth of that sentiment is questionable. Head-butting over Jafari's nomination has given Iraqis a glimpse of their anarchic future unless they form an effective government.
The power vacuum has been filled by internecine struggles among insurgents, local militias, criminal gangs and death squads, which have stoked sectarian differences and pushed the country toward civil war.
"There was pressure from the Iraqi street, which is suffering," said Abdul-Khaleq Zangana, a leading Kurdish lawmaker. "We politicians are shouldering the responsibility for people's agony. We should regain the trust of our people."
But resolving the matter of who will be prime minister is just one step in forming a government. Once that post is settled, the parliament has 30 days to agree on ministry appointments. To skeptical Iraqis, that promises more squabbling before a new government is able to turn its attention to asserting control over the country, more than three years after U.S. forces toppled Hussein.
Adnan Dulaimi, the Sunni leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said he was optimistic that resolving the dispute over Jafari would lead swiftly to a wider power-sharing deal.
"What happened today will hasten solving the problem of forming a national unity government," he said Thursday as he left the Baghdad convention center where many had gathered in anticipation of a parliament meeting. "The games are over."
Times staff writers Louise Roug, Salar Jaff and Saif Hameed contributed to this report.
By Bruce Wallace
Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006
BAGHDAD — Beleaguered Iraqis were given new hope that the parliament they elected four months ago would finally form a long-term government after interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari loosened his grip on the top job Thursday. (A DAY AFTER SAYING HE WILL NEVER GIVE IT UP)
Jafari's fractious Shiite Muslim coalition is to vote today on whether to keep him as its candidate for prime minister or choose a fresh face who might win wider backing from Iraq's disparate ethnic and religious groups.
Jafari has become a polarizing figure whose determination to hang on to the Shiite bloc's nomination despite equally stubborn opposition has frozen the process of finding a powersharing formula and thereby improving conditions for eventual U.S. troop withdrawal.
The political paralysis has contributed to the explosion of street fighting in the last few weeks, notably a killing spree between Shiite and Sunni Muslim militias and gangs.
But Jafari's resistance to stepping aside cracked Thursday. In a statement, followed several hours later by a rambling, nationally televised speech, he asked the umbrella of Shiite parties that emerged from December's elections as the country's dominant political force to reconsider his candidacy.
Jafari promised to "not be an obstacle" if the Shiite bloc no longer wanted him as its candidate.
The coalition immediately seized upon his offer to announce that it would hold a vote on his candidacy today, and find an alternative if he was not reconfirmed.
"Jafari has left the decision about his candidacy with the alliance, which means he is no longer insisting on the post," Jawad Maliki, a senior member of Jafari's Islamic Dawa Party, said at a news conference in Baghdad after reading the prime minister's statement. "Now it will be the alliance which will decide."
Jafari had faced concerted resistance from minority Kurds and Sunni Arabs from the start of his candidacy, which he won in February by one vote from the 130-member nominating forum. More recently, he resisted back-room nudges from U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and impatience with political stalemate expressed by President Bush.
But Jafari apparently relented after members of his coalition and other prominent Shiites began breaking ranks, among them Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the nation's leading Shiite cleric.
Critics alternately accuse Jafari of being too weak and too sectarian as prime minister. He angered Kurds by excluding them from sensitive discussions with neighboring Turkey on Kurdish affairs. And Sunnis blamed him for failing to curb the rising number of Shiite attacks on Sunni targets and for extrajudicial killings by members of the Interior Ministry's Shiite-dominated police forces.
But until Thursday, Jafari had resisted all entreaties to withdraw his name. In his televised address, he scolded other politicians who criticized him in the media but who complimented him in private for the job he was doing.
His surprise reversal came just hours before parliament was scheduled to meet for only the second time since Iraqis defied insurgents and participated in the December balloting. Dawa members said Jafari bent to pressure from within the party, which feared that standing by him in the face of the fierce opposition could ultimately cost the party its claim to the post.
Jafari's offer of a revote on his candidacy offered the prospect a 4-month-long dispute over the prime minister's post could be resolved as soon as Saturday, when parliament is again scheduled to try to convene a session.
"Hopefully, we will have news that will make everyone happy on Saturday," said Jalal Talabani, Iraq's interim president, who has been a key figure in trying to herd the feuding groups toward an agreement.
"Frankly speaking, we have agreed on basics," he said, promising a "friendly session" and the beginnings of a national unity government. "What is left is to put the final touches."
Most observers suggested that the alternative to Jafari, if he were rejected by the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, would come from within the top ranks of his Dawa Party, with expectations generally pointing to either Maliki or Ali Adib. Both spent years in exile after then-President Saddam Hussein began a purge of Dawa members in the early 1980s. Neither carries great clout among ordinary Iraqis.
But though neither man would represent a move away from Dawa's hostility toward the U.S. military presence and Washington's wariness of Iranian influence in Iraq, many say new leadership might be acceptable to Sunni and Shiite parties simply because it was not Jafari.
"Jafari has been given a try and proved he is incapable of handling the security, economy and utilities files," said Hussein Faluji, a Sunni lawmaker. "We think these [issues] should be handled by someone more efficient."
Some, however, suggested that Jafari's move was a risky feint to force the Shiite bloc to reaffirm their support for his candidacy and reassert a message that it is the majority faction and won't be dictated to by Sunni Arabs, Kurds or Americans.
"His chances of becoming prime minister have increased now," said Kamal Saadi, a Dawa Party lawmaker. "Because of what he's done, we insist on Jafari more than we did before."
But the depth of that sentiment is questionable. Head-butting over Jafari's nomination has given Iraqis a glimpse of their anarchic future unless they form an effective government.
The power vacuum has been filled by internecine struggles among insurgents, local militias, criminal gangs and death squads, which have stoked sectarian differences and pushed the country toward civil war.
"There was pressure from the Iraqi street, which is suffering," said Abdul-Khaleq Zangana, a leading Kurdish lawmaker. "We politicians are shouldering the responsibility for people's agony. We should regain the trust of our people."
But resolving the matter of who will be prime minister is just one step in forming a government. Once that post is settled, the parliament has 30 days to agree on ministry appointments. To skeptical Iraqis, that promises more squabbling before a new government is able to turn its attention to asserting control over the country, more than three years after U.S. forces toppled Hussein.
Adnan Dulaimi, the Sunni leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said he was optimistic that resolving the dispute over Jafari would lead swiftly to a wider power-sharing deal.
"What happened today will hasten solving the problem of forming a national unity government," he said Thursday as he left the Baghdad convention center where many had gathered in anticipation of a parliament meeting. "The games are over."
Times staff writers Louise Roug, Salar Jaff and Saif Hameed contributed to this report.
Court Lets Schools Ban Inflammatory T-Shirts
A federal appeals panel rules that an anti-gay slogan sported by a San Diego-area high school student interfered with others' right to learn.
By Henry Weinstein
Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006
Schools in the Western United States can forbid a high school student to wear a T-shirt with a slogan that denigrates gay and lesbian students, a sharply divided federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Thursday.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that a T-shirt that proclaimed "Be ashamed, our school embraced what God has condemned" on the front and "Homosexuality is shameful" on the back was "injurious to gay and lesbian students and interfered with their right to learn." Wearing such a T-shirt can be barred on a public high school campus without violating the 1st Amendment, the court said.
In numerous instances, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that Americans must tolerate offensive speech, including permitting marches by Nazis through a community with a substantial Jewish population. However, the majority ruled in this instance that some limitations were permissible in a public secondary school setting.
The court concluded that San Diego-area high school student Tyler Harper's donning of the T-shirt "collides with the rights of other students in the most fundamental way," wrote 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
"Public school students who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses," Reinhardt said. "Being secure involves not only the freedom from physical assaults but from psychological attacks that cause young people to question their self-worth and their rightful place in society."
Judge Alex Kozinski issued a strong dissent. "While I find this a difficult and troubling case," the Poway Unified School District has "offered no lawful justification for banning Harper's T-shirt."
There was no evidence that gay students were harmed by derogatory messages of the type conveyed on Harper's T-shirt, Kozinski said.
Moreover, Kozinski, an appointee of former President Reagan, said there was no indication that a discussion that Harper had with other students about the T-shirt "turned violent or disrupted school activities."
In fact, Kozinski said, "while words were exchanged, the students managed the situation well and without intervention from the school authorities. No doubt, everyone learned an important civics lesson about dealing with others who hold sharply divergent views."
Thursday's ruling comes amid a growing campaign across the country to force public schools, state universities and private companies to annul policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. Plaintiffs in several lawsuits are seeking to knock out tolerance programs on the grounds that they violate their religious beliefs, which condemn homosexuality.
The sharply clashing views of Reinhardt and Kozinski, who usually agree on free speech cases, reflects that the case poses "an enormously difficult issue — the tension between schools wanting to create a more tolerant learning environment and the important value of protecting the free speech of students," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law professor at Duke University in North Carolina. He said that in recent years appellate courts had overwhelmingly sided with school officials who had restricted the speech of high school students.
But UCLA constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh said he found the majority opinion "very troubling…. This is very much contrary to basic principles that the 1st Amendment is viewpoint neutral. It protects hostile viewpoints as well as tolerant ones," Volokh said. He predicted that the issue would reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 9th Circuit decision stemmed from an incident in April 2004, when Harper, then a sophomore at Poway High School, wore the T-shirt to protest a Day of Silence at the campus intended, in the words of a school official, to "teach tolerance of others, particularly those of a different sexual orientation."
A teacher at the school told Harper that he believed the shirt was inflammatory, violated the school's dress code and "created a negative and hostile working environment for others." When Harper refused to remove the shirt and asked to speak to a school administrator, the teacher gave him a dress-code violation card to take to the front office.
After meeting with Harper, school Principal Scott Fisher said Harper could not wear the shirt on campus but declined to suspend him as Harper requested. Rather, Fisher required Harper to stay in the school's front office the remainder of day. He was not disciplined in any other way.
About six weeks later, Harper, represented by two Christian-oriented legal organizations, sued the school district, contending that both his right to free speech and freedom of religion had been violated. Harper asserted that wearing the T-shirt was "motivated by sincerely held religious beliefs" regarding homosexuality and that the school "punished" him for expressing them. He also said the school had "attempted to change" his religious views.
U.S. District Judge John Houston in San Diego ruled that Harper was not entitled to a preliminary injunction barring the district from enforcing its dress code. The 9th Circuit majority upheld Houston and rejected all of Harper's arguments. The panel has jurisdiction over federal appeals in California and eight other Western states.
At this stage, the 9th Circuit was reviewing Houston's ruling on the preliminary injunction. He is still considering Harper's larger constitutional challenge. However, Thursday's ruling will shape the rest of the case in a profound way.
Both Reinhardt, an appointee of former President Carter, and Judge Sidney R. Thomas, a Clinton appointee who joined the majority opinion, are strong supporters of the 1st Amendment. Their opinion emphasized that it was limited to high schools and elementary schools, and that the T-shirt would be permissible on a college campus.
The majority cautioned that "it is essential that students have the opportunity to engage in full and open political expression" and that "limitations on student speech must be narrow…. Accordingly, we limit our holding to instances of derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion and sexual orientation."
The ruling came just a few days before Poway High is scheduled to have its next Day of Silence, which will be followed by a Day of Truth. Harper's photograph appears on the Day of Truth website, which says the day was "established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective."
The website encourages students to wear Day of Truth T-shirts and to hand out cards (not during class time) saying, among other things, that "Silence isn't freedom. It's a constraint. Truth tolerates open discussion, because the truth emerges when healthy discourse is allowed."
Harper is now a senior at Poway High and will be heading off to college in the fall.
Both his lawyer, Robert Tyler, and an attorney for the school district, Jack M. Sleeth, said Harper was an excellent student and had no disciplinary record.
Sleeth said the case clearly had broad ramifications. "This is not just about Poway; it is about the rights of various people, including gay students in schools everywhere and students with religious opinions," he said.
Tyler, general counsel of Advocates for Faith and Freedom, said he was disappointed with the majority ruling and had not decided whether to appeal.
Even in the midst of his blistering dissent, Kozinski acknowledged that he had sympathy for the position of Poway officials "that students in school are a captive audience and should not be forced to endure speech that they find offensive and demeaning."
"There is surely something to the notion that a Jewish student might not be able to devote his full attention to school activities if the fellow in the seat next to him is wearing a T-shirt with the message 'Hitler Had the Right Idea' in front and 'Let's Finish the Job!' on the back," Kozinski said.
"This T-shirt may well interfere with the educational experience even if the two students never come to blows or even have words about it."
Nonetheless, Kozinski chided the majority for concluding that it was permissible to suppress points of view while extolling the virtues of tolerance. "One man's civic responsibility," he wrote, "is another man's thought control."
A federal appeals panel rules that an anti-gay slogan sported by a San Diego-area high school student interfered with others' right to learn.
By Henry Weinstein
Times Staff Writer
April 21, 2006
Schools in the Western United States can forbid a high school student to wear a T-shirt with a slogan that denigrates gay and lesbian students, a sharply divided federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Thursday.
In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that a T-shirt that proclaimed "Be ashamed, our school embraced what God has condemned" on the front and "Homosexuality is shameful" on the back was "injurious to gay and lesbian students and interfered with their right to learn." Wearing such a T-shirt can be barred on a public high school campus without violating the 1st Amendment, the court said.
In numerous instances, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that Americans must tolerate offensive speech, including permitting marches by Nazis through a community with a substantial Jewish population. However, the majority ruled in this instance that some limitations were permissible in a public secondary school setting.
The court concluded that San Diego-area high school student Tyler Harper's donning of the T-shirt "collides with the rights of other students in the most fundamental way," wrote 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
"Public school students who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses," Reinhardt said. "Being secure involves not only the freedom from physical assaults but from psychological attacks that cause young people to question their self-worth and their rightful place in society."
Judge Alex Kozinski issued a strong dissent. "While I find this a difficult and troubling case," the Poway Unified School District has "offered no lawful justification for banning Harper's T-shirt."
There was no evidence that gay students were harmed by derogatory messages of the type conveyed on Harper's T-shirt, Kozinski said.
Moreover, Kozinski, an appointee of former President Reagan, said there was no indication that a discussion that Harper had with other students about the T-shirt "turned violent or disrupted school activities."
In fact, Kozinski said, "while words were exchanged, the students managed the situation well and without intervention from the school authorities. No doubt, everyone learned an important civics lesson about dealing with others who hold sharply divergent views."
Thursday's ruling comes amid a growing campaign across the country to force public schools, state universities and private companies to annul policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. Plaintiffs in several lawsuits are seeking to knock out tolerance programs on the grounds that they violate their religious beliefs, which condemn homosexuality.
The sharply clashing views of Reinhardt and Kozinski, who usually agree on free speech cases, reflects that the case poses "an enormously difficult issue — the tension between schools wanting to create a more tolerant learning environment and the important value of protecting the free speech of students," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law professor at Duke University in North Carolina. He said that in recent years appellate courts had overwhelmingly sided with school officials who had restricted the speech of high school students.
But UCLA constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh said he found the majority opinion "very troubling…. This is very much contrary to basic principles that the 1st Amendment is viewpoint neutral. It protects hostile viewpoints as well as tolerant ones," Volokh said. He predicted that the issue would reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 9th Circuit decision stemmed from an incident in April 2004, when Harper, then a sophomore at Poway High School, wore the T-shirt to protest a Day of Silence at the campus intended, in the words of a school official, to "teach tolerance of others, particularly those of a different sexual orientation."
A teacher at the school told Harper that he believed the shirt was inflammatory, violated the school's dress code and "created a negative and hostile working environment for others." When Harper refused to remove the shirt and asked to speak to a school administrator, the teacher gave him a dress-code violation card to take to the front office.
After meeting with Harper, school Principal Scott Fisher said Harper could not wear the shirt on campus but declined to suspend him as Harper requested. Rather, Fisher required Harper to stay in the school's front office the remainder of day. He was not disciplined in any other way.
About six weeks later, Harper, represented by two Christian-oriented legal organizations, sued the school district, contending that both his right to free speech and freedom of religion had been violated. Harper asserted that wearing the T-shirt was "motivated by sincerely held religious beliefs" regarding homosexuality and that the school "punished" him for expressing them. He also said the school had "attempted to change" his religious views.
U.S. District Judge John Houston in San Diego ruled that Harper was not entitled to a preliminary injunction barring the district from enforcing its dress code. The 9th Circuit majority upheld Houston and rejected all of Harper's arguments. The panel has jurisdiction over federal appeals in California and eight other Western states.
At this stage, the 9th Circuit was reviewing Houston's ruling on the preliminary injunction. He is still considering Harper's larger constitutional challenge. However, Thursday's ruling will shape the rest of the case in a profound way.
Both Reinhardt, an appointee of former President Carter, and Judge Sidney R. Thomas, a Clinton appointee who joined the majority opinion, are strong supporters of the 1st Amendment. Their opinion emphasized that it was limited to high schools and elementary schools, and that the T-shirt would be permissible on a college campus.
The majority cautioned that "it is essential that students have the opportunity to engage in full and open political expression" and that "limitations on student speech must be narrow…. Accordingly, we limit our holding to instances of derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion and sexual orientation."
The ruling came just a few days before Poway High is scheduled to have its next Day of Silence, which will be followed by a Day of Truth. Harper's photograph appears on the Day of Truth website, which says the day was "established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective."
The website encourages students to wear Day of Truth T-shirts and to hand out cards (not during class time) saying, among other things, that "Silence isn't freedom. It's a constraint. Truth tolerates open discussion, because the truth emerges when healthy discourse is allowed."
Harper is now a senior at Poway High and will be heading off to college in the fall.
Both his lawyer, Robert Tyler, and an attorney for the school district, Jack M. Sleeth, said Harper was an excellent student and had no disciplinary record.
Sleeth said the case clearly had broad ramifications. "This is not just about Poway; it is about the rights of various people, including gay students in schools everywhere and students with religious opinions," he said.
Tyler, general counsel of Advocates for Faith and Freedom, said he was disappointed with the majority ruling and had not decided whether to appeal.
Even in the midst of his blistering dissent, Kozinski acknowledged that he had sympathy for the position of Poway officials "that students in school are a captive audience and should not be forced to endure speech that they find offensive and demeaning."
"There is surely something to the notion that a Jewish student might not be able to devote his full attention to school activities if the fellow in the seat next to him is wearing a T-shirt with the message 'Hitler Had the Right Idea' in front and 'Let's Finish the Job!' on the back," Kozinski said.
"This T-shirt may well interfere with the educational experience even if the two students never come to blows or even have words about it."
Nonetheless, Kozinski chided the majority for concluding that it was permissible to suppress points of view while extolling the virtues of tolerance. "One man's civic responsibility," he wrote, "is another man's thought control."
Envoys Remain Split On Plan Against Iran
Degree of Sanctions by U.N. at Issue
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A19
MOSCOW, April 19 -- Senior diplomats from the U.N. Security Council's five permanent members ended two days of talks about Iran's nuclear program Wednesday with consensus for action against the Islamic state, but they continued to be divided as to what form it should take, U.S. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said.
"Nearly every country is considering some form of sanctions, and this is a new development," Burns told reporters after the meeting. "Every country said that some type of action had to be taken . . . to, in effect, erect a barrier to Iran's progress. So the challenge for us will be what can we all agree on."
For weeks, the United States, Britain and France have been pressing for tough steps against Iran, while Russia and China have argued that a hard line might backfire. All have expressed public concern over Iran's program.
"All participants in the meeting agreed that urgent and constructive steps are demanded of Iran," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran was pursuing the enrichment of uranium on an industrial scale, which could allow it to accelerate the development of nuclear weapons.
That and recent statements by other Iranian officials that they would expand their experimental nuclear work has led to "a greater sense of urgency" among the major powers about Iran's ambitions, Burns said. "What I heard in the room last night was not agreement on the specifics but to the general notion that Iran has to feel isolation and that there is a cost to what they are doing," he said.
In late March, the U.N. Security Council gave Iran a month to stop enrichment and answer questions from the U.N. nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran says that its program is peaceful and only for the generation of electricity.
The United States has asked the Security Council to invoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which allows the world body to decide on measures, including the use of force, "to maintain or restore international peace and security."
Russia spoke against the use of Chapter 7 at the meetings, fearing it would almost certainly lead to military action, according to a source familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But Russia said it would be willing to discuss other punitive options after the IAEA issues a report on Iran's response to the Security Council statement, the source said. "We are convinced of the need to wait for the IAEA report due at the end of the month," Lavrov told reporters.
The source also said that Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, who attended the session, was critical of Iran and had delivered a "tough message" privately to the Iranians during a stopover in Tehran before the Moscow meeting.
The diplomats discussed the pros and cons of a number of options in detail, Burns said. The United Nations, for instance, could decide to impose sanctions without invoking Chapter 7, and individual countries could also impose sanctions. The United States has had sanctions against Iran for more than 25 years.
Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said last week that the E.U. was considering targeted sanctions, but he added that "any military action is absolutely [off] the table for us."
An Iranian delegation arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials and, separately, with diplomats from Britain, France and Germany.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Burns also said that Washington wanted to include the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Georgia and Moldova on the agenda when leaders of the Group of Eight industrial countries meet in Russia later this year.
The United States is at odds with Russian policy toward the countries, which Moscow considers to be part of its natural sphere of influence.
Degree of Sanctions by U.N. at Issue
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A19
MOSCOW, April 19 -- Senior diplomats from the U.N. Security Council's five permanent members ended two days of talks about Iran's nuclear program Wednesday with consensus for action against the Islamic state, but they continued to be divided as to what form it should take, U.S. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said.
"Nearly every country is considering some form of sanctions, and this is a new development," Burns told reporters after the meeting. "Every country said that some type of action had to be taken . . . to, in effect, erect a barrier to Iran's progress. So the challenge for us will be what can we all agree on."
For weeks, the United States, Britain and France have been pressing for tough steps against Iran, while Russia and China have argued that a hard line might backfire. All have expressed public concern over Iran's program.
"All participants in the meeting agreed that urgent and constructive steps are demanded of Iran," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran was pursuing the enrichment of uranium on an industrial scale, which could allow it to accelerate the development of nuclear weapons.
That and recent statements by other Iranian officials that they would expand their experimental nuclear work has led to "a greater sense of urgency" among the major powers about Iran's ambitions, Burns said. "What I heard in the room last night was not agreement on the specifics but to the general notion that Iran has to feel isolation and that there is a cost to what they are doing," he said.
In late March, the U.N. Security Council gave Iran a month to stop enrichment and answer questions from the U.N. nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran says that its program is peaceful and only for the generation of electricity.
The United States has asked the Security Council to invoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which allows the world body to decide on measures, including the use of force, "to maintain or restore international peace and security."
Russia spoke against the use of Chapter 7 at the meetings, fearing it would almost certainly lead to military action, according to a source familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But Russia said it would be willing to discuss other punitive options after the IAEA issues a report on Iran's response to the Security Council statement, the source said. "We are convinced of the need to wait for the IAEA report due at the end of the month," Lavrov told reporters.
The source also said that Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, who attended the session, was critical of Iran and had delivered a "tough message" privately to the Iranians during a stopover in Tehran before the Moscow meeting.
The diplomats discussed the pros and cons of a number of options in detail, Burns said. The United Nations, for instance, could decide to impose sanctions without invoking Chapter 7, and individual countries could also impose sanctions. The United States has had sanctions against Iran for more than 25 years.
Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said last week that the E.U. was considering targeted sanctions, but he added that "any military action is absolutely [off] the table for us."
An Iranian delegation arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials and, separately, with diplomats from Britain, France and Germany.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Burns also said that Washington wanted to include the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Georgia and Moldova on the agenda when leaders of the Group of Eight industrial countries meet in Russia later this year.
The United States is at odds with Russian policy toward the countries, which Moscow considers to be part of its natural sphere of influence.
Blood on the streets as Kathmandu explodes
By Thomas Bell in Kathmandu
(Filed: 21/04/2006)
King Gyanendra of Nepal faced the greatest challenge to his rule so far yesterday as tens of thousands of protesters marched on his capital and at least three were killed by police.
Anti-monarchist demonstrators defied a curfew to advance on Kathmandu from outlying villages only to be met first by tear gas, then rubber bullets and finally live ammunition.
According to human rights monitors and witnesses, one victim was shot dead by a senior policeman execution-style with a pistol at close range.
A local television station showed graphic photographs of a police officer brandishing a weapon at the camera and then a civilian lying dead on the ground.
In a separate incident security forces opened fire on protesters in the south-western town of Gulariya. The ministry of defence said 26 people were injured.
Yesterday was the 15th day of protests called by the opposition aimed at forcing the king to reverse an army-backed coup in which he seized power at the beginning of last year.
The worst violence in the capital occurred at Kalanki, where a huge crowd from neighbouring villages attempted to enter the city despite the curfew.
One of the march's organisers, Harihar Lamichane, said the shooting began after police charged the crowd. "We were running and we were shot," he said.
"One woman was so badly beaten her back was broken," he added. He saw another man with a bullet wound in his chest "as big as a hand". Meanwhile, helicopters circled overhead.
"It was a chaotic and violent scene," said Brian Sokol, an American photographer. "The use of live rounds didn't seem justified. The police didn't seem in much danger."
Journalists received frantic calls from protesters seeking help in evacuating the wounded because ambulances were initially unable to reach the scene.
Hospital sources confirmed that three people were dead and 12 were in a critical condition, while more than 100 were injured in violence across the city.
Soldiers later removed the bodies from the hospital to perform their own post mortem examinations without the consent of relatives.
A common practice in Nepal when government forces shoot civilians, it is distressing for Hindu families because bodies are traditionally cremated on the day they die.
The protests at Kalanki were only one of several clashes around the edges of the city as protesters tried to break curfew orders by entering the centre.
The curfew was tightly enforced and several foreign journalists were escorted to their hotels by the police.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal also said it had been prevented from monitoring events.
Foreign embassies were told that only ambassadors under police escort would be allowed to venture out. The centre of Kathmandu, a city of 1.5 million people, was deserted except for police and troops on patrol.
There were, however, signs of a breakthrough in the political stand-off late last night, with the king said to be ready to make concessions.
"I am hopeful that very shortly some sort of announcement will be made by him which will help considerably defuse the situation," Karan Singh, India's special envoy, said in New Delhi on his return from Kathmandu and an audience with the monarch.
"Now the ball is squarely in the court of the king."
Many were convinced the king had met Nepal's chief justice, possibly with a view to reinstating the dissolved parliament, a key opposition demand.
A decade-long Maoist rebellion in the countryside is largely responsible for bringing the country to crisis point.
The parties said a similar attempt to march into the city would be made today.
By Thomas Bell in Kathmandu
(Filed: 21/04/2006)
King Gyanendra of Nepal faced the greatest challenge to his rule so far yesterday as tens of thousands of protesters marched on his capital and at least three were killed by police.
Anti-monarchist demonstrators defied a curfew to advance on Kathmandu from outlying villages only to be met first by tear gas, then rubber bullets and finally live ammunition.
According to human rights monitors and witnesses, one victim was shot dead by a senior policeman execution-style with a pistol at close range.
A local television station showed graphic photographs of a police officer brandishing a weapon at the camera and then a civilian lying dead on the ground.
In a separate incident security forces opened fire on protesters in the south-western town of Gulariya. The ministry of defence said 26 people were injured.
Yesterday was the 15th day of protests called by the opposition aimed at forcing the king to reverse an army-backed coup in which he seized power at the beginning of last year.
The worst violence in the capital occurred at Kalanki, where a huge crowd from neighbouring villages attempted to enter the city despite the curfew.
One of the march's organisers, Harihar Lamichane, said the shooting began after police charged the crowd. "We were running and we were shot," he said.
"One woman was so badly beaten her back was broken," he added. He saw another man with a bullet wound in his chest "as big as a hand". Meanwhile, helicopters circled overhead.
"It was a chaotic and violent scene," said Brian Sokol, an American photographer. "The use of live rounds didn't seem justified. The police didn't seem in much danger."
Journalists received frantic calls from protesters seeking help in evacuating the wounded because ambulances were initially unable to reach the scene.
Hospital sources confirmed that three people were dead and 12 were in a critical condition, while more than 100 were injured in violence across the city.
Soldiers later removed the bodies from the hospital to perform their own post mortem examinations without the consent of relatives.
A common practice in Nepal when government forces shoot civilians, it is distressing for Hindu families because bodies are traditionally cremated on the day they die.
The protests at Kalanki were only one of several clashes around the edges of the city as protesters tried to break curfew orders by entering the centre.
The curfew was tightly enforced and several foreign journalists were escorted to their hotels by the police.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal also said it had been prevented from monitoring events.
Foreign embassies were told that only ambassadors under police escort would be allowed to venture out. The centre of Kathmandu, a city of 1.5 million people, was deserted except for police and troops on patrol.
There were, however, signs of a breakthrough in the political stand-off late last night, with the king said to be ready to make concessions.
"I am hopeful that very shortly some sort of announcement will be made by him which will help considerably defuse the situation," Karan Singh, India's special envoy, said in New Delhi on his return from Kathmandu and an audience with the monarch.
"Now the ball is squarely in the court of the king."
Many were convinced the king had met Nepal's chief justice, possibly with a view to reinstating the dissolved parliament, a key opposition demand.
A decade-long Maoist rebellion in the countryside is largely responsible for bringing the country to crisis point.
The parties said a similar attempt to march into the city would be made today.
The day terror came to land of Shangri-la
By Thomas Bell
(Filed: 21/04/2006)
Early in the day it was still possible to appreciate Kathmandu's beauty.
The white peaks of the Himalayas stood out clearly across the horizon. An all-day curfew in the heart of the city meant the usually dense traffic fumes were absent.
There were reminders of what the tourists once came for. Near the Buddhist shrine of Swayambu a troop of monkeys loitered on the road.
At the riverside temple complex of Pashupathinath, where spires and finials mingle with the trees of a sacred grove, the smoke of funeral pyres rose into the air. The rituals of death may have continued, but normal life was put on hold.
In the late morning alleys began to fill with tear gas and the black smoke of burning tyres. In the suburb of Gangabu police and demonstrators fought running battles.
The demonstrators threw bricks and the police threw them back. The police fired tear gas, and demonstrators picked up the hot canisters, fizzing with white smoke, and threw them.
Residents cheered and clapped when a demonstrator hurled the gas back at the police and shouted encouragement when the flighty crowd sometimes turned and ran.
But the police sometimes did charge, breaking the windows of houses that supported the mob.
At a community hospital broken glass lay on the floor where a brick, apparently thrown by the police, had entered.
Bloody instruments, dirty swabs and surgical thread littered every surface.
Shiva Hari, 30, had the small marks on his face and arm where rubber-coated shot from a police shotgun hit him earlier in the protests. Mr Hari makes his living selling pashmina shawls to tourists.
"For many years now my business has been going down because tourists are not coming," he said.
A country once regarded as a hippy "Shangri-la", which relies on tourism for valuable foreign exchange, is now seen as off limits by all but the most intrepid travellers.
"As a Nepalese citizen, and as a businessman too, we need peace and harmony to develop the country," said Mr Hari.
"The people want peace but the government doesn't want peace. If there is no peace, the tourists won't come."
By Thomas Bell
(Filed: 21/04/2006)
Early in the day it was still possible to appreciate Kathmandu's beauty.
The white peaks of the Himalayas stood out clearly across the horizon. An all-day curfew in the heart of the city meant the usually dense traffic fumes were absent.
There were reminders of what the tourists once came for. Near the Buddhist shrine of Swayambu a troop of monkeys loitered on the road.
At the riverside temple complex of Pashupathinath, where spires and finials mingle with the trees of a sacred grove, the smoke of funeral pyres rose into the air. The rituals of death may have continued, but normal life was put on hold.
In the late morning alleys began to fill with tear gas and the black smoke of burning tyres. In the suburb of Gangabu police and demonstrators fought running battles.
The demonstrators threw bricks and the police threw them back. The police fired tear gas, and demonstrators picked up the hot canisters, fizzing with white smoke, and threw them.
Residents cheered and clapped when a demonstrator hurled the gas back at the police and shouted encouragement when the flighty crowd sometimes turned and ran.
But the police sometimes did charge, breaking the windows of houses that supported the mob.
At a community hospital broken glass lay on the floor where a brick, apparently thrown by the police, had entered.
Bloody instruments, dirty swabs and surgical thread littered every surface.
Shiva Hari, 30, had the small marks on his face and arm where rubber-coated shot from a police shotgun hit him earlier in the protests. Mr Hari makes his living selling pashmina shawls to tourists.
"For many years now my business has been going down because tourists are not coming," he said.
A country once regarded as a hippy "Shangri-la", which relies on tourism for valuable foreign exchange, is now seen as off limits by all but the most intrepid travellers.
"As a Nepalese citizen, and as a businessman too, we need peace and harmony to develop the country," said Mr Hari.
"The people want peace but the government doesn't want peace. If there is no peace, the tourists won't come."
Bush warns China to avoid clash over future of Taiwan
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 21/04/2006)
America and China yesterday exchanged barely veiled threats on the future of Taiwan, as President George W Bush welcomed China's leader Hu Jintao to the White House.
Greeting the first Chinese leader to come to Washington for nine years, Mr Bush laid out the red carpet, complete with a 21-gun salute.
But within minutes, the issues dividing the two nations became starkly apparent as Mr Bush pointedly referred to the Taiwan Relations Act, legislation which commits America to aid Taiwan against Chinese attack.
Casting aside the usually innocuous sentiments reserved for visiting foreign leaders, Mr Bush said the two countries must be candid. "We oppose unilateral changes in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by either side, and we urge all parties to avoid confrontational or provocative acts," he said.
The American military has noted with concern the deployment of 700 short-range Chinese missiles close to Taiwan and of cruise missile technology which could be used against the US navy's carrier task groups.
Minutes after the Chinese president's arrival, it was announced without comment that the Americans had approved the sale of improved radars for Taiwan's fleet of US-built F-16 combat aircraft.
President Hu responded with a prepared statement in which he acknowledged the deep differences over Taiwan's future.
"Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. We will continue to make every effort and endeavour with every sincerity to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification of the two sides across the Taiwan Strait," he said.
"However, we will never allow anyone to make Taiwan secede from China by any means."
China has regarded the island as a renegade province since 1949 and demands reunification. It says it would regard any move by Taiwan to declare independence formally as a cause for war.
America too opposes Taiwanese independence. But Mr Bush has stated more explicitly than any of his predecessors that he was willing to confront China in any invasion of Taiwan. "Our nation will help Taiwan defend itself," he said in 2001.
Mr Bush and Mr Hu agreed yesterday that Taiwan should remain in international limbo, but could not agree what would happen if the island tried to alter its status. It was one of a number of disputes where no progress appeared to have been made at yesterday's talks.
Although the Chinese offered some movement over irritants in their critically important trading relationship, there was no sign of progress on security issues such as the suspected attempt by Iran and North Korea to acquire nuclear weaponry.
Although trade has grown to once-unimaginable levels, Washington feels that Beijing is enjoying the economic benefits of globalisation without defusing explosive international threats.
Mr Bush focused on North Korea, the impoverished and erratic Stalinist state highly dependent on Beijing's goodwill yet seeking nuclear weapons, but he suggested that little progress had been made. At one point Mr Hu was asked when China would become a democracy with free elections. "I don't know," he said. "What do you mean by a democracy?"
The only unscripted moment came when a Chinese woman screamed at Mr Hu from a camera stand overlooking the White House lawn where the leaders met. "President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong [a persecuted Chinese sect]," she shouted before being hustled away.
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 21/04/2006)
America and China yesterday exchanged barely veiled threats on the future of Taiwan, as President George W Bush welcomed China's leader Hu Jintao to the White House.
Greeting the first Chinese leader to come to Washington for nine years, Mr Bush laid out the red carpet, complete with a 21-gun salute.
But within minutes, the issues dividing the two nations became starkly apparent as Mr Bush pointedly referred to the Taiwan Relations Act, legislation which commits America to aid Taiwan against Chinese attack.
Casting aside the usually innocuous sentiments reserved for visiting foreign leaders, Mr Bush said the two countries must be candid. "We oppose unilateral changes in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by either side, and we urge all parties to avoid confrontational or provocative acts," he said.
The American military has noted with concern the deployment of 700 short-range Chinese missiles close to Taiwan and of cruise missile technology which could be used against the US navy's carrier task groups.
Minutes after the Chinese president's arrival, it was announced without comment that the Americans had approved the sale of improved radars for Taiwan's fleet of US-built F-16 combat aircraft.
President Hu responded with a prepared statement in which he acknowledged the deep differences over Taiwan's future.
"Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. We will continue to make every effort and endeavour with every sincerity to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification of the two sides across the Taiwan Strait," he said.
"However, we will never allow anyone to make Taiwan secede from China by any means."
China has regarded the island as a renegade province since 1949 and demands reunification. It says it would regard any move by Taiwan to declare independence formally as a cause for war.
America too opposes Taiwanese independence. But Mr Bush has stated more explicitly than any of his predecessors that he was willing to confront China in any invasion of Taiwan. "Our nation will help Taiwan defend itself," he said in 2001.
Mr Bush and Mr Hu agreed yesterday that Taiwan should remain in international limbo, but could not agree what would happen if the island tried to alter its status. It was one of a number of disputes where no progress appeared to have been made at yesterday's talks.
Although the Chinese offered some movement over irritants in their critically important trading relationship, there was no sign of progress on security issues such as the suspected attempt by Iran and North Korea to acquire nuclear weaponry.
Although trade has grown to once-unimaginable levels, Washington feels that Beijing is enjoying the economic benefits of globalisation without defusing explosive international threats.
Mr Bush focused on North Korea, the impoverished and erratic Stalinist state highly dependent on Beijing's goodwill yet seeking nuclear weapons, but he suggested that little progress had been made. At one point Mr Hu was asked when China would become a democracy with free elections. "I don't know," he said. "What do you mean by a democracy?"
The only unscripted moment came when a Chinese woman screamed at Mr Hu from a camera stand overlooking the White House lawn where the leaders met. "President Hu, your days are numbered. President Bush, make him stop persecuting Falun Gong [a persecuted Chinese sect]," she shouted before being hustled away.
Goldman in new AB Ports approach
By Alistair Osborne, Business Editor (Filed: 21/04/2006)
A Goldman Sachs-led consortium has made a fresh approach to buy Associated British Ports, raising its proposed offer to at least 775p per share.
The move comes despite the remarks from Goldman boss Hank Paulson earlier this week, telling the American investment bank's London office to refrain from using its own cash in bid situations that could be perceived as hostile.
Goldman's infrastructure fund has teamed up with Canadian rival Borealis and GIC Special Investments to bid for AB Ports and late last month had a 730p per share indicative offer swiftly rejected by the ports operator's board.
The renewed approach is pitched at less than £8 per share, but the consortium is thought to have added around 50p-a-share to its initial proposal, valuing the owner of 21 UK ports at no less than £2.34bn.
AB Ports shares rose 31½ to 731½p yesterday, and were up another 13½ to 745p this morning.
It is not clear whether the renewed approach includes AB Port's 9¾p final dividend, which has already been paid.
AB Ports, which is led by chief executive Bo Lerenius, is yet to respond to the higher approach, though analysts believe the board is unlikely to entertain any offers below £8 per share.
AB Ports' estate, which spans 13,000 acres, includes Southampton, Hull, Immingham and Port Talbot, which the board regards as a unique set of assets.
The mooted bid price would equate to a multiple of more than 25 times earnings on forecasts of about £140m profits this year, but analysts have stressed that any bidder would have to pay up for AP Ports' strong asset backing.
John Lawson, an analyst at Investec Securities, has pointed out that on a read through from smaller rival Forth Ports, which has a big land bank, AB Ports' port operations alone are worth £2.4bn.
Andrew Murphy, a Panmure analyst, has argued that if all of AB Ports' rental income could be treated for Reits [real estate investment trust] status, "the sum of the parts could go as high as 980p".
AB Ports is examining its Reits potential, though it is understood that neither the board nor its adviser, Deutsche Bank, believe that all its rental income could be treated in this way.
Analysts also pointed out that, after Mr Paulson's comments, Goldman would find it difficult to proceed unless the board perceived the renewed approach to be friendly.
Observers said it was hard to categorise the initial approach in such a way given how swiftly it was rejected by the AB Ports board.
While shareholders have been fully supportive of the board's stance so far, Mr Lerenius could come under pressure to raise the group's debt-to-equity ratio from the current 60pc.
However, raising it above 90pc could jeopardise the group's investment grade credit rating.
Mr Lerenius has also told shareholders that he expects faster profit growth over the coming years as four new Humber terminals begin operations.
None of the parties involved would comment.
By Alistair Osborne, Business Editor (Filed: 21/04/2006)
A Goldman Sachs-led consortium has made a fresh approach to buy Associated British Ports, raising its proposed offer to at least 775p per share.
The move comes despite the remarks from Goldman boss Hank Paulson earlier this week, telling the American investment bank's London office to refrain from using its own cash in bid situations that could be perceived as hostile.
Goldman's infrastructure fund has teamed up with Canadian rival Borealis and GIC Special Investments to bid for AB Ports and late last month had a 730p per share indicative offer swiftly rejected by the ports operator's board.
The renewed approach is pitched at less than £8 per share, but the consortium is thought to have added around 50p-a-share to its initial proposal, valuing the owner of 21 UK ports at no less than £2.34bn.
AB Ports shares rose 31½ to 731½p yesterday, and were up another 13½ to 745p this morning.
It is not clear whether the renewed approach includes AB Port's 9¾p final dividend, which has already been paid.
AB Ports, which is led by chief executive Bo Lerenius, is yet to respond to the higher approach, though analysts believe the board is unlikely to entertain any offers below £8 per share.
AB Ports' estate, which spans 13,000 acres, includes Southampton, Hull, Immingham and Port Talbot, which the board regards as a unique set of assets.
The mooted bid price would equate to a multiple of more than 25 times earnings on forecasts of about £140m profits this year, but analysts have stressed that any bidder would have to pay up for AP Ports' strong asset backing.
John Lawson, an analyst at Investec Securities, has pointed out that on a read through from smaller rival Forth Ports, which has a big land bank, AB Ports' port operations alone are worth £2.4bn.
Andrew Murphy, a Panmure analyst, has argued that if all of AB Ports' rental income could be treated for Reits [real estate investment trust] status, "the sum of the parts could go as high as 980p".
AB Ports is examining its Reits potential, though it is understood that neither the board nor its adviser, Deutsche Bank, believe that all its rental income could be treated in this way.
Analysts also pointed out that, after Mr Paulson's comments, Goldman would find it difficult to proceed unless the board perceived the renewed approach to be friendly.
Observers said it was hard to categorise the initial approach in such a way given how swiftly it was rejected by the AB Ports board.
While shareholders have been fully supportive of the board's stance so far, Mr Lerenius could come under pressure to raise the group's debt-to-equity ratio from the current 60pc.
However, raising it above 90pc could jeopardise the group's investment grade credit rating.
Mr Lerenius has also told shareholders that he expects faster profit growth over the coming years as four new Humber terminals begin operations.
None of the parties involved would comment.
In Russia, Corporate Thugs Use Legal Guise
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A01
MOSCOW -- The general director of the Na Ilyinke catering company was very much alive when his coffin arrived. "In memory of dear Alexei Alexeyevich Likhachev," read the message on a ribbon attached to an accompanying wreath. "We will never forget you."
The empty pine coffin, draped in red cloth, was delivered to the company's central Moscow office by a courier service. Soon the phones began to ring as shareholders, who had received telegrams inviting them to a memorial service, called about poor Alexei's unexpected passing.
For the owners of Na Ilyinke, the ghoulish stunt carried an unspoken message: Sell or else, according to Oleg Gubinsky, a shareholder and head of the company's legal team. "It was an opening move," Gubinsky said.
Na Ilyinke is the target of a new breed of Russian financial predator, one that hunts in lesser-known parts of the country's booming economy: small and medium-size companies. Often the goal is not the company itself, but the real estate it occupies, acquired in the privatizations of the early 1990s.
In those days, people wanting to take over a company often simply sent armed thugs to occupy it. The new raiders employ some of that old-style intimidation, but dress it up in legality by teaming with corrupt lawyers, accountants, judges, bureaucrats and police to exploit weaknesses in Russia's fledgling corporate legal system, Russian lawmakers and entrepreneurs say.
Typically the raiders are politically connected developers and their allies in the bureaucracy. Their activity is drawing attention at the highest levels of the government, where officials fear it undermines Russia's investment climate and adds to the sense that rule of law remains illusory in the country.
"Honest business people and property rights should be protected," President Vladimir Putin told an audience of prosecutors in February. He added that the criminal seizure of property was destabilizing the country.
In Soviet days, Na Ilyinke was the government-owned catering facility for the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party. Located in downtown Moscow, it was also a center of social life and shopping for the party elite. Its basement held a supermarket carrying such hard-to-find products as Coca-Cola; senior party officials held wakes and receptions on its premises, which at one point had a tunnel to the nearby headquarters of the KGB.
