Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demands US withdrawal timetable
Iraqis want an end to the immunity that US troops have from prosecution
James Hider in Baghdad | From The Times | July 8, 2008
Iraq said for the first time yesterday that it wanted to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from its territory.
President Bush has long resisted a schedule for pulling his 145,000 soldiers out, arguing that it would play into the hands of insurgents. Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia Prime Minister, who boasted last week that he had crushed terrorism in the country, suggested that it was time to start setting time-lines.
“The current trend is to reach an agreement on a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to put a timetable on their withdrawal,” Mr al-Maliki said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. He rejected efforts by Mr Bush to hurry through an agreement on vital issues such as the immunity of US troops in Iraq and use of the country’s airspace. Mr Bush had hoped to sign a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) by the end of July to establish the basis for a long-term presence of US troops in the country.
The Iraqi parliament has bridled at pushing through such a binding deal with the outgoing and unpopular Bush Administration, saying that the negotiations have been secretive and could undermine Iraq’s sovereignty. “I don’t know anything about this agreement and neither does parliament,” said Ezzedine Dawla, a Sunni MP. “We’re going to pass something we don’t know anything about.”
Mr al-Maliki’s announcement showed a growing self-confidence that Iraqi leaders can stand up to their powerful ally. His oil minister said last week that leading Western oil companies would not be allowed to set conditions for future deals over Iraq’s main natural resource. The tough stance also comes before Iraqi provincial elections later this year, and may mark the start of the Prime Minister’s campaign to be reelected. His popularity was bolstered by military operations to take back the southern oil city of Basra and the town of al-Amarah from Iranian-backed Shia militias.
His comments may also hint at future cooperation with Barak Obama, the Democratic candidate, who has