During the waning days of the Soviet Union, Likhachev ran the place as a government employee. After the collapse of the communist state, he and a team of investors bought it and turned it into a private company, a hand-over similar to other privatization deals that took place all over Russia in the 1990s.
Today, its staff of 60 continues to run cafeterias in government buildings, including the former party building across the street that became the office of the presidential administration.
Na Ilyinke's prime fixed asset is its 130,000-square-foot headquarters. Given its choice location, real estate experts estimate it would fetch at least $35 million as is, and much more if refurbished and converted into luxury offices or apartments.
Gubinsky said he had suspicions as to who the raiders were, but no proof. He believes that the real estate value is what drew their interest; he and the other owners foresee rehabbing the building themselves but think the timing isn't quite right.
The delivery of the coffin spooked Likhachev, an elderly man. He sold his shares to two colleagues, Gubinsky and Ilya Dyskin, who had the spirit to fight the raiders' next moves. One occurred at a private depository company, where Na Ilyinke stores its official documents that list its shareholders.
Last September, a Ukrainian citizen named Sergei Shevchuk came to the firm and presented a power of attorney document that indicated he had the legal right to manage the shares of Gubinsky and Dyskin.
Shevchuk then sold the shares, 58 percent of the company's total, to Tamara Tobiya, another Ukrainian. Three days later Tobiya sold them again, to a man named Evgen Halynski, who provided a Warwick, N.Y., address on official forms.
The Warwick address, it turns out, is a dry-cleaning shop. A person who answered the phone there said there was no one named Evgen Halynski living or working in the building. And no one responded to messages left at the Brooklyn, N.Y., address of a man by that name.
Both Shevchuk and Tobiya, who worked at a stall at an open-air market in Moscow, later vanished.
None of this was known at Na Ilyinke, Gubinsky said, until after a letter arrived from the depository last fall informing it of the company's new ownership structure. "It was like thunder from a blue sky," Gubinsky said.
The rightful shareholders quickly secured an investigation by the Federal Financial Markets Service. A report it issued last November documented the fraudulent sales and concluded that the power of attorney document that set them in motion had been forged. The agency suspended the transactions and, in January, revoked the license of the depository company, according to agency documents, on grounds it should have tried to ascertain that the power of attorney was real.
"We know about maybe 1,000 cases a year, but the real scale of these attacks is probably closer to 10,000 or 15,000," said Gennady Gudkov, head of a parliamentary working group examining the issue. "This problem is almost impossible to solve in a corrupt state."
"Big business can usually protect itself," said Yuri Glotser, head of the Federation for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights in Moscow. "Smaller businesses are much more vulnerable, and their property can be worth a lot of money."
In Na Ilyinke's case, the fraudulent share sale was just one element of the attack. Last year it also found itself fighting off three separate court orders. Each one followed a pattern: Legal papers would arrive at the company informing it that a judgment had been returned against it, in a proceeding that the company was entirely unaware of. The company then had to respond with its own attorneys.
One order was issued by a court in St. Petersburg and another by a court in Moscow, freezing the company's assets, Gubinsky said. The third originated in the city of Tuva, near the border with Mongolia. A court there ordered the company to vacate its Moscow building, saying it had been leased to a Tuva company. The person listed as the Tuva firm's director turned out to be a student at the local agricultural college.
Gubinsky estimates the company has spent $300,000 defending itself.
The multiple attacks in the courts are a pretext to establish some legal basis to send security guards to seize the building, Gubinsky said. If they successfully occupy the targeted property, the police typically tell the ejected party to go to court and fight it there.
As a defense, Na Ilyinke's building now resembles an armed camp. An alarm system at the front entrance can trigger the closing of steel doors that seal off all sections of the building. The rear entrance has a large steel gate and is surrounded by barbed wire.
"If you lose physical possession of your property, you are in serious trouble," Gubinsky said. "So far, we've kept them out."
Other owners wish they'd taken such precautions.
Near Moscow's Kiev railroad station, a group of prominent artists is battling in the courts to get back light-filled studios that were seized last April by private security guards after the ownership of the studios was re-registered in what the artists call a fraudulent transaction. The studios would fetch millions if converted to penthouse apartments.
"It was monstrous," said Lev Tabenkin, a painter who was forced out after the raiders persuaded a court to issue an eviction order. "I don't understand our system."
In January, Rinat Kudashev, general director of a former state institute that designs pipelines and other facilities for transporting oil and gas, was escorted out of his offices by about 30 private guards. The previous November, he said in an interview, one of the institute's minority shareholders called a meeting without the knowledge of Kudashev or the company's two majority shareholders and merged the business with another company. The original two companies were then liquidated.
Vitaly Semyonov, general director of a Moscow transportation company, said his company has been raided 31 times by different government agencies, the orchestrated prelude to a $10 million offer for a business that he values at $25 million. He rejected the offer, he said, not only because it was low, but because what the raiders really wanted was the land his business sits on -- and they intended to lay off his 1,000 workers. He remains ensnared in several court actions.
"In the '90s, your enemy operated openly and you knew how to defend yourself," Semyonov said. "I was shot by bandits who wanted our business, but we survived. Today I'm facing Oxford-educated lawyers."
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A01
MOSCOW -- The general director of the Na Ilyinke catering company was very much alive when his coffin arrived. "In memory of dear Alexei Alexeyevich Likhachev," read the message on a ribbon attached to an accompanying wreath. "We will never forget you."
The empty pine coffin, draped in red cloth, was delivered to the company's central Moscow office by a courier service. Soon the phones began to ring as shareholders, who had received telegrams inviting them to a memorial service, called about poor Alexei's unexpected passing.
For the owners of Na Ilyinke, the ghoulish stunt carried an unspoken message: Sell or else, according to Oleg Gubinsky, a shareholder and head of the company's legal team. "It was an opening move," Gubinsky said.
Na Ilyinke is the target of a new breed of Russian financial predator, one that hunts in lesser-known parts of the country's booming economy: small and medium-size companies. Often the goal is not the company itself, but the real estate it occupies, acquired in the privatizations of the early 1990s.
In those days, people wanting to take over a company often simply sent armed thugs to occupy it. The new raiders employ some of that old-style intimidation, but dress it up in legality by teaming with corrupt lawyers, accountants, judges, bureaucrats and police to exploit weaknesses in Russia's fledgling corporate legal system, Russian lawmakers and entrepreneurs say.
Typically the raiders are politically connected developers and their allies in the bureaucracy. Their activity is drawing attention at the highest levels of the government, where officials fear it undermines Russia's investment climate and adds to the sense that rule of law remains illusory in the country.
"Honest business people and property rights should be protected," President Vladimir Putin told an audience of prosecutors in February. He added that the criminal seizure of property was destabilizing the country.
In Soviet days, Na Ilyinke was the government-owned catering facility for the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party. Located in downtown Moscow, it was also a center of social life and shopping for the party elite. Its basement held a supermarket carrying such hard-to-find products as Coca-Cola; senior party officials held wakes and receptions on its premises, which at one point had a tunnel to the nearby headquarters of the KGB.
During the waning days of the Soviet Union, Likhachev ran the place as a government employee. After the collapse of the communist state, he and a team of investors bought it and turned it into a private company, a hand-over similar to other privatization deals that took place all over Russia in the 1990s.
Today, its staff of 60 continues to run cafeterias in government buildings, including the former party building across the street that became the office of the presidential administration.
Na Ilyinke's prime fixed asset is its 130,000-square-foot headquarters. Given its choice location, real estate experts estimate it would fetch at least $35 million as is, and much more if refurbished and converted into luxury offices or apartments.
Gubinsky said he had suspicions as to who the raiders were, but no proof. He believes that the real estate value is what drew their interest; he and the other owners foresee rehabbing the building themselves but think the timing isn't quite right.
The delivery of the coffin spooked Likhachev, an elderly man. He sold his shares to two colleagues, Gubinsky and Ilya Dyskin, who had the spirit to fight the raiders' next moves. One occurred at a private depository company, where Na Ilyinke stores its official documents that list its shareholders.
Last September, a Ukrainian citizen named Sergei Shevchuk came to the firm and presented a power of attorney document that indicated he had the legal right to manage the shares of Gubinsky and Dyskin.
Shevchuk then sold the shares, 58 percent of the company's total, to Tamara Tobiya, another Ukrainian. Three days later Tobiya sold them again, to a man named Evgen Halynski, who provided a Warwick, N.Y., address on official forms.
The Warwick address, it turns out, is a dry-cleaning shop. A person who answered the phone there said there was no one named Evgen Halynski living or working in the building. And no one responded to messages left at the Brooklyn, N.Y., address of a man by that name.
Both Shevchuk and Tobiya, who worked at a stall at an open-air market in Moscow, later vanished.
None of this was known at Na Ilyinke, Gubinsky said, until after a letter arrived from the depository last fall informing it of the company's new ownership structure. "It was like thunder from a blue sky," Gubinsky said.
The rightful shareholders quickly secured an investigation by the Federal Financial Markets Service. A report it issued last November documented the fraudulent sales and concluded that the power of attorney document that set them in motion had been forged. The agency suspended the transactions and, in January, revoked the license of the depository company, according to agency documents, on grounds it should have tried to ascertain that the power of attorney was real.
"We know about maybe 1,000 cases a year, but the real scale of these attacks is probably closer to 10,000 or 15,000," said Gennady Gudkov, head of a parliamentary working group examining the issue. "This problem is almost impossible to solve in a corrupt state."
"Big business can usually protect itself," said Yuri Glotser, head of the Federation for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights in Moscow. "Smaller businesses are much more vulnerable, and their property can be worth a lot of money."
In Na Ilyinke's case, the fraudulent share sale was just one element of the attack. Last year it also found itself fighting off three separate court orders. Each one followed a pattern: Legal papers would arrive at the company informing it that a judgment had been returned against it, in a proceeding that the company was entirely unaware of. The company then had to respond with its own attorneys.
One order was issued by a court in St. Petersburg and another by a court in Moscow, freezing the company's assets, Gubinsky said. The third originated in the city of Tuva, near the border with Mongolia. A court there ordered the company to vacate its Moscow building, saying it had been leased to a Tuva company. The person listed as the Tuva firm's director turned out to be a student at the local agricultural college.
Gubinsky estimates the company has spent $300,000 defending itself.
The multiple attacks in the courts are a pretext to establish some legal basis to send security guards to seize the building, Gubinsky said. If they successfully occupy the targeted property, the police typically tell the ejected party to go to court and fight it there.
As a defense, Na Ilyinke's building now resembles an armed camp. An alarm system at the front entrance can trigger the closing of steel doors that seal off all sections of the building. The rear entrance has a large steel gate and is surrounded by barbed wire.
"If you lose physical possession of your property, you are in serious trouble," Gubinsky said. "So far, we've kept them out."
Other owners wish they'd taken such precautions.
Near Moscow's Kiev railroad station, a group of prominent artists is battling in the courts to get back light-filled studios that were seized last April by private security guards after the ownership of the studios was re-registered in what the artists call a fraudulent transaction. The studios would fetch millions if converted to penthouse apartments.
"It was monstrous," said Lev Tabenkin, a painter who was forced out after the raiders persuaded a court to issue an eviction order. "I don't understand our system."
In January, Rinat Kudashev, general director of a former state institute that designs pipelines and other facilities for transporting oil and gas, was escorted out of his offices by about 30 private guards. The previous November, he said in an interview, one of the institute's minority shareholders called a meeting without the knowledge of Kudashev or the company's two majority shareholders and merged the business with another company. The original two companies were then liquidated.
Vitaly Semyonov, general director of a Moscow transportation company, said his company has been raided 31 times by different government agencies, the orchestrated prelude to a $10 million offer for a business that he values at $25 million. He rejected the offer, he said, not only because it was low, but because what the raiders really wanted was the land his business sits on -- and they intended to lay off his 1,000 workers. He remains ensnared in several court actions.
"In the '90s, your enemy operated openly and you knew how to defend yourself," Semyonov said. "I was shot by bandits who wanted our business, but we survived. Today I'm facing Oxford-educated lawyers."
Iraqi Prime Minister Says Resigning Is 'Out of the Question'
Stance Vexes Bid to Form Government
By Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A18
BAGHDAD, April 19 -- Iraq's prime minister denied rumors Wednesday that he would give up his nomination to another term to solve a political impasse, throwing the process of forming the country's new government into new confusion on the eve of a long-delayed meeting of parliament. (YOU MAY NOT RESIGN - BUT YOU WILL BE GONE)
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said during a news conference broadcast on Iraqi state television that stepping down was "out of the question."
In February, Jafari narrowly won the nomination of the leading coalition of Shiite Muslim parties, giving him what appeared to be a guarantee of a four-year term at the head of Iraq's next government. Yet almost immediately, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians, who said that Jafari had been a weak leader over the past year, united to oppose his nomination. They were joined by many Shiites who had supported a rival candidate.
Though the Shiite alliance has the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliament, it does not have enough votes to unilaterally push through Jafari's nomination. The result has been a political paralysis that has lasted for months as sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shiites has killed thousands of Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officers.
For the last several days, politicians from the Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that make up the Iraqi political landscape have said that Jafari was on the brink of giving up his nomination to resolve the deadlock. But Jafari said Wednesday that "as a matter of principle, I think the idea of making a concession is, for me at least, out of the question."
"There has been no more progress," Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an aide to Jafari, said in a telephone interview. Kadhimi predicted that the impasse would be resolved on Thursday, when the parliament is scheduled to meet for the first time since March, although he gave no reason for optimism.
Parliament had been scheduled to meet Monday in the hopes of pushing the rival parties toward an agreement, but the session was postponed.
There has been mounting pressure on Iraqi politicians to resolve their differences, from the public, U.S. officials and the Shiite religious leadership, which issued a statement Tuesday night urging the Shiite parties to make a deal, even if concessions were necessary.
On Wednesday, President Bush asked the Iraqis to "step up and form a unity government so that those who went to the polls to vote recognize that a government will be in place to respond to their needs."
Meanwhile, violence continued to rattle the country. Numerous bombings and armed attacks in the capital and elsewhere in Iraq killed at least 46 people, according to police officials and news reports.
Fourteen of those who died were discovered bound and shot in the head in the town of Iskandariyah, about 30 miles south of the capital, Baghdad police Lt. Col. Abdullah al-Dulaimi said.
A U.S. soldier died of his wounds after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Tuesday, military authorities said in a statement.
As Iraqi politicians discussed the future and citizens dealt with the consequences of a grim present, the tribunal trying former president Saddam Hussein attempted to reckon with the past.
Handwriting experts authenticated more documents linking Hussein to the killing of 148 people after an attempt on his life in 1982 in the town of Dujail, the chief judge at Hussein's trial said at a court session on Wednesday.
During the three-hour session, the judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, read the report of a three-member panel of handwriting experts who analyzed the writing on documents relating to the repression of Shiites in Dujail. After comparing notes and signatures on the documents with older handwriting samples, the experts concluded that the papers were authentic.
The specific contents of the documents were not discussed at the session, but they were papers that prosecutors had presented earlier in the trial. On Monday, prosecutors cited a document that authorized promotions for intelligence officers involved in the government crackdown in Dujail after the assassination attempt.
The chief judge said that the documents would be reanalyzed by a panel of five experts and that the court would reconvene on April 24. Meanwhile, defense attorneys and Hussein's seven co-defendants vehemently denied that the documents were authentic, charging, as they have throughout the trial, that the court was biased.
"The prosecutor is biased against us and is trying to use all means to condemn us," said Hussein's half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim, who ran the government intelligence service.
Ibrahim went on in a lengthy speech: "I am not afraid of the punishment. I am afraid of having my reputation tarnished. Why would I kill 148 innocent victims? They were my countrymen. Why would I kill them?"
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
Stance Vexes Bid to Form Government
By Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A18
BAGHDAD, April 19 -- Iraq's prime minister denied rumors Wednesday that he would give up his nomination to another term to solve a political impasse, throwing the process of forming the country's new government into new confusion on the eve of a long-delayed meeting of parliament. (YOU MAY NOT RESIGN - BUT YOU WILL BE GONE)
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari said during a news conference broadcast on Iraqi state television that stepping down was "out of the question."
In February, Jafari narrowly won the nomination of the leading coalition of Shiite Muslim parties, giving him what appeared to be a guarantee of a four-year term at the head of Iraq's next government. Yet almost immediately, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians, who said that Jafari had been a weak leader over the past year, united to oppose his nomination. They were joined by many Shiites who had supported a rival candidate.
Though the Shiite alliance has the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliament, it does not have enough votes to unilaterally push through Jafari's nomination. The result has been a political paralysis that has lasted for months as sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shiites has killed thousands of Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officers.
For the last several days, politicians from the Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that make up the Iraqi political landscape have said that Jafari was on the brink of giving up his nomination to resolve the deadlock. But Jafari said Wednesday that "as a matter of principle, I think the idea of making a concession is, for me at least, out of the question."
"There has been no more progress," Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an aide to Jafari, said in a telephone interview. Kadhimi predicted that the impasse would be resolved on Thursday, when the parliament is scheduled to meet for the first time since March, although he gave no reason for optimism.
Parliament had been scheduled to meet Monday in the hopes of pushing the rival parties toward an agreement, but the session was postponed.
There has been mounting pressure on Iraqi politicians to resolve their differences, from the public, U.S. officials and the Shiite religious leadership, which issued a statement Tuesday night urging the Shiite parties to make a deal, even if concessions were necessary.
On Wednesday, President Bush asked the Iraqis to "step up and form a unity government so that those who went to the polls to vote recognize that a government will be in place to respond to their needs."
Meanwhile, violence continued to rattle the country. Numerous bombings and armed attacks in the capital and elsewhere in Iraq killed at least 46 people, according to police officials and news reports.
Fourteen of those who died were discovered bound and shot in the head in the town of Iskandariyah, about 30 miles south of the capital, Baghdad police Lt. Col. Abdullah al-Dulaimi said.
A U.S. soldier died of his wounds after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Tuesday, military authorities said in a statement.
As Iraqi politicians discussed the future and citizens dealt with the consequences of a grim present, the tribunal trying former president Saddam Hussein attempted to reckon with the past.
Handwriting experts authenticated more documents linking Hussein to the killing of 148 people after an attempt on his life in 1982 in the town of Dujail, the chief judge at Hussein's trial said at a court session on Wednesday.
During the three-hour session, the judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, read the report of a three-member panel of handwriting experts who analyzed the writing on documents relating to the repression of Shiites in Dujail. After comparing notes and signatures on the documents with older handwriting samples, the experts concluded that the papers were authentic.
The specific contents of the documents were not discussed at the session, but they were papers that prosecutors had presented earlier in the trial. On Monday, prosecutors cited a document that authorized promotions for intelligence officers involved in the government crackdown in Dujail after the assassination attempt.
The chief judge said that the documents would be reanalyzed by a panel of five experts and that the court would reconvene on April 24. Meanwhile, defense attorneys and Hussein's seven co-defendants vehemently denied that the documents were authentic, charging, as they have throughout the trial, that the court was biased.
"The prosecutor is biased against us and is trying to use all means to condemn us," said Hussein's half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim, who ran the government intelligence service.
Ibrahim went on in a lengthy speech: "I am not afraid of the punishment. I am afraid of having my reputation tarnished. Why would I kill 148 innocent victims? They were my countrymen. Why would I kill them?"
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
Bush-Hu Meeting To Highlight Role That China Plays
Iran, North Korea at Top of the Agenda
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A20
When President Bush sits down with Chinese President Hu Jintao this morning in the Oval Office, some of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing the United States will be on the table, including the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.
Increasingly, administration officials believe, the key to these issues and other overseas problems may lie in Beijing, a reflection of the pivotal position China has come to play on the international stage.
China, consumed with domestic problems at home and eager for stability overseas, has long resisted playing a leading role in foreign policy. But, especially in the past year, the Bush administration has pressed China to shed its traditional neutrality and take a more aggressive stance against governments that U.S. officials believe could potentially threaten U.S. interests and, more broadly, the international system.
"In both Iran and North Korea, China has a very serious role to play, and in some ways is the pivot for whether we're successful in dealing with those problems," said Michael J. Green, until December senior director for Asia policy at the White House and now senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Hu will be under some pressure to say something and to signal, not only domestically here but to those countries, that China's patience is wearing thin."
Besides providing help on Iran and North Korea, China could assist in a range of other administration priorities, including ending the deadly conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and putting pressure on the military dictatorship in Burma. But Chinese support for U.S. goals has thus far fallen short of the administration's expectations, in part because China's urgent energy needs have often trumped any concerns about the unsavory nature of other governments.
"While they recognize they are a growing international force, I believe the Chinese of today are pretty absorbed with their domestic development," Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, the administration's point person on China, told a small group of reporters last week. "Will the China of 10 to 15 years from now have a similar view? I can't say."
China's foreign policy has traditionally stressed maintaining the status quo. But in recent months, administration officials have begun to emphasize to the Chinese that with greater economic power comes greater international responsibility. Zoellick, in a major speech last September, said that though the United States had once tried to rein in the Soviet Union, it now wanted to draw out China and integrate it into the international system.
China, Zoellick said, should become a "responsible stakeholder," willing to tackle broad international concerns as any great power would.
Zoellick's phrase at first thoroughly confused the Chinese leadership because it could not be easily translated into Chinese. Officials nervously approached White House officials to understand whether Zoellick's speech was positive or negative, U.S. officials said. The Chinese now appear to realize that Zoellick's speech was intended to be positive -- but with an edge.
"They finally understand what Zoellick was getting at, and that it is the new benchmark for the relationship" said David L. Shambaugh, director of the China policy program at George Washington University. "Sitting on the fence will be judged negatively by the United States."
The Chinese have made it clear that "this is their most important foreign policy relationship," a senior U.S. official said. Administration officials hope to exploit that sentiment as they try to prod China to work with the United States on a range of issues.
Hu, who toured a Boeing Co. aircraft plant yesterday in Everett, Wash., will be greeted with a 21-gun salute on the White House lawn this morning and feted by Bush at a lunch for 200 guests. When he arrived in Seattle on Tuesday, Hu said China and the United States "share common strategic interests in a wide range of areas, particularly in maintaining world peace, promoting global economic growth, combating terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
In the case of Iran, China has frequently joined with Russia to thwart the tougher action sought by the United States at the United Nations. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, standing on the same stage as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a news conference in Berlin, rejected the idea of sanctions last month, saying that "there has already been enough turmoil in the Middle East."
The U.N. Security Council demanded that Iran halt its uranium enrichment activities by April 28, and instead Iran's president announced last week that the Islamic republic had reached a new technological milestone. Talks held in Moscow this week by diplomats for the permanent members of the council and Germany yielded no consensus on the next steps.
The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the discussions today will be an "opportune moment" for the two presidents to discuss Iran, with Bush planning to outline to Hu how he hopes to proceed against Tehran. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Bush stressed that "we want to solve this issue diplomatically," but he pointedly refused to rule out using nuclear weapons to destroy underground Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomacy failed.
In his talks with the Chinese, Zoellick has suggested that Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon would destabilize the Middle East and would probably raise the cost of crude oil, directly affecting Chinese interests. Chinese officials privately told Zoellick in January that they share with the United States the same principles on Iran but that they may differ on tactics. Now, U.S. officials are hoping that Hu will publicly declare this week that China wants to work cooperatively with the United States to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
On North Korea, China remains Pyongyang's key economic and political patron and has played a crucial role in hosting six-nation talks to resolve the impasse over that country's nuclear programs. But the talks have stalled, and U.S. officials have felt frustrated that China has been reluctant to use its leverage to force North Korea to return to the talks. Generally, China -- concerned about the potential collapse of North Korea -- has enticed Pyongyang with inducements, such as a new glass factory, rejecting U.S. efforts to cut off oil supplies or take other negative measures.
"What we are urging the Chinese to recognize is that they need to be more than a mediator" on North Korea, Zoellick said at a public forum on Monday.
Hu is very formal, but U.S. officials hope to build on his personal relationship with Bush.
In April 2003, shortly after Hu ascended to the top post, Bush ended a phone conversation by telling him he was a strong leader and doing a good job. It was one of Bush's standard lines -- later made famous when he used it to laud one of his top aides after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. But White House officials were later told by Chinese officials that Bush's comment made a deep impression on Hu, who had never heard such praise from a world leader.
Hu, White House officials were told, decided that Bush really wants him to succeed.
Iran, North Korea at Top of the Agenda
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A20
When President Bush sits down with Chinese President Hu Jintao this morning in the Oval Office, some of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing the United States will be on the table, including the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.
Increasingly, administration officials believe, the key to these issues and other overseas problems may lie in Beijing, a reflection of the pivotal position China has come to play on the international stage.
China, consumed with domestic problems at home and eager for stability overseas, has long resisted playing a leading role in foreign policy. But, especially in the past year, the Bush administration has pressed China to shed its traditional neutrality and take a more aggressive stance against governments that U.S. officials believe could potentially threaten U.S. interests and, more broadly, the international system.
"In both Iran and North Korea, China has a very serious role to play, and in some ways is the pivot for whether we're successful in dealing with those problems," said Michael J. Green, until December senior director for Asia policy at the White House and now senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Hu will be under some pressure to say something and to signal, not only domestically here but to those countries, that China's patience is wearing thin."
Besides providing help on Iran and North Korea, China could assist in a range of other administration priorities, including ending the deadly conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and putting pressure on the military dictatorship in Burma. But Chinese support for U.S. goals has thus far fallen short of the administration's expectations, in part because China's urgent energy needs have often trumped any concerns about the unsavory nature of other governments.
"While they recognize they are a growing international force, I believe the Chinese of today are pretty absorbed with their domestic development," Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, the administration's point person on China, told a small group of reporters last week. "Will the China of 10 to 15 years from now have a similar view? I can't say."
China's foreign policy has traditionally stressed maintaining the status quo. But in recent months, administration officials have begun to emphasize to the Chinese that with greater economic power comes greater international responsibility. Zoellick, in a major speech last September, said that though the United States had once tried to rein in the Soviet Union, it now wanted to draw out China and integrate it into the international system.
China, Zoellick said, should become a "responsible stakeholder," willing to tackle broad international concerns as any great power would.
Zoellick's phrase at first thoroughly confused the Chinese leadership because it could not be easily translated into Chinese. Officials nervously approached White House officials to understand whether Zoellick's speech was positive or negative, U.S. officials said. The Chinese now appear to realize that Zoellick's speech was intended to be positive -- but with an edge.
"They finally understand what Zoellick was getting at, and that it is the new benchmark for the relationship" said David L. Shambaugh, director of the China policy program at George Washington University. "Sitting on the fence will be judged negatively by the United States."
The Chinese have made it clear that "this is their most important foreign policy relationship," a senior U.S. official said. Administration officials hope to exploit that sentiment as they try to prod China to work with the United States on a range of issues.
Hu, who toured a Boeing Co. aircraft plant yesterday in Everett, Wash., will be greeted with a 21-gun salute on the White House lawn this morning and feted by Bush at a lunch for 200 guests. When he arrived in Seattle on Tuesday, Hu said China and the United States "share common strategic interests in a wide range of areas, particularly in maintaining world peace, promoting global economic growth, combating terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
In the case of Iran, China has frequently joined with Russia to thwart the tougher action sought by the United States at the United Nations. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, standing on the same stage as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a news conference in Berlin, rejected the idea of sanctions last month, saying that "there has already been enough turmoil in the Middle East."
The U.N. Security Council demanded that Iran halt its uranium enrichment activities by April 28, and instead Iran's president announced last week that the Islamic republic had reached a new technological milestone. Talks held in Moscow this week by diplomats for the permanent members of the council and Germany yielded no consensus on the next steps.
The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the discussions today will be an "opportune moment" for the two presidents to discuss Iran, with Bush planning to outline to Hu how he hopes to proceed against Tehran. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Bush stressed that "we want to solve this issue diplomatically," but he pointedly refused to rule out using nuclear weapons to destroy underground Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomacy failed.
In his talks with the Chinese, Zoellick has suggested that Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon would destabilize the Middle East and would probably raise the cost of crude oil, directly affecting Chinese interests. Chinese officials privately told Zoellick in January that they share with the United States the same principles on Iran but that they may differ on tactics. Now, U.S. officials are hoping that Hu will publicly declare this week that China wants to work cooperatively with the United States to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
On North Korea, China remains Pyongyang's key economic and political patron and has played a crucial role in hosting six-nation talks to resolve the impasse over that country's nuclear programs. But the talks have stalled, and U.S. officials have felt frustrated that China has been reluctant to use its leverage to force North Korea to return to the talks. Generally, China -- concerned about the potential collapse of North Korea -- has enticed Pyongyang with inducements, such as a new glass factory, rejecting U.S. efforts to cut off oil supplies or take other negative measures.
"What we are urging the Chinese to recognize is that they need to be more than a mediator" on North Korea, Zoellick said at a public forum on Monday.
Hu is very formal, but U.S. officials hope to build on his personal relationship with Bush.
In April 2003, shortly after Hu ascended to the top post, Bush ended a phone conversation by telling him he was a strong leader and doing a good job. It was one of Bush's standard lines -- later made famous when he used it to laud one of his top aides after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. But White House officials were later told by Chinese officials that Bush's comment made a deep impression on Hu, who had never heard such praise from a world leader.
Hu, White House officials were told, decided that Bush really wants him to succeed.
White House Shifts Into Survival Mode
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A01
In a White House known for both defiance and optimism, yesterday's senior staff changes represent a frank acknowledgment of the trouble in which President Bush now finds himself. They are also a signal of how starkly Bush's second-term ambitions have shifted after a year of persistent problems at home and abroad. (IF THEY MAKE CHANGES, IT SHOWS TROUBLE ETC; IF THEY DO NOT, IT SHOWS HOW STUBBORN ETC; IS THERE A RIGHT ANSWER?)
Longtime Bush confidant Karl Rove -- who had hoped to use his position of deputy chief of staff to usher in an expansive conservative agenda -- was relieved of his policy portfolio to concentrate on long-term strategy and planning for a November midterm election that looks increasingly bleak for Republicans.
Rove probably will remain one of the most influential voices in the White House, but his shift in responsibilities suggests that new White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten intends to operate a different White House than his predecessor, Andrew H. Card Jr., who resigned after more than five years at the helm.
Bolten's White House, say former administration officials and Republican strategists, is likely to have clearer lines of authority and less free-lancing by powerful officials. They also expect Bolten to play a more active and influential role in shaping domestic policy than did Card.
More significantly, they said, unlike Card, who took as his principal responsibility the management of the president, Bolten probably will operate more in the mold of chiefs of staffs in previous administrations, who saw their role as managing the entire White House and sought to oversee the entire federal government, as well.
Whether the changes will fundamentally alter a troubled administration is another question. One of Bolten's biggest challenges, administration allies say, will be to find ways to open up the Oval Office to new ideas and to the opinions of people who are not longtime Bush confidants.
On that score, many people who know the administration best are privately dubious. Presidents, more than chiefs of staff, determine how White Houses operate, they said, noting that Bush has shown that he prefers a tight circle of advisers and does not welcome the advice of outsiders. As Bush put it on Monday, in asserting that he would not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."
Rove's return to a role that closely mirrors that which he played in Bush's first term demonstrates how much this White House has now shifted to survival mode -- and how far events have pushed the president from the grand ambitions with which he opened his second term just 15 months ago.
Then, with Rove as the animating force, the president sought to engineer Republican political dominance by remaking government with such far-reaching initiatives as his plan to remake the Social Security program. Today, Social Security stands as Exhibit A of what went wrong domestically in 2005.
Public disillusionment over Bush's policies in Iraq have left the country in a sour mood and Bush's presidency at low ebb, threatening the entire Bush-Rove project to create a durable Republican majority. While that goal remains central to those closest to Bush, the focus at the White House for the foreseeable future will be trying to revitalize this presidency quickly enough to avoid crippling GOP losses in November that could thrust Bush into instant lame-duck status.
Realigning the White House staff and bringing in new faces appear central to that effort. This week's changes include yesterday's resignation of White House press secretary Scott McClellan and appointment of Joel D. Kaplan as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, as well as Monday's announcement that U.S. trade representative and former House member Rob Portman will succeed Bolten as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The domestic policy process has been hampered since Bolten went to OMB, and one Republican strategist close to the White House said the new chief of staff appears bent on trying to prevent Rove and others from interfering in every aspect of the governing process.
Rove will retain the "gravitational force" of his Bush relationship and could "overpower" Bolten in showdowns because he knows the president and the inside game better, this official predicted. But he added that Bolten believed that the strategy to overhaul Social Security was sloppy and hampered by Rove's becoming too involved in every aspect of the campaign -- policy, politics and communications.
Former administration officials said that Rove, though known for his ability to juggle many roles, was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of his responsibilities when he was promoted to deputy chief of staff after the 2004 election.
In addition, he was engulfed in the CIA leak case. He is believed to be under investigation by a special counsel for providing false testimony about his role.
Bolten and Rove forged a congenial working relationship during Bush's first presidential campaign, when Rove was chief strategist and Bolten chief policy adviser. That carried over into the White House during the first term, until Bolten departed as deputy chief of staff to take over as OMB director. Administration allies say they hope that the new assignments can restore an operating arrangement that they believe worked well.
One former administration official, who asked not to be identified in order to speak freely about his former colleagues, called yesterday's shift in Rove's responsibilities a "huge" development. "This is putting back things where they belong," he said. "It's given Josh back policy. Joel [Kaplan] is a total Josh disciple, and he is very good in the policy world. It focuses Karl back on politics, which is what he needs to do."
But former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Rove's losing the policy portfolio also is significant, because the policy job "is where ideas comes from, where creativity comes from, and that is where presidents rise and fall."
"I think this is another building block in bringing in other voices to reenergize and reinvigorate the West Wing," said Kenneth Duberstein, White House chief of staff to president Ronald Reagan, who predicted Rove will remain one of Bush's most trusted aides.
Despite his power, Rove has not been immune to criticism. Inside the White House, some aides were unhappy that he had sent McClellan out to say inaccurately that Rove had no involvement in the CIA leak case. Outside allies feared that Rove was so invested in the policies he had helped to shape and sell to Bush that he lost his ability to see where the administration had gotten off track.
Mindful that Rove's changed responsibilities might be seen as a demotion, administration officials and allies offered a counterview, saying that, given his personal relationship with the president, he will continue to exercise wide influence on policy and politics while having new freedom to think more strategically about the administration.
Other changes are expected at the White House and perhaps in Bush's Cabinet. One will be a replacement for McClellan; another is likely to be a new domestic policy adviser. Criticisms of the legislative affairs and communications operations as well as the national economic council suggest the potential scope of changes. But one of the most important steps came yesterday. As one strategist who has worked closely with the administration put it, "I don't know how you change the White House without changing Karl's role."
Staff writer Jim VandeHei contributed to this report.
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A01
In a White House known for both defiance and optimism, yesterday's senior staff changes represent a frank acknowledgment of the trouble in which President Bush now finds himself. They are also a signal of how starkly Bush's second-term ambitions have shifted after a year of persistent problems at home and abroad. (IF THEY MAKE CHANGES, IT SHOWS TROUBLE ETC; IF THEY DO NOT, IT SHOWS HOW STUBBORN ETC; IS THERE A RIGHT ANSWER?)
Longtime Bush confidant Karl Rove -- who had hoped to use his position of deputy chief of staff to usher in an expansive conservative agenda -- was relieved of his policy portfolio to concentrate on long-term strategy and planning for a November midterm election that looks increasingly bleak for Republicans.
Rove probably will remain one of the most influential voices in the White House, but his shift in responsibilities suggests that new White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten intends to operate a different White House than his predecessor, Andrew H. Card Jr., who resigned after more than five years at the helm.
Bolten's White House, say former administration officials and Republican strategists, is likely to have clearer lines of authority and less free-lancing by powerful officials. They also expect Bolten to play a more active and influential role in shaping domestic policy than did Card.
More significantly, they said, unlike Card, who took as his principal responsibility the management of the president, Bolten probably will operate more in the mold of chiefs of staffs in previous administrations, who saw their role as managing the entire White House and sought to oversee the entire federal government, as well.
Whether the changes will fundamentally alter a troubled administration is another question. One of Bolten's biggest challenges, administration allies say, will be to find ways to open up the Oval Office to new ideas and to the opinions of people who are not longtime Bush confidants.
On that score, many people who know the administration best are privately dubious. Presidents, more than chiefs of staff, determine how White Houses operate, they said, noting that Bush has shown that he prefers a tight circle of advisers and does not welcome the advice of outsiders. As Bush put it on Monday, in asserting that he would not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."
Rove's return to a role that closely mirrors that which he played in Bush's first term demonstrates how much this White House has now shifted to survival mode -- and how far events have pushed the president from the grand ambitions with which he opened his second term just 15 months ago.
Then, with Rove as the animating force, the president sought to engineer Republican political dominance by remaking government with such far-reaching initiatives as his plan to remake the Social Security program. Today, Social Security stands as Exhibit A of what went wrong domestically in 2005.
Public disillusionment over Bush's policies in Iraq have left the country in a sour mood and Bush's presidency at low ebb, threatening the entire Bush-Rove project to create a durable Republican majority. While that goal remains central to those closest to Bush, the focus at the White House for the foreseeable future will be trying to revitalize this presidency quickly enough to avoid crippling GOP losses in November that could thrust Bush into instant lame-duck status.
Realigning the White House staff and bringing in new faces appear central to that effort. This week's changes include yesterday's resignation of White House press secretary Scott McClellan and appointment of Joel D. Kaplan as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, as well as Monday's announcement that U.S. trade representative and former House member Rob Portman will succeed Bolten as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The domestic policy process has been hampered since Bolten went to OMB, and one Republican strategist close to the White House said the new chief of staff appears bent on trying to prevent Rove and others from interfering in every aspect of the governing process.
Rove will retain the "gravitational force" of his Bush relationship and could "overpower" Bolten in showdowns because he knows the president and the inside game better, this official predicted. But he added that Bolten believed that the strategy to overhaul Social Security was sloppy and hampered by Rove's becoming too involved in every aspect of the campaign -- policy, politics and communications.
Former administration officials said that Rove, though known for his ability to juggle many roles, was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of his responsibilities when he was promoted to deputy chief of staff after the 2004 election.
In addition, he was engulfed in the CIA leak case. He is believed to be under investigation by a special counsel for providing false testimony about his role.
Bolten and Rove forged a congenial working relationship during Bush's first presidential campaign, when Rove was chief strategist and Bolten chief policy adviser. That carried over into the White House during the first term, until Bolten departed as deputy chief of staff to take over as OMB director. Administration allies say they hope that the new assignments can restore an operating arrangement that they believe worked well.
One former administration official, who asked not to be identified in order to speak freely about his former colleagues, called yesterday's shift in Rove's responsibilities a "huge" development. "This is putting back things where they belong," he said. "It's given Josh back policy. Joel [Kaplan] is a total Josh disciple, and he is very good in the policy world. It focuses Karl back on politics, which is what he needs to do."
But former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Rove's losing the policy portfolio also is significant, because the policy job "is where ideas comes from, where creativity comes from, and that is where presidents rise and fall."
"I think this is another building block in bringing in other voices to reenergize and reinvigorate the West Wing," said Kenneth Duberstein, White House chief of staff to president Ronald Reagan, who predicted Rove will remain one of Bush's most trusted aides.
Despite his power, Rove has not been immune to criticism. Inside the White House, some aides were unhappy that he had sent McClellan out to say inaccurately that Rove had no involvement in the CIA leak case. Outside allies feared that Rove was so invested in the policies he had helped to shape and sell to Bush that he lost his ability to see where the administration had gotten off track.
Mindful that Rove's changed responsibilities might be seen as a demotion, administration officials and allies offered a counterview, saying that, given his personal relationship with the president, he will continue to exercise wide influence on policy and politics while having new freedom to think more strategically about the administration.
Other changes are expected at the White House and perhaps in Bush's Cabinet. One will be a replacement for McClellan; another is likely to be a new domestic policy adviser. Criticisms of the legislative affairs and communications operations as well as the national economic council suggest the potential scope of changes. But one of the most important steps came yesterday. As one strategist who has worked closely with the administration put it, "I don't know how you change the White House without changing Karl's role."
Staff writer Jim VandeHei contributed to this report.
U.S.-China Relations Are Embraced in Store Aisles
Consumers in both countries may be more accepting of the economic ties than is reflected in Washington and Beijing.
By Evelyn Iritani and Don Lee
Times Staff Writers
April 20, 2006
For Ioan Cheres, the global battle for his paycheck ends at the cash register.
The Chicago truck driver, who was trolling the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Torrance looking for bargains Tuesday, said he didn't really care whether the products he buys come from Chongqing or Chatsworth.
"If China can make good stuff, can make it cheaper and faster, then it wins," said the slender 27-year-old, who left Wal-Mart $85 poorer but with a red plush rug, seat covers, air freshener and five DVDs.
Thousands of miles away in Shanghai's Pudong district, Wang Huimin, 74, and his wife, Yao Zhengyan, 66, both retired teachers, were similarly unconcerned.
"Didn't China recently buy 100 Boeing airplanes?" asked Wang, who was heading out of a Wal-Mart with his 2-year-old granddaughter. "That's a big purchase."
With Chinese President Hu Jintao arriving in Washington today for his first official U.S. visit, trade officials in both countries are talking about oil diplomacy, piracy and trade deficits. But some of the most powerful decisions shaping U.S.-China relations are made in shopping aisles, factory floors and boardrooms, not the halls of Congress or the White House.
There is no greater example of the growing interdependence — and tensions — between the two countries than Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which purchased $18 billion worth of Chinese goods in 2004, 9% of all U.S. imports. Critics blame Wal-Mart for steering jobs to lower-cost factories overseas and boosting the U.S. trade deficit with China, which last year topped $200 billion.
Economists say those imports have brought huge savings to American consumers, kept inflation low and made Wall Street and shareholders happy.
Wal-Mart, which entered China in 1996, is hoping to revolutionize the Middle Kingdom's retail world, employing about 30,000 people in 56 stores.
If Cheres, Wang and Yao are a barometer, then grass-roots sentiments in both countries may be more accepting, and less skeptical, of this complex economic relationship than is reflected in the often-hostile rhetoric from Washington and Beijing. That poses a challenge for policymakers on Capitol Hill, who have threatened to impose punitive tariffs that would raise the cost of Chinese imports. U.S. lawmakers want Beijing to relax controls on its currency, which critics say is artificially weak and gives Chinese exporters an unfair advantage.
In Cheres' view, penalizing China would be a lose-lose situation. With gasoline prices spiraling, he needs every extra penny to pay off the loan on his $53,000 Kenworth T2000 rig and save for a house. And those giant containers of Chinese goods rolling off the ships in Los Angeles are providing badly needed work for him. He averages 4,000 miles a week hauling containers filled with goods between the West Coast and Chicago.
"I don't see this as a problem," said the trucker, who is married and has a 3-year-old daughter. "It doesn't matter where you're from, or where the products you buy are from."
Sino-U.S. relations loom much larger in China, where Hu's first visit to the U.S. is being covered like a rock star concert tour. All of the shoppers interviewed at the Wal-Mart in Pudong knew about their president's trip and most regarded it as important for strengthening ties between the two nations. In contrast, just two of the dozen shoppers interviewed in Torrance knew Hu was visiting the U.S. and most said relations with China weren't important in their lives.
High gas and home prices? Certainly. But China?
"Don't think about it," said Xiomara Martinez, 24, a FedEx employee who was browsing the wedding goods section with her friend Noemi Iribe, 24, and their children.
A 2004 survey by Zogby International found that 59% of Americans viewed China positively, compared with 46% a decade earlier, and more than 70% thought trade with China was beneficial to the U.S.
However, that survey, which was conducted for the Committee of 100, an influential Chinese American organization, also showed that more than 60% of Americans considered China a serious or potential economic threat and at least half saw it as a potential military adversary.
Fang Lei, 36, a Shanghai advertising executive, said Americans should quit fretting about China's competitive threat and focus on the buying power of the nation's expanding middle class. Chinese government data show average household disposable income in urban China has risen thirteenfold in the last two decades to nearly $1,200 a year. Wal-Mart recorded $1.2 billion in sales in China last year, according to China's Commerce Ministry.
Fang and his wife, Li Peiyan, 27, who between them earn more than $15,000 a year, said they have been regulars at Wal-Mart since it opened in July.
"The price is higher than local markets, but I'm willing to pay more because fruits and vegetables are better," said Li, as she and her husband pushed a cart full of fresh produce including Dole bananas, which sell for about 45 cents a pound.
In another section of the Wal-Mart, real estate agent Liang Tao, 23, was watching "King Kong" on a 42-inch Haier plasma TV. Liang said he understood why Americans were concerned about the large trade imbalance. But he said he agreed with China's minister of commerce, Bo Xilai, that the United States should focus on producing high-end goods such as advanced computers and telecommunications equipment and let China produce the labor-intensive products.
"The U.S. is very advanced and strong," said Liang, who was surrounded by a dozen migrant workers glued to the television screen. "The U.S. and China are like two brothers. One is doing very well and other not as well. If both do well, how much more they could help the world."
In Torrance, A.P. Owens, 68, voices a similar sentiment, though his reasoning is much bleaker. Owens, who put in 46 years with Union Pacific Railroad and was a union representative, tries to buy American whenever possible. But he had a Chinese-made Hamilton Beach single-serve blender and a Mexican-produced coffee grinder in his shopping cart because he couldn't find a U.S.-made brand.
"I don't have a cellphone because I can't find one that isn't made in China," said the former conductor, who was in Los Angeles doing a training seminar for Union Pacific. "It's aggravating."
Still, Owens said he supported President Bush's efforts to develop closer relations with China and believed the only way his five grandchildren could compete would be to "absolutely get an education and go into some kind of high-tech or medical field."
"I think China's our biggest threat to the world economy and safety," he said. "But we'd better work with them instead of against them."
Iritani reported from Los Angeles and Lee from Shanghai.
Consumers in both countries may be more accepting of the economic ties than is reflected in Washington and Beijing.
By Evelyn Iritani and Don Lee
Times Staff Writers
April 20, 2006
For Ioan Cheres, the global battle for his paycheck ends at the cash register.
The Chicago truck driver, who was trolling the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Torrance looking for bargains Tuesday, said he didn't really care whether the products he buys come from Chongqing or Chatsworth.
"If China can make good stuff, can make it cheaper and faster, then it wins," said the slender 27-year-old, who left Wal-Mart $85 poorer but with a red plush rug, seat covers, air freshener and five DVDs.
Thousands of miles away in Shanghai's Pudong district, Wang Huimin, 74, and his wife, Yao Zhengyan, 66, both retired teachers, were similarly unconcerned.
"Didn't China recently buy 100 Boeing airplanes?" asked Wang, who was heading out of a Wal-Mart with his 2-year-old granddaughter. "That's a big purchase."
With Chinese President Hu Jintao arriving in Washington today for his first official U.S. visit, trade officials in both countries are talking about oil diplomacy, piracy and trade deficits. But some of the most powerful decisions shaping U.S.-China relations are made in shopping aisles, factory floors and boardrooms, not the halls of Congress or the White House.
There is no greater example of the growing interdependence — and tensions — between the two countries than Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which purchased $18 billion worth of Chinese goods in 2004, 9% of all U.S. imports. Critics blame Wal-Mart for steering jobs to lower-cost factories overseas and boosting the U.S. trade deficit with China, which last year topped $200 billion.
Economists say those imports have brought huge savings to American consumers, kept inflation low and made Wall Street and shareholders happy.
Wal-Mart, which entered China in 1996, is hoping to revolutionize the Middle Kingdom's retail world, employing about 30,000 people in 56 stores.
If Cheres, Wang and Yao are a barometer, then grass-roots sentiments in both countries may be more accepting, and less skeptical, of this complex economic relationship than is reflected in the often-hostile rhetoric from Washington and Beijing. That poses a challenge for policymakers on Capitol Hill, who have threatened to impose punitive tariffs that would raise the cost of Chinese imports. U.S. lawmakers want Beijing to relax controls on its currency, which critics say is artificially weak and gives Chinese exporters an unfair advantage.
In Cheres' view, penalizing China would be a lose-lose situation. With gasoline prices spiraling, he needs every extra penny to pay off the loan on his $53,000 Kenworth T2000 rig and save for a house. And those giant containers of Chinese goods rolling off the ships in Los Angeles are providing badly needed work for him. He averages 4,000 miles a week hauling containers filled with goods between the West Coast and Chicago.
"I don't see this as a problem," said the trucker, who is married and has a 3-year-old daughter. "It doesn't matter where you're from, or where the products you buy are from."
Sino-U.S. relations loom much larger in China, where Hu's first visit to the U.S. is being covered like a rock star concert tour. All of the shoppers interviewed at the Wal-Mart in Pudong knew about their president's trip and most regarded it as important for strengthening ties between the two nations. In contrast, just two of the dozen shoppers interviewed in Torrance knew Hu was visiting the U.S. and most said relations with China weren't important in their lives.
High gas and home prices? Certainly. But China?
"Don't think about it," said Xiomara Martinez, 24, a FedEx employee who was browsing the wedding goods section with her friend Noemi Iribe, 24, and their children.
A 2004 survey by Zogby International found that 59% of Americans viewed China positively, compared with 46% a decade earlier, and more than 70% thought trade with China was beneficial to the U.S.
However, that survey, which was conducted for the Committee of 100, an influential Chinese American organization, also showed that more than 60% of Americans considered China a serious or potential economic threat and at least half saw it as a potential military adversary.
Fang Lei, 36, a Shanghai advertising executive, said Americans should quit fretting about China's competitive threat and focus on the buying power of the nation's expanding middle class. Chinese government data show average household disposable income in urban China has risen thirteenfold in the last two decades to nearly $1,200 a year. Wal-Mart recorded $1.2 billion in sales in China last year, according to China's Commerce Ministry.
Fang and his wife, Li Peiyan, 27, who between them earn more than $15,000 a year, said they have been regulars at Wal-Mart since it opened in July.
"The price is higher than local markets, but I'm willing to pay more because fruits and vegetables are better," said Li, as she and her husband pushed a cart full of fresh produce including Dole bananas, which sell for about 45 cents a pound.
In another section of the Wal-Mart, real estate agent Liang Tao, 23, was watching "King Kong" on a 42-inch Haier plasma TV. Liang said he understood why Americans were concerned about the large trade imbalance. But he said he agreed with China's minister of commerce, Bo Xilai, that the United States should focus on producing high-end goods such as advanced computers and telecommunications equipment and let China produce the labor-intensive products.
"The U.S. is very advanced and strong," said Liang, who was surrounded by a dozen migrant workers glued to the television screen. "The U.S. and China are like two brothers. One is doing very well and other not as well. If both do well, how much more they could help the world."
In Torrance, A.P. Owens, 68, voices a similar sentiment, though his reasoning is much bleaker. Owens, who put in 46 years with Union Pacific Railroad and was a union representative, tries to buy American whenever possible. But he had a Chinese-made Hamilton Beach single-serve blender and a Mexican-produced coffee grinder in his shopping cart because he couldn't find a U.S.-made brand.
"I don't have a cellphone because I can't find one that isn't made in China," said the former conductor, who was in Los Angeles doing a training seminar for Union Pacific. "It's aggravating."
Still, Owens said he supported President Bush's efforts to develop closer relations with China and believed the only way his five grandchildren could compete would be to "absolutely get an education and go into some kind of high-tech or medical field."
"I think China's our biggest threat to the world economy and safety," he said. "But we'd better work with them instead of against them."
Iritani reported from Los Angeles and Lee from Shanghai.
Rove's Role Reduced, McClellan Resigns in White House Shakeup
By Tom Hamburger, Richard Simon, and Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writers
April 20, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Moving to reinvigorate his presidency and recover from low public approval ratings, President Bush on Wednesday reduced the official role that Karl Rove, his chief political strategist, will play in setting policy and accepted the resignation of spokesman Scott McClellan.
The latest moves were part of an effort by Bush's new chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, to energize an administration that has faced bad news from Iraq and seen a number of second-term initiatives stall. The difficulties have left Republicans nervous about losing control of Congress.
Rove no longer will have direct responsibility for White House policy decision-making, a position he gained after guiding Bush to victory in 2004. But his extraordinary influence in the White House, and in Washington, will continue. Rove will remain in charge of political strategy, which will become increasingly important as the fall congressional campaigns approach.
The policy portfolio will be turned over to Joel D. Kaplan, who had been the White House's deputy budget director. Kaplan worked closely with Bolten in the 2000 campaign, and have a relationship that some compare to the "mind meld" that unites Bush and Rove.
A former White House official who had talked recently with Bolten said Wednesday's moves resulted from Bolten's view that he needed to address three serious problems facing Bush: deteriorating press coverage, souring relations with Congress, and increasing tensions between the White House and GOP candidates. The former official asked not to be identified because of concern the White House might not appreciate his comments during a difficult time.
The troubles are circling just seven months before the midterm elections, in which Democrats hope to make gains by turning local contests into a nationwide referendum on the performance of the president and his party.
Congressional Republicans have been pressing the White House for staff changes, and several welcomed Wednesday's announcement -- while anticipating more shifts soon. Those could include naming a new Treasury secretary to replace John W. Snow, who has drawn fire as deficits mount.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was consulted about the staff changes before they were announced. Frist's chief of staff, Eric Ueland, called the shifts "an unfortunate but sometimes necessary Washington ritual ... (that) will reinvigorate both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to press ahead with a common-sense conservative agenda."
McClellan -- who is expected to leave the White House in the next two weeks -- had been chief spokesman since he replaced Ari Fleischer in 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
McClellan had a more affable demeanor than the pugnacious Fleischer, but his credibility suffered in 2004 when he told reporters it was "totally ridiculous" to suggest that Rove was involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer. It turned out that both Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had discussed the agent with reporters.
Rove was the master strategist for Bush's four consecutive victories in his races for governor of Texas and the presidency. He is known by the president variously as "the architect," for his role in engineering Bush's electoral success, "boy wonder" for his political acumen and "turd blossom" -- a teasing reference to the flower that blooms from Texas cow pies and to Rove's ability to turn messy situations into political triumphs.
Officially, Wednesday's announcement reduces the influence of the man many historians believe to be one of the most powerful White House aides in history. Until this week, Rove had only seen his influence expand since arriving in Washington with Bush, whom he nurtured and tutored in politics.
After receiving accolades for plotting the president's reelection in 2004, Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff for policy. That assignment came on top of his titles of senior advisor and chief political consultant to the president.
The new policy title gave Rove responsibility for coordinating White House work related to national security, domestic and economic policy and domestic security. But some of the areas for which Rove had responsibility -- notably, Bush's effort to overhaul the Social Security program -- were considered political flops. Democrats suggested that Rove's role had been an inappropriate mixing of politics and policy and that Wednesday's change was due in part to the ongoing scrutiny he faced from the special prosecutor investigating the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
But a Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking said the shift in Rove's job did not represent a diminution in his standing. The strategist did not want to be named because of restrictions on talking with the media.
The strategist said the "principal goal" was to free Rove up so that he could concentrate on long- and short-term strategy issues, such as how to improve Bush's image and bolster the Republican Party.
"This allows our best and smartest thinker in the party to focus on strategic planning and the things he does best," the strategist said. "He plays an integral role in everything here. ... This frees him from the minutiae of the policy job -- dealing with the briefing papers, making sure they are in on time. That's a very good thing."
People familiar with White House operations said Rove still would be the key voice on determining the president's travel schedule and message, and they predicted that Rove personally would help raise funds for congressional candidates.
Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, welcomed the change, saying it would allow Rove to focus on helping the GOP hold onto Congress. A congressional Republican leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic said: "I don't know how much time he was devoting to domestic policy, but it wasn't working. ... His forte is politics, and that's what he should be focused on" heading into the midterm elections.
In addition to the demise of the Social Security proposal, many of Bush's other domestic priorities since his re-election have faced resistance.
Even fellow Republicans balked at his efforts to make further spending cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and other politically popular programs. Also troubled are Bush's goals of creating an immigrant guest-worker program and opening a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration. Although Rove is officially out of the policy arena, many people familiar with White House operations predicted little change in his influence in an administration that melded policy and politics seamlessly.
"If Karl needs to talk to the president and get a decision made, he'll do that, regardless of the title he has," said Republican anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, a longtime friend of Rove's.
GOP pollster Frank Luntz called the White House shake-up "clearly a step in the right direction," but added: "The only question you have to ask is whether it's too late or not" to affect this year's elections. Luntz has warned that Republicans are in danger of losing control of the House.
Wednesday's announcements followed several the day before, when U.S. trade representative Rob Portman was named to replace Bolten as budget director. Susan C. Schwab, Portman's deputy, was named to replace her former boss as the nation's chief trade negotiator.
Bolten moved into the chief of staff job last week after serving as director of the Office of Management and Budget, where Kaplan was his deputy.
The promotion of Kaplan leaves Bush with three deputy chiefs of staff: Rove, Kaplan and Joe Hagin, who oversees administrative matters, intelligence and other national security issues.
McClellan, appearing with Bush on the South Lawn on Wednesday morning in front of reporters, told the president: "I have given it my all, Sir, and I have given you my all, Sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary."
Bush said McClellan had handled a challenging assignment with class and integrity, and that it would "be hard to replace Scott." He predicted that he and McClellan would some day be in "rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."
McClellan said he would remain on the job until a successor was named. Among those thought to be under consideration are Tony Snow, a conservative television pundit and former White House speechwriter, former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke and Dan Senor, who served in the White House and as a spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq.
Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt and researcher Robin Cochran contributed to this report.
By Tom Hamburger, Richard Simon, and Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writers
April 20, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Moving to reinvigorate his presidency and recover from low public approval ratings, President Bush on Wednesday reduced the official role that Karl Rove, his chief political strategist, will play in setting policy and accepted the resignation of spokesman Scott McClellan.
The latest moves were part of an effort by Bush's new chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, to energize an administration that has faced bad news from Iraq and seen a number of second-term initiatives stall. The difficulties have left Republicans nervous about losing control of Congress.
Rove no longer will have direct responsibility for White House policy decision-making, a position he gained after guiding Bush to victory in 2004. But his extraordinary influence in the White House, and in Washington, will continue. Rove will remain in charge of political strategy, which will become increasingly important as the fall congressional campaigns approach.
The policy portfolio will be turned over to Joel D. Kaplan, who had been the White House's deputy budget director. Kaplan worked closely with Bolten in the 2000 campaign, and have a relationship that some compare to the "mind meld" that unites Bush and Rove.
A former White House official who had talked recently with Bolten said Wednesday's moves resulted from Bolten's view that he needed to address three serious problems facing Bush: deteriorating press coverage, souring relations with Congress, and increasing tensions between the White House and GOP candidates. The former official asked not to be identified because of concern the White House might not appreciate his comments during a difficult time.
The troubles are circling just seven months before the midterm elections, in which Democrats hope to make gains by turning local contests into a nationwide referendum on the performance of the president and his party.
Congressional Republicans have been pressing the White House for staff changes, and several welcomed Wednesday's announcement -- while anticipating more shifts soon. Those could include naming a new Treasury secretary to replace John W. Snow, who has drawn fire as deficits mount.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was consulted about the staff changes before they were announced. Frist's chief of staff, Eric Ueland, called the shifts "an unfortunate but sometimes necessary Washington ritual ... (that) will reinvigorate both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to press ahead with a common-sense conservative agenda."
McClellan -- who is expected to leave the White House in the next two weeks -- had been chief spokesman since he replaced Ari Fleischer in 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
McClellan had a more affable demeanor than the pugnacious Fleischer, but his credibility suffered in 2004 when he told reporters it was "totally ridiculous" to suggest that Rove was involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer. It turned out that both Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had discussed the agent with reporters.
Rove was the master strategist for Bush's four consecutive victories in his races for governor of Texas and the presidency. He is known by the president variously as "the architect," for his role in engineering Bush's electoral success, "boy wonder" for his political acumen and "turd blossom" -- a teasing reference to the flower that blooms from Texas cow pies and to Rove's ability to turn messy situations into political triumphs.
Officially, Wednesday's announcement reduces the influence of the man many historians believe to be one of the most powerful White House aides in history. Until this week, Rove had only seen his influence expand since arriving in Washington with Bush, whom he nurtured and tutored in politics.
After receiving accolades for plotting the president's reelection in 2004, Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff for policy. That assignment came on top of his titles of senior advisor and chief political consultant to the president.
The new policy title gave Rove responsibility for coordinating White House work related to national security, domestic and economic policy and domestic security. But some of the areas for which Rove had responsibility -- notably, Bush's effort to overhaul the Social Security program -- were considered political flops. Democrats suggested that Rove's role had been an inappropriate mixing of politics and policy and that Wednesday's change was due in part to the ongoing scrutiny he faced from the special prosecutor investigating the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
But a Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking said the shift in Rove's job did not represent a diminution in his standing. The strategist did not want to be named because of restrictions on talking with the media.
The strategist said the "principal goal" was to free Rove up so that he could concentrate on long- and short-term strategy issues, such as how to improve Bush's image and bolster the Republican Party.
"This allows our best and smartest thinker in the party to focus on strategic planning and the things he does best," the strategist said. "He plays an integral role in everything here. ... This frees him from the minutiae of the policy job -- dealing with the briefing papers, making sure they are in on time. That's a very good thing."
People familiar with White House operations said Rove still would be the key voice on determining the president's travel schedule and message, and they predicted that Rove personally would help raise funds for congressional candidates.
Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, welcomed the change, saying it would allow Rove to focus on helping the GOP hold onto Congress. A congressional Republican leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic said: "I don't know how much time he was devoting to domestic policy, but it wasn't working. ... His forte is politics, and that's what he should be focused on" heading into the midterm elections.
In addition to the demise of the Social Security proposal, many of Bush's other domestic priorities since his re-election have faced resistance.
Even fellow Republicans balked at his efforts to make further spending cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and other politically popular programs. Also troubled are Bush's goals of creating an immigrant guest-worker program and opening a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration. Although Rove is officially out of the policy arena, many people familiar with White House operations predicted little change in his influence in an administration that melded policy and politics seamlessly.
"If Karl needs to talk to the president and get a decision made, he'll do that, regardless of the title he has," said Republican anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, a longtime friend of Rove's.
GOP pollster Frank Luntz called the White House shake-up "clearly a step in the right direction," but added: "The only question you have to ask is whether it's too late or not" to affect this year's elections. Luntz has warned that Republicans are in danger of losing control of the House.
Wednesday's announcements followed several the day before, when U.S. trade representative Rob Portman was named to replace Bolten as budget director. Susan C. Schwab, Portman's deputy, was named to replace her former boss as the nation's chief trade negotiator.
Bolten moved into the chief of staff job last week after serving as director of the Office of Management and Budget, where Kaplan was his deputy.
The promotion of Kaplan leaves Bush with three deputy chiefs of staff: Rove, Kaplan and Joe Hagin, who oversees administrative matters, intelligence and other national security issues.
McClellan, appearing with Bush on the South Lawn on Wednesday morning in front of reporters, told the president: "I have given it my all, Sir, and I have given you my all, Sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary."
Bush said McClellan had handled a challenging assignment with class and integrity, and that it would "be hard to replace Scott." He predicted that he and McClellan would some day be in "rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."
McClellan said he would remain on the job until a successor was named. Among those thought to be under consideration are Tony Snow, a conservative television pundit and former White House speechwriter, former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke and Dan Senor, who served in the White House and as a spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq.
Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt and researcher Robin Cochran contributed to this report.
Key Bush aide is demoted in White House staff shake-up
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 20/04/2006)
President George W Bush clipped the wings of his trusted senior adviser Karl Rove yesterday as part of a major shake-up in the White House designed to rejuvenate an increasingly troubled presidency.
Mr Rove, who is widely known as "Bush's brain" and has guided his political career, is effectively being demoted, with half of his responsibilities taken away.
At the same time, Scott McClellan, Mr Bush's spokesman and public face of the administration, resigned.
Although he will retain the title of deputy chief-of-staff, Mr Rove will lose his other role as chief policy co-ordinator, a key White House job.
That role will be handed to a new deputy chief-of-staff Joel Kaplan, while Mr Rove will concentrate on "strategic issues", White House code for the November congressional elections, where Republicans are struggling to overcome the backwash of Mr Bush's tumbling poll ratings. Many face tough re-election battles in November.
He is expected to remain an influential member of Mr Bush's team, though that may change if the Republicans fare badly at the polls.
Some suggested yesterday that Mr Rove's exclusive focus on politics would be a poisoned chalice.
According to Newsweek magazine, Mr Rove was told: "Go back to focusing on what you do best: building and running a Republican election machine. And, by the way, if the Republicans lose the Congress in 2006, it's gonna be your fault, Karl - not the president's."
Coming soon after the departure of chief-of-staff Andy Card, the shake-up marked the biggest change in the Bush White House since he reached office five years ago. More departures are being forecast.
The changes came without warning, as Mr McClellan, accompanied by Mr Bush, faced the press outside the White House.
Wearing a strained smile, Mr McClellan's voice broke with emotion as he announced: "I have given it my all, sir, and I've given you my all ... thank you for the opportunity."
A clearly emotional president responded by thanking Mr McClellan and said he looked forward to "rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the press secretary".
He added: "And I can assure you I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, 'Job well done'."
Mr McClellan, a 38-year-old fellow Texan, has been the public face of his administration for more than two years and has served Mr Bush for seven years.
The Democrat chairman, Howard Dean, sought to make the most of yesterday's news, stating: "It is not surprising that Karl Rove was demoted this morning. But a demotion is not enough ... President Bush doesn't seem to understand that you can't just change the window dressing, you have to make changes in the Bush administration's policies." (PLEASE KEEP TALKING HOWARD)
But the Democrats are struggling to unite over key issues, including the most persistently poisonous debate in American politics, Iraq.
The man orchestrating the changes at the White House, newly installed chief-of-staff Josh Bolten, was once again silent yesterday.
The only comments made by him since his arrival late last month have been passed on by Mr McClellan in recent days.
Since last August when the government very publicly failed to cope after Hurricane Katrina all but wiped New Orleans off the map, Mr Bush has suffered a series of blows.
The litany includes Iraq, the bungled Supreme Court nomination of his old friend Harriet Miers, the levelling of perjury charges against Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide Scooter Libby, Mr Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend and a stalled legislative agenda.
Congressional Republicans meanwhile, have suffered the resignation of senior leader Tom DeLay, a central figure in getting the administration's agenda through Congress and a growing scandal over alleged bribery of congressmen by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 20/04/2006)
President George W Bush clipped the wings of his trusted senior adviser Karl Rove yesterday as part of a major shake-up in the White House designed to rejuvenate an increasingly troubled presidency.
Mr Rove, who is widely known as "Bush's brain" and has guided his political career, is effectively being demoted, with half of his responsibilities taken away.
At the same time, Scott McClellan, Mr Bush's spokesman and public face of the administration, resigned.
Although he will retain the title of deputy chief-of-staff, Mr Rove will lose his other role as chief policy co-ordinator, a key White House job.
That role will be handed to a new deputy chief-of-staff Joel Kaplan, while Mr Rove will concentrate on "strategic issues", White House code for the November congressional elections, where Republicans are struggling to overcome the backwash of Mr Bush's tumbling poll ratings. Many face tough re-election battles in November.
He is expected to remain an influential member of Mr Bush's team, though that may change if the Republicans fare badly at the polls.
Some suggested yesterday that Mr Rove's exclusive focus on politics would be a poisoned chalice.
According to Newsweek magazine, Mr Rove was told: "Go back to focusing on what you do best: building and running a Republican election machine. And, by the way, if the Republicans lose the Congress in 2006, it's gonna be your fault, Karl - not the president's."
Coming soon after the departure of chief-of-staff Andy Card, the shake-up marked the biggest change in the Bush White House since he reached office five years ago. More departures are being forecast.
The changes came without warning, as Mr McClellan, accompanied by Mr Bush, faced the press outside the White House.
Wearing a strained smile, Mr McClellan's voice broke with emotion as he announced: "I have given it my all, sir, and I've given you my all ... thank you for the opportunity."
A clearly emotional president responded by thanking Mr McClellan and said he looked forward to "rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the press secretary".
He added: "And I can assure you I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, 'Job well done'."
Mr McClellan, a 38-year-old fellow Texan, has been the public face of his administration for more than two years and has served Mr Bush for seven years.
The Democrat chairman, Howard Dean, sought to make the most of yesterday's news, stating: "It is not surprising that Karl Rove was demoted this morning. But a demotion is not enough ... President Bush doesn't seem to understand that you can't just change the window dressing, you have to make changes in the Bush administration's policies." (PLEASE KEEP TALKING HOWARD)
But the Democrats are struggling to unite over key issues, including the most persistently poisonous debate in American politics, Iraq.
The man orchestrating the changes at the White House, newly installed chief-of-staff Josh Bolten, was once again silent yesterday.
The only comments made by him since his arrival late last month have been passed on by Mr McClellan in recent days.
Since last August when the government very publicly failed to cope after Hurricane Katrina all but wiped New Orleans off the map, Mr Bush has suffered a series of blows.
The litany includes Iraq, the bungled Supreme Court nomination of his old friend Harriet Miers, the levelling of perjury charges against Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide Scooter Libby, Mr Cheney's accidental shooting of a friend and a stalled legislative agenda.
Congressional Republicans meanwhile, have suffered the resignation of senior leader Tom DeLay, a central figure in getting the administration's agenda through Congress and a growing scandal over alleged bribery of congressmen by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
IMF warns of fall in house prices
By Edmund Conway in Washington (Filed: 20/04/2006)
The prospect of a house price correction still looms large over Britain, the International Monetary Fund has warned in its closely-watched survey of the world economy.
The alert came as the IMF offered Gordon Brown an unexpected boost by lifting its 2006 growth forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 2.5pc - right at the top of the Chancellor's target range.
But at the same time, the Fund warned that public sector debt will next year surpass 40pc of gross domestic product - breaking Mr Brown's sustainable investment rule.
The biggest risk facing the UK economy is still a potential house price fall, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook. It warned that although the property market has cooled in the past 18 months, prices are still "richly valued" - a hint that they may have further to fall.
The message will come as a disappointment for many who had assumed that the risks associated with falling house prices had now been dispelled following a series of interest rate rises.
Despite these fears for the economy, the IMF said: "As the factors that dampened activity in 2005 wane, growth is expected to pick up to 2.5pc in 2006 and 2.7pc in 2007."
It warned the Government that "reforms of the pension system will be needed to address the inadequate level of private saving for retirement". It said: "The Pensions Commission's recommendations are a key first step in developing a consensus on the extent of the problem and the required policy measures."
By Edmund Conway in Washington (Filed: 20/04/2006)
The prospect of a house price correction still looms large over Britain, the International Monetary Fund has warned in its closely-watched survey of the world economy.
The alert came as the IMF offered Gordon Brown an unexpected boost by lifting its 2006 growth forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 2.5pc - right at the top of the Chancellor's target range.
But at the same time, the Fund warned that public sector debt will next year surpass 40pc of gross domestic product - breaking Mr Brown's sustainable investment rule.
The biggest risk facing the UK economy is still a potential house price fall, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook. It warned that although the property market has cooled in the past 18 months, prices are still "richly valued" - a hint that they may have further to fall.
The message will come as a disappointment for many who had assumed that the risks associated with falling house prices had now been dispelled following a series of interest rate rises.
Despite these fears for the economy, the IMF said: "As the factors that dampened activity in 2005 wane, growth is expected to pick up to 2.5pc in 2006 and 2.7pc in 2007."
It warned the Government that "reforms of the pension system will be needed to address the inadequate level of private saving for retirement". It said: "The Pensions Commission's recommendations are a key first step in developing a consensus on the extent of the problem and the required policy measures."
Why Are They Speaking Up Now?
By Melvin R. Laird and Robert E. Pursley
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A17
The retired general officers who have recently called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld want to convince the public that civilian control has silenced military wisdom regarding the war in Iraq. They have chafed at Rumsfeld's authoritarian style and they may even have legitimate differences of opinion with his decisions. But, while their advice and the weight of their experience should be taken into account, the important time for them to weigh in was while they were on active duty.
The two of us have experienced many of the circumstances confronting Rumsfeld. Our experience and connections at the Defense Department tell us that these generals probably had numerous opportunities to advise and object while on active duty. For them to now imply otherwise is disingenuous and quite possibly harmful for our prospects in Iraq. And it misrepresents the healthy give-and-take that we are confident is widespread between the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and the capable military hierarchy. A general officer is expected to follow orders, but he is also entitled to advise if he thinks those orders are flawed.
The ghost of Vietnam may be whispering to these retired generals, who understandably want to guarantee that military wisdom is never again trampled by political expediency. They make their point by implying that Rumsfeld has run amok and does not listen to his admirals and generals. Yet recently retired Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Richard Myers and his successor, Gen. Peter Pace (from the Air Force and Marine Corps, respectively), have rebutted the argument that the military was sidelined. Myers and Pace are in a position to know.
Rumsfeld respects the delicate balance between military expertise and civilian control, but in the end the decisions are his to make. Our democracy is designed to favor civilian control of defense decisions. The problem is that when military advice is considered and then rejected, officers are likely to feel sidelined. Sometimes we all must wait for hindsight to be able to make accurate judgments.
An example: In the early and mid-1970s as we were considering and eventually implementing the all-volunteer force to replace the draft, there were numerous people, uniformed and civilian, active duty and retired, predicting all manner of dire consequences. The criticisms were harsh. Yet the all-volunteer force has turned out to be an exceptionally valuable and effective innovation.
This is not to say that in hindsight Rumsfeld will be seen as infallible. No secretary of defense has made every decision correctly, and because lives are at stake, those decisions are critical. The appropriate opportunity for military officers to offer constructive criticism and to shape policy that helps avoid disastrous consequences is when those officers are still on active duty. But ultimately, and rightly, our system leaves the final decisions to the elected civilians and their appointees.
There are many avenues through which military ideas can be expressed. The uniformed service chiefs and civilian service secretaries meet frequently with the secretary of defense. We still have many friends and associates in the military and the Defense Department. We are confident that Rumsfeld does not limit those who meet with him to proffer advice. Access by the military through the Joint Chiefs of Staff structure and especially through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is frequent and influential. The commanders in chief of the various commands have ready access to the secretary of defense. A little known or appreciated fact is that historically the uniformed military has been afforded more participation in the National Security Council than any other entity -- including the defense secretary. The secretary's office is populated with numerous uniformed personnel, presenting still another source of access for military input. Beyond the executive branch is the extensive exposure and opportunity to express military views before Congress.
For such widespread access to be effective there must be shared responsibility for aggressively moving information up the chain of command. Not all military advice makes it through the military channels. Senior officers tend to be sensitive when their subordinates germinate ideas. And there are those in each military department who tend to put their branch loyalties above that of the broader national security objectives. The result is that some advice comes with selfish motives attached and some never arrives at all.
The retired officers who have criticized Rumsfeld have served their country with distinction. The military -- active duty and retired -- has a wealth of intelligent, articulate and motivated people. Their sense of duty, integrity and patriotism are of the highest order. But each of them speaks from his own copse of trees and may not have a view of the larger forest. In criticizing those with the broader view, they should be mindful of the risks and responsibilities inherent in their acts. The average U.S. citizen has high respect for the U.S. military. That respect is a valuable national security asset. Criticism, when carried too far, risks eroding it.
We do not advocate a silencing of debate on the war in Iraq. But care must be taken by those experienced officers who had their chance to speak up while on active duty. In speaking out now, they may think they are doing a service by adding to the reasoned debate. But the enemy does not understand or appreciate reasoned public debate. It is perceived as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve.
Melvin R. Laird was a Republican representative from Wisconsin before serving as secretary of defense from 1969 to 1973. Robert E. Pursley, a retired lieutenant general in the Air Force, was military assistant to three secretaries of defense.
By Melvin R. Laird and Robert E. Pursley
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A17
The retired general officers who have recently called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld want to convince the public that civilian control has silenced military wisdom regarding the war in Iraq. They have chafed at Rumsfeld's authoritarian style and they may even have legitimate differences of opinion with his decisions. But, while their advice and the weight of their experience should be taken into account, the important time for them to weigh in was while they were on active duty.
The two of us have experienced many of the circumstances confronting Rumsfeld. Our experience and connections at the Defense Department tell us that these generals probably had numerous opportunities to advise and object while on active duty. For them to now imply otherwise is disingenuous and quite possibly harmful for our prospects in Iraq. And it misrepresents the healthy give-and-take that we are confident is widespread between the civilian leadership at the Pentagon and the capable military hierarchy. A general officer is expected to follow orders, but he is also entitled to advise if he thinks those orders are flawed.
The ghost of Vietnam may be whispering to these retired generals, who understandably want to guarantee that military wisdom is never again trampled by political expediency. They make their point by implying that Rumsfeld has run amok and does not listen to his admirals and generals. Yet recently retired Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Richard Myers and his successor, Gen. Peter Pace (from the Air Force and Marine Corps, respectively), have rebutted the argument that the military was sidelined. Myers and Pace are in a position to know.
Rumsfeld respects the delicate balance between military expertise and civilian control, but in the end the decisions are his to make. Our democracy is designed to favor civilian control of defense decisions. The problem is that when military advice is considered and then rejected, officers are likely to feel sidelined. Sometimes we all must wait for hindsight to be able to make accurate judgments.
An example: In the early and mid-1970s as we were considering and eventually implementing the all-volunteer force to replace the draft, there were numerous people, uniformed and civilian, active duty and retired, predicting all manner of dire consequences. The criticisms were harsh. Yet the all-volunteer force has turned out to be an exceptionally valuable and effective innovation.
This is not to say that in hindsight Rumsfeld will be seen as infallible. No secretary of defense has made every decision correctly, and because lives are at stake, those decisions are critical. The appropriate opportunity for military officers to offer constructive criticism and to shape policy that helps avoid disastrous consequences is when those officers are still on active duty. But ultimately, and rightly, our system leaves the final decisions to the elected civilians and their appointees.
There are many avenues through which military ideas can be expressed. The uniformed service chiefs and civilian service secretaries meet frequently with the secretary of defense. We still have many friends and associates in the military and the Defense Department. We are confident that Rumsfeld does not limit those who meet with him to proffer advice. Access by the military through the Joint Chiefs of Staff structure and especially through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is frequent and influential. The commanders in chief of the various commands have ready access to the secretary of defense. A little known or appreciated fact is that historically the uniformed military has been afforded more participation in the National Security Council than any other entity -- including the defense secretary. The secretary's office is populated with numerous uniformed personnel, presenting still another source of access for military input. Beyond the executive branch is the extensive exposure and opportunity to express military views before Congress.
For such widespread access to be effective there must be shared responsibility for aggressively moving information up the chain of command. Not all military advice makes it through the military channels. Senior officers tend to be sensitive when their subordinates germinate ideas. And there are those in each military department who tend to put their branch loyalties above that of the broader national security objectives. The result is that some advice comes with selfish motives attached and some never arrives at all.
The retired officers who have criticized Rumsfeld have served their country with distinction. The military -- active duty and retired -- has a wealth of intelligent, articulate and motivated people. Their sense of duty, integrity and patriotism are of the highest order. But each of them speaks from his own copse of trees and may not have a view of the larger forest. In criticizing those with the broader view, they should be mindful of the risks and responsibilities inherent in their acts. The average U.S. citizen has high respect for the U.S. military. That respect is a valuable national security asset. Criticism, when carried too far, risks eroding it.
We do not advocate a silencing of debate on the war in Iraq. But care must be taken by those experienced officers who had their chance to speak up while on active duty. In speaking out now, they may think they are doing a service by adding to the reasoned debate. But the enemy does not understand or appreciate reasoned public debate. It is perceived as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve.
Melvin R. Laird was a Republican representative from Wisconsin before serving as secretary of defense from 1969 to 1973. Robert E. Pursley, a retired lieutenant general in the Air Force, was military assistant to three secretaries of defense.
U.S. Seeks U.N. Sanctions Against Four in Sudan
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A11
UNITED NATIONS, April 18 -- The Bush administration asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to adopt a resolution imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on four Sudanese nationals, including a senior Sudanese military officer and a militia leader accused of massive human rights violations in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The move marked the first time that the 15-nation council has considered a resolution to punish select individuals accused of killing tens of thousands of civilians and driving as many as 2 million people from their homes during a three-year campaign of violence.
It also set the stage for a potential showdown with Russia and China, which oppose sanctions, on the eve of a Thursday meeting between President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said Beijing is concerned that sanctions could undermine peace talks between Sudan and Darfur's main rebel groups underway in Abuja, Nigeria. But he dismissed the prospect that the dispute would strain talks between the two leaders at the high-level summit. "This is a minor issue," Wang said.
U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton said sanctions would boost the credibility of the council in confronting those who oppose peace. "The council ought to come to a decision to impose sanctions in the very near future," he said.
The violence in Darfur began in early 2003, when two Darfurian rebels groups took up arms against the Islamic government in Khartoum, alleging mistreatment of the region's black tribes. In response, the government recruited, equipped and trained an Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to mount a violent campaign against communities suspected of supporting the rebels. As many as 100,000 to 400,000 people have died from the violence and disease, according to estimates by U.N. officials and independent experts.
The Security Council decided a year ago to impose targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for the violence in Darfur and set up a sanctions committee to consider candidates.
Britain recently introduced a list of eight names of Sudanese nationals, including a number of senior government officials, that should be subject to U.N. sanctions. But the United States and others said there was insufficient evidence to implicate some senior Sudanese officials.
The United States, Britain, France, Denmark, Argentina, Slovakia, Peru and Japan subsequently proposed sanctions against a narrowed list of four individuals. But China and Russia blocked agreement in the sanctions committee, prompting the administration to press for a vote on the resolution.
The U.S. draft does not name the individuals. But diplomats said they include Musa Hilal, leader of the Janjaweed militia; the rebel Sudanese Liberation Army commander Adam Shant; and Gibril Badri, leader of another rebel group, the National Movement for Reform and Development. The fourth is described as a Sudanese Air Force official.
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A11
UNITED NATIONS, April 18 -- The Bush administration asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to adopt a resolution imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on four Sudanese nationals, including a senior Sudanese military officer and a militia leader accused of massive human rights violations in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The move marked the first time that the 15-nation council has considered a resolution to punish select individuals accused of killing tens of thousands of civilians and driving as many as 2 million people from their homes during a three-year campaign of violence.
It also set the stage for a potential showdown with Russia and China, which oppose sanctions, on the eve of a Thursday meeting between President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said Beijing is concerned that sanctions could undermine peace talks between Sudan and Darfur's main rebel groups underway in Abuja, Nigeria. But he dismissed the prospect that the dispute would strain talks between the two leaders at the high-level summit. "This is a minor issue," Wang said.
U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton said sanctions would boost the credibility of the council in confronting those who oppose peace. "The council ought to come to a decision to impose sanctions in the very near future," he said.
The violence in Darfur began in early 2003, when two Darfurian rebels groups took up arms against the Islamic government in Khartoum, alleging mistreatment of the region's black tribes. In response, the government recruited, equipped and trained an Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to mount a violent campaign against communities suspected of supporting the rebels. As many as 100,000 to 400,000 people have died from the violence and disease, according to estimates by U.N. officials and independent experts.
The Security Council decided a year ago to impose targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for the violence in Darfur and set up a sanctions committee to consider candidates.
Britain recently introduced a list of eight names of Sudanese nationals, including a number of senior government officials, that should be subject to U.N. sanctions. But the United States and others said there was insufficient evidence to implicate some senior Sudanese officials.
The United States, Britain, France, Denmark, Argentina, Slovakia, Peru and Japan subsequently proposed sanctions against a narrowed list of four individuals. But China and Russia blocked agreement in the sanctions committee, prompting the administration to press for a vote on the resolution.
The U.S. draft does not name the individuals. But diplomats said they include Musa Hilal, leader of the Janjaweed militia; the rebel Sudanese Liberation Army commander Adam Shant; and Gibril Badri, leader of another rebel group, the National Movement for Reform and Development. The fourth is described as a Sudanese Air Force official.
At Heart of Iraqi Impasse, a Family Feud
Militia-Backed Shiite Factions Vie for Political Dominance
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A01
NAJAF, Iraq -- On one side of the grinding political deadlock over who should lead Iraq's next government is a plain-spoken cleric with the puffed cheeks and patchy beard of youth, a fiery icon of the downtrodden with an exalted family name: al-Sadr.
On the other is a wizened mullah from the clerical old guard, whose al-Hakim clan founded Iraq's largest political party and whose scholarly air belies a reputation for ruthlessness.
Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim head the two leading dynasties of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whose spiritual home is this ancient southern city. They operate the country's two largest Shiite militias -- the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, respectively -- each with more than 10,000 men under arms. And they are heirs to rival movements that for generations have competed, sometimes violently, for supremacy in the hearts and minds of their long-persecuted people.
The two men are now on opposing sides of the dispute over whether Ibrahim al-Jafari should retain his post as prime minister. The impasse remains unresolved despite months of negotiation and intense U.S. pressure, and hinges not only on myriad political factors but on the two clerics' family feud.
"Iraqi clerical Shiism tends to run in families and has for a long time," said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor and expert on Shiite Islam. "Throughout the 20th century the Sadr and Hakim families have been maybe the most prominent examples and have vied for influence. Here they are again."
Their divergent politics mean the dispute over the prime minister's post has wide-ranging and complex implications for the future of Iraq, and for the U.S. presence here.
The coalition of Shiite parties that won the most votes in Iraq's Dec. 15 elections has nearly fractured over its choice of Jafari as nominee for prime minister. Sadr, whose political allies control about 30 seats in the new legislature, has lined up behind Jafari, believing him more likely to push the Americans to depart Iraq soon. Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which also holds about 30 seats, has been working to install its own candidate, Adel Abdul Mahdi.
Despite being groomed for decades by the government of Iran, Hakim has largely embraced the United States since the 2003 invasion and has profited from it. His Supreme Council party works closely with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and controls several ministries in Iraq's lame-duck transitional government.
Sadr, meanwhile, has battled the U.S. presence. In 2003, an Iraqi judge issued a murder warrant for Sadr in connection with the killing in Najaf of a rival cleric with ties to the United States. Two years ago, his Mahdi Army militiamen fought U.S. forces here and in Baghdad. U.S. diplomats and commanders say they number Sadr and his militia among the gravest threats to Iraq's security, and none has met with him directly.
"We will never negotiate under occupation," said Sayyid Riyadh Nouri, who heads Sadr's political committee and is married to the cleric's sister. "We do not participate with people who violate our democracy." (WHERE DID THE DEMOCRACY COME FROM?)
Sadr and his followers paint the Supreme Council as a foreign movement; its founders were exiled in Iran when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. In a rare interview with a Washington Post reporter soon after Baghdad fell three years ago, Sadr said Iraq should be governed by those who did not flee Hussein's rule. He also has been critical of clerics who remained in Iraq but suffered Hussein's oppression silently.
"The difference is simple: The Hakim family decided to get out of Iraq to fight the former regime, while the Sadr family stayed inside and openly defied Saddam," said Sahib al-Amiry, head of the Sadr-run God's Martyr Foundation. He denied frequent reports that Sadr also receives substantial support from Iran. "Our only relationship with Iran is as a neighbor," he said.
Both Sadr and Hakim owe their strength to a mix of religious legitimacy and impeccable bloodlines. Both wear the black turban that signifies their status as putative descendants of the prophet Muhammad.
Sadr lost brothers, an uncle and his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, at the hands of Hussein's Sunni-dominated security forces. Hakim says more than 60 family members were killed in recent decades -- including his brother, former Supreme Council leader Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, who was obliterated by a car bomb outside Najaf's Imam Ali shrine in 2003. In the past half-century, members of both families have held the revered rank of grand ayatollah, the top position in Najaf's Shiite religious hierarchy.
"There is a great role for these families in the history of Shiite Iraq because of the stands they have taken for the people and the price they have paid," Amar al-Hakim, 36, said in an interview in an office across the street from a large shrine commemorating the killing of his uncle, Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim.
Leaders in both camps are quick to point out that stereotypes of the two Shiite factions have not always held true. While Sadr and his father were heroes to Iraq's working class, Sadr's grandfather was known for his religious scholarship. The two families are also intertwined by marriage: Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's wife is a cousin of Moqtada al-Sadr.
The dispute over Jafari "is not really about families. It is about different ideas for Iraq," said Amar Hakim, citing the Supreme Council's push to form an autonomous state in mostly Shiite southern Iraq. Sadr's followers fear such a move would split the country apart.
While his bloodlines are unquestioned, Sadr, in his early thirties, lacks the seminary training and polish of a top cleric. He draws followers from the Shiite underclass, whose speech patterns are echoed in his own. His base is concentrated in the teeming Baghdad slum of Sadr City, named for his father, where up to 10 percent of Iraq's population lives. His main mosque is in Kufa, a poorer city adjoining Najaf.
Following the model of the Lebanese party and guerrilla movement Hezbollah, Sadr has won support by catering to the needy and maintaining a force of men with guns. His satellite offices across the country have become first stops for Shiites evicted from their neighborhoods in mounting sectarian violence.
In Kufa last week, members of his God's Martyr Foundation were operating a squalid halfway house for displaced Shiites in an abandoned hotel, providing protection and doling out food to 51 families.
"We are all here under his protection," said Iptihal Abbas, who arrived with four children of male family members who were killed by gunmen in the Shiite town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. "Everyone else ignored us, including the government and the Americans."
While also operating charitable organizations, the Supreme Council is a more modern political movement, with a satellite television channel and an unmatched grass-roots organization and cultural programs overseen by Amar Hakim, who made a widely publicized visit to the United States last year.
"We have 80 offices from Basra to Sulaymaniyah," he said. "We have 1,000 mosques in Iraq and 5,000 clergymen linked to us. We have 1,500 women activists. We have educational foundations, schools and charities."
The marjiya , a council of senior Shiite clerics based in Najaf, has urged the two sides to mend the rift that has dominated Iraqi politics since the U.S. invasion. And on Tuesday, a senior aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most influential cleric in Iraq, said patience with Shiite politicians was wearing thin.
"The ones harmed by this delay are the Iraqi people. . . . The Green Zone is soothing, and the Iraqi street is another thing," said the aide, Ahmed al-Safi, referring to the fortified section of Baghdad that houses the Iraqi and American military leaderships. "When the marjiya order or give signals, you should understand it. The marjiya might be forced to be involved more. The marjiya have made it clear on several occasions the importance of speeding up the formation of a government."
But concern is mounting across southern Iraq that if Jafari is pushed aside, the Mahdi Army will occupy the streets. Last August, after Sadr's Najaf office was burned by a mob, his followers blamed the Supreme Council's Badr Brigade. The next day, the Mahdi Army attacked Badr offices across the south before Sadr and Hakim called for calm. Both sides have in recent days asked supporters to maintain order regardless of who is named prime minister, but aides have said they would not rule out armed unrest.
"It is not our official policy," said Amiry, of the Sadr foundation. "But maybe some people will express their stance that way."
Special correspondents Saad Sarhan and Saad al-Izzi in Najaf contributed to this report.
Militia-Backed Shiite Factions Vie for Political Dominance
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A01
NAJAF, Iraq -- On one side of the grinding political deadlock over who should lead Iraq's next government is a plain-spoken cleric with the puffed cheeks and patchy beard of youth, a fiery icon of the downtrodden with an exalted family name: al-Sadr.
On the other is a wizened mullah from the clerical old guard, whose al-Hakim clan founded Iraq's largest political party and whose scholarly air belies a reputation for ruthlessness.
Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim head the two leading dynasties of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, whose spiritual home is this ancient southern city. They operate the country's two largest Shiite militias -- the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, respectively -- each with more than 10,000 men under arms. And they are heirs to rival movements that for generations have competed, sometimes violently, for supremacy in the hearts and minds of their long-persecuted people.
The two men are now on opposing sides of the dispute over whether Ibrahim al-Jafari should retain his post as prime minister. The impasse remains unresolved despite months of negotiation and intense U.S. pressure, and hinges not only on myriad political factors but on the two clerics' family feud.
"Iraqi clerical Shiism tends to run in families and has for a long time," said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor and expert on Shiite Islam. "Throughout the 20th century the Sadr and Hakim families have been maybe the most prominent examples and have vied for influence. Here they are again."
Their divergent politics mean the dispute over the prime minister's post has wide-ranging and complex implications for the future of Iraq, and for the U.S. presence here.
The coalition of Shiite parties that won the most votes in Iraq's Dec. 15 elections has nearly fractured over its choice of Jafari as nominee for prime minister. Sadr, whose political allies control about 30 seats in the new legislature, has lined up behind Jafari, believing him more likely to push the Americans to depart Iraq soon. Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which also holds about 30 seats, has been working to install its own candidate, Adel Abdul Mahdi.
Despite being groomed for decades by the government of Iran, Hakim has largely embraced the United States since the 2003 invasion and has profited from it. His Supreme Council party works closely with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and controls several ministries in Iraq's lame-duck transitional government.
Sadr, meanwhile, has battled the U.S. presence. In 2003, an Iraqi judge issued a murder warrant for Sadr in connection with the killing in Najaf of a rival cleric with ties to the United States. Two years ago, his Mahdi Army militiamen fought U.S. forces here and in Baghdad. U.S. diplomats and commanders say they number Sadr and his militia among the gravest threats to Iraq's security, and none has met with him directly.
"We will never negotiate under occupation," said Sayyid Riyadh Nouri, who heads Sadr's political committee and is married to the cleric's sister. "We do not participate with people who violate our democracy." (WHERE DID THE DEMOCRACY COME FROM?)
Sadr and his followers paint the Supreme Council as a foreign movement; its founders were exiled in Iran when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. In a rare interview with a Washington Post reporter soon after Baghdad fell three years ago, Sadr said Iraq should be governed by those who did not flee Hussein's rule. He also has been critical of clerics who remained in Iraq but suffered Hussein's oppression silently.
"The difference is simple: The Hakim family decided to get out of Iraq to fight the former regime, while the Sadr family stayed inside and openly defied Saddam," said Sahib al-Amiry, head of the Sadr-run God's Martyr Foundation. He denied frequent reports that Sadr also receives substantial support from Iran. "Our only relationship with Iran is as a neighbor," he said.
Both Sadr and Hakim owe their strength to a mix of religious legitimacy and impeccable bloodlines. Both wear the black turban that signifies their status as putative descendants of the prophet Muhammad.
Sadr lost brothers, an uncle and his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, at the hands of Hussein's Sunni-dominated security forces. Hakim says more than 60 family members were killed in recent decades -- including his brother, former Supreme Council leader Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, who was obliterated by a car bomb outside Najaf's Imam Ali shrine in 2003. In the past half-century, members of both families have held the revered rank of grand ayatollah, the top position in Najaf's Shiite religious hierarchy.
"There is a great role for these families in the history of Shiite Iraq because of the stands they have taken for the people and the price they have paid," Amar al-Hakim, 36, said in an interview in an office across the street from a large shrine commemorating the killing of his uncle, Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim.
Leaders in both camps are quick to point out that stereotypes of the two Shiite factions have not always held true. While Sadr and his father were heroes to Iraq's working class, Sadr's grandfather was known for his religious scholarship. The two families are also intertwined by marriage: Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's wife is a cousin of Moqtada al-Sadr.
The dispute over Jafari "is not really about families. It is about different ideas for Iraq," said Amar Hakim, citing the Supreme Council's push to form an autonomous state in mostly Shiite southern Iraq. Sadr's followers fear such a move would split the country apart.
While his bloodlines are unquestioned, Sadr, in his early thirties, lacks the seminary training and polish of a top cleric. He draws followers from the Shiite underclass, whose speech patterns are echoed in his own. His base is concentrated in the teeming Baghdad slum of Sadr City, named for his father, where up to 10 percent of Iraq's population lives. His main mosque is in Kufa, a poorer city adjoining Najaf.
Following the model of the Lebanese party and guerrilla movement Hezbollah, Sadr has won support by catering to the needy and maintaining a force of men with guns. His satellite offices across the country have become first stops for Shiites evicted from their neighborhoods in mounting sectarian violence.
In Kufa last week, members of his God's Martyr Foundation were operating a squalid halfway house for displaced Shiites in an abandoned hotel, providing protection and doling out food to 51 families.
"We are all here under his protection," said Iptihal Abbas, who arrived with four children of male family members who were killed by gunmen in the Shiite town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. "Everyone else ignored us, including the government and the Americans."
While also operating charitable organizations, the Supreme Council is a more modern political movement, with a satellite television channel and an unmatched grass-roots organization and cultural programs overseen by Amar Hakim, who made a widely publicized visit to the United States last year.
"We have 80 offices from Basra to Sulaymaniyah," he said. "We have 1,000 mosques in Iraq and 5,000 clergymen linked to us. We have 1,500 women activists. We have educational foundations, schools and charities."
The marjiya , a council of senior Shiite clerics based in Najaf, has urged the two sides to mend the rift that has dominated Iraqi politics since the U.S. invasion. And on Tuesday, a senior aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most influential cleric in Iraq, said patience with Shiite politicians was wearing thin.
"The ones harmed by this delay are the Iraqi people. . . . The Green Zone is soothing, and the Iraqi street is another thing," said the aide, Ahmed al-Safi, referring to the fortified section of Baghdad that houses the Iraqi and American military leaderships. "When the marjiya order or give signals, you should understand it. The marjiya might be forced to be involved more. The marjiya have made it clear on several occasions the importance of speeding up the formation of a government."
But concern is mounting across southern Iraq that if Jafari is pushed aside, the Mahdi Army will occupy the streets. Last August, after Sadr's Najaf office was burned by a mob, his followers blamed the Supreme Council's Badr Brigade. The next day, the Mahdi Army attacked Badr offices across the south before Sadr and Hakim called for calm. Both sides have in recent days asked supporters to maintain order regardless of who is named prime minister, but aides have said they would not rule out armed unrest.
"It is not our official policy," said Amiry, of the Sadr foundation. "But maybe some people will express their stance that way."
Special correspondents Saad Sarhan and Saad al-Izzi in Najaf contributed to this report.
Hopes for Trade Talks Dim After Personnel Switch
By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; D01
By switching his chief trade negotiator yesterday, President Bush sent a gloomy signal to many trade experts and policymakers about the prospects for achieving significant gains in trade talks with foreign countries anytime soon.
The announcement that Bush was naming Rob Portman to become head of the Office of Management and Budget showed that in just 11 months as U.S. trade representative, Portman has established himself as one of the administration's rising stars. But the personnel change comes as global trade negotiations are in serious trouble, with a major deadline just weeks away. The loss of Portman leaves the talks without a chief U.S. negotiator whose genial manner, combined with his political skill and mastery of detail, has impressed counterparts from other nations. (SO HWY IS THERE NO DEAL THEN?)
As a result, the move was widely viewed as indicating that the administration holds little hope for securing a far-reaching deal in the talks this year and possibly for much longer than that. The negotiations, known as the Doha round, were launched at a World Trade Organization meeting in 2001 with the avowed aim of substantially lowering trade barriers and changing trade rules in ways that would provide developing countries with much greater benefits under the international trading system. But vast differences continue to divide major players including the United States and European Union, especially over the issue of how much to lower tariffs on agricultural products, and pessimism has deepened recently that WTO members can strike a framework agreement by April 30 as they pledged last year. (NICE WORK EUROPE - AND YOU TALK ABOUT THE USA BEING UNILATERAL'?)
Yesterday's news fueled worries that the talks might collapse or at least fall into a long state of paralysis, even though those fears were tempered somewhat by the announcement that Bush was nominating Susan C. Schwab, a seasoned trade hand who is one of Portman's deputies, to replace him.
"For this administration, it is important to get its act together, and that trumped the WTO negotiations," said Claude Barfield, a trade specialist at the American Enterprise Institute. "The White House must think that Portman brings something to the team that is beyond trade. I don't want to come across as criticizing Sue -- she certainly brings a vast intellectual knowledge to the job. It's just that changing leaders at a critical time is bound to have some impact." (THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR 5 YEARS AND A CHANGE WITH A WEEK TO GO IS A BIG DEAL? COME NOW)
"It's bad news as far as the Doha round is concerned," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade policy. He added, however, that "if there's not a major breakthrough within the next 30 days, I don't think it makes much difference who is trade representative," and that Portman is "very much the kind of person we need as an OMB director."
Critics of the administration's trade policy jubilantly asserted that the implications could go even beyond the WTO talks. They said the move reveals a lack of confidence on the administration's part that it will secure congressional approval for new bilateral trade agreements with countries such as Peru and Colombia.
"This does not bode well -- ha, ha, ha! -- for Bush's trade agenda. What a tragedy," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a group founded by Ralph Nader. "You don't take out a very effective player like Portman, who has good relations in Congress and on the international scene, when this whole agenda stands on the precipice, without knowing what that means." (LORI IS SO HAPPY THATPERU AND COLUMBIA WILL CONTINUE TO BE PUNISHED WITH HIGH TARIFFS AND TRADE RESTRICTIONS; AND WHO DOES BURDEN IMPACT THE GREATEST? THE POOR. LORI IS AGAINST THE POOR)
Portman and Schwab were at pains to head off such conclusions in their comments yesterday at a news conference with Bush, in which they emphasized the top priority the administration places on the Doha round and its determination to complete other trade agreements. Business groups, meanwhile, issued a slew of statements praising Schwab and voicing confidence that she could pick up where Portman is leaving off.
The praise cited Schwab's record as both a practitioner and student of trade policy. She started as an agricultural negotiator for the trade representative's office in the late 1970s and served as legislative director for former senator John C. Danforth in the 1980s, then headed the Commerce Department's U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service under President George H.W. Bush. She worked for Motorola Inc. from 1993-95 and was dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy before becoming deputy trade representative in November.
"Susan Schwab is an excellent choice," said John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. "She will be a strong and effective voice for leveling the international playing field."
But the announcement came atop a scathing assessment of the prospects for the Doha round by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who is Grassley's counterpart on trade policy in the lower chamber. In an April 3 speech, Thomas urged the administration to acknowledge that it had "irreconcilable differences" with the E.U., which has been blamed by many WTO members for blocking progress in the talks. European officials have balked at making steep cuts in agricultural tariffs, which the United States and other nations argue would open major new export opportunities for farmers in poor countries.
(WHY DOES EUROPE WANT TO PREVENT THE POOR FROM DEVELOPMENT?)
The E.U. reacted to word of Portman's reassignment with a caustic suggestion that Washington had diminished the chances for a deal. "We will, of course, manage without him, but at this stage in the round, it would have been easier to manage with him," said Peter Mandelson, the E.U. trade commissioner, in a statement. (YAWN)
The big question now, trade analysts said, is whether the talks can end in agreement some time next year. Another huge obstacle looms then -- the expiration in June 2007 of "trade promotion authority" (TPA), the U.S. law that the administration had to fight hard for in 2002 so it could negotiate trade pacts. Because of complex implementation problems, that authority would have to be extended -- a highly uncertain prospect -- to allow for congressional approval of a Doha round accord.
The change of U.S. trade negotiators "confirms that it's highly unlikely that the round will end this year, but putting in an experienced deputy still puts us in a position to work out the hard details of the negotiation over the next 12 to 18 months," said Jeffrey Schott, a scholar at the Institute for International Economics. "Still, that opens up the TPA debate. Sue has a lot of experience in Congress, but more on the technocratic level -- she obviously doesn't have the same sort of relations that Rob Portman has."
By Paul Blustein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; D01
By switching his chief trade negotiator yesterday, President Bush sent a gloomy signal to many trade experts and policymakers about the prospects for achieving significant gains in trade talks with foreign countries anytime soon.
The announcement that Bush was naming Rob Portman to become head of the Office of Management and Budget showed that in just 11 months as U.S. trade representative, Portman has established himself as one of the administration's rising stars. But the personnel change comes as global trade negotiations are in serious trouble, with a major deadline just weeks away. The loss of Portman leaves the talks without a chief U.S. negotiator whose genial manner, combined with his political skill and mastery of detail, has impressed counterparts from other nations. (SO HWY IS THERE NO DEAL THEN?)
As a result, the move was widely viewed as indicating that the administration holds little hope for securing a far-reaching deal in the talks this year and possibly for much longer than that. The negotiations, known as the Doha round, were launched at a World Trade Organization meeting in 2001 with the avowed aim of substantially lowering trade barriers and changing trade rules in ways that would provide developing countries with much greater benefits under the international trading system. But vast differences continue to divide major players including the United States and European Union, especially over the issue of how much to lower tariffs on agricultural products, and pessimism has deepened recently that WTO members can strike a framework agreement by April 30 as they pledged last year. (NICE WORK EUROPE - AND YOU TALK ABOUT THE USA BEING UNILATERAL'?)
Yesterday's news fueled worries that the talks might collapse or at least fall into a long state of paralysis, even though those fears were tempered somewhat by the announcement that Bush was nominating Susan C. Schwab, a seasoned trade hand who is one of Portman's deputies, to replace him.
"For this administration, it is important to get its act together, and that trumped the WTO negotiations," said Claude Barfield, a trade specialist at the American Enterprise Institute. "The White House must think that Portman brings something to the team that is beyond trade. I don't want to come across as criticizing Sue -- she certainly brings a vast intellectual knowledge to the job. It's just that changing leaders at a critical time is bound to have some impact." (THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR 5 YEARS AND A CHANGE WITH A WEEK TO GO IS A BIG DEAL? COME NOW)
"It's bad news as far as the Doha round is concerned," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade policy. He added, however, that "if there's not a major breakthrough within the next 30 days, I don't think it makes much difference who is trade representative," and that Portman is "very much the kind of person we need as an OMB director."
Critics of the administration's trade policy jubilantly asserted that the implications could go even beyond the WTO talks. They said the move reveals a lack of confidence on the administration's part that it will secure congressional approval for new bilateral trade agreements with countries such as Peru and Colombia.
"This does not bode well -- ha, ha, ha! -- for Bush's trade agenda. What a tragedy," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a group founded by Ralph Nader. "You don't take out a very effective player like Portman, who has good relations in Congress and on the international scene, when this whole agenda stands on the precipice, without knowing what that means." (LORI IS SO HAPPY THATPERU AND COLUMBIA WILL CONTINUE TO BE PUNISHED WITH HIGH TARIFFS AND TRADE RESTRICTIONS; AND WHO DOES BURDEN IMPACT THE GREATEST? THE POOR. LORI IS AGAINST THE POOR)
Portman and Schwab were at pains to head off such conclusions in their comments yesterday at a news conference with Bush, in which they emphasized the top priority the administration places on the Doha round and its determination to complete other trade agreements. Business groups, meanwhile, issued a slew of statements praising Schwab and voicing confidence that she could pick up where Portman is leaving off.
The praise cited Schwab's record as both a practitioner and student of trade policy. She started as an agricultural negotiator for the trade representative's office in the late 1970s and served as legislative director for former senator John C. Danforth in the 1980s, then headed the Commerce Department's U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service under President George H.W. Bush. She worked for Motorola Inc. from 1993-95 and was dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy before becoming deputy trade representative in November.
"Susan Schwab is an excellent choice," said John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. "She will be a strong and effective voice for leveling the international playing field."
But the announcement came atop a scathing assessment of the prospects for the Doha round by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who is Grassley's counterpart on trade policy in the lower chamber. In an April 3 speech, Thomas urged the administration to acknowledge that it had "irreconcilable differences" with the E.U., which has been blamed by many WTO members for blocking progress in the talks. European officials have balked at making steep cuts in agricultural tariffs, which the United States and other nations argue would open major new export opportunities for farmers in poor countries.
(WHY DOES EUROPE WANT TO PREVENT THE POOR FROM DEVELOPMENT?)
The E.U. reacted to word of Portman's reassignment with a caustic suggestion that Washington had diminished the chances for a deal. "We will, of course, manage without him, but at this stage in the round, it would have been easier to manage with him," said Peter Mandelson, the E.U. trade commissioner, in a statement. (YAWN)
The big question now, trade analysts said, is whether the talks can end in agreement some time next year. Another huge obstacle looms then -- the expiration in June 2007 of "trade promotion authority" (TPA), the U.S. law that the administration had to fight hard for in 2002 so it could negotiate trade pacts. Because of complex implementation problems, that authority would have to be extended -- a highly uncertain prospect -- to allow for congressional approval of a Doha round accord.
The change of U.S. trade negotiators "confirms that it's highly unlikely that the round will end this year, but putting in an experienced deputy still puts us in a position to work out the hard details of the negotiation over the next 12 to 18 months," said Jeffrey Schott, a scholar at the Institute for International Economics. "Still, that opens up the TPA debate. Sue has a lot of experience in Congress, but more on the technocratic level -- she obviously doesn't have the same sort of relations that Rob Portman has."
Thursday, April 20, 2006
White House Puts Face on North Korean Human Rights
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A01
She showed up at a school in a coastal city in China nearly five months ago and begged for help. Instead, she was deported to her native North Korea and never seen again.
Now the case of Kim Chun Hee has made its way to the desk of President Bush, threatening to complicate the first White House visit of China's leader tomorrow and further irritate an irritable relationship.
Urged on by evangelical supporters from his home town and other activists elsewhere, Bush has taken a personal interest in human rights in North Korea and decided to make an example of Kim's asylum case. Alerted to her situation by a South Korean lawmaker, the White House issued a rare statement last month pronouncing itself "gravely concerned" about her fate and chastising China for sending her back.
The story of how an obscure instance of individual hardship came to figure in a meeting between two of the world's most powerful leaders sheds light on the crosscurrents of U.S. foreign policy under Bush. The son of a former envoy to Beijing, Bush has worked to build stable relations with China and wants its help on urgent priorities such as curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. Yet the same president has proclaimed expanding freedom to be the guiding principle of his foreign policy, with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
So as diplomats and bureaucrats throughout the U.S. government in recent weeks assembled briefing books on the Chinese currency and the trade deficit and other issues of importance to Bush's business backers, another corner of government, much smaller, has worked to put on the table China's treatment of desperate North Koreans who slip across the border.
They have been aided in that quest by a growing movement of Christian activists who lately have adopted North Korea as a cause, much as they earlier did Sudan, and pushed Congress into passing legislation intended to make human rights in Asia's last Stalinist outpost a higher U.S. priority.
"We just feel this is what we're commanded to do," said Deborah Fikes, executive director of the Midland Ministerial Alliance from the president's Texas home town. "If you're a follower of Christ, this should be one of your number one priorities, speaking out for the oppressed, and I can't think of anybody more oppressed than the North Koreans."
The case of Kim offered an opportunity to put their concern front and center. Never before has the Bush White House singled out a North Korean asylum seeker by name and held Beijing responsible for her fate, according to U.S. officials and human rights workers. The timing was especially pointed, coming just before the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who will be greeted tomorrow by a 21-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House.
Administration officials said Bush feels strongly about the situation. "He's taken a very personal interest and a fairly significant interest in the issue of human rights," said Jay Lefkowitz, whom Bush appointed last year as a special envoy for human rights in North Korea. "He fundamentally believes the character of the North Korean regime is defined by its human rights conduct."
The White House statement cheered many who have been working on the issue even though they said it represents just a fraction of what should be done. "I'm glad they did it, but it's not enough," said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in February seeking more action by the administration.
Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said: "The real question is whether the president's going to actually say anything to Hu. I'm happy they did it. But do they see this as a signal of what they're going to do or as a substitute?" (WHAT DID YOUR HERO BILL CLINTON ON THE NORTH KOREAN SITUATION?)
Not much is known about Kim beyond the bare bones of her travails. An account pieced together from a South Korean lawmaker, a U.S. diplomat in the region, South Korean media and her sister suggests Kim's experience resembles those of many seeking to escape the North.
Kim, 31, is popularly known by a pseudonym. Her real name has been reported in South Korean newspapers as Lee Chun Sil. North Korean authorities put her in prison for eight months after other family members escaped to the South. Her 5-year-old son died during her captivity. She managed to cross into China last September and on Nov. 30 tried to enter a school for Koreans in the Chinese city of Dalian on the Yellow Sea, hoping to win asylum and be sent to Seoul to join relatives. But the school kicked her out.
Usually a North Korean asylum seeker who manages to get into a South Korean school or diplomatic facility in China is allowed to go to South Korea after several months of waiting, while those captured on the outside are often sent back. So Kim made her way to Beijing, where she tried to enter another Korean school on Dec. 2, but Chinese authorities arrested her. Her sister in Seoul began faxing letters of appeal to politicians and human rights workers around the world.
A week later, Lefkowitz attended a conference in Seoul dedicated to North Korean human rights. A lawmaker he met there, Kim Moon Soo, sent him a letter dated Dec. 16 asking him to help Kim. "Do you think it would be possible for you to use any influence you can to free the North Korean woman?" he wrote.
What happened next soured U.S. officials on China. U.S., South Korean and U.N. officials all began pressing China not to deport Kim to North Korea, noting Beijing's obligations under the U.N. convention on refugees of 1951 and its 1967 protocol. The Chinese responded that the case was under review and told U.N. officials that she would probably be released on the occasion of the visit of Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, who visited China from March 19 to 23.
But according to the U.S. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, Beijing had already sent Kim back to North Korea even as it was promising her release and informed the U.S. Embassy of her deportation on March 24, the day after Guterres left. "The Chinese basically misled us," the diplomat said.
Now no one is sure what has happened to Kim. Many defectors who are returned to North Korea face prison or death, according to human rights groups. "I don't know whether she is alive or dead," her sister said by telephone, asking not to be identified for security reasons.
Fikes said Kim's case became an important example for activists, who made their concern known to the White House and State Department. Six days after the embassy was informed of her fate, the White House issued its statement. "The United States is gravely concerned about China's treatment of Kim Chun-Hee," it said, reminding Beijing of "China's obligations as a party" to U.N. conventions.
Lefkowitz said the White House highlighted Kim's case because she offered a rare face to a broader problem. "A lot of what goes on over there is shrouded in such secrecy," he said. "The North Koreans have made it very, very hard to get out. Over the years, a lot of people have been sent back over the border. In this instance, we had a name. It was very appropriate for the international community to call it out."
Bush has expressed visceral distaste for North Korea's autocratic leader, Kim Jong Il, calling him a "tyrant" who runs "concentration camps" and saying he "loathes" him for the way he treats his people. Last year, Bush invited to the White House defector Kang Chol Hwan after reading his memoir, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang," recounting 10 years of eating rats in a North Korean prison.
"This is a topic he raises frequently, not just with leaders from Asia but around the world," said Michael Green, the president's former Asia adviser. "He cares deeply about it. It's not just about Kim Jong Il. It's the fact that these kinds of horrors happen on this kind of scale in our day and age."
But Wolf and others complain that personal commitment is not translated into enough action. In 2004, Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, which created Lefkowitz's position. But the administration has not designated money to implement the law or offered asylum to any North Korean, according to a Feb. 21 letter to Rice signed by Wolf and eight other lawmakers.
Some administration officials said the State Department is more focused on North Korea's nuclear arms and has not made human rights a priority. "He is completely right," one official said of Wolf's criticism. Another official said "it's been a struggle" to get the administration to pay attention. During a White House briefing on Monday discussing issues at tomorrow's Bush-Hu summit, no official mentioned North Korean refugees.
Human rights groups and evangelical activists vowed to press until they do. "We intend to carry through on this," said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals. "The forthcoming coalition is going to be stronger than ever and we don't intend to lose. This is a major movement. . . . We have a left-right coalition that bar none will move Washington, and it's got China in the headlights."
Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A01
She showed up at a school in a coastal city in China nearly five months ago and begged for help. Instead, she was deported to her native North Korea and never seen again.
Now the case of Kim Chun Hee has made its way to the desk of President Bush, threatening to complicate the first White House visit of China's leader tomorrow and further irritate an irritable relationship.
Urged on by evangelical supporters from his home town and other activists elsewhere, Bush has taken a personal interest in human rights in North Korea and decided to make an example of Kim's asylum case. Alerted to her situation by a South Korean lawmaker, the White House issued a rare statement last month pronouncing itself "gravely concerned" about her fate and chastising China for sending her back.
The story of how an obscure instance of individual hardship came to figure in a meeting between two of the world's most powerful leaders sheds light on the crosscurrents of U.S. foreign policy under Bush. The son of a former envoy to Beijing, Bush has worked to build stable relations with China and wants its help on urgent priorities such as curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. Yet the same president has proclaimed expanding freedom to be the guiding principle of his foreign policy, with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
So as diplomats and bureaucrats throughout the U.S. government in recent weeks assembled briefing books on the Chinese currency and the trade deficit and other issues of importance to Bush's business backers, another corner of government, much smaller, has worked to put on the table China's treatment of desperate North Koreans who slip across the border.
They have been aided in that quest by a growing movement of Christian activists who lately have adopted North Korea as a cause, much as they earlier did Sudan, and pushed Congress into passing legislation intended to make human rights in Asia's last Stalinist outpost a higher U.S. priority.
"We just feel this is what we're commanded to do," said Deborah Fikes, executive director of the Midland Ministerial Alliance from the president's Texas home town. "If you're a follower of Christ, this should be one of your number one priorities, speaking out for the oppressed, and I can't think of anybody more oppressed than the North Koreans."
The case of Kim offered an opportunity to put their concern front and center. Never before has the Bush White House singled out a North Korean asylum seeker by name and held Beijing responsible for her fate, according to U.S. officials and human rights workers. The timing was especially pointed, coming just before the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who will be greeted tomorrow by a 21-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House.
Administration officials said Bush feels strongly about the situation. "He's taken a very personal interest and a fairly significant interest in the issue of human rights," said Jay Lefkowitz, whom Bush appointed last year as a special envoy for human rights in North Korea. "He fundamentally believes the character of the North Korean regime is defined by its human rights conduct."
The White House statement cheered many who have been working on the issue even though they said it represents just a fraction of what should be done. "I'm glad they did it, but it's not enough," said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in February seeking more action by the administration.
Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said: "The real question is whether the president's going to actually say anything to Hu. I'm happy they did it. But do they see this as a signal of what they're going to do or as a substitute?" (WHAT DID YOUR HERO BILL CLINTON ON THE NORTH KOREAN SITUATION?)
Not much is known about Kim beyond the bare bones of her travails. An account pieced together from a South Korean lawmaker, a U.S. diplomat in the region, South Korean media and her sister suggests Kim's experience resembles those of many seeking to escape the North.
Kim, 31, is popularly known by a pseudonym. Her real name has been reported in South Korean newspapers as Lee Chun Sil. North Korean authorities put her in prison for eight months after other family members escaped to the South. Her 5-year-old son died during her captivity. She managed to cross into China last September and on Nov. 30 tried to enter a school for Koreans in the Chinese city of Dalian on the Yellow Sea, hoping to win asylum and be sent to Seoul to join relatives. But the school kicked her out.
Usually a North Korean asylum seeker who manages to get into a South Korean school or diplomatic facility in China is allowed to go to South Korea after several months of waiting, while those captured on the outside are often sent back. So Kim made her way to Beijing, where she tried to enter another Korean school on Dec. 2, but Chinese authorities arrested her. Her sister in Seoul began faxing letters of appeal to politicians and human rights workers around the world.
A week later, Lefkowitz attended a conference in Seoul dedicated to North Korean human rights. A lawmaker he met there, Kim Moon Soo, sent him a letter dated Dec. 16 asking him to help Kim. "Do you think it would be possible for you to use any influence you can to free the North Korean woman?" he wrote.
What happened next soured U.S. officials on China. U.S., South Korean and U.N. officials all began pressing China not to deport Kim to North Korea, noting Beijing's obligations under the U.N. convention on refugees of 1951 and its 1967 protocol. The Chinese responded that the case was under review and told U.N. officials that she would probably be released on the occasion of the visit of Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, who visited China from March 19 to 23.
But according to the U.S. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, Beijing had already sent Kim back to North Korea even as it was promising her release and informed the U.S. Embassy of her deportation on March 24, the day after Guterres left. "The Chinese basically misled us," the diplomat said.
Now no one is sure what has happened to Kim. Many defectors who are returned to North Korea face prison or death, according to human rights groups. "I don't know whether she is alive or dead," her sister said by telephone, asking not to be identified for security reasons.
Fikes said Kim's case became an important example for activists, who made their concern known to the White House and State Department. Six days after the embassy was informed of her fate, the White House issued its statement. "The United States is gravely concerned about China's treatment of Kim Chun-Hee," it said, reminding Beijing of "China's obligations as a party" to U.N. conventions.
Lefkowitz said the White House highlighted Kim's case because she offered a rare face to a broader problem. "A lot of what goes on over there is shrouded in such secrecy," he said. "The North Koreans have made it very, very hard to get out. Over the years, a lot of people have been sent back over the border. In this instance, we had a name. It was very appropriate for the international community to call it out."
Bush has expressed visceral distaste for North Korea's autocratic leader, Kim Jong Il, calling him a "tyrant" who runs "concentration camps" and saying he "loathes" him for the way he treats his people. Last year, Bush invited to the White House defector Kang Chol Hwan after reading his memoir, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang," recounting 10 years of eating rats in a North Korean prison.
"This is a topic he raises frequently, not just with leaders from Asia but around the world," said Michael Green, the president's former Asia adviser. "He cares deeply about it. It's not just about Kim Jong Il. It's the fact that these kinds of horrors happen on this kind of scale in our day and age."
But Wolf and others complain that personal commitment is not translated into enough action. In 2004, Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, which created Lefkowitz's position. But the administration has not designated money to implement the law or offered asylum to any North Korean, according to a Feb. 21 letter to Rice signed by Wolf and eight other lawmakers.
Some administration officials said the State Department is more focused on North Korea's nuclear arms and has not made human rights a priority. "He is completely right," one official said of Wolf's criticism. Another official said "it's been a struggle" to get the administration to pay attention. During a White House briefing on Monday discussing issues at tomorrow's Bush-Hu summit, no official mentioned North Korean refugees.
Human rights groups and evangelical activists vowed to press until they do. "We intend to carry through on this," said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals. "The forthcoming coalition is going to be stronger than ever and we don't intend to lose. This is a major movement. . . . We have a left-right coalition that bar none will move Washington, and it's got China in the headlights."
Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.
Iraq's Kurds Aim for Own Oil Ministry
The regional assembly may vote as early as next week on creating the agency. Setting it up could further destabilize the divided nation.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2006
BAGHDAD — Leaders of Iraq's Kurdish north have unveiled a controversial plan to consolidate their hold on the region's future petroleum resources, raising concerns about how the ethnically divided nation will share its oil revenue.
The Kurdish parliament will be asked to vote on the creation of a Ministry of Natural Resources that would regulate potentially lucrative energy projects in newly discovered oil and natural gas fields within the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The new ministry, if established, would be another step in the Kurds' gradual retreat from the Baghdad government, as well as a potentially destabilizing development in a country already on the verge of fragmenting along ethnic and religious lines.
"They have the right to make a decision in their territory, but it is dangerous," said Mohammed Aboudi, a divisional director-general of the national Oil Ministry and a government advisor. "They are starting to search for oil without any consultation with the central government. What if Basra does the same, or any other province?"
Interim Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr Uloum, advised of the proposal, warned against unilateral decisions on oil.
"At the end of the day, it's important to have coordination and communication, especially with oil, because it's a very sensitive issue," Bahr Uloum told the Los Angeles Times.
Long oppressed and marginalized under Arab governments in Baghdad, Kurds pushed aggressively for a constitution that limits the central government's power and gives regional officials the authority to exploit newly discovered oil and gas fields.
In a controversial move in November, a Norwegian energy firm began drilling for oil in northern Kurdistan. The regional government had signed the deal without seeking approval from Baghdad.
The constitution is deliberately vague about how future oil profit is to be distributed nationally, leaving a highly volatile issue unresolved.
A vote on the proposed Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources could come as early as Monday in the Kurdish regional parliament, which is debating a plan to reunify and streamline the two halves of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Kurds and their advocates characterized the proposed regional organ as a slight elevation in status to a Cabinet-level post for the state-owned oil company that manages such matters and dismissed concerns in the capital as overblown.
"Forming a new ministry is an arrangement that will help increase oil production," said Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who has advised the Kurds. "If oil production increases in Alaska, it may be that the Alaskans get a major part of the benefits, but Alaska is still part of the U.S."
Besides, control of the oil under their soil is their birthright, said Fadhel Merani, an Irbil-based official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, one of two political groups controlling the Kurdish region
"People have the right to express what they feel," he said in a telephone interview, "but they have to understand other ethnic groups' feelings also, especially those who suffered in the past."
But though few contest the legality of the Kurdish proposal to create a parallel agency, Iraqi officials argue that doing so now, without coordination with the national Oil Ministry and amid a mounting national crisis over the failure so far to form a government, risks exacerbating already violent ethnic passions and fueling the perception that the country is coming apart.
"There is still a central government," Aboudi said. "There is a Ministry of Oil. Yes, there is no political stability in Iraq. It doesn't mean we leave all laws and regulations and every region does what it wants."
Iraq's 4 million Kurds, nestled in a mountainous, Switzerland-sized region that has been autonomous since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, have been charting their own course for a while.
Kurds fought side by side with U.S. special forces three years ago as they stormed into the oil-rich cities of Kirkuk and Khaneqin during invasion of Iraq. With a language and culture distinct from Iraq's Arab majority, Kurds have isolated themselves in their relatively safe enclave, looking upon the violence ravaging the rest of the country with some detachment.
Kurds and their supporters say the creation of a new ministry is well within the parameters of the constitution.
"There are people who haven't faced the reality of what has gone on in Iraq," Galbraith said. "They still think that the old central state is going to be put back together again. It's not going to happen in Kurdistan. It's not going to happen in the south. It's not going to happen in Baghdad."
Each half of the Kurdish region, which split apart in a 1990s civil war between forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, and the KDP, has its own ministries of defense, interior, health and education. The Iraqi Constitution, ratified in an Oct. 15 referendum, gives Kurdistan the authority to wheel and deal with the international petroleum industry within Irbil, Sulaymaniya and Dahuk, where Kurds make up more than 95% of the population.
But Kurds also lay claim to much of the region around Kirkuk, which is said to contain up to 40% of Iraq's proven oil reserves. A referendum on the disputed area's future is to take place by the end of 2007.
Officials in Baghdad, including allies of the Kurds, said they were blindsided by news of the proposed ministry.
"We know what the ambitions of the Kurds are," said Iyad Samarrai, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group. "But everybody agreed to make such moves within the [national] political process."
*
Times researcher John L. Jackson in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
The regional assembly may vote as early as next week on creating the agency. Setting it up could further destabilize the divided nation.
By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2006
BAGHDAD — Leaders of Iraq's Kurdish north have unveiled a controversial plan to consolidate their hold on the region's future petroleum resources, raising concerns about how the ethnically divided nation will share its oil revenue.
The Kurdish parliament will be asked to vote on the creation of a Ministry of Natural Resources that would regulate potentially lucrative energy projects in newly discovered oil and natural gas fields within the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The new ministry, if established, would be another step in the Kurds' gradual retreat from the Baghdad government, as well as a potentially destabilizing development in a country already on the verge of fragmenting along ethnic and religious lines.
"They have the right to make a decision in their territory, but it is dangerous," said Mohammed Aboudi, a divisional director-general of the national Oil Ministry and a government advisor. "They are starting to search for oil without any consultation with the central government. What if Basra does the same, or any other province?"
Interim Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr Uloum, advised of the proposal, warned against unilateral decisions on oil.
"At the end of the day, it's important to have coordination and communication, especially with oil, because it's a very sensitive issue," Bahr Uloum told the Los Angeles Times.
Long oppressed and marginalized under Arab governments in Baghdad, Kurds pushed aggressively for a constitution that limits the central government's power and gives regional officials the authority to exploit newly discovered oil and gas fields.
In a controversial move in November, a Norwegian energy firm began drilling for oil in northern Kurdistan. The regional government had signed the deal without seeking approval from Baghdad.
The constitution is deliberately vague about how future oil profit is to be distributed nationally, leaving a highly volatile issue unresolved.
A vote on the proposed Kurdistan Ministry of Natural Resources could come as early as Monday in the Kurdish regional parliament, which is debating a plan to reunify and streamline the two halves of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Kurds and their advocates characterized the proposed regional organ as a slight elevation in status to a Cabinet-level post for the state-owned oil company that manages such matters and dismissed concerns in the capital as overblown.
"Forming a new ministry is an arrangement that will help increase oil production," said Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who has advised the Kurds. "If oil production increases in Alaska, it may be that the Alaskans get a major part of the benefits, but Alaska is still part of the U.S."
Besides, control of the oil under their soil is their birthright, said Fadhel Merani, an Irbil-based official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, one of two political groups controlling the Kurdish region
"People have the right to express what they feel," he said in a telephone interview, "but they have to understand other ethnic groups' feelings also, especially those who suffered in the past."
But though few contest the legality of the Kurdish proposal to create a parallel agency, Iraqi officials argue that doing so now, without coordination with the national Oil Ministry and amid a mounting national crisis over the failure so far to form a government, risks exacerbating already violent ethnic passions and fueling the perception that the country is coming apart.
"There is still a central government," Aboudi said. "There is a Ministry of Oil. Yes, there is no political stability in Iraq. It doesn't mean we leave all laws and regulations and every region does what it wants."
Iraq's 4 million Kurds, nestled in a mountainous, Switzerland-sized region that has been autonomous since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, have been charting their own course for a while.
Kurds fought side by side with U.S. special forces three years ago as they stormed into the oil-rich cities of Kirkuk and Khaneqin during invasion of Iraq. With a language and culture distinct from Iraq's Arab majority, Kurds have isolated themselves in their relatively safe enclave, looking upon the violence ravaging the rest of the country with some detachment.
Kurds and their supporters say the creation of a new ministry is well within the parameters of the constitution.
"There are people who haven't faced the reality of what has gone on in Iraq," Galbraith said. "They still think that the old central state is going to be put back together again. It's not going to happen in Kurdistan. It's not going to happen in the south. It's not going to happen in Baghdad."
Each half of the Kurdish region, which split apart in a 1990s civil war between forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, and the KDP, has its own ministries of defense, interior, health and education. The Iraqi Constitution, ratified in an Oct. 15 referendum, gives Kurdistan the authority to wheel and deal with the international petroleum industry within Irbil, Sulaymaniya and Dahuk, where Kurds make up more than 95% of the population.
But Kurds also lay claim to much of the region around Kirkuk, which is said to contain up to 40% of Iraq's proven oil reserves. A referendum on the disputed area's future is to take place by the end of 2007.
Officials in Baghdad, including allies of the Kurds, said they were blindsided by news of the proposed ministry.
"We know what the ambitions of the Kurds are," said Iyad Samarrai, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group. "But everybody agreed to make such moves within the [national] political process."
*
Times researcher John L. Jackson in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Farmers in China Face Great Wall
Villagers have little legal recourse as officials seize their increasingly valuable land.
By Mark Magnier
Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2006
YANSHOU, China — The teenager shifted his lanky body in a worn folding chair and reflected on his father.
"He's brave," said Huang Chaoping, 17, glancing at the grimy walls and dirt-caked floor of their farmhouse. "I really admire his courage."
His father, Huang Weizhong, was seized by police on a Beijing railway platform and has languished in jail for five months. He is accused of "disturbing social order." His real crime, however, may be his belief that the rule of law should trump raw power. (LIKE IN THE CASE OF TED KENNEDY)
Events in Yanshou, where powerful local officials stand to make a killing by strong-arming villagers, represent a tiny chapter in China's great land grab. Uneducated farmers, once considered the backbone of the Communist Party, are facing off in growing numbers against well-funded local officials versed in divide-and-conquer tactics, intimidation and backroom dealing.
From 1998 to 2005, there were more than 1 million cases of illegal seizure involving at least 815,447 acres, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources.
China's communist rulers have watched farmers' increasingly desperate protests with alarm, fearful they could undermine one-party rule. The nation saw 87,000 "public order disturbances" in 2005, a euphemism for riots and uprisings.
The Communist Party has responded to the protests with a reform program for the countryside that includes subsidies and tax cuts. Premier Wen Jiabao has called on local officials to stop illegal land grabs. Most villagers here believe he understands their plight, and blame local officials for misinterpreting his will.
Several clashes between farmers with pitchforks and well-armed police in neighboring Guangdong province have turned deadly in recent months. In Dongzhou village, police opened fire in December on farmers angry over seizure of land for a wind-power plant, killing at least three of them.
A month later, a 13-year-old girl died during a demonstration in another village. And a woman was reported killed last week in a third village after police moved in to dismantle an illegal irrigation system.
Although city dwellers enjoy long-term use and resale rights, giving them a stake in China's rising prosperity, changes in land laws after 1998 generally excluded farmers from sale negotiations, giving the state a de facto monopoly on structuring deals and setting prices.
Clashes in wealthier coastal provinces appear more numerous, social scientists say, in part because development drives land values higher, increasing the temptation to displace farmers, and because their proximity to Hong Kong allows more information to seep out.
Villagers here say the land is a source of identity central to their history. Huang's father tended this land, as did his grandfather and great-grandfather, well before the Communist Party came to power.
The people of Yanshou and 10 neighboring communities have eschewed violence, vowed to scrupulously follow the law, patiently pursued appeals and accepted orders not to demonstrate.
"We're civilized and don't do things illegally," said Yao Zhengchun, a leader from neighboring Xibai involved in the struggle, pulling out well-worn copies of China's protest and public order laws. "Huang has told us many times, 'Stay within the law, don't mess up.' "
In return, villagers have seen their land bulldozed, their appeals and hearing requests denied, leader imprisoned and calls for justice all but ignored.
Huang, 46, never asked for a central role in this drama. Like most people in this fertile area of rice fields and orchards, he stopped attending school after ninth grade. Villagers describe a youngster who was good at math, blessed with a natural curiosity and a strong sense of right and wrong. He returned from the army in the 1970s more disciplined, confident and focused, they say, and he was chosen as a village production leader a couple of years later.
"He's not a party member," said Huang Weiliang, 42, his youngest brother. "But he lives exactly according to party standards."
The older sibling's leadership skills emerged in the conflict over land with the local government.
Initially villagers thought the government would seize only a few mu, a measure equivalent to roughly a sixth of an acre, and trusted local officials to act in good faith.
They got a rude awakening. The government wanted more than 50 acres of prime land, offering farmers just $2,800 per mu in compensation, slightly more than a couple of years' worth of crops. And the land already had been sold to a developer to build villas at $92,800 a mu, a profit of 3,200%.
Farmers say they suspect much of the money will line the pockets of local officials.
"These local officials make more money than bank robbers," said Huang Weizhong's older brother Huang Weide, 54, a lean chain-smoker with sad eyes. Bulldozers were ripping red dirt from a neighboring mountain to flatten land that until a few weeks ago nourished his litchi trees.
"I planted them myself," he said. "They were like my children."
The farmers say they don't resent economic reforms and even accept the inevitability of farmland giving way to urban growth. But they do resent being denied a hearing or any opportunity to negotiate a fair price.
About two years ago, Huang grasped what many other villagers didn't, that this battle would take more advanced skills than most of them possessed, including legal knowledge and the ability to use the Internet to publicize their plight far beyond Yanshou.
Villagers couldn't afford a lawyer. Most attorneys were too intimidated to take the case, anyway. Lawyers who challenge the state face harassment, suspension of their licenses and, in extreme cases, prison. So Huang set about educating himself, buying law books, researching on his son's computer and e-mailing experts for advice.
Yao, of neighboring Xibai, pulled out two briefcases of dog-eared documents that were Huang's legal handiwork, some of them bearing official chops, others filled with thumbprints used by villagers in lieu of signatures.
The papers detail a two-year trail of frustration as villagers saw their appeals denied or ignored by the government of Fujian province; the State Council, which is akin to China's Cabinet; the Fujian Intermediate Court; the Fujian Supreme Court; and the Petitioner's Office. The latter directed them back to provincial authorities, who stood by their original eviction notice.
Local police and officials as well as the Xiamen Tegong Real Estate Co., the developer of the site, declined to comment, said they weren't aware of the case or referred calls to other offices that didn't answer.
Increasingly frustrated, Huang applied for a permit to hold a demonstration in August. Police interrogated and imprisoned him for 15 days for "disturbing social order." Undeterred, Huang headed for Beijing in early November, hoping for a hearing with the central government. Local authorities got wind of it, however, and police were waiting on the Beijing platform when his train arrived 35 hours later.
Huang managed to call one of his brothers as he was being arrested for "gathering crowds and disturbing social order."
Lu Guang, an attorney Huang hired in January, said his client had been beaten by other inmates at a jail in Putian city, which holds jurisdiction over the villages.
Putian, a city with four times the population of San Francisco that few outside China have heard of, is home to decaying communist factories and crumbling apartments mixed with gleaming new government offices and condominiums.
Lu said Huang was imprisoned because he had been an effective organizer and challenged a compensation offer that was ridiculously low, even by Chinese standards.
"No wonder the farmers are so angry, I've never seen such a rip-off," he said. "I think they're very scared of Huang's power."
Few question the breadth of frustration welling up in the countryside.
"I think this is very, very serious," said Li Jian, a farmers' rights activist. "China should not build its economy by stealing from farmers."
More debatable is whether the problems are serious enough to threaten the Communist Party.
Chinese analysts and activists say Beijing has intimidated and imprisoned protest leaders, and isolated hot spots to prevent generally uneducated local discontents from joining hands with intellectuals, activists or city dwellers.
"As long as they have the guns, I believe they'll remain in power," said Wang Yi, a professor at Chengdu University.
Although increased aid to the countryside may provide temporary relief, analysts say the real solution lies in land reform, greater rural property rights, more equitable compensation and a legal system credible enough to funnel social frustration off the streets and into the courts.
But these changes are unlikely anytime soon because of the threat they represent to the Communist Party's power and privilege, the analysts say.
And Beijing's helping hand might actually make matters worse. Eliminating taxes on farmers has left many local governments short on revenue, prompting bureaucrats to grab more land, farmers say.
Back at the family farmhouse, Huang's son said he was proud of his father for leading the villagers' fight. Police questioned him for five hours, hoping he would incriminate his father.
"I miss him," Huang Chaoping said, glancing at once-white walls covered with cooking grease and an old calendar.
His uncle Huang Weiliang, who also was detained by police for 15 days, said his family and the rest of the villagers would not give up.
"We Huangs are fighters," he said. "It's in our genes. The local government has taken our land, and they're obviously acting illegally."
*
Gu Bo in The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
Villagers have little legal recourse as officials seize their increasingly valuable land.
By Mark Magnier
Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2006
YANSHOU, China — The teenager shifted his lanky body in a worn folding chair and reflected on his father.
"He's brave," said Huang Chaoping, 17, glancing at the grimy walls and dirt-caked floor of their farmhouse. "I really admire his courage."
His father, Huang Weizhong, was seized by police on a Beijing railway platform and has languished in jail for five months. He is accused of "disturbing social order." His real crime, however, may be his belief that the rule of law should trump raw power. (LIKE IN THE CASE OF TED KENNEDY)
Events in Yanshou, where powerful local officials stand to make a killing by strong-arming villagers, represent a tiny chapter in China's great land grab. Uneducated farmers, once considered the backbone of the Communist Party, are facing off in growing numbers against well-funded local officials versed in divide-and-conquer tactics, intimidation and backroom dealing.
From 1998 to 2005, there were more than 1 million cases of illegal seizure involving at least 815,447 acres, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources.
China's communist rulers have watched farmers' increasingly desperate protests with alarm, fearful they could undermine one-party rule. The nation saw 87,000 "public order disturbances" in 2005, a euphemism for riots and uprisings.
The Communist Party has responded to the protests with a reform program for the countryside that includes subsidies and tax cuts. Premier Wen Jiabao has called on local officials to stop illegal land grabs. Most villagers here believe he understands their plight, and blame local officials for misinterpreting his will.
Several clashes between farmers with pitchforks and well-armed police in neighboring Guangdong province have turned deadly in recent months. In Dongzhou village, police opened fire in December on farmers angry over seizure of land for a wind-power plant, killing at least three of them.
A month later, a 13-year-old girl died during a demonstration in another village. And a woman was reported killed last week in a third village after police moved in to dismantle an illegal irrigation system.
Although city dwellers enjoy long-term use and resale rights, giving them a stake in China's rising prosperity, changes in land laws after 1998 generally excluded farmers from sale negotiations, giving the state a de facto monopoly on structuring deals and setting prices.
Clashes in wealthier coastal provinces appear more numerous, social scientists say, in part because development drives land values higher, increasing the temptation to displace farmers, and because their proximity to Hong Kong allows more information to seep out.
Villagers here say the land is a source of identity central to their history. Huang's father tended this land, as did his grandfather and great-grandfather, well before the Communist Party came to power.
The people of Yanshou and 10 neighboring communities have eschewed violence, vowed to scrupulously follow the law, patiently pursued appeals and accepted orders not to demonstrate.
"We're civilized and don't do things illegally," said Yao Zhengchun, a leader from neighboring Xibai involved in the struggle, pulling out well-worn copies of China's protest and public order laws. "Huang has told us many times, 'Stay within the law, don't mess up.' "
In return, villagers have seen their land bulldozed, their appeals and hearing requests denied, leader imprisoned and calls for justice all but ignored.
Huang, 46, never asked for a central role in this drama. Like most people in this fertile area of rice fields and orchards, he stopped attending school after ninth grade. Villagers describe a youngster who was good at math, blessed with a natural curiosity and a strong sense of right and wrong. He returned from the army in the 1970s more disciplined, confident and focused, they say, and he was chosen as a village production leader a couple of years later.
"He's not a party member," said Huang Weiliang, 42, his youngest brother. "But he lives exactly according to party standards."
The older sibling's leadership skills emerged in the conflict over land with the local government.
Initially villagers thought the government would seize only a few mu, a measure equivalent to roughly a sixth of an acre, and trusted local officials to act in good faith.
They got a rude awakening. The government wanted more than 50 acres of prime land, offering farmers just $2,800 per mu in compensation, slightly more than a couple of years' worth of crops. And the land already had been sold to a developer to build villas at $92,800 a mu, a profit of 3,200%.
Farmers say they suspect much of the money will line the pockets of local officials.
"These local officials make more money than bank robbers," said Huang Weizhong's older brother Huang Weide, 54, a lean chain-smoker with sad eyes. Bulldozers were ripping red dirt from a neighboring mountain to flatten land that until a few weeks ago nourished his litchi trees.
"I planted them myself," he said. "They were like my children."
The farmers say they don't resent economic reforms and even accept the inevitability of farmland giving way to urban growth. But they do resent being denied a hearing or any opportunity to negotiate a fair price.
About two years ago, Huang grasped what many other villagers didn't, that this battle would take more advanced skills than most of them possessed, including legal knowledge and the ability to use the Internet to publicize their plight far beyond Yanshou.
Villagers couldn't afford a lawyer. Most attorneys were too intimidated to take the case, anyway. Lawyers who challenge the state face harassment, suspension of their licenses and, in extreme cases, prison. So Huang set about educating himself, buying law books, researching on his son's computer and e-mailing experts for advice.
Yao, of neighboring Xibai, pulled out two briefcases of dog-eared documents that were Huang's legal handiwork, some of them bearing official chops, others filled with thumbprints used by villagers in lieu of signatures.
The papers detail a two-year trail of frustration as villagers saw their appeals denied or ignored by the government of Fujian province; the State Council, which is akin to China's Cabinet; the Fujian Intermediate Court; the Fujian Supreme Court; and the Petitioner's Office. The latter directed them back to provincial authorities, who stood by their original eviction notice.
Local police and officials as well as the Xiamen Tegong Real Estate Co., the developer of the site, declined to comment, said they weren't aware of the case or referred calls to other offices that didn't answer.
Increasingly frustrated, Huang applied for a permit to hold a demonstration in August. Police interrogated and imprisoned him for 15 days for "disturbing social order." Undeterred, Huang headed for Beijing in early November, hoping for a hearing with the central government. Local authorities got wind of it, however, and police were waiting on the Beijing platform when his train arrived 35 hours later.
Huang managed to call one of his brothers as he was being arrested for "gathering crowds and disturbing social order."
Lu Guang, an attorney Huang hired in January, said his client had been beaten by other inmates at a jail in Putian city, which holds jurisdiction over the villages.
Putian, a city with four times the population of San Francisco that few outside China have heard of, is home to decaying communist factories and crumbling apartments mixed with gleaming new government offices and condominiums.
Lu said Huang was imprisoned because he had been an effective organizer and challenged a compensation offer that was ridiculously low, even by Chinese standards.
"No wonder the farmers are so angry, I've never seen such a rip-off," he said. "I think they're very scared of Huang's power."
Few question the breadth of frustration welling up in the countryside.
"I think this is very, very serious," said Li Jian, a farmers' rights activist. "China should not build its economy by stealing from farmers."
More debatable is whether the problems are serious enough to threaten the Communist Party.
Chinese analysts and activists say Beijing has intimidated and imprisoned protest leaders, and isolated hot spots to prevent generally uneducated local discontents from joining hands with intellectuals, activists or city dwellers.
"As long as they have the guns, I believe they'll remain in power," said Wang Yi, a professor at Chengdu University.
Although increased aid to the countryside may provide temporary relief, analysts say the real solution lies in land reform, greater rural property rights, more equitable compensation and a legal system credible enough to funnel social frustration off the streets and into the courts.
But these changes are unlikely anytime soon because of the threat they represent to the Communist Party's power and privilege, the analysts say.
And Beijing's helping hand might actually make matters worse. Eliminating taxes on farmers has left many local governments short on revenue, prompting bureaucrats to grab more land, farmers say.
Back at the family farmhouse, Huang's son said he was proud of his father for leading the villagers' fight. Police questioned him for five hours, hoping he would incriminate his father.
"I miss him," Huang Chaoping said, glancing at once-white walls covered with cooking grease and an old calendar.
His uncle Huang Weiliang, who also was detained by police for 15 days, said his family and the rest of the villagers would not give up.
"We Huangs are fighters," he said. "It's in our genes. The local government has taken our land, and they're obviously acting illegally."
*
Gu Bo in The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
The Death Of the G-8
By Andrei Illarionov
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A19
Does Russia really belong in the Group of Eight -- the assembly of the world's leading industrialized democracies? As things stand today, it meets only one criterion for membership: the size of its economy. So far as political rights are concerned, Russia ranks 168th out of 192 countries, according to Freedom House. In terms of corruption, the organization Transparency International ranks Russia 126th out of 159 countries. The World Economic Forum calculates that when it comes to favoritism in governmental decisions, Russia rates 85th of 108 countries, in protection of property rights 88th of 108 and in independence of the judicial system 84th out of 102.
The principal difference between the original G-7 countries and Russia lies in their disparate approaches to nearly every essential issue on the global agenda. Russia pursues "wars" against its neighbors on matters relating to visas, electricity, natural gas, wine and now even mineral waters.
Russia's official media have whipped up propaganda against the hard-won democratic road chosen by Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, as well as against the Baltic countries, Europe and the United States. These countries became the enemies in the new "cold war" being waged by Russia's authorities. At the same time, new friends have emerged in the leaders of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela, Burma and Hamas -- a very different sort of G-8.
The question now occupying the minds of leaders of the G-7 countries is whether to participate in the upcoming G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. Idealists have proposed a boycott. Pragmatists oppose that approach. In either case, a bad outcome is inevitable.
Pragmatists proposed to include in the agenda a discussion of "energy security" and another attempt to persuade the Russian government to accept universal democratic values. But it would be naive to expect substantial results on these two points.
The Russian authorities have already demonstrated how they understand energy security. Instead of liberalization and privatization of energy assets, they are opting for nationalization of private companies, the cementing of state control over the electricity grid and pipeline system and, on the international scene, efforts to use non-market methods to manage international energy resources. Is this something the world's leading democracies are ready to accept?
Who really thinks that Russian authorities are going to undergo radical change after listening to the G-7 leaders? Will they cease their destruction of civil society? Reverse antidemocratic laws adopted in recent years? Allow free and fair campaigns and elections in 2007 and '08? Give up control over the judicial system or the media? Return fired journalists and editors to their posts? Cease interfering in business? Refund confiscated property and fines levied against citizens and companies? Return billions of dollars of state assets? Launch investigations into bureaucrats, judges and prosecutors who have made illegal decisions?
In fact, the G-8 is not the place to clarify codes of conduct. The very suggestion that foreign leaders might feel the need to speak "frankly" about Russia's domestic affairs confirms that Russia is not considered a full-fledged member of the G-8 even by those who intend to come.
Leaders may go to St. Petersburg for various reasons. But what is most important is the way in which the summit will be perceived and how it will be used. The G-8 summit can only be interpreted as a sign of support by the world's most powerful organization for Russia's leadership -- as a stamp of approval for its violations of individual rights, the rule of law and freedom of speech, its discrimination against nongovernmental organizations, nationalization of private property, use of energy resources as a weapon, and aggression toward democratically oriented neighbors.
By going to St. Petersburg, leaders of the world's foremost industrialized democracies will demonstrate their indifference to the fate of freedom and democracy in Russia. They will provide the best possible confirmation of what the Russian authorities never tire of repeating: that there are no fundamental differences between Western and Russian leaders. Like us, Russia's leaders will say, they are interested only in appearing to care about the rights of individuals and market forces; like us, they only talk about freedom and democracy. The G-8 summit will serve as an inspiring example for today's dictators and tomorrow's tyrants.
True Russian patriots favor Russia's membership in the G-8 -- but a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Russia. Regardless of how the St. Petersburg summit proceeds, one thing is already clear: The G-8, as a club of advanced democratic states, will cease to exist. The summit has only hastened its demise. Perhaps it will be reborn later as the G-7, G-4, G-3 or some other entity -- for Russia this question is academic. There won't be a place in the new club for today's Russia.
The writer is a former senior economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
By Andrei Illarionov
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A19
Does Russia really belong in the Group of Eight -- the assembly of the world's leading industrialized democracies? As things stand today, it meets only one criterion for membership: the size of its economy. So far as political rights are concerned, Russia ranks 168th out of 192 countries, according to Freedom House. In terms of corruption, the organization Transparency International ranks Russia 126th out of 159 countries. The World Economic Forum calculates that when it comes to favoritism in governmental decisions, Russia rates 85th of 108 countries, in protection of property rights 88th of 108 and in independence of the judicial system 84th out of 102.
The principal difference between the original G-7 countries and Russia lies in their disparate approaches to nearly every essential issue on the global agenda. Russia pursues "wars" against its neighbors on matters relating to visas, electricity, natural gas, wine and now even mineral waters.
Russia's official media have whipped up propaganda against the hard-won democratic road chosen by Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, as well as against the Baltic countries, Europe and the United States. These countries became the enemies in the new "cold war" being waged by Russia's authorities. At the same time, new friends have emerged in the leaders of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela, Burma and Hamas -- a very different sort of G-8.
The question now occupying the minds of leaders of the G-7 countries is whether to participate in the upcoming G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. Idealists have proposed a boycott. Pragmatists oppose that approach. In either case, a bad outcome is inevitable.
Pragmatists proposed to include in the agenda a discussion of "energy security" and another attempt to persuade the Russian government to accept universal democratic values. But it would be naive to expect substantial results on these two points.
The Russian authorities have already demonstrated how they understand energy security. Instead of liberalization and privatization of energy assets, they are opting for nationalization of private companies, the cementing of state control over the electricity grid and pipeline system and, on the international scene, efforts to use non-market methods to manage international energy resources. Is this something the world's leading democracies are ready to accept?
Who really thinks that Russian authorities are going to undergo radical change after listening to the G-7 leaders? Will they cease their destruction of civil society? Reverse antidemocratic laws adopted in recent years? Allow free and fair campaigns and elections in 2007 and '08? Give up control over the judicial system or the media? Return fired journalists and editors to their posts? Cease interfering in business? Refund confiscated property and fines levied against citizens and companies? Return billions of dollars of state assets? Launch investigations into bureaucrats, judges and prosecutors who have made illegal decisions?
In fact, the G-8 is not the place to clarify codes of conduct. The very suggestion that foreign leaders might feel the need to speak "frankly" about Russia's domestic affairs confirms that Russia is not considered a full-fledged member of the G-8 even by those who intend to come.
Leaders may go to St. Petersburg for various reasons. But what is most important is the way in which the summit will be perceived and how it will be used. The G-8 summit can only be interpreted as a sign of support by the world's most powerful organization for Russia's leadership -- as a stamp of approval for its violations of individual rights, the rule of law and freedom of speech, its discrimination against nongovernmental organizations, nationalization of private property, use of energy resources as a weapon, and aggression toward democratically oriented neighbors.
By going to St. Petersburg, leaders of the world's foremost industrialized democracies will demonstrate their indifference to the fate of freedom and democracy in Russia. They will provide the best possible confirmation of what the Russian authorities never tire of repeating: that there are no fundamental differences between Western and Russian leaders. Like us, Russia's leaders will say, they are interested only in appearing to care about the rights of individuals and market forces; like us, they only talk about freedom and democracy. The G-8 summit will serve as an inspiring example for today's dictators and tomorrow's tyrants.
True Russian patriots favor Russia's membership in the G-8 -- but a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Russia. Regardless of how the St. Petersburg summit proceeds, one thing is already clear: The G-8, as a club of advanced democratic states, will cease to exist. The summit has only hastened its demise. Perhaps it will be reborn later as the G-7, G-4, G-3 or some other entity -- for Russia this question is academic. There won't be a place in the new club for today's Russia.
The writer is a former senior economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Justice Kennedy Goes Too Far
Misreading the Constitution in a self-serving cause
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A18
JUSTICE ANTHONY M. Kennedy has complained recently that editorial writers seem to mouth off on his opinions without having read them. So we listened to his congressional testimony about cameras in the Supreme Court chamber with particular care to make sure we understood him properly. The court's resistance to cameras is not news. Had Justice Kennedy stuck to the usual litany of objections -- as Justice Clarence Thomas did --his testimony would have been unobjectionable apart from being wrong. But the justice went a big and inappropriate step further, suggesting without quite saying that the separation of powers may forbid Congress from requiring the court to liberalize its policy on cameras.
Justice Thomas outlined the court's concerns: Cameras would negatively affect the quality of oral arguments and would reduce the anonymity of the justices, thereby raising security concerns. Then Justice Kennedy declared: "We've always taken the position in decided cases that it's not for the court to tell Congress how to conduct its proceedings. . . . And we feel very strongly that we have an intimate knowledge of the dynamics and the needs of the court. And we think that proposals which would mandate -- direct -- television in our court in every proceeding [are] inconsistent with that deference, that etiquette, that should apply between the branches." What exactly Justice Kennedy meant by this is opaque; later in the hearing, he responded to a House member's suggestion that Congress could, in fact, pass such a bill by stressing his use of the word "etiquette." Still, his words contain more than a whiff of a threat: Pass such a bill, and we may strike it down.
For a sitting justice, speaking on behalf of a court with the power to strike down an act of Congress, to implicitly threaten to do so in an effort to lobby on any legislative matter is, at minimum, exceedingly poor taste. Judges are not supposed to give advisory opinions. But a justice ought to exercise particular caution on matters in which he and his colleagues have such a deep individual interest. No judge should be wielding hypothetical adjudications as a club in what is really a policy dispute.
This would be true even if the court's position on this question were reasonable. But it isn't. Not only do the justices bar cameras from proceedings that are open to the public, the court doesn't generally release the audio tapes it makes in a timely fashion, either. Even transcripts can take a long time to make their way to the court's Web site. So the public is totally dependent on press coverage of high court arguments. While that coverage is often excellent, reading a news story (or, as Justice Kennedy would certainly agree, an editorial) isn't the same as seeing an argument unfiltered by someone else's perceptions. A legislative effort to strike a more rational balance wouldn't offend the separation of powers. Justice Kennedy should not be dressing up the court's allergy to modernity in such robes.
Misreading the Constitution in a self-serving cause
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A18
JUSTICE ANTHONY M. Kennedy has complained recently that editorial writers seem to mouth off on his opinions without having read them. So we listened to his congressional testimony about cameras in the Supreme Court chamber with particular care to make sure we understood him properly. The court's resistance to cameras is not news. Had Justice Kennedy stuck to the usual litany of objections -- as Justice Clarence Thomas did --his testimony would have been unobjectionable apart from being wrong. But the justice went a big and inappropriate step further, suggesting without quite saying that the separation of powers may forbid Congress from requiring the court to liberalize its policy on cameras.
Justice Thomas outlined the court's concerns: Cameras would negatively affect the quality of oral arguments and would reduce the anonymity of the justices, thereby raising security concerns. Then Justice Kennedy declared: "We've always taken the position in decided cases that it's not for the court to tell Congress how to conduct its proceedings. . . . And we feel very strongly that we have an intimate knowledge of the dynamics and the needs of the court. And we think that proposals which would mandate -- direct -- television in our court in every proceeding [are] inconsistent with that deference, that etiquette, that should apply between the branches." What exactly Justice Kennedy meant by this is opaque; later in the hearing, he responded to a House member's suggestion that Congress could, in fact, pass such a bill by stressing his use of the word "etiquette." Still, his words contain more than a whiff of a threat: Pass such a bill, and we may strike it down.
For a sitting justice, speaking on behalf of a court with the power to strike down an act of Congress, to implicitly threaten to do so in an effort to lobby on any legislative matter is, at minimum, exceedingly poor taste. Judges are not supposed to give advisory opinions. But a justice ought to exercise particular caution on matters in which he and his colleagues have such a deep individual interest. No judge should be wielding hypothetical adjudications as a club in what is really a policy dispute.
This would be true even if the court's position on this question were reasonable. But it isn't. Not only do the justices bar cameras from proceedings that are open to the public, the court doesn't generally release the audio tapes it makes in a timely fashion, either. Even transcripts can take a long time to make their way to the court's Web site. So the public is totally dependent on press coverage of high court arguments. While that coverage is often excellent, reading a news story (or, as Justice Kennedy would certainly agree, an editorial) isn't the same as seeing an argument unfiltered by someone else's perceptions. A legislative effort to strike a more rational balance wouldn't offend the separation of powers. Justice Kennedy should not be dressing up the court's allergy to modernity in such robes.
High Court Weighs Retaliation at Work
Harassment-Case Standard Unclear
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A04
Sexual harassment in the workplace is against federal law. An employer is also liable if he or she discriminates against an employee who files a sexual harassment complaint. But the law is vague on a key question: How harsh does the employer's retaliation have to be before it violates the law?
That was the issue at the Supreme Court yesterday, as the justices heard oral argument in Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White , No. 05-259 -- a case that could affect the legal rights of millions of workers who are covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the main federal law against job discrimination, and their employers.
Charges of unlawful retaliation under Title VII nearly doubled between 1992 and 2005, from 10,499 to 19,429. They account for a quarter of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's caseload.
A lawyer for Burlington Northern, Carter G. Phillips, told the court yesterday that, unless the court clarifies the legal standard, "any act of retaliation, no matter how trivial" -- even an employer's refusal to take a subordinate to lunch -- could trigger a lawsuit. The cost of litigation to employers, would soar, Phillips argued.
But Donald A. Donati, representing Sheila White, countered that it must be relatively easy to sue for retaliation, lest sexual harassment laws be weakened.
"It doesn't take much to intimidate an individual from filing a claim," he said.
White was hired as a forklift operator at Burlington Northern's Memphis yard in June 1997. Soon thereafter, she filed a sexual harassment complaint. Her supervisor transferred her to a more arduous job and then suspended her without pay for alleged insubordination.
After a 37-day suspension, a hearing officer found the charge against White meritless and reinstated her with back pay.
Phillips told the court that the law was not intended to prohibit this kind of treatment, because White's pay and benefits were not cut and the company corrected its mistake in suspending her.
He urged the court to rule that only a significant change in job status, such as a pay cut or demotion, should count as retaliation.
The Bush administration has adopted a middle position in the case, arguing for a legal standard such as the one Burlington Northern advocates but maintaining that Smith's claim would meet it.
Two federal circuit courts of appeals have adopted standards similar to the one Burlington Northern seeks. But Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted that other appeals courts have adopted a broader rule that outlaws employer retaliation that would be "reasonably likely to deter" someone from charging sexual harassment.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, questioned Phillips sharply, noting that "it was 37 days she went without pay" and that "she understandably experienced much stress" over whether she could feed her children or buy them Christmas presents.
"Anxiety happens all the time in the workplace," Phillips responded, adding that "the core question is can it be cured, and that is the fundamental question we ask you to decide."
A decision in the case is expected by July.
Separately, the court agreed to hear California's appeal of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, that had ordered a new trial for a convicted murderer.
The 9th Circuit ruled that Mathew Musladin was denied a fair trial because the judge had permitted the victim's family to appear in court wearing lapel pins emblazoned with a photograph of the victim, Tom Studer.
Musladin claimed he killed in self-defense. Thus the buttons, the 9th Circuit ruled, were improperly permitted before the jury because they "essentially 'argue' that Studer was the innocent party and that the defendant was necessarily guilty; that the defendant, not Studer, was the initiator of the attack, and thus, the perpetrator of a criminal act."
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, California called this ruling a "dramatic misinterpretation" of federal law.
The case is Casey v. Musladin , No. 05-785. Oral arguments are to be heard in the fall, and a decision is expected by July 2007.
Harassment-Case Standard Unclear
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A04
Sexual harassment in the workplace is against federal law. An employer is also liable if he or she discriminates against an employee who files a sexual harassment complaint. But the law is vague on a key question: How harsh does the employer's retaliation have to be before it violates the law?
That was the issue at the Supreme Court yesterday, as the justices heard oral argument in Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White , No. 05-259 -- a case that could affect the legal rights of millions of workers who are covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the main federal law against job discrimination, and their employers.
Charges of unlawful retaliation under Title VII nearly doubled between 1992 and 2005, from 10,499 to 19,429. They account for a quarter of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's caseload.
A lawyer for Burlington Northern, Carter G. Phillips, told the court yesterday that, unless the court clarifies the legal standard, "any act of retaliation, no matter how trivial" -- even an employer's refusal to take a subordinate to lunch -- could trigger a lawsuit. The cost of litigation to employers, would soar, Phillips argued.
But Donald A. Donati, representing Sheila White, countered that it must be relatively easy to sue for retaliation, lest sexual harassment laws be weakened.
"It doesn't take much to intimidate an individual from filing a claim," he said.
White was hired as a forklift operator at Burlington Northern's Memphis yard in June 1997. Soon thereafter, she filed a sexual harassment complaint. Her supervisor transferred her to a more arduous job and then suspended her without pay for alleged insubordination.
After a 37-day suspension, a hearing officer found the charge against White meritless and reinstated her with back pay.
Phillips told the court that the law was not intended to prohibit this kind of treatment, because White's pay and benefits were not cut and the company corrected its mistake in suspending her.
He urged the court to rule that only a significant change in job status, such as a pay cut or demotion, should count as retaliation.
The Bush administration has adopted a middle position in the case, arguing for a legal standard such as the one Burlington Northern advocates but maintaining that Smith's claim would meet it.
Two federal circuit courts of appeals have adopted standards similar to the one Burlington Northern seeks. But Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted that other appeals courts have adopted a broader rule that outlaws employer retaliation that would be "reasonably likely to deter" someone from charging sexual harassment.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, questioned Phillips sharply, noting that "it was 37 days she went without pay" and that "she understandably experienced much stress" over whether she could feed her children or buy them Christmas presents.
"Anxiety happens all the time in the workplace," Phillips responded, adding that "the core question is can it be cured, and that is the fundamental question we ask you to decide."
A decision in the case is expected by July.
Separately, the court agreed to hear California's appeal of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, that had ordered a new trial for a convicted murderer.
The 9th Circuit ruled that Mathew Musladin was denied a fair trial because the judge had permitted the victim's family to appear in court wearing lapel pins emblazoned with a photograph of the victim, Tom Studer.
Musladin claimed he killed in self-defense. Thus the buttons, the 9th Circuit ruled, were improperly permitted before the jury because they "essentially 'argue' that Studer was the innocent party and that the defendant was necessarily guilty; that the defendant, not Studer, was the initiator of the attack, and thus, the perpetrator of a criminal act."
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, California called this ruling a "dramatic misinterpretation" of federal law.
The case is Casey v. Musladin , No. 05-785. Oral arguments are to be heard in the fall, and a decision is expected by July 2007.
Bolten Signals Broad Change In Bush Staff
He Invites Resignations From Longtime Aides
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A04
Newly installed White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten sent a clear signal on his first full day on the job yesterday that a broader shake-up of President Bush's politically troubled operation is imminent, asking aides who are thinking of leaving sometime this year to submit their resignations right away.
Taking over a White House struggling with an increasingly unpopular war abroad and dwindling public support at home, Bolten cast his ascension as the opportunity for "a fresh start" that will involve both new faces and new organization of the president's team. Bolten has focused particularly on the administration's legislative, communications and economics staffs.
"This is a time to reenergize and renew our commitment to help the president advance his agenda," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, relaying Bolten's message as his own future as the face of the administration appeared uncertain.
Bolten, 51, who cleaned out his office as federal budget director over the weekend and moved into his new West Wing suite just steps from the Oval Office, has been authorized to restructure the way the building works as he sees fit. Aides said he plans to begin changing internal processes within seven to 10 days. And Bolten wants to move quickly to bring in new people, starting with his own replacement at the Office of Management and Budget by the end of the week.
Bolten used his first senior staff meeting yesterday morning to indicate that personnel changes may be more significant than first anticipated when Bush named him to replace Andrew H. Card Jr. Looking around a room full of aides who like him have worked there since the inception of the Bush presidency, Bolten said that any who expected to move on by the end of the year should do so immediately, according to McClellan.
His assertive message was greeted with a mixture of relief and eagerness on Capitol Hill, where Bush's relations with congressional Republicans have been strained. Some senior GOP officials in Congress said they have been led to expect substantial change once Bolten is through. In the three weeks since he was tapped for the job, Bolten has met with a wide array of senior Republican leaders such as House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) as well as other key GOP figures.
"What most people are telling them is you need some very experienced, serious people, well known and liked on the Hill and other constituencies as well," said Charles Black, a Republican lobbyist who often advises the White House. At the same time, Black warned, "Adding or subtracting staff is not going to make the war in Iraq go swimmingly. Ninety percent of the president's problems and discontent among his friends is Iraq."
None of Bolten's changes, though, appears targeted at Bush's national security team. On Friday, as Card was leaving and Bolten began his transition, the new chief orchestrated the issuance of a statement by Bush expressing "strong support" for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has come under fire from several retired generals.
Instead, Bolten has concentrated on how the White House forms its economic strategy and interacts with Congress and the public. He plans to announce a new OMB director within days and some Republicans think a leading contender is U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, who served in the House GOP leadership until last year. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, who appeared with Bush at a roundtable on taxes yesterday, could go soon but administration officials said they have had trouble finding someone of stature to take the job.
White House advisers expect Bolten to recruit someone with more gravitas for congressional relations, possibly a current or former lawmaker, although it is not clear whether legislative affairs director Candida Wolff would leave or work under the new person. Among the names mentioned by Republicans are former representative Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) and former senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), though some associates doubt they would leave private business.
Bolten may also want a new face in front of the cameras. McClellan, who not long ago told colleagues that he planned to stay, now may be among those to go, according to Republican strategists. Possible replacements most often mentioned include former Iraq occupation spokesman Dan Senor; Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols; former deputy White House press secretary Trent Duffy; and former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke.
Asked about his plans at yesterday's briefing, McClellan would not comment. "Look, I never speculate about personnel matters," he said. Then he added cryptically, "Two years in this position is a long time; I'm very mindful of that."
The president's closest advisers are expected to stay, including Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, counselor Dan Bartlett, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and senior adviser Michael J. Gerson. But some other top officials had already been thinking about leaving this year, according to colleagues, such as communications director Nicolle Wallace, whose husband moved to New York, and Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph W. Hagin.
McClellan quoted Bolten telling the staff: "I want to make sure I have a team in place that is with us for a minimum the remainder of this year and, to some extent, beyond that" and so "if you're thinking about leaving sometime in the near future, now would be a good time to do it."
That would address criticism from congressional Republicans who complain that the trade of Bolten for Card was hardly enough. "Members on the Hill want to see more change," said a senior leadership aide. "They want to see new faces, new energy, just some new ideas coming out of the administration and that means new people."
"Sometimes people with fresh legs and fresh perspectives do have value," said former representative Robert Walker (R-Pa.). "That's certainly what you're hearing from Josh Bolten right now."
But some administration officials were trying to be realistic about how much that would really change things. "It's about criticism reduction," said one who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more blunt. "You're not going to get anybody to sing your praises."
He Invites Resignations From Longtime Aides
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A04
Newly installed White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten sent a clear signal on his first full day on the job yesterday that a broader shake-up of President Bush's politically troubled operation is imminent, asking aides who are thinking of leaving sometime this year to submit their resignations right away.
Taking over a White House struggling with an increasingly unpopular war abroad and dwindling public support at home, Bolten cast his ascension as the opportunity for "a fresh start" that will involve both new faces and new organization of the president's team. Bolten has focused particularly on the administration's legislative, communications and economics staffs.
"This is a time to reenergize and renew our commitment to help the president advance his agenda," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan, relaying Bolten's message as his own future as the face of the administration appeared uncertain.
Bolten, 51, who cleaned out his office as federal budget director over the weekend and moved into his new West Wing suite just steps from the Oval Office, has been authorized to restructure the way the building works as he sees fit. Aides said he plans to begin changing internal processes within seven to 10 days. And Bolten wants to move quickly to bring in new people, starting with his own replacement at the Office of Management and Budget by the end of the week.
Bolten used his first senior staff meeting yesterday morning to indicate that personnel changes may be more significant than first anticipated when Bush named him to replace Andrew H. Card Jr. Looking around a room full of aides who like him have worked there since the inception of the Bush presidency, Bolten said that any who expected to move on by the end of the year should do so immediately, according to McClellan.
His assertive message was greeted with a mixture of relief and eagerness on Capitol Hill, where Bush's relations with congressional Republicans have been strained. Some senior GOP officials in Congress said they have been led to expect substantial change once Bolten is through. In the three weeks since he was tapped for the job, Bolten has met with a wide array of senior Republican leaders such as House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) as well as other key GOP figures.
"What most people are telling them is you need some very experienced, serious people, well known and liked on the Hill and other constituencies as well," said Charles Black, a Republican lobbyist who often advises the White House. At the same time, Black warned, "Adding or subtracting staff is not going to make the war in Iraq go swimmingly. Ninety percent of the president's problems and discontent among his friends is Iraq."
None of Bolten's changes, though, appears targeted at Bush's national security team. On Friday, as Card was leaving and Bolten began his transition, the new chief orchestrated the issuance of a statement by Bush expressing "strong support" for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has come under fire from several retired generals.
Instead, Bolten has concentrated on how the White House forms its economic strategy and interacts with Congress and the public. He plans to announce a new OMB director within days and some Republicans think a leading contender is U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, who served in the House GOP leadership until last year. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, who appeared with Bush at a roundtable on taxes yesterday, could go soon but administration officials said they have had trouble finding someone of stature to take the job.
White House advisers expect Bolten to recruit someone with more gravitas for congressional relations, possibly a current or former lawmaker, although it is not clear whether legislative affairs director Candida Wolff would leave or work under the new person. Among the names mentioned by Republicans are former representative Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) and former senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), though some associates doubt they would leave private business.
Bolten may also want a new face in front of the cameras. McClellan, who not long ago told colleagues that he planned to stay, now may be among those to go, according to Republican strategists. Possible replacements most often mentioned include former Iraq occupation spokesman Dan Senor; Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols; former deputy White House press secretary Trent Duffy; and former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke.
Asked about his plans at yesterday's briefing, McClellan would not comment. "Look, I never speculate about personnel matters," he said. Then he added cryptically, "Two years in this position is a long time; I'm very mindful of that."
The president's closest advisers are expected to stay, including Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, counselor Dan Bartlett, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and senior adviser Michael J. Gerson. But some other top officials had already been thinking about leaving this year, according to colleagues, such as communications director Nicolle Wallace, whose husband moved to New York, and Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph W. Hagin.
McClellan quoted Bolten telling the staff: "I want to make sure I have a team in place that is with us for a minimum the remainder of this year and, to some extent, beyond that" and so "if you're thinking about leaving sometime in the near future, now would be a good time to do it."
That would address criticism from congressional Republicans who complain that the trade of Bolten for Card was hardly enough. "Members on the Hill want to see more change," said a senior leadership aide. "They want to see new faces, new energy, just some new ideas coming out of the administration and that means new people."
"Sometimes people with fresh legs and fresh perspectives do have value," said former representative Robert Walker (R-Pa.). "That's certainly what you're hearing from Josh Bolten right now."
But some administration officials were trying to be realistic about how much that would really change things. "It's about criticism reduction," said one who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more blunt. "You're not going to get anybody to sing your praises."
Battle Rages in Baghdad Neighborhood
Iraqi security forces fight gunmen for nine hours, leaving at least three people dead. Some residents, apparently fearing attack, join in.
By Louise Roug
Times Staff Writer
April 18, 2006
BAGHDAD — Intense fighting broke out between Iraqi security forces and gunmen in a volatile Sunni Arab section of the capital, leaving at least three people dead and terrifying residents during a battle that began during the night and extended into the daylight hours Monday.
Authorities said about 50 Sunni gunmen had fought the country's Shiite-dominated security forces for nine hours in the northern neighborhood of Adhamiya, forcing U.S. troops supporting the Iraqi forces to close down streets and entrances to the area.
Some residents entered the clash, exchanging gunfire with Iraqi soldiers and police they believed to be members of a death squad.
The violence, with its sectarian overtones, highlighted how fractured and fearful the city has become and overshadowed a brief resumption of the trial of former President Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants on human rights abuse charges.
"No one can trust anybody now," said Ali Ubaydi, an Adhamiya resident who said the gunmen had fired heavy machine guns at the Iraqi soldiers guarding the neighborhood.
"No one knows what happened or who they were," he said of the gunmen.
Khairulla Hamdi, another resident, complained that the closure of the area by American forces had made it difficult to help the wounded. Throughout the day, civilian cars flying white flags carried the injured to nearby hospitals, he said.
At least three people were killed and 20 were injured in the Adhamiya fighting, said Mustafa Mashhadani, a spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. The Sunni organization has complained of abuses by security forces that allegedly have been infiltrated by Shiite militias and are accused of acting at times as death squads. Sunni residents of Adhamiya "are determined not to allow such forces to enter their neighborhood, so they resisted this force," he said. (NO COMPLAINTS WHEN SADDAM DID THE SAME THING FOR 30 YEARS TO THE SUNNIS)
Gen. Jawad Rommi Daiani, an area police commander, drove through the neighborhood, telling residents through a loudspeaker that they were not under attack. He later appeared on state television, explaining what had happened and appealing for calm.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political group, also called for restraint.
Inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, meanwhile, the trial of Hussein and his co-defendants continued.
A panel of handwriting experts assembled by the prosecution reported that the former leader's signature appeared on documents allegedly ordering a 1982 campaign of reprisal and execution of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujayl.
But Hussein, his co-defendants and lawyers questioned the credibility of the panel, demanding that a committee of experts from outside Iraq be assembled. They alleged that the handwriting reports had been conducted under the auspices of the Interior Ministry, which many Sunnis perceive as under the control of Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Sunnis dominated in Hussein's regime.
"We want the court to call for the international experts from any country except Iran," defense attorney Khalil Dulaimi told the judge.
"Also Israel," Hussein piped in.
Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman told the court that a defense motion to have him removed from trying the case had been rejected by an appellate court. He fined one of Hussein's defense attorneys 2,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $1.33, for making the appeal.
"Everyone should understand that as a judge I don't have any personal biases or political positions toward the defendants," he told the court. "This case will be decided upon the evidence and according to the law."
Defendants also cast doubt on the integrity of lead prosecutor Jaafar Mousawi, saying they'd heard the garrulous Shiite jurist making inappropriate remarks on the U.S.-funded Sawa radio station.
"This is not right," said co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, Hussein's half brother and former head of Iraqi intelligence. "How can the news of the court be on the air? This is not the first time. I have interviews with him in newspapers. He has convicted us before trying us. The prosecutor is biased and dishonest." (THE PROSECUTOR IS NOT THE JUDGE - TOUGH ****)
Mousawi demanded that the word "dishonest" be stricken from the record, a step the judge said he would consider.
In Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, meanwhile, hundreds of high school students condemned the court, carrying Iraqi flags and pictures of the former president as they demonstrated in the streets. (YAWN)
Elsewhere on Monday, the brother of a prominent Sunni politician was found slain in the capital. Saleh Mutlak's brother, Taha, had recently been kidnapped in northern Baghdad. Mutlak is the second Sunni leader whose brother has been killed in as many weeks. On Thursday, gunmen killed the brother of Tariq Hashimi as he drove through an eastern Baghdad neighborhood with a friend.
Also on Monday, gunmen in the capital kidnapped three engineers employed at a local electricity plant on their way to work. The day before, armed men wearing police uniforms and driving police vehicles had abducted a dozen employees from Al Warkaa Investment Co. in eastern Baghdad, according to a police official.
Police recovered 17 bodies from various areas of Baghdad, including seven found inside a Jeep Cherokee near a primary school in the troubled Dora neighborhood. An additional five bodies were found in the street on the other side of the school. Three bodies found in Shula showed signs of torture. Near the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya, the bodies of two men who had been shot were found on the bank of the Tigris River.
Hospital officials reported that 12 municipal workers, reportedly street cleaners, had been killed in a pair of drive-by shootings in the Dora area.
A roadside bomb apparently intended for Iraqi security forces patrolling downtown killed one civilian and wounded four others, authorities said.
In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a police patrol killed a civilian and injured his son. Drive-by gunmen attacked a minibus carrying students from Baqubah University, killing two and injuring one other.
(AND THAT IS ALL THAT HAPPENED TODAY - EVERY PIECE OF NEGATIVE NEWS TO BE FOUND)
Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi, Zainab Hussein, Suhail Ahmad and Shamil Aziz in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Baqubah contributed to this report.
Iraqi security forces fight gunmen for nine hours, leaving at least three people dead. Some residents, apparently fearing attack, join in.
By Louise Roug
Times Staff Writer
April 18, 2006
BAGHDAD — Intense fighting broke out between Iraqi security forces and gunmen in a volatile Sunni Arab section of the capital, leaving at least three people dead and terrifying residents during a battle that began during the night and extended into the daylight hours Monday.
Authorities said about 50 Sunni gunmen had fought the country's Shiite-dominated security forces for nine hours in the northern neighborhood of Adhamiya, forcing U.S. troops supporting the Iraqi forces to close down streets and entrances to the area.
Some residents entered the clash, exchanging gunfire with Iraqi soldiers and police they believed to be members of a death squad.
The violence, with its sectarian overtones, highlighted how fractured and fearful the city has become and overshadowed a brief resumption of the trial of former President Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants on human rights abuse charges.
"No one can trust anybody now," said Ali Ubaydi, an Adhamiya resident who said the gunmen had fired heavy machine guns at the Iraqi soldiers guarding the neighborhood.
"No one knows what happened or who they were," he said of the gunmen.
Khairulla Hamdi, another resident, complained that the closure of the area by American forces had made it difficult to help the wounded. Throughout the day, civilian cars flying white flags carried the injured to nearby hospitals, he said.
At least three people were killed and 20 were injured in the Adhamiya fighting, said Mustafa Mashhadani, a spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. The Sunni organization has complained of abuses by security forces that allegedly have been infiltrated by Shiite militias and are accused of acting at times as death squads. Sunni residents of Adhamiya "are determined not to allow such forces to enter their neighborhood, so they resisted this force," he said. (NO COMPLAINTS WHEN SADDAM DID THE SAME THING FOR 30 YEARS TO THE SUNNIS)
Gen. Jawad Rommi Daiani, an area police commander, drove through the neighborhood, telling residents through a loudspeaker that they were not under attack. He later appeared on state television, explaining what had happened and appealing for calm.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political group, also called for restraint.
Inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, meanwhile, the trial of Hussein and his co-defendants continued.
A panel of handwriting experts assembled by the prosecution reported that the former leader's signature appeared on documents allegedly ordering a 1982 campaign of reprisal and execution of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujayl.
But Hussein, his co-defendants and lawyers questioned the credibility of the panel, demanding that a committee of experts from outside Iraq be assembled. They alleged that the handwriting reports had been conducted under the auspices of the Interior Ministry, which many Sunnis perceive as under the control of Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Sunnis dominated in Hussein's regime.
"We want the court to call for the international experts from any country except Iran," defense attorney Khalil Dulaimi told the judge.
"Also Israel," Hussein piped in.
Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman told the court that a defense motion to have him removed from trying the case had been rejected by an appellate court. He fined one of Hussein's defense attorneys 2,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $1.33, for making the appeal.
"Everyone should understand that as a judge I don't have any personal biases or political positions toward the defendants," he told the court. "This case will be decided upon the evidence and according to the law."
Defendants also cast doubt on the integrity of lead prosecutor Jaafar Mousawi, saying they'd heard the garrulous Shiite jurist making inappropriate remarks on the U.S.-funded Sawa radio station.
"This is not right," said co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim Hasan, Hussein's half brother and former head of Iraqi intelligence. "How can the news of the court be on the air? This is not the first time. I have interviews with him in newspapers. He has convicted us before trying us. The prosecutor is biased and dishonest." (THE PROSECUTOR IS NOT THE JUDGE - TOUGH ****)
Mousawi demanded that the word "dishonest" be stricken from the record, a step the judge said he would consider.
In Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, meanwhile, hundreds of high school students condemned the court, carrying Iraqi flags and pictures of the former president as they demonstrated in the streets. (YAWN)
Elsewhere on Monday, the brother of a prominent Sunni politician was found slain in the capital. Saleh Mutlak's brother, Taha, had recently been kidnapped in northern Baghdad. Mutlak is the second Sunni leader whose brother has been killed in as many weeks. On Thursday, gunmen killed the brother of Tariq Hashimi as he drove through an eastern Baghdad neighborhood with a friend.
Also on Monday, gunmen in the capital kidnapped three engineers employed at a local electricity plant on their way to work. The day before, armed men wearing police uniforms and driving police vehicles had abducted a dozen employees from Al Warkaa Investment Co. in eastern Baghdad, according to a police official.
Police recovered 17 bodies from various areas of Baghdad, including seven found inside a Jeep Cherokee near a primary school in the troubled Dora neighborhood. An additional five bodies were found in the street on the other side of the school. Three bodies found in Shula showed signs of torture. Near the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya, the bodies of two men who had been shot were found on the bank of the Tigris River.
Hospital officials reported that 12 municipal workers, reportedly street cleaners, had been killed in a pair of drive-by shootings in the Dora area.
A roadside bomb apparently intended for Iraqi security forces patrolling downtown killed one civilian and wounded four others, authorities said.
In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a police patrol killed a civilian and injured his son. Drive-by gunmen attacked a minibus carrying students from Baqubah University, killing two and injuring one other.
(AND THAT IS ALL THAT HAPPENED TODAY - EVERY PIECE OF NEGATIVE NEWS TO BE FOUND)
Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi, Zainab Hussein, Suhail Ahmad and Shamil Aziz in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Baqubah contributed to this report.
Takeovers by US firms benefit workers
By Philip Aldrick (Filed: 18/04/2006)
The wages of British workers rise when their employer is taken over by a US company but are left unchanged if the buyer is European, new research claims.
Holger Görg and Sourafel Girma of the University of Nottingham have found that skilled workers' wages rise by more than 8pc after a US buyer takes over, while unskilled wages climb nearly 13pc in the two years post-acquisition.
"In stark contrast, no evidence is found for any causal effect on wages, skilled or unskilled, following acquisition by EU based multinationals," the researchers will tell the Royal Economic Society's annual conference today.
The academics said US companies are able to award larger pay rises because they are often more technologically advanced than European rivals.
They also suggested US companies are more likely to share profits with the workforce, and that multinational companies in general "pay higher wages to provide an incentive for workers not to quit" to minimise labour turnover.
However, they said that if US buyers hire "better" workers after the takeover who are already earning more "there does not appear to be any particularly positive effect".
By Philip Aldrick (Filed: 18/04/2006)
The wages of British workers rise when their employer is taken over by a US company but are left unchanged if the buyer is European, new research claims.
Holger Görg and Sourafel Girma of the University of Nottingham have found that skilled workers' wages rise by more than 8pc after a US buyer takes over, while unskilled wages climb nearly 13pc in the two years post-acquisition.
"In stark contrast, no evidence is found for any causal effect on wages, skilled or unskilled, following acquisition by EU based multinationals," the researchers will tell the Royal Economic Society's annual conference today.
The academics said US companies are able to award larger pay rises because they are often more technologically advanced than European rivals.
They also suggested US companies are more likely to share profits with the workforce, and that multinational companies in general "pay higher wages to provide an incentive for workers not to quit" to minimise labour turnover.
However, they said that if US buyers hire "better" workers after the takeover who are already earning more "there does not appear to be any particularly positive effect".
Goldman tops the fees league table
By Philip Aldrick (Filed: 18/04/2006)
Goldman Sachs, long-recognised as one of the world's top investment banks, has also become the world's most active private equity firm. It paid more in investment banking fees for private equity deals than any other financial buyer in the first three months of the year.
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners has been particularly active in the UK recently, attempting bids for the pub operator Mitchells & Butlers, airports group BAA and broadcaster ITV. All three offers were rejected. It has also put together a £2.2bn bid for Associated British Ports through another consortium, which it is leading.
The bank emerged at the top of a fee-paying table compiled by research group Dealogic. Last year it raised an $8.5bn (£4.8bn) fund, which was briefly the largest in the market.
The bank paid $130m in fees to advisers in the first quarter, only 25pc of which went to its own bankers, beating established firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which paid $118m in fees to advisers, and Blackstone Group, which paid $115m.
Goldman's charge up the league tables coincided with a 20pc increase in the value of private-equity backed deals globally to $128bn, Dealogic's first quarter figures showed.
Fund- raising levels rose 56pc on the same period last year to $81bn. In Europe, the value of private-equity backed deals rose by 44pc.
The jump reflects the huge growth in the private equity market, fuelled by the availability of cheap debt and steady economic performances around the world. Goldman's involvement, though, has prompted criticism from some of its private equity clients, who cite conflicts of interest.
By Philip Aldrick (Filed: 18/04/2006)
Goldman Sachs, long-recognised as one of the world's top investment banks, has also become the world's most active private equity firm. It paid more in investment banking fees for private equity deals than any other financial buyer in the first three months of the year.
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners has been particularly active in the UK recently, attempting bids for the pub operator Mitchells & Butlers, airports group BAA and broadcaster ITV. All three offers were rejected. It has also put together a £2.2bn bid for Associated British Ports through another consortium, which it is leading.
The bank emerged at the top of a fee-paying table compiled by research group Dealogic. Last year it raised an $8.5bn (£4.8bn) fund, which was briefly the largest in the market.
The bank paid $130m in fees to advisers in the first quarter, only 25pc of which went to its own bankers, beating established firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which paid $118m in fees to advisers, and Blackstone Group, which paid $115m.
Goldman's charge up the league tables coincided with a 20pc increase in the value of private-equity backed deals globally to $128bn, Dealogic's first quarter figures showed.
Fund- raising levels rose 56pc on the same period last year to $81bn. In Europe, the value of private-equity backed deals rose by 44pc.
The jump reflects the huge growth in the private equity market, fuelled by the availability of cheap debt and steady economic performances around the world. Goldman's involvement, though, has prompted criticism from some of its private equity clients, who cite conflicts of interest.
Insurer AIG revealed as fourth member of BAA bid consortium
By Katherine Griffiths, City Correspondent
(Filed: 18/04/2006)
American International Group (AIG), the world's largest insurer which recently signed a bumper shirt sponsorship deal with Manchester United, has joined the Goldman Sachs-led consortium that has had a £9.4bn bid approach for BAA turned down by the airports operator.
The other parties are the two Canadian pension funds Borealis and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. They made an approach on March 30 to BAA, which operates Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh airports.
BAA revealed the approach on Sunday, when it officially rejected the offer, which it said failed to reflect its "true value". Goldman yesterday confirmed its interest in bidding for BAA. It said that following BAA's rejection, its consortium was reviewing its options, but it gave no undertaking that it would return with a revised proposal.
America's General Electric is also interested in BAA. UK government sources, who are monitoring BAA's possible sale closely, said the US conglomerate was not in the Goldman consortium at the moment but was interested in becoming involved.
AIG would not comment on its interest in BAA. The New York-based insurer sealed the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in English football on April 6 when it signed a four-year contract for £56.5m to have its name emblazoned on Manchester United's shirts.
The move was interpreted by analysts as being about AIG's wish to capitalise on its presence in Asia, where the football team is very popular, and its desire to raise its profile in the UK.
BAA has been the subject of intense bid speculation since February, when the Spanish construction group Ferrovial mooted its interest in buying the world's largest airports operator. Ferrovial came back with a hostile 810p-a-share offer on April 7.
In the meantime, Goldman approached BAA about making a "white knight" offer for the company which would have fended off the Spanish approach. BAA has rejected all offers so far.
By Katherine Griffiths, City Correspondent
(Filed: 18/04/2006)
American International Group (AIG), the world's largest insurer which recently signed a bumper shirt sponsorship deal with Manchester United, has joined the Goldman Sachs-led consortium that has had a £9.4bn bid approach for BAA turned down by the airports operator.
The other parties are the two Canadian pension funds Borealis and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. They made an approach on March 30 to BAA, which operates Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh airports.
BAA revealed the approach on Sunday, when it officially rejected the offer, which it said failed to reflect its "true value". Goldman yesterday confirmed its interest in bidding for BAA. It said that following BAA's rejection, its consortium was reviewing its options, but it gave no undertaking that it would return with a revised proposal.
America's General Electric is also interested in BAA. UK government sources, who are monitoring BAA's possible sale closely, said the US conglomerate was not in the Goldman consortium at the moment but was interested in becoming involved.
AIG would not comment on its interest in BAA. The New York-based insurer sealed the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in English football on April 6 when it signed a four-year contract for £56.5m to have its name emblazoned on Manchester United's shirts.
The move was interpreted by analysts as being about AIG's wish to capitalise on its presence in Asia, where the football team is very popular, and its desire to raise its profile in the UK.
BAA has been the subject of intense bid speculation since February, when the Spanish construction group Ferrovial mooted its interest in buying the world's largest airports operator. Ferrovial came back with a hostile 810p-a-share offer on April 7.
In the meantime, Goldman approached BAA about making a "white knight" offer for the company which would have fended off the Spanish approach. BAA has rejected all offers so far.
Citigroup's record figures surprise analysts
By David Litterick in New York (Filed: 18/04/2006)
Record revenues from its investment banking and overseas businesses helped Citigroup, the world's biggest bank, post a 4pc rise in first-quarter profits, catching analysts by surprise.
Profits topped $5.6bn (£3.2bn), up from $5.4bn a year ago on revenues that rose 5pc to $22.2bn.
But the company admitted its US retail banking business had been weak because of a dip in consumer confidence. In the US, earnings dropped 13pc and revenue fell 1pc, as rising short-term interest rates cut lending margins. Globally, profits jumped 47pc and revenue rose 19pc.
"I'm very, very pleased with our accomplishments and our financial performance," chief executive Charles Prince said. "While I don't expect a quick turn in the US consumer business, I do expect better results [in the future]."
Mr Prince succeeded Sanford Weill as chief executive in October 2003. Mr Weill will retire as chairman today with Mr Prince replacing him at the bank's annual meeting.
The yield curve has been flat in the first few months of 2006, making it more difficult for banks to make money from lending as margins are trimmed. However, the yield of the 10-year US government bonds recently topped 5pc, suggesting a steepening of the yield curve and a better lending environment.
Citigroup won a victory when the Federal Reserve this month lifted its year-long ban on big acquisitions, citing the bank's improved internal controls after several regulatory scandals.
"This letter does not in any way change our strategic initiatives or our primary focus on organic growth," Mr Prince said.
Corporate and investment banking profit rose 15pc to $1.9bn, helped by record results in emerging markets trading, municipal bonds and credit products. Revenue from equity markets surged 67pc while fixed income rose 8pc.
There was also good news for Wachovia, America's fourth-biggest bank, which said first-quarter earnings increased 6.6pc to a record $1.73bn on an increase in commercial loans and higher trading profit. Commercial loans rose 12pc. Revenue rose 9.1pc to $7.06bn.
Meanwhile, discount stockbroker Charles Schwab said first-quarter earnings surged 68pc to $243m. Charles Schwab has been turning itself round since the dotcom bubble burst in 2000.
By David Litterick in New York (Filed: 18/04/2006)
Record revenues from its investment banking and overseas businesses helped Citigroup, the world's biggest bank, post a 4pc rise in first-quarter profits, catching analysts by surprise.
Profits topped $5.6bn (£3.2bn), up from $5.4bn a year ago on revenues that rose 5pc to $22.2bn.
But the company admitted its US retail banking business had been weak because of a dip in consumer confidence. In the US, earnings dropped 13pc and revenue fell 1pc, as rising short-term interest rates cut lending margins. Globally, profits jumped 47pc and revenue rose 19pc.
"I'm very, very pleased with our accomplishments and our financial performance," chief executive Charles Prince said. "While I don't expect a quick turn in the US consumer business, I do expect better results [in the future]."
Mr Prince succeeded Sanford Weill as chief executive in October 2003. Mr Weill will retire as chairman today with Mr Prince replacing him at the bank's annual meeting.
The yield curve has been flat in the first few months of 2006, making it more difficult for banks to make money from lending as margins are trimmed. However, the yield of the 10-year US government bonds recently topped 5pc, suggesting a steepening of the yield curve and a better lending environment.
Citigroup won a victory when the Federal Reserve this month lifted its year-long ban on big acquisitions, citing the bank's improved internal controls after several regulatory scandals.
"This letter does not in any way change our strategic initiatives or our primary focus on organic growth," Mr Prince said.
Corporate and investment banking profit rose 15pc to $1.9bn, helped by record results in emerging markets trading, municipal bonds and credit products. Revenue from equity markets surged 67pc while fixed income rose 8pc.
There was also good news for Wachovia, America's fourth-biggest bank, which said first-quarter earnings increased 6.6pc to a record $1.73bn on an increase in commercial loans and higher trading profit. Commercial loans rose 12pc. Revenue rose 9.1pc to $7.06bn.
Meanwhile, discount stockbroker Charles Schwab said first-quarter earnings surged 68pc to $243m. Charles Schwab has been turning itself round since the dotcom bubble burst in 2000.
Oil surges to fresh high on Iran fears
By Yvette Essen (Filed: 18/04/2006)
Oil has been driven to fresh highs while other commodity prices have hit 20-year records as dealers worry about the deteriorating political situation between the US and Iran.
Markets are fretting that Washington may sanction bombing raids against Iran's nuclear power stations.
Brent crude in London for June delivery ended at $71.46 a barrel, up 87 cents on the day. It opened at $70.99 and has rallied for nine consecutive days from $66.88.
In New York, the stock markets were weak in early trading, the Dow dropping to 11089.66, the S&P to 1285.70 and the Nasdaq to 2312.25, as the oil worries overshadowed strong earnings figures from the likes of Citigroup.
The Iran jitters, plus inflation fears, also caused investors to seek a safe haven in commodities. Gold opened at $603 and rose to a 25-year high of $611.80 while silver hit a 23-year high at $12.95.
Traders said investors had been piling into commodities on concerns over worsening relations with Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer.
Last week, Iran said it had enriched uranium to the level needed to make reactor fuel, sparking worries about its ability to develop nuclear weapons and causing fears that military action is being considered against Iran.
David Buik, market strategist at spread-betting group Cantor Index, said: "People are reacting to these serious political problems in the Gulf, which are causing extreme concern.
Investors have taken significant hedge positions in futures contracts for oil and precious metals, pushing them on to record prices.
"If the UN implements sanctions against Iran or, as a last resort, the US bombs Iran's nuclear reactors, Iran's response could be to cut off oil. Such a move would have serious ramifications for the world's economy."
In the US, crude oil prices also hit $70 - their highest level for nearly eight months when Hurricane Katrina battered oil installations.
Oil prices have also come under pressure in the past week after fresh unrest in Africa. Chad's Doba oil fields produce 170,000 barrels a day, and yesterday Chad accused Sudan of forming a rebel army to attack the country.
The commodity price jump came despite Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani trying to calm fears yesterday. He said: "We are certain Gulf countries will not back the US in waging an attack on Iran.
"The talk about a US attack is nonsense and we are sure Americans would not want create problems for themselves."
However, Lee Curtis, a sales trader at spread betting group Finspreads, expects commodity prices to continue rising.
"Any uncertainty about Iran is bad. The market has been going this way for the past two weeks. It would be more of a surprise when it stops going up."
By Yvette Essen (Filed: 18/04/2006)
Oil has been driven to fresh highs while other commodity prices have hit 20-year records as dealers worry about the deteriorating political situation between the US and Iran.
Markets are fretting that Washington may sanction bombing raids against Iran's nuclear power stations.
Brent crude in London for June delivery ended at $71.46 a barrel, up 87 cents on the day. It opened at $70.99 and has rallied for nine consecutive days from $66.88.
In New York, the stock markets were weak in early trading, the Dow dropping to 11089.66, the S&P to 1285.70 and the Nasdaq to 2312.25, as the oil worries overshadowed strong earnings figures from the likes of Citigroup.
The Iran jitters, plus inflation fears, also caused investors to seek a safe haven in commodities. Gold opened at $603 and rose to a 25-year high of $611.80 while silver hit a 23-year high at $12.95.
Traders said investors had been piling into commodities on concerns over worsening relations with Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer.
Last week, Iran said it had enriched uranium to the level needed to make reactor fuel, sparking worries about its ability to develop nuclear weapons and causing fears that military action is being considered against Iran.
David Buik, market strategist at spread-betting group Cantor Index, said: "People are reacting to these serious political problems in the Gulf, which are causing extreme concern.
Investors have taken significant hedge positions in futures contracts for oil and precious metals, pushing them on to record prices.
"If the UN implements sanctions against Iran or, as a last resort, the US bombs Iran's nuclear reactors, Iran's response could be to cut off oil. Such a move would have serious ramifications for the world's economy."
In the US, crude oil prices also hit $70 - their highest level for nearly eight months when Hurricane Katrina battered oil installations.
Oil prices have also come under pressure in the past week after fresh unrest in Africa. Chad's Doba oil fields produce 170,000 barrels a day, and yesterday Chad accused Sudan of forming a rebel army to attack the country.
The commodity price jump came despite Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani trying to calm fears yesterday. He said: "We are certain Gulf countries will not back the US in waging an attack on Iran.
"The talk about a US attack is nonsense and we are sure Americans would not want create problems for themselves."
However, Lee Curtis, a sales trader at spread betting group Finspreads, expects commodity prices to continue rising.
"Any uncertainty about Iran is bad. The market has been going this way for the past two weeks. It would be more of a surprise when it stops going up."
Why Iraqis must learn to be selfless
By Sir Mark Allen
(Filed: 18/04/2006)
The delay in forming a government in Baghdad seems alarming and frustrating. The violence continues; Iraqis on our televisions say they cannot tell which is worse - Saddam's rule or this disorder. If the assumption is that a proper government would get a grip and bring Iraq back from the edge, why doesn't it then?
The new Iraqi politicians have something else in mind, something that matters more to them than the common good. Everyone outside the circle of absolute power has traditionally focused on primary loyalties to family, clan and religious identity. The people lived in a private or civil moral sphere separate to the dangerous world of state power.
These loyalties are now the primary interests for those competing for an undreamt-of supreme power. Their difficulty is that their traditional codes have not recognised the need, at national level in a highly variegated society, for pluralism and a strong sense of the common good.
From the outside, it is hard for us to grasp how much more the Arab world is concerned with the personal than the West has been. We have long delighted in institutions - our institutions embody values and interests, and provide answers to needs, but, importantly, they also subordinate personal interest to the collective interest. Selfless service was a high ideal in a society that was confidently hierarchical.
In the Arab world, the picture is different. There are institutions, but these are more to do with social practice (such as tribe and religion) than organised structures. The ancient Arab ethic of personal freedom and personal equality does not promote a hierarchical and institutional culture. It prefers the small scale and empowers the individual, family, clan and honour code.
This ethos goes with the grain of the teaching of Islam and has survived despite absolutist rulers. It did not, however, acknowledge equality for communities with different values and beliefs - the notion of pluralism.
Family and blood matter in the Arab world more than they do in ours. Indeed, the dispute that divided the Shia from the Sunnis in the seventh century concerned the caliph, the successor to the Prophet as leader of the Muslim community. The forebears of the Shia believed the leadership should be kept in the Prophet's family through the line of his nephew, Ali. The Sunnis thought it should go to the man best suited to the role.
When, however, the caliphate moved from Arabia to Damascus and thence to Baghdad, the leadership of the Islamic community migrated to absolute power. Genealogy and religious authority were combined to legitimise rule. The consensual, collaborative leadership customary in tribal Arabia was abrogated at the new centre of power.
But this tradition lived on among the people, in their families and tribes. Government, often protected by armies of non-Arab mercenaries, was polarised from society: it looked after itself, and the people looked after themselves. Families led their lives where their women and children might be considered safe, in private space. Public space was, and is, dangerous. It is the domain of power.
Power in the Arab world continued with this indifference to self-restraint - hence our own anxieties today about the need for reform. Where there are no politics, everything is political. Absolute rulers have eyes and ears everywhere.
So, inevitably, new ideas about how to govern and constrain power have not been encouraged, never mind developed into truly independent institutions. Religion did remain in the hands of the people to a considerable degree. Periodic eruptions of radical dissent could draw on much popular, if private, support. The latest pulse of this theme is what we are seeing now across the region.
The separation of power from people has not been repaired. In modern times, nationalist regimes, neo-tribal movements, masquerading as parties around highly personalised leaderships, and so-called "traditional" families have been able to hold on to power, massively reinforced by the apparatus of the modern state. Effective participation for the people has not been on offer. Even oppositionist religious groupings have depended, too, on highly personalised leaderships.
Though there are powerful traditions of tolerance, as one would expect in a family-based culture, these are not at all the same thing as pluralism. Where there is no pluralism (and no strong central government), people need to stake out their own space. This is what Iraqis now appear to be doing.
Iraqis are naturally judging the possibilities for new politics against the criteria of primary personal interests, of family and religion. Power in the past has bequeathed a poisonous experience. It does not show the way. People want to defend what really matters to themselves and their group.
It would be absurd to suggest that there are no public-spirited Iraqis, but the domination of public space by personalised power never allowed an unambiguous recognition of a common good which might cut across narrower interests.
A sense of being an Iraqi, rather than a member of one of Iraq's constituent communities, did exist: the Arab nationalist Ba'athists aimed to lift Iraqi society above its internal divisions. That project has been badly damaged during these three years of instability, and the Kurds were never keen on it. It now goes on hold as newly enfranchised political parties advance the elemental interests of family and creed.
The high turnout at the elections was moving, but when local identity is insecure, pride and honour are at stake and the passion of honour is a fast track to violence. It may be a while yet before the different personalities, identities and loyalties in Iraq are able to accept that it is not they, but someone else, who is going to have the power now.
Those who led communities in the shadow of absolute power drew strength from the ethic of personal freedom and personal equality. They provided a remarkable leadership, though it was small scale. Now things have changed. What we are seeing is the shock of the lurch from local community and culture to state-level politics.
Sir Mark Allen retired from the Diplomatic Service in 2004. His book, 'Arabs', is published by Continuum on April 24
By Sir Mark Allen
(Filed: 18/04/2006)
The delay in forming a government in Baghdad seems alarming and frustrating. The violence continues; Iraqis on our televisions say they cannot tell which is worse - Saddam's rule or this disorder. If the assumption is that a proper government would get a grip and bring Iraq back from the edge, why doesn't it then?
The new Iraqi politicians have something else in mind, something that matters more to them than the common good. Everyone outside the circle of absolute power has traditionally focused on primary loyalties to family, clan and religious identity. The people lived in a private or civil moral sphere separate to the dangerous world of state power.
These loyalties are now the primary interests for those competing for an undreamt-of supreme power. Their difficulty is that their traditional codes have not recognised the need, at national level in a highly variegated society, for pluralism and a strong sense of the common good.
From the outside, it is hard for us to grasp how much more the Arab world is concerned with the personal than the West has been. We have long delighted in institutions - our institutions embody values and interests, and provide answers to needs, but, importantly, they also subordinate personal interest to the collective interest. Selfless service was a high ideal in a society that was confidently hierarchical.
In the Arab world, the picture is different. There are institutions, but these are more to do with social practice (such as tribe and religion) than organised structures. The ancient Arab ethic of personal freedom and personal equality does not promote a hierarchical and institutional culture. It prefers the small scale and empowers the individual, family, clan and honour code.
This ethos goes with the grain of the teaching of Islam and has survived despite absolutist rulers. It did not, however, acknowledge equality for communities with different values and beliefs - the notion of pluralism.
Family and blood matter in the Arab world more than they do in ours. Indeed, the dispute that divided the Shia from the Sunnis in the seventh century concerned the caliph, the successor to the Prophet as leader of the Muslim community. The forebears of the Shia believed the leadership should be kept in the Prophet's family through the line of his nephew, Ali. The Sunnis thought it should go to the man best suited to the role.
When, however, the caliphate moved from Arabia to Damascus and thence to Baghdad, the leadership of the Islamic community migrated to absolute power. Genealogy and religious authority were combined to legitimise rule. The consensual, collaborative leadership customary in tribal Arabia was abrogated at the new centre of power.
But this tradition lived on among the people, in their families and tribes. Government, often protected by armies of non-Arab mercenaries, was polarised from society: it looked after itself, and the people looked after themselves. Families led their lives where their women and children might be considered safe, in private space. Public space was, and is, dangerous. It is the domain of power.
Power in the Arab world continued with this indifference to self-restraint - hence our own anxieties today about the need for reform. Where there are no politics, everything is political. Absolute rulers have eyes and ears everywhere.
So, inevitably, new ideas about how to govern and constrain power have not been encouraged, never mind developed into truly independent institutions. Religion did remain in the hands of the people to a considerable degree. Periodic eruptions of radical dissent could draw on much popular, if private, support. The latest pulse of this theme is what we are seeing now across the region.
The separation of power from people has not been repaired. In modern times, nationalist regimes, neo-tribal movements, masquerading as parties around highly personalised leaderships, and so-called "traditional" families have been able to hold on to power, massively reinforced by the apparatus of the modern state. Effective participation for the people has not been on offer. Even oppositionist religious groupings have depended, too, on highly personalised leaderships.
Though there are powerful traditions of tolerance, as one would expect in a family-based culture, these are not at all the same thing as pluralism. Where there is no pluralism (and no strong central government), people need to stake out their own space. This is what Iraqis now appear to be doing.
Iraqis are naturally judging the possibilities for new politics against the criteria of primary personal interests, of family and religion. Power in the past has bequeathed a poisonous experience. It does not show the way. People want to defend what really matters to themselves and their group.
It would be absurd to suggest that there are no public-spirited Iraqis, but the domination of public space by personalised power never allowed an unambiguous recognition of a common good which might cut across narrower interests.
A sense of being an Iraqi, rather than a member of one of Iraq's constituent communities, did exist: the Arab nationalist Ba'athists aimed to lift Iraqi society above its internal divisions. That project has been badly damaged during these three years of instability, and the Kurds were never keen on it. It now goes on hold as newly enfranchised political parties advance the elemental interests of family and creed.
The high turnout at the elections was moving, but when local identity is insecure, pride and honour are at stake and the passion of honour is a fast track to violence. It may be a while yet before the different personalities, identities and loyalties in Iraq are able to accept that it is not they, but someone else, who is going to have the power now.
Those who led communities in the shadow of absolute power drew strength from the ethic of personal freedom and personal equality. They provided a remarkable leadership, though it was small scale. Now things have changed. What we are seeing is the shock of the lurch from local community and culture to state-level politics.
Sir Mark Allen retired from the Diplomatic Service in 2004. His book, 'Arabs', is published by Continuum on April 24
The deadly lesson in suicide bombing
By Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv
(Filed: 18/04/2006)
When Mayor's fast-food restaurant was attacked by a suicide bomber in January, the Palestinian terrorist did not use enough explosive.
Even though he got deep inside the premises he managed only to injure, rather than kill, Israelis.
The same mistake was not made yesterday. Twenty-one-year-old Sami Hammad, of the group Islamic Jihad, carried a huge device, enough to kill nine people and rip off the front of the building even though he got no closer than the entrance, where a guard stopped him.
The explosion left chairs and tables from the popular restaurant spewing on to the pavement, which was stained with blood. Half a dozen cars parked nearby were written off by the blast and windows in nearby buildings blown in.
Israel Yacoby said that moments before the blast he saw a young couple enter the restaurant with their children.
"After the explosion the mother was hurt very badly and fell to the ground," he said. "The children screamed 'mummy, mummy,' but I saw the father was in shock. He grabbed the children and fled."
Palestinian suicide bombers give no warnings for their attacks, although the Passover holiday had led the Israeli security authorities to raise the state of alert. But in a country of seven million people that is used to terrorist attacks, a raised alert state does not stop life continuing pretty much as normal.
In this deeply divided country, love of falafel is one of the few things that unites Jew and Arab. The reputation enjoyed by Mayor's for making top-quality falafel and shawarma - shavings of lamb or turkey roasted on a spit - meant the bomber could be all but certain that it would be crowded with Jews, Arabs and foreign workers, gathered in the belief that one of their favourite haunts would be unlikely to be hit again by the terrorists.
Eyal Ofer, a photographer, said: "After what happened in January, I managed to convince myself the place would be safe because lightning does not strike twice, right?
"So when I went to the area just before Passover I thought it was safe to eat there. The food is, after all, very good." He noticed that security had been improved since the January attack.
"Before, there was never any security but this time I noticed a guard had been employed to stop and check everyone at a low, plastic barrier that had been placed in front of the bar.
"The fence looked a bit rudimentary but it turns out that the security guard was able to stop the latest bomber entering the restaurant, where he would have caused even more bloodshed."
There are disturbing echoes in the attack, not just because it happened at the same place that was bombed before.
It occurred four years after Israel's worst single suicide bombing, which cost 30 lives during Passover.
The attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya that caused such huge loss of life was launched during a festival meal for elderly Israelis, part of Passover's tradition of charity and eating. It was a turning point in the second intifada, prompting a major crackdown by the Israeli security forces, ordered by Ariel Sharon, then prime minister.
Operation Defensive Shield, the massive incursion by the Israeli army into Palestinian cities and territories to try to neutralise terrorist cells, was ordered in its aftermath. Fierce fighting followed in the Jenin refugee camp.
Israelis and Palestinians were last night waiting to see what action Mr Sharon's successor, Ehud Olmert, will take against the bombers and their supporters.
By Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv
(Filed: 18/04/2006)
When Mayor's fast-food restaurant was attacked by a suicide bomber in January, the Palestinian terrorist did not use enough explosive.
Even though he got deep inside the premises he managed only to injure, rather than kill, Israelis.
The same mistake was not made yesterday. Twenty-one-year-old Sami Hammad, of the group Islamic Jihad, carried a huge device, enough to kill nine people and rip off the front of the building even though he got no closer than the entrance, where a guard stopped him.
The explosion left chairs and tables from the popular restaurant spewing on to the pavement, which was stained with blood. Half a dozen cars parked nearby were written off by the blast and windows in nearby buildings blown in.
Israel Yacoby said that moments before the blast he saw a young couple enter the restaurant with their children.
"After the explosion the mother was hurt very badly and fell to the ground," he said. "The children screamed 'mummy, mummy,' but I saw the father was in shock. He grabbed the children and fled."
Palestinian suicide bombers give no warnings for their attacks, although the Passover holiday had led the Israeli security authorities to raise the state of alert. But in a country of seven million people that is used to terrorist attacks, a raised alert state does not stop life continuing pretty much as normal.
In this deeply divided country, love of falafel is one of the few things that unites Jew and Arab. The reputation enjoyed by Mayor's for making top-quality falafel and shawarma - shavings of lamb or turkey roasted on a spit - meant the bomber could be all but certain that it would be crowded with Jews, Arabs and foreign workers, gathered in the belief that one of their favourite haunts would be unlikely to be hit again by the terrorists.
Eyal Ofer, a photographer, said: "After what happened in January, I managed to convince myself the place would be safe because lightning does not strike twice, right?
"So when I went to the area just before Passover I thought it was safe to eat there. The food is, after all, very good." He noticed that security had been improved since the January attack.
"Before, there was never any security but this time I noticed a guard had been employed to stop and check everyone at a low, plastic barrier that had been placed in front of the bar.
"The fence looked a bit rudimentary but it turns out that the security guard was able to stop the latest bomber entering the restaurant, where he would have caused even more bloodshed."
There are disturbing echoes in the attack, not just because it happened at the same place that was bombed before.
It occurred four years after Israel's worst single suicide bombing, which cost 30 lives during Passover.
The attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya that caused such huge loss of life was launched during a festival meal for elderly Israelis, part of Passover's tradition of charity and eating. It was a turning point in the second intifada, prompting a major crackdown by the Israeli security forces, ordered by Ariel Sharon, then prime minister.
Operation Defensive Shield, the massive incursion by the Israeli army into Palestinian cities and territories to try to neutralise terrorist cells, was ordered in its aftermath. Fierce fighting followed in the Jenin refugee camp.
Israelis and Palestinians were last night waiting to see what action Mr Sharon's successor, Ehud Olmert, will take against the bombers and their supporters.
Philosopher Baruch Spinoza
BY CURT SCHLEIER
FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 4/19/2006
Oil and water don't mix, and for Baruch Spinoza, religion and government were oil and water.
In his studies and observations, every time the two were combined rights were trampled on, free thought was discouraged and innovation was snuffed out. That, he felt, harmed all of humanity.
In fact, his "Treatise on Religion and the State" was "one of the most impassioned defenses of a free democratic state in the history of political theory, an eloquent plea for the separation of church and state," wrote Rebecca Goldstein in "Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity." It also promoted the idea of freedom of speech and thought — extreme concepts in the mid-17th century.
Because of his well thought-out views, Spinoza (1632-77) became one of the most influential philosophers of all time. Consider that his ideas were studied by Englishman John Locke, who then wrote about democracy and tolerance. Locke's work, in turn, "had a profound effect on the men who first waged a War of Independence from George III," Goldstein wrote. The Founding Fathers then wrote protections against an incursive government into the American Constitution.
Spinoza grew up in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in a community of former Portuguese Marranos, who were Jews thought to have converted to Christianity during the Inquisition but who secretly remained Jewish. The group had emigrated to Amsterdam — a city noted for its tolerance — late in the 16th century and found peace and prosperity there.
Learning To Think
Spinoza, educated in the community's Hebrew school, was considered brilliant. Many thought he was on the path to becoming a rabbi.
He was also curious and not willing to accept what he was taught simply at face value.
He knew he was supposed to "believe what his teachers say and he tries hard to," Goldstein wrote.
But "the more Spinoza read and pondered, the more his simple certainties melted away into wondering and doubt," wrote Will Durant in "The Story of Philosophy." He studied Latin so he could read the great Greek and Roman philosophers, but he was most impressed by Rene Descartes, whose basic philosophy, "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), argued that reason could explain almost all.
Spinoza took the theory further, suggesting that everything might be explained by reason. He believed, as Goldstein wrote, that "for every fact that is true, there is a reason why it is true." Also, he contended that freedom wasn't a function of guns or ballots, but of books.
"The more the mind knows," he wrote, "the better it understands its forces and the order of nature. . . . And the more it understands the order of nature, the more easily it will be able to liberate itself."
For Spinoza, knowledge "is power and freedom; and the only permanent happiness is the pursuit of knowledge and the joy of understanding," said Durant.
Spinoza knew this view was radical and might cause his father grief because it was so different from established thought. So he kept quiet about it while his father was still alive. (His mother died when he was a child.)
After his father's death, Spinoza followed Jewish mourning custom for a year. He began quietly discussing his views with friends and acquaintances, keeping his approach low key.
Spinoza's philosophical arguments, however, ran counter to Christian and Jewish beliefs. He argued that the Bible was metaphorical and written by men who planned to use it to sway people to their beliefs.
"Its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold to the imagination," Spinoza wrote.
When word got back to Jewish leaders, they called him on the carpet. While they were comfortable in Amsterdam, they understood from history that the population could turn on them without warning. And they wanted to do nothing that might offend their Christian hosts.
When Jewish leaders warned him that they would excommunicate him from their community and shun him if he didn't renounce his views, Spinoza ignored them. He stayed true to his views and refused their demands. "It compels me to nothing which I should not have done anyway," he said about the excommunication.
Solitude And Knowledge
Durant said his decision was one of great courage. "Nothing is so terrible as solitude; and few forms of it (are) so difficult as the isolation of a Jew from all his people," he wrote.
Spinoza prepared to live an austere life. In his quest for knowledge he decided he would "enjoy only such pleasures as are necessary for the preservation of health."
He saw money as a tool, but didn't make it his sole focus. He said he would "seek only enough . . . as is necessary for the maintenance of our life and health."
He meant it, too. A rich merchant, Simone DeVries, so admired Spinoza that he begged him to accept a large monetary gift. Spinoza refused. When DeVries died, he left a smaller, annual bequest to the philosopher, but Spinoza turned that down as well. "Nature is satisfied with little," he wrote. "And if she is, I am also."
Spinoza allowed nothing to stand between him and his work. For example, he was offered the chairmanship in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. "You will have the most extensive freedom in philosophizing," he was promised. The prince who offered him the position "believes you will not misuse (this freedom) to disturb the publicly established religion."
That sentence spurred him to turn the position down. "I do not know within what limits the freedom to philosophize must be confined if I am to avoid appearing to disturb the publicly established religion," Spinoza wrote back.
He wanted to make his work accessible to as many people as possible, so he wrote as simply as he could. He intended "to speak in a manner comprehensible to the people, and to do for them all things that do not prevent us from attaining our ends."
Nevertheless, he recognized that while his language was simple, his ideas weren't. So he acted almost as a cheerleader, urging readers not to give up, but to continue reading, suggesting that all would become clear once the work (in this case "The Ethics") was read in its entirety.
"Here doubtless the reader will become confused and will recollect many things which will bring him to a standstill; and therefore I pray him to proceed gently with me and form no judgment concerning these things until he shall have read all," he wrote.
BY CURT SCHLEIER
FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 4/19/2006
Oil and water don't mix, and for Baruch Spinoza, religion and government were oil and water.
In his studies and observations, every time the two were combined rights were trampled on, free thought was discouraged and innovation was snuffed out. That, he felt, harmed all of humanity.
In fact, his "Treatise on Religion and the State" was "one of the most impassioned defenses of a free democratic state in the history of political theory, an eloquent plea for the separation of church and state," wrote Rebecca Goldstein in "Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity." It also promoted the idea of freedom of speech and thought — extreme concepts in the mid-17th century.
Because of his well thought-out views, Spinoza (1632-77) became one of the most influential philosophers of all time. Consider that his ideas were studied by Englishman John Locke, who then wrote about democracy and tolerance. Locke's work, in turn, "had a profound effect on the men who first waged a War of Independence from George III," Goldstein wrote. The Founding Fathers then wrote protections against an incursive government into the American Constitution.
Spinoza grew up in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in a community of former Portuguese Marranos, who were Jews thought to have converted to Christianity during the Inquisition but who secretly remained Jewish. The group had emigrated to Amsterdam — a city noted for its tolerance — late in the 16th century and found peace and prosperity there.
Learning To Think
Spinoza, educated in the community's Hebrew school, was considered brilliant. Many thought he was on the path to becoming a rabbi.
He was also curious and not willing to accept what he was taught simply at face value.
He knew he was supposed to "believe what his teachers say and he tries hard to," Goldstein wrote.
But "the more Spinoza read and pondered, the more his simple certainties melted away into wondering and doubt," wrote Will Durant in "The Story of Philosophy." He studied Latin so he could read the great Greek and Roman philosophers, but he was most impressed by Rene Descartes, whose basic philosophy, "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), argued that reason could explain almost all.
Spinoza took the theory further, suggesting that everything might be explained by reason. He believed, as Goldstein wrote, that "for every fact that is true, there is a reason why it is true." Also, he contended that freedom wasn't a function of guns or ballots, but of books.
"The more the mind knows," he wrote, "the better it understands its forces and the order of nature. . . . And the more it understands the order of nature, the more easily it will be able to liberate itself."
For Spinoza, knowledge "is power and freedom; and the only permanent happiness is the pursuit of knowledge and the joy of understanding," said Durant.
Spinoza knew this view was radical and might cause his father grief because it was so different from established thought. So he kept quiet about it while his father was still alive. (His mother died when he was a child.)
After his father's death, Spinoza followed Jewish mourning custom for a year. He began quietly discussing his views with friends and acquaintances, keeping his approach low key.
Spinoza's philosophical arguments, however, ran counter to Christian and Jewish beliefs. He argued that the Bible was metaphorical and written by men who planned to use it to sway people to their beliefs.
"Its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold to the imagination," Spinoza wrote.
When word got back to Jewish leaders, they called him on the carpet. While they were comfortable in Amsterdam, they understood from history that the population could turn on them without warning. And they wanted to do nothing that might offend their Christian hosts.
When Jewish leaders warned him that they would excommunicate him from their community and shun him if he didn't renounce his views, Spinoza ignored them. He stayed true to his views and refused their demands. "It compels me to nothing which I should not have done anyway," he said about the excommunication.
Solitude And Knowledge
Durant said his decision was one of great courage. "Nothing is so terrible as solitude; and few forms of it (are) so difficult as the isolation of a Jew from all his people," he wrote.
Spinoza prepared to live an austere life. In his quest for knowledge he decided he would "enjoy only such pleasures as are necessary for the preservation of health."
He saw money as a tool, but didn't make it his sole focus. He said he would "seek only enough . . . as is necessary for the maintenance of our life and health."
He meant it, too. A rich merchant, Simone DeVries, so admired Spinoza that he begged him to accept a large monetary gift. Spinoza refused. When DeVries died, he left a smaller, annual bequest to the philosopher, but Spinoza turned that down as well. "Nature is satisfied with little," he wrote. "And if she is, I am also."
Spinoza allowed nothing to stand between him and his work. For example, he was offered the chairmanship in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. "You will have the most extensive freedom in philosophizing," he was promised. The prince who offered him the position "believes you will not misuse (this freedom) to disturb the publicly established religion."
That sentence spurred him to turn the position down. "I do not know within what limits the freedom to philosophize must be confined if I am to avoid appearing to disturb the publicly established religion," Spinoza wrote back.
He wanted to make his work accessible to as many people as possible, so he wrote as simply as he could. He intended "to speak in a manner comprehensible to the people, and to do for them all things that do not prevent us from attaining our ends."
Nevertheless, he recognized that while his language was simple, his ideas weren't. So he acted almost as a cheerleader, urging readers not to give up, but to continue reading, suggesting that all would become clear once the work (in this case "The Ethics") was read in its entirety.
"Here doubtless the reader will become confused and will recollect many things which will bring him to a standstill; and therefore I pray him to proceed gently with me and form no judgment concerning these things until he shall have read all," he wrote.
Our Opportunity With China
Political and Economic Debates in Beijing Give the U.S. an Opening to Push for Change
By Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal
Monday, April 17, 2006; A13
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington this week offers the Bush administration an opportunity to move beyond the U.S.-China chatfests. While the White House is set to focus on the usual issues of contention -- the exploding bilateral trade deficit, currency manipulation, and China's foot-dragging on North Korea and Iran -- it is missing the opportunities, and in some cases new difficulties, presented by growing fissures within China's domestic political system. The pace of China's economic reform, as well as the future of its political system, is being questioned by that country's elite. How China resolves these debates will have a profound impact on its relations with the United States. The Bush administration should move quickly to recalibrate its China policy to account for these domestic dynamics.
Hu is responsible for much of the domestic dissension that he must now negotiate. He and Premier Wen Jiabao have announced that under their leadership China will become a "harmonious society," one that addresses the downside of the country's rapid and uncontrolled growth: extraordinary income inequalities; skyrocketing pollution and environmental degradation; devastating corruption; and crises in the provision of health care, education and social security. Yet each year of their leadership there has also been a dramatic jump in social unrest: 58,000 protests in 2003, 74,000 in 2004 and 87,000 last year.
In acknowledging the challenges posed by China's economic reforms, Hu and Wen have reignited a debate most Western observers had thought long dead.
Critics in China charge that the country is moving too rapidly toward a market economy, that foreigners are buying up too many Chinese assets and that additional sectors of the economy should only slowly be privatized and opened to foreign investment and ownership. Last month, approval by the National People's Congress of a long-anticipated law enhancing the protection of private property was quashed at the last minute when conservative thinkers challenged its role in a socialist system. For the first time in a decade, party officials feel it necessary to defend the core principles of reform and opening up.
On the political front, debate is equally ferocious if not as public. Maintaining political stability has long been the primary objective of the party leadership, and over the past year Beijing has appeared increasingly desperate in its efforts to keep a lid on political dissent. Wary of the "color revolutions" in former Soviet republics, the Public Security Bureau is investigating domestic and international nongovernmental organizations for politically subversive leanings. The party has dusted off reeducation campaigns and is attempting to reinvigorate the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. In addition, there is the never-ending cat-and-mouse game between China's determined Internet police and bloggers equally determined to speak freely.
Despite the apparent intensity of the crackdown, resistance keeps popping up -- even without support from the outside world. Journalists who are removed from their positions refuse to be silenced, bloggers keep blogging and Chinese lawyers continue to defend those unjustly accused, even as they themselves risk arrest. Efforts to control dissent do not appear to be producing the intended result. Polls of party members reveal their belief that the most pressing problem they face is the need for more political reform, and the minutes of a meeting held at a government-affiliated think tank and leaked on the Internet last month show a prominent academic calling for a multiparty system.
The resolution of these debates rests overwhelmingly in Chinese hands. But the United States and the rest of the world can do more than sit on the sidelines. Market openness, transparency and the rule of law are all high-stakes issues for China and the international community. For starters, President Bush needs to reiterate clearly -- both domestically and in talks with President Hu -- the U.S. commitment to maintaining open borders for trade and capital. Political opposition to the buyout of Unocal Corp. by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp. and the cancelled Dubai ports deal, as well as proposed legislation to toughen the security review process for foreign investment in the United States, will strengthen the hand of those supporting similar practices in China and will undercut Washington's ability to press the Chinese when they promote protectionist measures. (WHO WANTED TO CANCEL THE DUBAI DEAL? PAGING MS. RODHAM-CLINTON)
Already we have seen China's Ministry of Commerce block the Carlyle Group from purchasing a majority stake in Xugong Group Construction Machinery Co. Moreover, Chinese officials have been calling for laws to prevent foreign firms from "monopolizing" sectors of the economy.
There also are steps the United States can take to promote greater transparency in China. So far the administration has remained above the fray that has engulfed technology companies doing business there, such as Google and Microsoft. But there is a real opportunity to work with these companies, which have publicly called for guidance, in developing codes of conduct to strike a balance between the real economic pressures that impel a corporate presence in the Chinese market and the need to protect the privacy and freedom of expression of users of the Web.
As debates on political reform continue within China, the United States can do more to support the development of civil society and the rule of law. In addition to the limited assistance the State Department provides for such programs, funds should come directly from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Currently USAID does not provide direct assistance for China programs on the grounds that the two countries do not share "values on human rights, religious freedom, and democracy" and "disagree on the best policies for Taiwan and Tibet." But it is precisely because we differ on these values that the U.S. government should seek out whatever policy tools are available to promote these values and the institutions that would support them within China.
The Bush administration has it right in its efforts to encourage China to become a responsible stakeholder in the international system. But China's ability and willingness to play that role will in large part be determined by how debates about the economy and reform are resolved. It is all the more important for the United States to seize the opportunity to help China continue toward a more open economic system and a more accountable political one. That is the most desirable outcome not only for the Chinese people but also for the rest of the world.
The writers are with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Elizabeth Economy is the council's director for Asia studies. Adam Segal is senior fellow in China studies.
Political and Economic Debates in Beijing Give the U.S. an Opening to Push for Change
By Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal
Monday, April 17, 2006; A13
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington this week offers the Bush administration an opportunity to move beyond the U.S.-China chatfests. While the White House is set to focus on the usual issues of contention -- the exploding bilateral trade deficit, currency manipulation, and China's foot-dragging on North Korea and Iran -- it is missing the opportunities, and in some cases new difficulties, presented by growing fissures within China's domestic political system. The pace of China's economic reform, as well as the future of its political system, is being questioned by that country's elite. How China resolves these debates will have a profound impact on its relations with the United States. The Bush administration should move quickly to recalibrate its China policy to account for these domestic dynamics.
Hu is responsible for much of the domestic dissension that he must now negotiate. He and Premier Wen Jiabao have announced that under their leadership China will become a "harmonious society," one that addresses the downside of the country's rapid and uncontrolled growth: extraordinary income inequalities; skyrocketing pollution and environmental degradation; devastating corruption; and crises in the provision of health care, education and social security. Yet each year of their leadership there has also been a dramatic jump in social unrest: 58,000 protests in 2003, 74,000 in 2004 and 87,000 last year.
In acknowledging the challenges posed by China's economic reforms, Hu and Wen have reignited a debate most Western observers had thought long dead.
Critics in China charge that the country is moving too rapidly toward a market economy, that foreigners are buying up too many Chinese assets and that additional sectors of the economy should only slowly be privatized and opened to foreign investment and ownership. Last month, approval by the National People's Congress of a long-anticipated law enhancing the protection of private property was quashed at the last minute when conservative thinkers challenged its role in a socialist system. For the first time in a decade, party officials feel it necessary to defend the core principles of reform and opening up.
On the political front, debate is equally ferocious if not as public. Maintaining political stability has long been the primary objective of the party leadership, and over the past year Beijing has appeared increasingly desperate in its efforts to keep a lid on political dissent. Wary of the "color revolutions" in former Soviet republics, the Public Security Bureau is investigating domestic and international nongovernmental organizations for politically subversive leanings. The party has dusted off reeducation campaigns and is attempting to reinvigorate the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. In addition, there is the never-ending cat-and-mouse game between China's determined Internet police and bloggers equally determined to speak freely.
Despite the apparent intensity of the crackdown, resistance keeps popping up -- even without support from the outside world. Journalists who are removed from their positions refuse to be silenced, bloggers keep blogging and Chinese lawyers continue to defend those unjustly accused, even as they themselves risk arrest. Efforts to control dissent do not appear to be producing the intended result. Polls of party members reveal their belief that the most pressing problem they face is the need for more political reform, and the minutes of a meeting held at a government-affiliated think tank and leaked on the Internet last month show a prominent academic calling for a multiparty system.
The resolution of these debates rests overwhelmingly in Chinese hands. But the United States and the rest of the world can do more than sit on the sidelines. Market openness, transparency and the rule of law are all high-stakes issues for China and the international community. For starters, President Bush needs to reiterate clearly -- both domestically and in talks with President Hu -- the U.S. commitment to maintaining open borders for trade and capital. Political opposition to the buyout of Unocal Corp. by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp. and the cancelled Dubai ports deal, as well as proposed legislation to toughen the security review process for foreign investment in the United States, will strengthen the hand of those supporting similar practices in China and will undercut Washington's ability to press the Chinese when they promote protectionist measures. (WHO WANTED TO CANCEL THE DUBAI DEAL? PAGING MS. RODHAM-CLINTON)
Already we have seen China's Ministry of Commerce block the Carlyle Group from purchasing a majority stake in Xugong Group Construction Machinery Co. Moreover, Chinese officials have been calling for laws to prevent foreign firms from "monopolizing" sectors of the economy.
There also are steps the United States can take to promote greater transparency in China. So far the administration has remained above the fray that has engulfed technology companies doing business there, such as Google and Microsoft. But there is a real opportunity to work with these companies, which have publicly called for guidance, in developing codes of conduct to strike a balance between the real economic pressures that impel a corporate presence in the Chinese market and the need to protect the privacy and freedom of expression of users of the Web.
As debates on political reform continue within China, the United States can do more to support the development of civil society and the rule of law. In addition to the limited assistance the State Department provides for such programs, funds should come directly from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Currently USAID does not provide direct assistance for China programs on the grounds that the two countries do not share "values on human rights, religious freedom, and democracy" and "disagree on the best policies for Taiwan and Tibet." But it is precisely because we differ on these values that the U.S. government should seek out whatever policy tools are available to promote these values and the institutions that would support them within China.
The Bush administration has it right in its efforts to encourage China to become a responsible stakeholder in the international system. But China's ability and willingness to play that role will in large part be determined by how debates about the economy and reform are resolved. It is all the more important for the United States to seize the opportunity to help China continue toward a more open economic system and a more accountable political one. That is the most desirable outcome not only for the Chinese people but also for the rest of the world.
The writers are with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Elizabeth Economy is the council's director for Asia studies. Adam Segal is senior fellow in China studies.
'It's Not Just Sudan That's to Blame'
Critics Say Chad's President Deflecting Attention From Domestic Woes
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 17, 2006; A08
N'DJAMENA, Chad, April 16 -- Standing under a scorching sun, women wrapped in their country's flag unfurled banners that read, "Sudan, Stay Out of Chad." Others in the crowd waved signs that read, "Sudanese: Go Away Now."
Thousands of Chadians filled the capital's central square Saturday to celebrate President Idriss Deby and his government's defeat of rebels who had tried to topple his 16-year administration. The rebels, based in the Darfur region of western Sudan, had driven hundreds of miles across the desert to N'Djamena, but their attempt to overthrow the Chadian government was quickly put down.
Even as the people in the crowds danced and sang patriotic songs at the rally, some said they did not believe that Sudan was entirely to blame for the political unrest in their country. Blaming Sudan, they said, has helped deflect attention from Chad's serious domestic problems.
"No one is fooling us, we know it's not all about Darfur," said Sou Hbe Hekole, 42, a teacher who said he had not been paid in six months and was offered a few dollars by Deby's handlers to attend the rally. "We have many of our own problems in Chad. It's not just Sudan that's to blame."
Chad, an oil-rich country in north-central Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. It does not have a public education system, and more than half the population is illiterate. There is no running water or electricity outside the capital, and life expectancy has plummeted to about 46 years. Since the country gained independence from France in 1960, Chadians have lived through a 30-year civil war, which ended in 1990, four coups and several attempted coups.
Deby, a former rebel who came to power in a coup in 1990, pushed through a change in the constitution to allow him to run for a third term in elections next month.
"Darfur is being put forward to hide very serious, troubling local problems," said Massalbaye Tenebaye, president of Chad's branch of the InterAfrican Union for Human Rights. "We've never had a nonviolent election. We have a president who doesn't want to leave office. Meanwhile, we are one of the poorest countries, yet we have oil. Our leaders enjoy luxury cars. But we have no roads. Our financial situation is a catastrophe."
Many Chadians had hoped that their lives would be improved by a major oil pipeline project that has earned the country millions of dollars in recent years. But the wealth has not reached average citizens. Many Chadians say they are furious with Deby's hugely unpopular decision to snub Chad's agreement with the World Bank to spend the oil revenue on projects to alleviate poverty. Human rights groups and diplomats say Deby has spent the money on military equipment instead of hospitals, roads and schools.
"We want the U.S. to help us and say, 'Let's have some dialogue about what's really going on in Chad,' " said Ahmat Soubiane, who was Chad's ambassador to the United States until he fell out with the government three years ago and now lives in Maryland. "Yes, Darfur has played a role. But there's another huge problem, the lack of democracy and horrifying levels of poverty. Now Deby is in fight mode. He knows his time is ending so he's lashing out and getting desperate to get the world on his side."
A hodgepodge of rebel groups, including a faction backed by Sudan, have united in one main alliance, the United Front for Change, diplomats say. Diplomats and Chadian journalists said there was no question that some of the rebels involved in the attack last week were indeed Sudanese, as Deby has said. Witnesses reported seeing young rebels lost in a capital they had obviously never seen before.
Deby is also opposed by a group of his relatives, who were angered by his spending choices and by his public call for his son to inherit the president's office when he eventually retires.
Hours after the coup attempt Friday, Deby threatened to expel an estimated 200,000 Sudanese refugees who had fled violence in Darfur if the rebel attacks did not stop and the African Union and the United Nations continued what he described as ignoring Sudan's role in the situation.
Deby also threatened to cut off the flow of oil unless Chad was given access to millions of dollars frozen in January by the World Bank in the dispute over how oil revenue should be spent. Chad's oil minister told the Reuters news agency that oil exports would end by Tuesday unless the Exxon Mobil-led consortium operating in the country paid at least $100 million to circumvent the freeze. Exxon Mobil said it was speaking with the government.
"It was certainly a bold move to say such things," said Raissa Kassire, a prominent Chadian journalist. "It's become a real war of words and images now. Deby has to blame Sudan and stay strong to win."
At the brief rally Saturday afternoon, Deby jumped on top of a white Hummer and pumped his fist in the air in victory along with the crowd. "Do you want me to go?" he asked, as a woman with a bullhorn repeated his words.
"No!" the crowd shouted back.
"Do you want more security and me to fight for you?" he asked.
"Yes!" the crowd cheered.
Hours earlier, at Deby's campaign headquarters, Mahamat Hissene, vice president of the parliament and secretary general of the campaign, said the president knew how to fight.
"By 11 a.m., we were done fighting," said Hissene, shrugging. "By 4 p.m., we were able to continue with the campaign."
Tending children in a clinic across from the rally, Etienne Demanou, a doctor, said even though Chad had earned millions from oil exports, his musty clinic did not even have an X-ray machine.
"It's very frustrating," said Demanou, perspiring heavily as he fanned hot patients. "I don't support the rebels, actually. I'm not a political person. And I certainly don't want war. But I just want someone to help us get a better life."
Critics Say Chad's President Deflecting Attention From Domestic Woes
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 17, 2006; A08
N'DJAMENA, Chad, April 16 -- Standing under a scorching sun, women wrapped in their country's flag unfurled banners that read, "Sudan, Stay Out of Chad." Others in the crowd waved signs that read, "Sudanese: Go Away Now."
Thousands of Chadians filled the capital's central square Saturday to celebrate President Idriss Deby and his government's defeat of rebels who had tried to topple his 16-year administration. The rebels, based in the Darfur region of western Sudan, had driven hundreds of miles across the desert to N'Djamena, but their attempt to overthrow the Chadian government was quickly put down.
Even as the people in the crowds danced and sang patriotic songs at the rally, some said they did not believe that Sudan was entirely to blame for the political unrest in their country. Blaming Sudan, they said, has helped deflect attention from Chad's serious domestic problems.
"No one is fooling us, we know it's not all about Darfur," said Sou Hbe Hekole, 42, a teacher who said he had not been paid in six months and was offered a few dollars by Deby's handlers to attend the rally. "We have many of our own problems in Chad. It's not just Sudan that's to blame."
Chad, an oil-rich country in north-central Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. It does not have a public education system, and more than half the population is illiterate. There is no running water or electricity outside the capital, and life expectancy has plummeted to about 46 years. Since the country gained independence from France in 1960, Chadians have lived through a 30-year civil war, which ended in 1990, four coups and several attempted coups.
Deby, a former rebel who came to power in a coup in 1990, pushed through a change in the constitution to allow him to run for a third term in elections next month.
"Darfur is being put forward to hide very serious, troubling local problems," said Massalbaye Tenebaye, president of Chad's branch of the InterAfrican Union for Human Rights. "We've never had a nonviolent election. We have a president who doesn't want to leave office. Meanwhile, we are one of the poorest countries, yet we have oil. Our leaders enjoy luxury cars. But we have no roads. Our financial situation is a catastrophe."
Many Chadians had hoped that their lives would be improved by a major oil pipeline project that has earned the country millions of dollars in recent years. But the wealth has not reached average citizens. Many Chadians say they are furious with Deby's hugely unpopular decision to snub Chad's agreement with the World Bank to spend the oil revenue on projects to alleviate poverty. Human rights groups and diplomats say Deby has spent the money on military equipment instead of hospitals, roads and schools.
"We want the U.S. to help us and say, 'Let's have some dialogue about what's really going on in Chad,' " said Ahmat Soubiane, who was Chad's ambassador to the United States until he fell out with the government three years ago and now lives in Maryland. "Yes, Darfur has played a role. But there's another huge problem, the lack of democracy and horrifying levels of poverty. Now Deby is in fight mode. He knows his time is ending so he's lashing out and getting desperate to get the world on his side."
A hodgepodge of rebel groups, including a faction backed by Sudan, have united in one main alliance, the United Front for Change, diplomats say. Diplomats and Chadian journalists said there was no question that some of the rebels involved in the attack last week were indeed Sudanese, as Deby has said. Witnesses reported seeing young rebels lost in a capital they had obviously never seen before.
Deby is also opposed by a group of his relatives, who were angered by his spending choices and by his public call for his son to inherit the president's office when he eventually retires.
Hours after the coup attempt Friday, Deby threatened to expel an estimated 200,000 Sudanese refugees who had fled violence in Darfur if the rebel attacks did not stop and the African Union and the United Nations continued what he described as ignoring Sudan's role in the situation.
Deby also threatened to cut off the flow of oil unless Chad was given access to millions of dollars frozen in January by the World Bank in the dispute over how oil revenue should be spent. Chad's oil minister told the Reuters news agency that oil exports would end by Tuesday unless the Exxon Mobil-led consortium operating in the country paid at least $100 million to circumvent the freeze. Exxon Mobil said it was speaking with the government.
"It was certainly a bold move to say such things," said Raissa Kassire, a prominent Chadian journalist. "It's become a real war of words and images now. Deby has to blame Sudan and stay strong to win."
At the brief rally Saturday afternoon, Deby jumped on top of a white Hummer and pumped his fist in the air in victory along with the crowd. "Do you want me to go?" he asked, as a woman with a bullhorn repeated his words.
"No!" the crowd shouted back.
"Do you want more security and me to fight for you?" he asked.
"Yes!" the crowd cheered.
Hours earlier, at Deby's campaign headquarters, Mahamat Hissene, vice president of the parliament and secretary general of the campaign, said the president knew how to fight.
"By 11 a.m., we were done fighting," said Hissene, shrugging. "By 4 p.m., we were able to continue with the campaign."
Tending children in a clinic across from the rally, Etienne Demanou, a doctor, said even though Chad had earned millions from oil exports, his musty clinic did not even have an X-ray machine.
"It's very frustrating," said Demanou, perspiring heavily as he fanned hot patients. "I don't support the rebels, actually. I'm not a political person. And I certainly don't want war. But I just want someone to help us get a better life."
Document Links Hussein To Killings in Iraqi Town
By Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A16
BAGHDAD, April 17 -- Handwriting experts confirmed that Saddam Hussein signed a document linking him to the killing of 148 people during his rule as Iraqi president, prosecutors said at Hussein's trial on Monday.
Most of the hour-long session was taken up with arguments over the authenticity of several documents dealing with the aftermath of an assassination attempt against Hussein in the town of Dujail in 1982. A panel of three experts said in a report that the documents were authentic; defense attorneys argued that the experts were biased.
The document signed by Hussein concerned promotions for officers involved in a crackdown against Shiite Muslims in Dujail. Another document involved the head of the intelligence service and listed families whose farmlands were to be razed in retaliation for the attempt on Hussein. While several witnesses have described suffering brutal torture at the hands of the Hussein's Baathist government, the documents are the only hard evidence so far to directly link Hussein and seven co-defendants to the Dujail massacre.
Hussein and his half brother refused to provide handwriting samples to the court, so the experts compared handwriting on the documents with those of Hussein and several co-defendants written during Hussein's presidency. They concluded that the writing matched in every case except that of Mizher Abdullah Kadhim, a Baath Party leader in Dujail at the time of the incident. The experts said Kadhim's handwriting did not match that on a sample he had provided to the court.
"He changed his handwriting so often that it was difficult" to analyze, the report said.
Defense attorneys challenged the report, saying it was biased.
"The three experts are members of the present government and the occupation authorities and as such they are not neutral," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, one of the defense attorneys. "We want the court to call for international experts from any foreign country except Iran."
"Also Israel," Hussein added from his chair in the courtroom. Barzan Ibrahim, Hussein's half brother and the former head of his intelligence service, also railed against the prosecutor, Jafar al-Mousawi, calling him "dishonest" and "one hundred percent biased against us." (EVEN THE US? ARE YOU SURE?)
At the opening of the session, Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman noted that an appeals court had rejected defense requests to have him removed from the trial for bias. Lawyers have argued that because Abdel Rahman is a Kurd -- an ethnic minority repressed by Hussein's government -- he is unfit to judge the former president.
"I say in absolute terms that there is no bias of any type on my part toward any of the defendants," Abdel Rahman said. "This case shall be settled in accordance with the evidence presented."
The appeals court also backed Abdel Rahman in a separate dispute in which Dulaimi claimed the judge had made comments showing bias against Hussein. Abdel Rahman ordered Dulaimi to pay a fine of 2,000 Iraqi dinars -- the equivalent of $1.30.
Hussein mostly remained silent throughout the session, speaking only after the trial had been adjourned. Reporters covering the trial were not allowed to watch and only a few seconds of his remarks were shown on Iraqi television.
Abdel Rahman concluded the proceeding by ordering a team of five handwriting experts to verify Hussein's writing on other documents that had been presented during the trial. The trial will resume on Wednesday, he said.
There were few reported incidents of violence on Monday, after a string of days in which scores of Iraqis died in bombings and shootings. The U.S. military reported that Marines repelled a coordinated attack on the main government building in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, by insurgents using suicide bombs, mortars and grenades. There were no reports of U.S. casualties.
There was also an unusually violent street battle in Adhamiyah, a predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad.
One witness said that at least eight Dodge Ram pickup trucks drove into Adhamiyah from the east just past midnight on Monday, apparently running into a roadblock guarded by armed men from the neighborhood. Shooting broke out immediately and lasted for hours as Iraqi and U.S. troops arrived. U.S. jets circled overhead, and the cellphone network to the area was cut off for hours.
At least one mortar round exploded in the neighborhood. One resident said that three neighborhood residents and several outsiders were killed. People in the community described later how they cowered in their houses, afraid to go out on a street littered with bodies, as gunshots crackled and rocket-propelled grenades smashed into walls.
Accounts varied as to exactly what had happened. Mohammed al-Askeri, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said in an interview broadcast on al-Arabiya television that some men were captured and that an investigation had begun.
He suggested that the men in the pickup trucks were Interior Ministry police, who have been accused, along with Shiite militias, of kidnapping and killing Sunni Arabs in nighttime raids. In response, many Sunni neighborhoods have organized local defense forces to fend off outsiders.
U.S. military authorities released a different account of the incident, saying that an Iraqi army patrol came under fire just before 4 a.m. in Adhamiyah. A few hours later, a group of 50 gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by U.S. and Iraqi forces, the military said. Reinforcements cordoned off the neighborhood and five terrorists were killed and seven detained.
In other incidents, the Interior Ministry found the bodies of at least a dozen men in Baghdad who had been tortured and shot. Iraqi police also reported that four people were found dead in the southern city of Basra, and two others were killed by a bomb in the town of Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera television also reported that police had found the body of Taha al-Mutlak, the brother of Saleh al-Mutlak, a prominent Sunni Arab politician. He had been kidnapped a few days earlier, the network reported.
Special correspondents Bassam Sebti, Saad al-Izzi and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.
By Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; A16
BAGHDAD, April 17 -- Handwriting experts confirmed that Saddam Hussein signed a document linking him to the killing of 148 people during his rule as Iraqi president, prosecutors said at Hussein's trial on Monday.
Most of the hour-long session was taken up with arguments over the authenticity of several documents dealing with the aftermath of an assassination attempt against Hussein in the town of Dujail in 1982. A panel of three experts said in a report that the documents were authentic; defense attorneys argued that the experts were biased.
The document signed by Hussein concerned promotions for officers involved in a crackdown against Shiite Muslims in Dujail. Another document involved the head of the intelligence service and listed families whose farmlands were to be razed in retaliation for the attempt on Hussein. While several witnesses have described suffering brutal torture at the hands of the Hussein's Baathist government, the documents are the only hard evidence so far to directly link Hussein and seven co-defendants to the Dujail massacre.
Hussein and his half brother refused to provide handwriting samples to the court, so the experts compared handwriting on the documents with those of Hussein and several co-defendants written during Hussein's presidency. They concluded that the writing matched in every case except that of Mizher Abdullah Kadhim, a Baath Party leader in Dujail at the time of the incident. The experts said Kadhim's handwriting did not match that on a sample he had provided to the court.
"He changed his handwriting so often that it was difficult" to analyze, the report said.
Defense attorneys challenged the report, saying it was biased.
"The three experts are members of the present government and the occupation authorities and as such they are not neutral," said Khalil al-Dulaimi, one of the defense attorneys. "We want the court to call for international experts from any foreign country except Iran."
"Also Israel," Hussein added from his chair in the courtroom. Barzan Ibrahim, Hussein's half brother and the former head of his intelligence service, also railed against the prosecutor, Jafar al-Mousawi, calling him "dishonest" and "one hundred percent biased against us." (EVEN THE US? ARE YOU SURE?)
At the opening of the session, Chief Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman noted that an appeals court had rejected defense requests to have him removed from the trial for bias. Lawyers have argued that because Abdel Rahman is a Kurd -- an ethnic minority repressed by Hussein's government -- he is unfit to judge the former president.
"I say in absolute terms that there is no bias of any type on my part toward any of the defendants," Abdel Rahman said. "This case shall be settled in accordance with the evidence presented."
The appeals court also backed Abdel Rahman in a separate dispute in which Dulaimi claimed the judge had made comments showing bias against Hussein. Abdel Rahman ordered Dulaimi to pay a fine of 2,000 Iraqi dinars -- the equivalent of $1.30.
Hussein mostly remained silent throughout the session, speaking only after the trial had been adjourned. Reporters covering the trial were not allowed to watch and only a few seconds of his remarks were shown on Iraqi television.
Abdel Rahman concluded the proceeding by ordering a team of five handwriting experts to verify Hussein's writing on other documents that had been presented during the trial. The trial will resume on Wednesday, he said.
There were few reported incidents of violence on Monday, after a string of days in which scores of Iraqis died in bombings and shootings. The U.S. military reported that Marines repelled a coordinated attack on the main government building in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, by insurgents using suicide bombs, mortars and grenades. There were no reports of U.S. casualties.
There was also an unusually violent street battle in Adhamiyah, a predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad.
One witness said that at least eight Dodge Ram pickup trucks drove into Adhamiyah from the east just past midnight on Monday, apparently running into a roadblock guarded by armed men from the neighborhood. Shooting broke out immediately and lasted for hours as Iraqi and U.S. troops arrived. U.S. jets circled overhead, and the cellphone network to the area was cut off for hours.
At least one mortar round exploded in the neighborhood. One resident said that three neighborhood residents and several outsiders were killed. People in the community described later how they cowered in their houses, afraid to go out on a street littered with bodies, as gunshots crackled and rocket-propelled grenades smashed into walls.
Accounts varied as to exactly what had happened. Mohammed al-Askeri, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said in an interview broadcast on al-Arabiya television that some men were captured and that an investigation had begun.
He suggested that the men in the pickup trucks were Interior Ministry police, who have been accused, along with Shiite militias, of kidnapping and killing Sunni Arabs in nighttime raids. In response, many Sunni neighborhoods have organized local defense forces to fend off outsiders.
U.S. military authorities released a different account of the incident, saying that an Iraqi army patrol came under fire just before 4 a.m. in Adhamiyah. A few hours later, a group of 50 gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by U.S. and Iraqi forces, the military said. Reinforcements cordoned off the neighborhood and five terrorists were killed and seven detained.
In other incidents, the Interior Ministry found the bodies of at least a dozen men in Baghdad who had been tortured and shot. Iraqi police also reported that four people were found dead in the southern city of Basra, and two others were killed by a bomb in the town of Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera television also reported that police had found the body of Taha al-Mutlak, the brother of Saleh al-Mutlak, a prominent Sunni Arab politician. He had been kidnapped a few days earlier, the network reported.
Special correspondents Bassam Sebti, Saad al-Izzi and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.
Anger at Bush May Hurt GOP At Polls
Turnout Could Favor Democrats
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A01
Intense and widespread opposition to President Bush is likely to be a sharp spur driving voters to the polls in this fall's midterm elections, according to strategists in both parties, a phenomenon that could give Democrats a turnout advantage over Republicans for the first time in recent years. (I THOUGHT THIS WAS TRUE IN 2004)
Polls have reflected voter discontent with Bush for many months, but as the election nears, operatives are paying special attention to one subset of the numbers. It is the wide disparity between the number of people who are passionate in their dislike of Bush vs. those who support him with equal fervor.
Lately, there have been a lot more of the former -- and even Republicans acknowledge that could spell trouble in closely contested congressional races.
"Angry voters turn out and vote their anger," said Glen Bolger, a pollster for several Republican congressional candidates. "Democrats will have an easier time of getting out their vote because of their intense disapproval of the president. That means we Republicans are going to have to bring our 'A' turnout game in November."
The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 47 percent of voters "strongly" disapprove of Bush's job performance, vs. 20 percent who said they "strongly approve." (THAT 47 HAS BENN TRUE SINCE JAN 20, 2001)
In the recent past, this perennial truism of politics -- emotion equals turnout -- has worked more to the Republican advantage. Several weeks before the 2002 midterm elections, Bush had 42 percent of voters strongly approving of him, compared with 18 percent in strong opposition. Democrats were stunned on election night when Republicans defied historical patterns and made gains in the House and Senate. The president's party usually loses seats during the first midterm elections after he takes office.
The premise behind the Democrats' hopes this year is simple, though not easy to quantify: People impassioned by anger or other sentiments are more likely to vote -- even in bad weather and in relatively low-profile races -- than are those who are demoralized or less emotional.
"In a midterm election, motivation is the biggest factor," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), head of his party's House campaign efforts this year.
Whether anti-Bush sentiments portend a political tidal wave in November is much debated, but Democrats hope they are hearing early echoes of 1974 and 1994. There was massive turnover of congressional seats in those midterm elections, as fired-up voters first punished Republicans for Watergate, and later turned on Democrats because of President Bill Clinton's failed health-care initiative and because of anger over House ethics abuses.
The intense opposition to Bush is larger than any faced by Clinton. For all the polarization the 42nd president inspired, Clinton's strong disapproval never got above 37 percent in Post-ABC polls during his presidency.
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said GOP House candidates have reason to worry. His surveys find that 82 percent of Americans who say they voted for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004 plan to vote for a Democrat for the House this year. But only 65 percent who voted for Bush say they will vote for a Republican House nominee, Garin said. The remaining 35 percent say they are open to voting for a Democrat or staying home.
"We get a large chunk of Bush voters who are not motivated to go out and vote for Republicans this fall," Garin said. "That puts a lot of red districts into play."
Republican officials acknowledge Bush's problems but predict they will not translate into significant setbacks this fall. "I don't think that intensity is going to be a problem at all" in key House races, said Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Both parties will spend heavily on those races, he said, "so every person who's going to vote will have seen TV ads, gotten phone calls, gotten mail." That will give them ample information to base their decision on the candidates, not on their feelings toward Bush, Forti said. He noted that polls continue to show that most Americans approve of their own House member even if they dislike Congress as a whole, and that bodes well for the party in power.
"They may be upset nationally," Forti said. "But clearly that does not mean they're not going to go vote for their congressman." House elections will turn mainly on local issues and nominees, he said.
The Post-ABC News poll found that 59 percent of registered voters approve of their own representative, a lower number than in past months. But only 35 percent approve of the way Congress is doing its job. Forty percent said they plan to vote for a Republican in this year's House elections, and 55 percent said they will vote for a Democrat.
Republicans will court voters such as Johanna Lee, an insurance customer-service representative from northeast Maryland, a state with sharply contested races for Senate and governor.
Lee, 62, describes herself as a conservative Democrat who regrets voting for Bush in 2000 and 2004. She opposes his willingness to grant guest-worker status to illegal immigrants, who she feels "should be taken out of our country." Lee initially supported the invasion of Iraq, but says now "we should come out of the war because we're not doing any good there."
Despite her discontent, Lee said she would consider voting for Republicans for Congress and governor this fall. "I don't vote party," she said. "I vote for the candidate."
Other voters are less charitable. Shirley Jackson of Woodbury, Minn., said she formerly considered herself an independent voter "and my husband used to be a staunch Republican. But now we're both Democrats."
The main reason, she said, is Bush's handling of the war. "My husband and I think he lied to us, and he won't admit he's lied to us," said Jackson, 69. She said she believes Bush launched the war to avenge Iraq's reported plan to assassinate his father.
(THANKS MIKE MOORE)
Jackson is following the competitive race to replace retiring Sen. Mark Dayton (D), and she doesn't like Republican candidate Mark Kennedy. "I won't vote for him, I'm pretty sure," she said.
In Collierville, Tenn., school bus driver Charlotte Bruce is worried Bush will prove ruinous to GOP candidates this fall.
"He's making such fools out of Republicans that no matter what the Democrats present, that's the one that's going to get in," she said. "And that's frightening," because the country needs bipartisan balance, she said.
Bruce, 54, said she is a moderate Republican and has given money to the party, but now she is exasperated with Bush and his economic policies. She recounted a conversation with neighbors who support Bush because of "moral issues." "I said, 'While he's not killing babies, he's killing you' " with high gasoline prices, a soaring deficit and other problems, Bruce said. "He is going to bankrupt us all." (WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMIC NUMBERS? TOO GOOD TO MENTIO I GUESS)
She said she will vote for Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr. in the contest to replace retiring Sen. Bill Frist (R). She called Ford, a five-term House member from nearby Memphis, "a wonderful gentleman."
Garin predicts that Bush's unpopularity will produce many voters like Bruce and Jackson in November. "The rule this year," he said, playing on an adage, "may be that all local politics is national." (OH, YOU CAN ONLY HOPE)
Chris Cillizza, a staff writer for washingtonpost.com, contributed to this report.
Turnout Could Favor Democrats
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A01
Intense and widespread opposition to President Bush is likely to be a sharp spur driving voters to the polls in this fall's midterm elections, according to strategists in both parties, a phenomenon that could give Democrats a turnout advantage over Republicans for the first time in recent years. (I THOUGHT THIS WAS TRUE IN 2004)
Polls have reflected voter discontent with Bush for many months, but as the election nears, operatives are paying special attention to one subset of the numbers. It is the wide disparity between the number of people who are passionate in their dislike of Bush vs. those who support him with equal fervor.
Lately, there have been a lot more of the former -- and even Republicans acknowledge that could spell trouble in closely contested congressional races.
"Angry voters turn out and vote their anger," said Glen Bolger, a pollster for several Republican congressional candidates. "Democrats will have an easier time of getting out their vote because of their intense disapproval of the president. That means we Republicans are going to have to bring our 'A' turnout game in November."
The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 47 percent of voters "strongly" disapprove of Bush's job performance, vs. 20 percent who said they "strongly approve." (THAT 47 HAS BENN TRUE SINCE JAN 20, 2001)
In the recent past, this perennial truism of politics -- emotion equals turnout -- has worked more to the Republican advantage. Several weeks before the 2002 midterm elections, Bush had 42 percent of voters strongly approving of him, compared with 18 percent in strong opposition. Democrats were stunned on election night when Republicans defied historical patterns and made gains in the House and Senate. The president's party usually loses seats during the first midterm elections after he takes office.
The premise behind the Democrats' hopes this year is simple, though not easy to quantify: People impassioned by anger or other sentiments are more likely to vote -- even in bad weather and in relatively low-profile races -- than are those who are demoralized or less emotional.
"In a midterm election, motivation is the biggest factor," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), head of his party's House campaign efforts this year.
Whether anti-Bush sentiments portend a political tidal wave in November is much debated, but Democrats hope they are hearing early echoes of 1974 and 1994. There was massive turnover of congressional seats in those midterm elections, as fired-up voters first punished Republicans for Watergate, and later turned on Democrats because of President Bill Clinton's failed health-care initiative and because of anger over House ethics abuses.
The intense opposition to Bush is larger than any faced by Clinton. For all the polarization the 42nd president inspired, Clinton's strong disapproval never got above 37 percent in Post-ABC polls during his presidency.
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said GOP House candidates have reason to worry. His surveys find that 82 percent of Americans who say they voted for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004 plan to vote for a Democrat for the House this year. But only 65 percent who voted for Bush say they will vote for a Republican House nominee, Garin said. The remaining 35 percent say they are open to voting for a Democrat or staying home.
"We get a large chunk of Bush voters who are not motivated to go out and vote for Republicans this fall," Garin said. "That puts a lot of red districts into play."
Republican officials acknowledge Bush's problems but predict they will not translate into significant setbacks this fall. "I don't think that intensity is going to be a problem at all" in key House races, said Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Both parties will spend heavily on those races, he said, "so every person who's going to vote will have seen TV ads, gotten phone calls, gotten mail." That will give them ample information to base their decision on the candidates, not on their feelings toward Bush, Forti said. He noted that polls continue to show that most Americans approve of their own House member even if they dislike Congress as a whole, and that bodes well for the party in power.
"They may be upset nationally," Forti said. "But clearly that does not mean they're not going to go vote for their congressman." House elections will turn mainly on local issues and nominees, he said.
The Post-ABC News poll found that 59 percent of registered voters approve of their own representative, a lower number than in past months. But only 35 percent approve of the way Congress is doing its job. Forty percent said they plan to vote for a Republican in this year's House elections, and 55 percent said they will vote for a Democrat.
Republicans will court voters such as Johanna Lee, an insurance customer-service representative from northeast Maryland, a state with sharply contested races for Senate and governor.
Lee, 62, describes herself as a conservative Democrat who regrets voting for Bush in 2000 and 2004. She opposes his willingness to grant guest-worker status to illegal immigrants, who she feels "should be taken out of our country." Lee initially supported the invasion of Iraq, but says now "we should come out of the war because we're not doing any good there."
Despite her discontent, Lee said she would consider voting for Republicans for Congress and governor this fall. "I don't vote party," she said. "I vote for the candidate."
Other voters are less charitable. Shirley Jackson of Woodbury, Minn., said she formerly considered herself an independent voter "and my husband used to be a staunch Republican. But now we're both Democrats."
The main reason, she said, is Bush's handling of the war. "My husband and I think he lied to us, and he won't admit he's lied to us," said Jackson, 69. She said she believes Bush launched the war to avenge Iraq's reported plan to assassinate his father.
(THANKS MIKE MOORE)
Jackson is following the competitive race to replace retiring Sen. Mark Dayton (D), and she doesn't like Republican candidate Mark Kennedy. "I won't vote for him, I'm pretty sure," she said.
In Collierville, Tenn., school bus driver Charlotte Bruce is worried Bush will prove ruinous to GOP candidates this fall.
"He's making such fools out of Republicans that no matter what the Democrats present, that's the one that's going to get in," she said. "And that's frightening," because the country needs bipartisan balance, she said.
Bruce, 54, said she is a moderate Republican and has given money to the party, but now she is exasperated with Bush and his economic policies. She recounted a conversation with neighbors who support Bush because of "moral issues." "I said, 'While he's not killing babies, he's killing you' " with high gasoline prices, a soaring deficit and other problems, Bruce said. "He is going to bankrupt us all." (WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMIC NUMBERS? TOO GOOD TO MENTIO I GUESS)
She said she will vote for Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr. in the contest to replace retiring Sen. Bill Frist (R). She called Ford, a five-term House member from nearby Memphis, "a wonderful gentleman."
Garin predicts that Bush's unpopularity will produce many voters like Bruce and Jackson in November. "The rule this year," he said, playing on an adage, "may be that all local politics is national." (OH, YOU CAN ONLY HOPE)
Chris Cillizza, a staff writer for washingtonpost.com, contributed to this report.
Iraqi Bid To End Impasse Stalls
Leader Postpones Parliament Session
By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, April 16 -- Iraq's top legislator postponed the meeting of parliament scheduled for Monday, putting off "for a few days" an attempt to resolve a months-long deadlock over the formation of the country's new government.
The move was not entirely unexpected, but it still represented a setback for U.S. officials and an Iraqi public losing patience with four months of political paralysis since Dec. 15, when the country held elections to form a long-term government. (I THINK WE ALREADY HAVE GOVERNMENT)
The delay coincided with a surge in sectarian killings between Iraq's Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims. At least 37 Iraqis died in shootings, bombings and other attacks Sunday, according to police officials and news reports. U.S. military officials also reported killing five insurgents in a raid in which a woman also was killed, and said four Marines were killed in combat west of Baghdad.
The Marines, from Regimental Combat Team 5, were killed in two engagements in Anbar province, officials said.
The biggest sticking point in the political process is whether incumbent Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari will serve a new four-year term. The leading coalition of Shiite parties nominated Jafari in a close vote, but Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and even some Shiites are now demanding an alternate candidate, saying Jafari is a weak leader. In recent days, some officials in the Shiite alliance said they had agreed to replace Jafari as part of a larger deal over who would hold the various positions in the government.
When Adnan al-Pachachi, the acting speaker of parliament, called on Wednesday for a meeting to resolve the impasse, he said it was with the intention of pushing all sides toward accommodation by setting Monday as a deadline. But as politicians from each group continued to hold closed-door meetings Sunday, Pachachi announced that the parliament meeting would be delayed "for a few days."
Politicians in the Shiite alliance said they wanted to present a complete package of nominees that resolved not only the Jafari question but also who would serve as the president and the two deputy presidents. By Sunday night the matter appeared to be unresolved.
Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an adviser to Jafari, said it was "still in dispute." He added that one of the leading candidates to replace Jafari was Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite from Jafari's party. Adeeb appeared to have more support from Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secular parties than he did from his own Shiite alliance, Kadhimi said.
The Iraqi ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, also identified Adeeb as one of the leading candidates in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Kadhimi said that Jalal Talabani, the incumbent president and a Kurd, was likely to remain in office. He also said that Ayad Allawi, a secular leader, and Adnan al-Dulaimi and Saleh al-Mutlak, both Sunni Arabs, were being bandied about as candidates for the two deputy presidents' slots.
Mutlak acknowledged that he was in the running for deputy president. But he predicted negotiations would go on for weeks, and called Adeeb "an Iranian" -- considered by many to be a grave insult in a country that fought an eight-year war with the neighboring Shiite theocracy in the 1980s.
"All of them are the same," Mutlak said of the Shiite candidates for prime minister. "They are not qualified to run the country. But nobody listens to us."
Meanwhile, a car bomb killed 11 people in Mahmudiyah, a town about 15 miles south of Baghdad. The bomb exploded in a busy food and vegetable market in the morning, police Lt. Col. Abdullah al-Dulaimi said. Many of the shops were left ablaze after the blast and at least four civilian cars were seen in flames, he said.
U.S. military authorities reported killing five insurgents and capturing a suspected al-Qaeda member and four other suspects during a pre-dawn raid in the town of Yusufiyah, south of the capital. A woman was killed in the crossfire and four other women and children were wounded, the military said in a statement. Five soldiers were lightly wounded.
Special correspondents Naseer Nouri, K.I. Ibrahim, Omar Fekeiki and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad, Hassan Shammari in Baqubah and Dlovan Brwari in Mosul contributed to this report.
Leader Postpones Parliament Session
By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD, April 16 -- Iraq's top legislator postponed the meeting of parliament scheduled for Monday, putting off "for a few days" an attempt to resolve a months-long deadlock over the formation of the country's new government.
The move was not entirely unexpected, but it still represented a setback for U.S. officials and an Iraqi public losing patience with four months of political paralysis since Dec. 15, when the country held elections to form a long-term government. (I THINK WE ALREADY HAVE GOVERNMENT)
The delay coincided with a surge in sectarian killings between Iraq's Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims. At least 37 Iraqis died in shootings, bombings and other attacks Sunday, according to police officials and news reports. U.S. military officials also reported killing five insurgents in a raid in which a woman also was killed, and said four Marines were killed in combat west of Baghdad.
The Marines, from Regimental Combat Team 5, were killed in two engagements in Anbar province, officials said.
The biggest sticking point in the political process is whether incumbent Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari will serve a new four-year term. The leading coalition of Shiite parties nominated Jafari in a close vote, but Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and even some Shiites are now demanding an alternate candidate, saying Jafari is a weak leader. In recent days, some officials in the Shiite alliance said they had agreed to replace Jafari as part of a larger deal over who would hold the various positions in the government.
When Adnan al-Pachachi, the acting speaker of parliament, called on Wednesday for a meeting to resolve the impasse, he said it was with the intention of pushing all sides toward accommodation by setting Monday as a deadline. But as politicians from each group continued to hold closed-door meetings Sunday, Pachachi announced that the parliament meeting would be delayed "for a few days."
Politicians in the Shiite alliance said they wanted to present a complete package of nominees that resolved not only the Jafari question but also who would serve as the president and the two deputy presidents. By Sunday night the matter appeared to be unresolved.
Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an adviser to Jafari, said it was "still in dispute." He added that one of the leading candidates to replace Jafari was Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite from Jafari's party. Adeeb appeared to have more support from Sunni Arabs, Kurds and secular parties than he did from his own Shiite alliance, Kadhimi said.
The Iraqi ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, also identified Adeeb as one of the leading candidates in an interview on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Kadhimi said that Jalal Talabani, the incumbent president and a Kurd, was likely to remain in office. He also said that Ayad Allawi, a secular leader, and Adnan al-Dulaimi and Saleh al-Mutlak, both Sunni Arabs, were being bandied about as candidates for the two deputy presidents' slots.
Mutlak acknowledged that he was in the running for deputy president. But he predicted negotiations would go on for weeks, and called Adeeb "an Iranian" -- considered by many to be a grave insult in a country that fought an eight-year war with the neighboring Shiite theocracy in the 1980s.
"All of them are the same," Mutlak said of the Shiite candidates for prime minister. "They are not qualified to run the country. But nobody listens to us."
Meanwhile, a car bomb killed 11 people in Mahmudiyah, a town about 15 miles south of Baghdad. The bomb exploded in a busy food and vegetable market in the morning, police Lt. Col. Abdullah al-Dulaimi said. Many of the shops were left ablaze after the blast and at least four civilian cars were seen in flames, he said.
U.S. military authorities reported killing five insurgents and capturing a suspected al-Qaeda member and four other suspects during a pre-dawn raid in the town of Yusufiyah, south of the capital. A woman was killed in the crossfire and four other women and children were wounded, the military said in a statement. Five soldiers were lightly wounded.
Special correspondents Naseer Nouri, K.I. Ibrahim, Omar Fekeiki and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad, Hassan Shammari in Baqubah and Dlovan Brwari in Mosul contributed to this report.
Rumsfeld Did Not Intimidate Joint Chiefs, Ex-Chairman Says (ATTACKING RUMSFELD GETS 2 PAGES, A DEFENSE GETS 1 PAGE - THE BIAS CAN FIT IN THE TRUNK)
Associated Press
Monday, April 17, 2006; A09
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not intimidate members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during planning of the Iraq war as some retired generals have charged, a former chairman said yesterday.
With Rumsfeld described by his critics as a micromanager who did not listen to military leaders, the Pentagon circulated a one-page memo late last week detailing the defense secretary's frequent contacts with numerous military and civilian advisers.
Richard B. Myers, the Air Force general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2001 until last fall, dismissed criticism that military leaders did not stand up to Rumsfeld and President Bush when they disagreed with those civilian officials.
"We gave him our best military advice, and I think that's what we're obligated to do," Myers said on ABC's "This Week." "If we don't do that, we should be shot."
A half-dozen retired generals have called for Rumsfeld's ouster, citing mistakes in the conduct of the war in Iraq. Some have suggested that intimidation by Rumsfeld kept military leaders quiet even when they thought policies were flawed. (BUNCH OF *****IES)
"You'd have to believe that everybody in the chain of command is intimidated, and I don't believe that," Myers said. He added that Rumsfeld allowed "tremendous access" for presenting arguments.
"In our system, when it's all said and done . . . civilians make the decisions," he said. "And we live by those decisions."
The Pentagon memo, which was not dated or signed, put onto paper information that had been given orally to reporters on Friday. It is not unusual for the Defense Department to distribute such information to analysts, military officials and others who might be reporting or commenting on a Pentagon policy.
Senior military leaders "are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process" in the Defense Department, according to the memo. Rumsfeld, it said, had met 139 times with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and 208 times with combat commanders from 2005 to the present.
Bush said on Friday that Rumsfeld "has my full support" and praised the defense secretary for his leadership.
Associated Press
Monday, April 17, 2006; A09
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not intimidate members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during planning of the Iraq war as some retired generals have charged, a former chairman said yesterday.
With Rumsfeld described by his critics as a micromanager who did not listen to military leaders, the Pentagon circulated a one-page memo late last week detailing the defense secretary's frequent contacts with numerous military and civilian advisers.
Richard B. Myers, the Air Force general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2001 until last fall, dismissed criticism that military leaders did not stand up to Rumsfeld and President Bush when they disagreed with those civilian officials.
"We gave him our best military advice, and I think that's what we're obligated to do," Myers said on ABC's "This Week." "If we don't do that, we should be shot."
A half-dozen retired generals have called for Rumsfeld's ouster, citing mistakes in the conduct of the war in Iraq. Some have suggested that intimidation by Rumsfeld kept military leaders quiet even when they thought policies were flawed. (BUNCH OF *****IES)
"You'd have to believe that everybody in the chain of command is intimidated, and I don't believe that," Myers said. He added that Rumsfeld allowed "tremendous access" for presenting arguments.
"In our system, when it's all said and done . . . civilians make the decisions," he said. "And we live by those decisions."
The Pentagon memo, which was not dated or signed, put onto paper information that had been given orally to reporters on Friday. It is not unusual for the Defense Department to distribute such information to analysts, military officials and others who might be reporting or commenting on a Pentagon policy.
Senior military leaders "are involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision-making process" in the Defense Department, according to the memo. Rumsfeld, it said, had met 139 times with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and 208 times with combat commanders from 2005 to the present.
Bush said on Friday that Rumsfeld "has my full support" and praised the defense secretary for his leadership.
Iran Has Raised Efforts to Obtain U.S. Arms Illegally, Officials Say
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A14
LOS ANGELES -- The Iranian government has intensified efforts to illegally obtain weapons technology from the United States, contracting with dealers across the country for spare parts to maintain its aging American-made air force planes, its missile forces and its alleged nuclear weapons program, according to federal law enforcement authorities.
Over the past two years, arms dealers have exported or attempted to export to Iran experimental aircraft; machines used for measuring the strength of steel, which is critical in the development of nuclear weapons; assembly kits for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets; and a range of components used in missile systems and fighter-jet engines.
"Iran's weapons acquisition program is becoming more organized," said Stephen Bogni, acting chief of the Arms and Strategic Technology Investigations Unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "They are looking for more varied and sophisticated technology. Night-vision equipment, unmanned aircraft, missile technology" and weapons of mass destruction.
Federal agents say that as tensions increase over Tehran's alleged nuclear weapons program, so does the concern that Iran might strike at U.S. forces and personnel stationed in Iraq and other countries if the United States or its allies take military action against that program. In recent weeks, Tehran has announced new weapons systems, including missiles it claims to be invisible to radar and torpedoes too fast to be avoided, although U.S. experts have questioned Iran's assertions about its capabilities.
The Bush administration says it is committed to a diplomatic solution to address its concerns that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran contends that it wants only to generate electricity. But, in recent months, it has flouted U.N. Security Council demands that it abandon key parts of its program, and, last week, it announced that it had successfully enriched uranium.
Calls for comment to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations were not returned.
"Most of the material the Iranians are seeking is aging technology, but it's technology that could still hurt the United States and its allies today," said Serge Duarte, acting special agent in charge of ICE investigations in San Diego. That city and Los Angeles are believed to be the two centers of the illicit Iranian weapons trade.
In the 1960s and '70s, the United States sold some of its most advanced weapons systems to Iran, when it was led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran's air force received F-14 Tomcats, F-5 Tigers, F-4 Phantoms, C-130 transport planes and helicopters manufactured by Bell, Boeing and Sikorsky. U.S. sales ended with the 1979 Iranian revolution. Iran's war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988 helped deplete Iran's forces. U.S. contacts with Iran were further restricted in 1995 when President Bill Clinton signed an order effectively prohibiting almost all trade and investment between the two countries.
Since that time, businesses with ties to Iran have been on a hunt in the United States for anything that can keep Iran's military machine moving, federal agents said. Since 2002, there have been 17 major cases involving the illegal shipment of weapons technology to Iran, outpacing the 15 cases involving China, the other main nation seeking U.S. military goods, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Since 2000, the U.S. government has instituted 800 export investigations involving Iran.
Although arms dealers work nationwide, many of the Iranian cases have connections to Southern California, which remains a center for aeronautics and is home to the biggest concentration of Iranians outside of Tehran. Some neighborhoods of Los Angeles, such as Brentwood on the west side and parts of the San Fernando Valley, are jokingly referred to as "Irangeles."
Federal agents said the main method for obtaining U.S. technology is not through espionage but through simple business deals. "We're not talking about 007 running around trying to steal these parts," Bogni said. "We're talking about the Iranian government putting out shopping lists to brokers and greedy businessmen."
Two recent cases illustrate the challenges facing federal agents.
ICE agents on March 16 arrested Mohammad Fazeli, an American of Iranian descent, after he allegedly tried to export a box of pressure sensors to Iran via the United Arab Emirates. The small sensors, manufactured by Honeywell, are normally used in black-box, data-recording devices for aircraft. Federal agents said they can also be used in bombs and missile-guidance systems.
Fazeli was captured as he allegedly sought to mail the package out of the United States.
"It's not illegal to possess these parts. It's only illegal to export them. That's the challenge," said Louis Rodi III, chief of ICE's national security unit in Los Angeles. "Arms dealers take possession of the products here and then ship them themselves. So we have to be on them like a glove."
Bogni said many weapons dealers are still not aware of U.S. regulations prohibiting the export of controlled technology. Thus, since fall 2002, ICE agents have conducted 12,500 seminars with U.S. weapons manufacturers and exporters.
A day after Fazeli was arrested, another man, Arif Ali Durrani, a Pakistani, was convicted in federal court in San Diego on five counts involving the illegal export of fighter-jet components to Iran.
Durrani was indicted for selling, among other things, nozzles for engines used in the F-5s, the workhorses of the Iranian air force. David Pinchetti, an agent with the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service who worked on the case, said Durrani purchased the nozzles for $1,500 apiece and sold them to Iranian Aircraft Industries Co. for $48,000 each.
Of interest to federal authorities since the 1980s, Durrani was a flamboyant dealmaker with a house in California valued at $2.5 million and a fleet of fine cars, on both the West and East coasts, according to Steven Arruda, a former ICE agent. Durrani once showed up in a Porsche to receive delivery of a helicopter part from a manufacturer in Connecticut. When the crate would not fit in his car, he junked the crate and threw the part in the back of his roadster, taking it directly to a freight forwarder at Kennedy International Airport, Arruda said.
Durrani was arrested in 1986 for illegally exporting Hawk missile parts to Iran. A few weeks later, while Durrani was in jail awaiting trial, the Iran-contra scandal broke, revealing that Reagan administration officials had approved weapons sales to Iran and were using the proceeds to fund guerrillas fighting the leftist government in Nicaragua.
Durrani's defense contended that he had been working for the U.S. government. The jury convicted him anyway in April 1987, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Durrani left the United States in the late 1990s for France and then resurfaced in a Mexican beach community near the U.S. border, where his U.S.-born wife opened a Mexican restaurant and he started a furniture factory. Durrani also resumed his weapons technology business, using two partners in the United States to buy and ship products wanted by Iran's air force, federal agents said.
On June 15, in the middle of the U.S. investigation of Durrani, the Mexican government deported him to Pakistan, federal agents said. Acting on a tip, they met his plane, which was going through Los Angeles, and arrested him. Durrani's two co-conspirators subsequently pleaded guilty to violating U.S. arms export guidelines. Durrani, who was found guilty by a federal jury of those charges, is scheduled to be sentenced in June and could face 45 years in prison.
Durrani's attorney, Moe Nadim, vowed to appeal the verdict.
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A14
LOS ANGELES -- The Iranian government has intensified efforts to illegally obtain weapons technology from the United States, contracting with dealers across the country for spare parts to maintain its aging American-made air force planes, its missile forces and its alleged nuclear weapons program, according to federal law enforcement authorities.
Over the past two years, arms dealers have exported or attempted to export to Iran experimental aircraft; machines used for measuring the strength of steel, which is critical in the development of nuclear weapons; assembly kits for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets; and a range of components used in missile systems and fighter-jet engines.
"Iran's weapons acquisition program is becoming more organized," said Stephen Bogni, acting chief of the Arms and Strategic Technology Investigations Unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "They are looking for more varied and sophisticated technology. Night-vision equipment, unmanned aircraft, missile technology" and weapons of mass destruction.
Federal agents say that as tensions increase over Tehran's alleged nuclear weapons program, so does the concern that Iran might strike at U.S. forces and personnel stationed in Iraq and other countries if the United States or its allies take military action against that program. In recent weeks, Tehran has announced new weapons systems, including missiles it claims to be invisible to radar and torpedoes too fast to be avoided, although U.S. experts have questioned Iran's assertions about its capabilities.
The Bush administration says it is committed to a diplomatic solution to address its concerns that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran contends that it wants only to generate electricity. But, in recent months, it has flouted U.N. Security Council demands that it abandon key parts of its program, and, last week, it announced that it had successfully enriched uranium.
Calls for comment to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations were not returned.
"Most of the material the Iranians are seeking is aging technology, but it's technology that could still hurt the United States and its allies today," said Serge Duarte, acting special agent in charge of ICE investigations in San Diego. That city and Los Angeles are believed to be the two centers of the illicit Iranian weapons trade.
In the 1960s and '70s, the United States sold some of its most advanced weapons systems to Iran, when it was led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran's air force received F-14 Tomcats, F-5 Tigers, F-4 Phantoms, C-130 transport planes and helicopters manufactured by Bell, Boeing and Sikorsky. U.S. sales ended with the 1979 Iranian revolution. Iran's war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988 helped deplete Iran's forces. U.S. contacts with Iran were further restricted in 1995 when President Bill Clinton signed an order effectively prohibiting almost all trade and investment between the two countries.
Since that time, businesses with ties to Iran have been on a hunt in the United States for anything that can keep Iran's military machine moving, federal agents said. Since 2002, there have been 17 major cases involving the illegal shipment of weapons technology to Iran, outpacing the 15 cases involving China, the other main nation seeking U.S. military goods, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Since 2000, the U.S. government has instituted 800 export investigations involving Iran.
Although arms dealers work nationwide, many of the Iranian cases have connections to Southern California, which remains a center for aeronautics and is home to the biggest concentration of Iranians outside of Tehran. Some neighborhoods of Los Angeles, such as Brentwood on the west side and parts of the San Fernando Valley, are jokingly referred to as "Irangeles."
Federal agents said the main method for obtaining U.S. technology is not through espionage but through simple business deals. "We're not talking about 007 running around trying to steal these parts," Bogni said. "We're talking about the Iranian government putting out shopping lists to brokers and greedy businessmen."
Two recent cases illustrate the challenges facing federal agents.
ICE agents on March 16 arrested Mohammad Fazeli, an American of Iranian descent, after he allegedly tried to export a box of pressure sensors to Iran via the United Arab Emirates. The small sensors, manufactured by Honeywell, are normally used in black-box, data-recording devices for aircraft. Federal agents said they can also be used in bombs and missile-guidance systems.
Fazeli was captured as he allegedly sought to mail the package out of the United States.
"It's not illegal to possess these parts. It's only illegal to export them. That's the challenge," said Louis Rodi III, chief of ICE's national security unit in Los Angeles. "Arms dealers take possession of the products here and then ship them themselves. So we have to be on them like a glove."
Bogni said many weapons dealers are still not aware of U.S. regulations prohibiting the export of controlled technology. Thus, since fall 2002, ICE agents have conducted 12,500 seminars with U.S. weapons manufacturers and exporters.
A day after Fazeli was arrested, another man, Arif Ali Durrani, a Pakistani, was convicted in federal court in San Diego on five counts involving the illegal export of fighter-jet components to Iran.
Durrani was indicted for selling, among other things, nozzles for engines used in the F-5s, the workhorses of the Iranian air force. David Pinchetti, an agent with the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service who worked on the case, said Durrani purchased the nozzles for $1,500 apiece and sold them to Iranian Aircraft Industries Co. for $48,000 each.
Of interest to federal authorities since the 1980s, Durrani was a flamboyant dealmaker with a house in California valued at $2.5 million and a fleet of fine cars, on both the West and East coasts, according to Steven Arruda, a former ICE agent. Durrani once showed up in a Porsche to receive delivery of a helicopter part from a manufacturer in Connecticut. When the crate would not fit in his car, he junked the crate and threw the part in the back of his roadster, taking it directly to a freight forwarder at Kennedy International Airport, Arruda said.
Durrani was arrested in 1986 for illegally exporting Hawk missile parts to Iran. A few weeks later, while Durrani was in jail awaiting trial, the Iran-contra scandal broke, revealing that Reagan administration officials had approved weapons sales to Iran and were using the proceeds to fund guerrillas fighting the leftist government in Nicaragua.
Durrani's defense contended that he had been working for the U.S. government. The jury convicted him anyway in April 1987, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Durrani left the United States in the late 1990s for France and then resurfaced in a Mexican beach community near the U.S. border, where his U.S.-born wife opened a Mexican restaurant and he started a furniture factory. Durrani also resumed his weapons technology business, using two partners in the United States to buy and ship products wanted by Iran's air force, federal agents said.
On June 15, in the middle of the U.S. investigation of Durrani, the Mexican government deported him to Pakistan, federal agents said. Acting on a tip, they met his plane, which was going through Los Angeles, and arrested him. Durrani's two co-conspirators subsequently pleaded guilty to violating U.S. arms export guidelines. Durrani, who was found guilty by a federal jury of those charges, is scheduled to be sentenced in June and could face 45 years in prison.
Durrani's attorney, Moe Nadim, vowed to appeal the verdict.
Could terrorists wage nuclear jihad?
A program on the Discovery Times cable channel ponders events that could put nuclear weapons in hands that might use them.
By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
If America is making a list of villains of the modern world, A.Q. Khan has to be near the top.
Khan is the Pakistani nuclear scientist who smuggled secrets from Europe to help his native country build a bomb to compete with archenemy India.
Not finished reshaping the world, he then went into business for himself and, with or without his government's connivance, peddled nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and who knows who else.
It is the thesis of "Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?," set for broadcast tonight on Discovery Times Channel, that Khan has hastened the day when terrorists not linked to nation-states will have access to nuclear bombs.
It's a nightmare scenario — backed by reporting that is detailed and solid, much of it done by two reporters for the New York Times. (OH, DOES THAT MAKE IT 'DETAILED' AND 'SOLID'? YOU MAKE ME SICK)
Today, a freelancer can fashion a roadside bomb out of an artillery shell and take out a Humvee full of Marines. Tomorrow, according to "Nuclear," the same person might be able to smuggle a nuke into a U.S. or European city or any city in any nation considered friendly to the West.
How this happened — largely under the nose of the CIA, which had long known that Khan was slippery — is a story that is equally chilling and morbidly fascinating.
The Dutch were about to arrest Khan in 1975, according to "Nuclear," but the CIA asked them to back off so that they could catch bigger fish.
Much of the story revolves around America's complex relationship with Pakistan and its military strongman, Pervez Musharraf. The U.S. needs him, and Musharraf has been helpful in fighting the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
But the Islamic movement is strong in his country, and Khan is a hero to the movement for having produced an "Islamic bomb" to rival the Christian, Jewish (Israel) and Hindu (India) bombs.
Even though Musharraf made Khan apologize publicly once his black-market enterprise was unmasked, Khan faces no more criminal charges. He lives in quiet retirement in a suburb of Islamabad and cannot be questioned by the CIA or other outsiders. (RIGHT)
Musharraf dare not punish Khan. This is a country where Osama bin Laden gets a 65% approval rating, "Nuclear" tells us. Musharraf has survived several assassination attempts, and the degree of Islamic influence on his army is unknown.
Using the port at Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Khan set up a supply chain of parts that was Wal-Mart-esque, the narrator intones.
Khan hardly kept a low profile. After Pakistan exploded its first test nuke in 1998, he was a national celebrity. He owned schools, restaurants, even a disco. He lived large.
"A.Q. Khan was in love with himself," says a Pakistani scholar.
Was he getting help from his government when he was selling things like an updated centrifuge that is considered a shortcut to making enriched uranium? If not, how did he get permission to travel to North Korea so frequently and why was he riding in that Pakistani air force cargo plane?
"How many religious pilgrimages could he make to a country like North Korea?" asks former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Like a lot of good journalism, "Nuclear" asks some questions it cannot answer. What was Khan doing meeting with Saudi leaders? Do they want the bomb despite their public pronouncements?
If there is good news, and there is not much in "Nuclear," it's this: Saddam Hussein was so suspicious of Khan that he turned him away when he made a house call to Baghdad.
As "Nuclear" points out, the technology to make a bomb is getting faster and the size of bombs is getting smaller. With terror-bent fanatics in countries everywhere, how long before one whose name is not on a watch list slips through?
"We have to be right 100% of the time, they only have to be right once," said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
*
`Nuclear Jihad'
Where: Discovery Times
When: 8 to 9 tonight
Ratings: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)
A program on the Discovery Times cable channel ponders events that could put nuclear weapons in hands that might use them.
By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
If America is making a list of villains of the modern world, A.Q. Khan has to be near the top.
Khan is the Pakistani nuclear scientist who smuggled secrets from Europe to help his native country build a bomb to compete with archenemy India.
Not finished reshaping the world, he then went into business for himself and, with or without his government's connivance, peddled nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and who knows who else.
It is the thesis of "Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?," set for broadcast tonight on Discovery Times Channel, that Khan has hastened the day when terrorists not linked to nation-states will have access to nuclear bombs.
It's a nightmare scenario — backed by reporting that is detailed and solid, much of it done by two reporters for the New York Times. (OH, DOES THAT MAKE IT 'DETAILED' AND 'SOLID'? YOU MAKE ME SICK)
Today, a freelancer can fashion a roadside bomb out of an artillery shell and take out a Humvee full of Marines. Tomorrow, according to "Nuclear," the same person might be able to smuggle a nuke into a U.S. or European city or any city in any nation considered friendly to the West.
How this happened — largely under the nose of the CIA, which had long known that Khan was slippery — is a story that is equally chilling and morbidly fascinating.
The Dutch were about to arrest Khan in 1975, according to "Nuclear," but the CIA asked them to back off so that they could catch bigger fish.
Much of the story revolves around America's complex relationship with Pakistan and its military strongman, Pervez Musharraf. The U.S. needs him, and Musharraf has been helpful in fighting the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
But the Islamic movement is strong in his country, and Khan is a hero to the movement for having produced an "Islamic bomb" to rival the Christian, Jewish (Israel) and Hindu (India) bombs.
Even though Musharraf made Khan apologize publicly once his black-market enterprise was unmasked, Khan faces no more criminal charges. He lives in quiet retirement in a suburb of Islamabad and cannot be questioned by the CIA or other outsiders. (RIGHT)
Musharraf dare not punish Khan. This is a country where Osama bin Laden gets a 65% approval rating, "Nuclear" tells us. Musharraf has survived several assassination attempts, and the degree of Islamic influence on his army is unknown.
Using the port at Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Khan set up a supply chain of parts that was Wal-Mart-esque, the narrator intones.
Khan hardly kept a low profile. After Pakistan exploded its first test nuke in 1998, he was a national celebrity. He owned schools, restaurants, even a disco. He lived large.
"A.Q. Khan was in love with himself," says a Pakistani scholar.
Was he getting help from his government when he was selling things like an updated centrifuge that is considered a shortcut to making enriched uranium? If not, how did he get permission to travel to North Korea so frequently and why was he riding in that Pakistani air force cargo plane?
"How many religious pilgrimages could he make to a country like North Korea?" asks former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Like a lot of good journalism, "Nuclear" asks some questions it cannot answer. What was Khan doing meeting with Saudi leaders? Do they want the bomb despite their public pronouncements?
If there is good news, and there is not much in "Nuclear," it's this: Saddam Hussein was so suspicious of Khan that he turned him away when he made a house call to Baghdad.
As "Nuclear" points out, the technology to make a bomb is getting faster and the size of bombs is getting smaller. With terror-bent fanatics in countries everywhere, how long before one whose name is not on a watch list slips through?
"We have to be right 100% of the time, they only have to be right once," said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
*
`Nuclear Jihad'
Where: Discovery Times
When: 8 to 9 tonight
Ratings: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)
Despair Deepens as Iraqis Appear No Closer to Deal
Violence fails to crack the political deadlock. The U.S. military reports the combat deaths of four Marines in Al Anbar province.
By Bruce Wallace
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
BAGHDAD — Amid unrelenting violence and a widening mood of despair, Iraqi politicians failed again to agree on a prime minister Sunday, leaving the country's government adrift.
The inability of Iraq's religious and ethnic factions to cut a power-sharing deal leaves the government incapable of responding forcefully to sectarian attacks that many fear are pushing the country toward civil war. Violent provocations continued Sunday, with the nation shaken by bombings, drive-by shootings and kidnappings.
The U.S. military also announced that four Marines had been killed in combat Saturday in the anarchic province of Al Anbar west of Baghdad. The names of the Marines were not released.
None of it was enough to crack the political deadlock. A parliamentary session planned for today was canceled, dashing hopes that a public gathering would compel politicians to compromise on who should lead a national unity government.
Meanwhile, the scramble intensified for other government jobs — from vice presidents to Cabinet ministers. Sunni parties presented five names for one of two vice presidential slots, a sign that they too cannot agree among themselves on representatives, let alone push for concessions from the splintered Shiite and Kurdish blocs. (THAT COULD MEAN ANYTHING; IT IS NOT AS CLEAR-CT AS PRESENTED HERE)
Negotiators adjourned Sunday without agreeing on a date to reconvene a parliament that was elected four months ago but has met just once.
"These people are out of touch with the daily suffering of the people on the street," said Mahmoud Othman, a senior Kurdish lawmaker who is not a candidate for any post. "People can't get out of their houses in daytime. They are caught between the terrorists, the Americans, the clerics.
"And then their politicians go into a room and five people say they want to be vice president? It's as if they are all sitting in the desert, with no people and no responsibilities."
The price is recorded in lives every day.
In Sunday's bloodiest attack, a car bomb ripped through a crowd of afternoon shoppers at an outdoor market in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing at least 11 and injuring 23. Mahmoudiya is a mixed Sunni-Shiite town that has seen some of the most vicious sectarian violence in the period since the U.S.-led invasion.
Earlier Sunday, a bomb hidden in a bag exploded on a minibus in central Baghdad, killing at least three Iraqi passengers and wounding six others.
In the northern city of Mosul, six construction workers — four of them brothers — were shot to death in a drive-by shooting as they left work for the day. The men had been clearing rubble at a bombed-out police station. (WHO DID ALL THIS? WAS IT THE 'INSURGENTS'??)
Meanwhile, insurgents kept up their attacks on U.S. troops. Al Anbar, where the latest announced military deaths took place, continues to house the core of the Sunni insurgency and has seen a recent rise in lethal attacks on American troops. Forty-eight Americans and one British soldier have died in Iraq so far this month, a daily rate three times higher than in March.
American military commanders said coalition forces shot and killed five men they described as terrorists during a post-midnight raid on a house in Yousifiya, south of Baghdad. The raid captured a man the U.S. military said was a suspected Al Qaeda operative working with foreign fighters as a bomb maker.
The U.S. troops encountered small-arms fire when they approached the house. Three of the dead men were wearing vests packed with explosives. Only one managed to detonate his bomb before being shot.
A woman was killed in the cross fire, the U.S. military said. Three other women and a child were injured.
The seeming inevitability of violence has created a claustrophobic atmosphere in Baghdad, where every journey requires skirting dangerous neighborhoods, while police checkpoints add to the delays and tension. With sectarian killings increasing and more and more people forced to move into Sunni or Shiite enclaves for protection, some wonder if the politicians have already missed the chance to tackle the violence.
"I don't care if the government is established," said an unemployed 22-year-old Christian woman in Baghdad who would give her name only as Miss Kapchy. "I am not excited about it because I don't expect this government will do anything for us, just as the previous government did not achieve anything for Iraqis.
"I want the prime minister to be a dictator, authoritative and have all the elements of power because it's been chaos since the fall of the ex-regime." (WHOA, WHOA, WHOA)
"They have failed the people," Kurdish lawmaker Othman said of the politicians.
"People want somebody to be the boss here. If one night an officer makes a coup d'etat, in the morning everybody would be happy.
"They want somebody to save them," he said. "Anything short of Saddam and his group."
*
Times staff writer Saif Hameed in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Mosul contributed to this report.
Violence fails to crack the political deadlock. The U.S. military reports the combat deaths of four Marines in Al Anbar province.
By Bruce Wallace
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
BAGHDAD — Amid unrelenting violence and a widening mood of despair, Iraqi politicians failed again to agree on a prime minister Sunday, leaving the country's government adrift.
The inability of Iraq's religious and ethnic factions to cut a power-sharing deal leaves the government incapable of responding forcefully to sectarian attacks that many fear are pushing the country toward civil war. Violent provocations continued Sunday, with the nation shaken by bombings, drive-by shootings and kidnappings.
The U.S. military also announced that four Marines had been killed in combat Saturday in the anarchic province of Al Anbar west of Baghdad. The names of the Marines were not released.
None of it was enough to crack the political deadlock. A parliamentary session planned for today was canceled, dashing hopes that a public gathering would compel politicians to compromise on who should lead a national unity government.
Meanwhile, the scramble intensified for other government jobs — from vice presidents to Cabinet ministers. Sunni parties presented five names for one of two vice presidential slots, a sign that they too cannot agree among themselves on representatives, let alone push for concessions from the splintered Shiite and Kurdish blocs. (THAT COULD MEAN ANYTHING; IT IS NOT AS CLEAR-CT AS PRESENTED HERE)
Negotiators adjourned Sunday without agreeing on a date to reconvene a parliament that was elected four months ago but has met just once.
"These people are out of touch with the daily suffering of the people on the street," said Mahmoud Othman, a senior Kurdish lawmaker who is not a candidate for any post. "People can't get out of their houses in daytime. They are caught between the terrorists, the Americans, the clerics.
"And then their politicians go into a room and five people say they want to be vice president? It's as if they are all sitting in the desert, with no people and no responsibilities."
The price is recorded in lives every day.
In Sunday's bloodiest attack, a car bomb ripped through a crowd of afternoon shoppers at an outdoor market in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing at least 11 and injuring 23. Mahmoudiya is a mixed Sunni-Shiite town that has seen some of the most vicious sectarian violence in the period since the U.S.-led invasion.
Earlier Sunday, a bomb hidden in a bag exploded on a minibus in central Baghdad, killing at least three Iraqi passengers and wounding six others.
In the northern city of Mosul, six construction workers — four of them brothers — were shot to death in a drive-by shooting as they left work for the day. The men had been clearing rubble at a bombed-out police station. (WHO DID ALL THIS? WAS IT THE 'INSURGENTS'??)
Meanwhile, insurgents kept up their attacks on U.S. troops. Al Anbar, where the latest announced military deaths took place, continues to house the core of the Sunni insurgency and has seen a recent rise in lethal attacks on American troops. Forty-eight Americans and one British soldier have died in Iraq so far this month, a daily rate three times higher than in March.
American military commanders said coalition forces shot and killed five men they described as terrorists during a post-midnight raid on a house in Yousifiya, south of Baghdad. The raid captured a man the U.S. military said was a suspected Al Qaeda operative working with foreign fighters as a bomb maker.
The U.S. troops encountered small-arms fire when they approached the house. Three of the dead men were wearing vests packed with explosives. Only one managed to detonate his bomb before being shot.
A woman was killed in the cross fire, the U.S. military said. Three other women and a child were injured.
The seeming inevitability of violence has created a claustrophobic atmosphere in Baghdad, where every journey requires skirting dangerous neighborhoods, while police checkpoints add to the delays and tension. With sectarian killings increasing and more and more people forced to move into Sunni or Shiite enclaves for protection, some wonder if the politicians have already missed the chance to tackle the violence.
"I don't care if the government is established," said an unemployed 22-year-old Christian woman in Baghdad who would give her name only as Miss Kapchy. "I am not excited about it because I don't expect this government will do anything for us, just as the previous government did not achieve anything for Iraqis.
"I want the prime minister to be a dictator, authoritative and have all the elements of power because it's been chaos since the fall of the ex-regime." (WHOA, WHOA, WHOA)
"They have failed the people," Kurdish lawmaker Othman said of the politicians.
"People want somebody to be the boss here. If one night an officer makes a coup d'etat, in the morning everybody would be happy.
"They want somebody to save them," he said. "Anything short of Saddam and his group."
*
Times staff writer Saif Hameed in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Mosul contributed to this report.
Educated Only in Anarchy
Aden Osman belongs to a generation of Somalian youth that has known nothing but war and lacks the skills to rebuild a ruined nation.
By Edmund Sanders
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
BAIDOA, Somalia — The young man is nostalgic for a time he can't even remember.
Aden Osman was 4 when the Somalian government collapsed in 1991. When he was 6, the bodies of American servicemen were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu and most of the world turned its back on his country.
That's when his childhood memories begin to grow clearer.
There was the day when he was 9 and his uncles were shot while fetching water. He had to bury them. Another time, a rival clan slaughtered the family's livestock and poisoned their well. And in a battle between warlords, he was separated from his family for five days without food.
Most of all, he remembers the running, the constant fleeing through the bush as his family sought refuge from the clan warfare that seized the country 15 years ago after the fall of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre. They prayed for enough time in one place just to grow some food.
But Aden's parents have told him about better times, before the warlords, when the country was run by something called a government. Back then, they had cattle and crops to eat. People walked the streets at night without fear, his parents said. Children went to school and there was a hospital for the sick.
These are the times Aden dreams of.
"My parents say there were no checkpoints back then," he said. "There was no random killing without reason. And if you killed someone or robbed someone, you were punished. I wish I lived then. I guess I was born in an unlucky time."
Aden is one of millions of teens coming of age with little memory of Somalia's past and few skills to build its future.
The country is in ruins. A transitional government is meeting here in Baidoa, making the latest effort to put the nation back together. But even if the lawmakers succeed, Somalia desperately needs architects, teachers and doctors. Most government buildings were reduced to rubble in the civil war. Roads are broken and airports are little more than dirt strips.
Somalis grow what food they can and import the rest from Yemen and other countries. Wells and rivers are drying up. Water, when it can be found, is often unfit to drink.
After 15 years of anarchy, fewer than one in five Somalian children has ever stepped into a classroom, and even those received only the most basic skills.
"We have lost an entire generation," said Somalian Foreign Minister Abdullahi Sheik Ismail, part of the transitional government attempting to wrest control of the country from warlords.
Humanitarian experts predict Somalia will need to scramble in coming years to educate and train these young people through adult vocational schools. But many predict a lack of skills will hinder its prospects of recovery for at least a decade.
Now 19, Aden has never attended school. He can't read or write. With all the moving, he even lacks the farming skills that might have been passed down by his father. He's watched television once and never used a computer. Offered a soda to drink, he can't figure out how to use a bottle opener.
Most days, he said, he sits at home until the afternoon, and then goes looking for work. More often than not, he ends up hanging out with friends, chewing on stems of khat, a plant that provides a mild, amphetamine-like euphoria.
"I don't know what to do with my life," Aden said. "Some days I just chew. There are no jobs. I don't have any direction."
More than half of Somalian teens report using guns, and one in four boys under age 18 has fought with a militia, according to a 2003 UNICEF study. Child malnutrition and malaria rates are among the highest in the world. And although the psychological impact has yet to be accurately measured, many children suffer from nightmares, difficulty concentrating and aggressive behavior, according to the U.N. child-welfare agency.
"Ever since these kids opened their eyes, there has been nothing but fighting," said Mohammed Abdi Ali, headmaster at the only secondary school still open in Baidoa, a war-torn southern Somalian town. "It's all they know. This generation has lost all their aspirations."
His tidy school serves as an unexpected refuge from the rest of Baidoa's decay. There is new paint, rows of desks and algebra equations on the wall. It's easy to imagine Aden among the handful of fresh-faced uniformed students in the senior class.
But fewer than 5% of Baidoa's youth attend school, Ali estimated, largely because of the $8-a-month fee.
Like many of his peers, Aden is restless. He said he wants to go to school, but doesn't care what he studies. He thought about getting married, but gave up because he has no money for a dowry. When asked what sort of job he'd like to do, of any in the world, he has no answer.
There's one job he knows he doesn't want, and it's the only one he can ever seem to find: gunman.
Like many young men in Somalia today, Aden finds his steadiest employment working as a "technical," a tough guy for hire by local warlords, businessmen and clan leaders.
He throws an AK-47 over his shoulders, jumps into the back of a dusty pickup truck with mostly older, larger guys, and does whatever he's told. Sometimes that's fending off attacks from a rival warlord. Most often he gets work guarding the bundles of khat leaves that land at the airport each day from Kenya.
Aden is hardly a threatening sight. His bony, narrow shoulders point through a too-big blue shirt. He wears a baseball cap on his small head. He carries the gun absent-mindedly, sometimes behind his neck like a headrest, other times upside down.
He said he hates the work. Other young men scrimp and save to buy their first weapon. Owning a gun makes work as a "technical" more lucrative. But Aden refuses to buy one, always borrowing a gun instead.
"I don't feel safe with a gun," he said. "I'm no militiaman. I'm not a fighter."
Most days his pay is a bundle of khat worth a dollar. For big battles, he gets another $1.50 cash.
He said he sells the khat and gives the money to his ailing father for milk or meat.
The family settled in Baidoa in 2003, after drought made survival in the bush impossible. Now they squat in a half-finished building on the edge of town with dirt floors and no roof, doors or windows. The family of six shares a small room with mattresses on the ground and worn sheets of gray plastic patching gaps in the walls.
Hassan, 60, and his wife, Awilyo, have lost three children in the last four years: one from malaria, another from a stomach ailment. A third died mysteriously after an apparent mental breakdown. She refused to go outdoors and spent the day babbling incoherently, grew pale and died.
Now Aden is the eldest of the four surviving children, and the only son. His parents fear they will lose him as well. They disapprove of his work. At the same time, Aden is the only one in the family with a job and they depend on him.
Hassan, a farmer, lost an eye to infection a couple of years ago. He has been unable to find work in the city, and he blames himself for the family's predicament.
"It's my fault," he said. "I'm the reason he has to pick up a gun, because I can't work."
Soon after the family arrived here, Aden caught the attention of Jerry Salat, a local businessman who runs the khat trade and controls the airport. Like Fagan in "Oliver Twist," Salat oversees a gaggle of poor young men who help run his enterprises, selling khat, collecting money and guarding supplies.
He first put Aden to work selling day-old khat, clearing out old supplies to make room for fresh deliveries. But Aden earned
Aden Osman belongs to a generation of Somalian youth that has known nothing but war and lacks the skills to rebuild a ruined nation.
By Edmund Sanders
Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006
BAIDOA, Somalia — The young man is nostalgic for a time he can't even remember.
Aden Osman was 4 when the Somalian government collapsed in 1991. When he was 6, the bodies of American servicemen were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu and most of the world turned its back on his country.
That's when his childhood memories begin to grow clearer.
There was the day when he was 9 and his uncles were shot while fetching water. He had to bury them. Another time, a rival clan slaughtered the family's livestock and poisoned their well. And in a battle between warlords, he was separated from his family for five days without food.
Most of all, he remembers the running, the constant fleeing through the bush as his family sought refuge from the clan warfare that seized the country 15 years ago after the fall of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre. They prayed for enough time in one place just to grow some food.
But Aden's parents have told him about better times, before the warlords, when the country was run by something called a government. Back then, they had cattle and crops to eat. People walked the streets at night without fear, his parents said. Children went to school and there was a hospital for the sick.
These are the times Aden dreams of.
"My parents say there were no checkpoints back then," he said. "There was no random killing without reason. And if you killed someone or robbed someone, you were punished. I wish I lived then. I guess I was born in an unlucky time."
Aden is one of millions of teens coming of age with little memory of Somalia's past and few skills to build its future.
The country is in ruins. A transitional government is meeting here in Baidoa, making the latest effort to put the nation back together. But even if the lawmakers succeed, Somalia desperately needs architects, teachers and doctors. Most government buildings were reduced to rubble in the civil war. Roads are broken and airports are little more than dirt strips.
Somalis grow what food they can and import the rest from Yemen and other countries. Wells and rivers are drying up. Water, when it can be found, is often unfit to drink.
After 15 years of anarchy, fewer than one in five Somalian children has ever stepped into a classroom, and even those received only the most basic skills.
"We have lost an entire generation," said Somalian Foreign Minister Abdullahi Sheik Ismail, part of the transitional government attempting to wrest control of the country from warlords.
Humanitarian experts predict Somalia will need to scramble in coming years to educate and train these young people through adult vocational schools. But many predict a lack of skills will hinder its prospects of recovery for at least a decade.
Now 19, Aden has never attended school. He can't read or write. With all the moving, he even lacks the farming skills that might have been passed down by his father. He's watched television once and never used a computer. Offered a soda to drink, he can't figure out how to use a bottle opener.
Most days, he said, he sits at home until the afternoon, and then goes looking for work. More often than not, he ends up hanging out with friends, chewing on stems of khat, a plant that provides a mild, amphetamine-like euphoria.
"I don't know what to do with my life," Aden said. "Some days I just chew. There are no jobs. I don't have any direction."
More than half of Somalian teens report using guns, and one in four boys under age 18 has fought with a militia, according to a 2003 UNICEF study. Child malnutrition and malaria rates are among the highest in the world. And although the psychological impact has yet to be accurately measured, many children suffer from nightmares, difficulty concentrating and aggressive behavior, according to the U.N. child-welfare agency.
"Ever since these kids opened their eyes, there has been nothing but fighting," said Mohammed Abdi Ali, headmaster at the only secondary school still open in Baidoa, a war-torn southern Somalian town. "It's all they know. This generation has lost all their aspirations."
His tidy school serves as an unexpected refuge from the rest of Baidoa's decay. There is new paint, rows of desks and algebra equations on the wall. It's easy to imagine Aden among the handful of fresh-faced uniformed students in the senior class.
But fewer than 5% of Baidoa's youth attend school, Ali estimated, largely because of the $8-a-month fee.
Like many of his peers, Aden is restless. He said he wants to go to school, but doesn't care what he studies. He thought about getting married, but gave up because he has no money for a dowry. When asked what sort of job he'd like to do, of any in the world, he has no answer.
There's one job he knows he doesn't want, and it's the only one he can ever seem to find: gunman.
Like many young men in Somalia today, Aden finds his steadiest employment working as a "technical," a tough guy for hire by local warlords, businessmen and clan leaders.
He throws an AK-47 over his shoulders, jumps into the back of a dusty pickup truck with mostly older, larger guys, and does whatever he's told. Sometimes that's fending off attacks from a rival warlord. Most often he gets work guarding the bundles of khat leaves that land at the airport each day from Kenya.
Aden is hardly a threatening sight. His bony, narrow shoulders point through a too-big blue shirt. He wears a baseball cap on his small head. He carries the gun absent-mindedly, sometimes behind his neck like a headrest, other times upside down.
He said he hates the work. Other young men scrimp and save to buy their first weapon. Owning a gun makes work as a "technical" more lucrative. But Aden refuses to buy one, always borrowing a gun instead.
"I don't feel safe with a gun," he said. "I'm no militiaman. I'm not a fighter."
Most days his pay is a bundle of khat worth a dollar. For big battles, he gets another $1.50 cash.
He said he sells the khat and gives the money to his ailing father for milk or meat.
The family settled in Baidoa in 2003, after drought made survival in the bush impossible. Now they squat in a half-finished building on the edge of town with dirt floors and no roof, doors or windows. The family of six shares a small room with mattresses on the ground and worn sheets of gray plastic patching gaps in the walls.
Hassan, 60, and his wife, Awilyo, have lost three children in the last four years: one from malaria, another from a stomach ailment. A third died mysteriously after an apparent mental breakdown. She refused to go outdoors and spent the day babbling incoherently, grew pale and died.
Now Aden is the eldest of the four surviving children, and the only son. His parents fear they will lose him as well. They disapprove of his work. At the same time, Aden is the only one in the family with a job and they depend on him.
Hassan, a farmer, lost an eye to infection a couple of years ago. He has been unable to find work in the city, and he blames himself for the family's predicament.
"It's my fault," he said. "I'm the reason he has to pick up a gun, because I can't work."
Soon after the family arrived here, Aden caught the attention of Jerry Salat, a local businessman who runs the khat trade and controls the airport. Like Fagan in "Oliver Twist," Salat oversees a gaggle of poor young men who help run his enterprises, selling khat, collecting money and guarding supplies.
He first put Aden to work selling day-old khat, clearing out old supplies to make room for fresh deliveries. But Aden earned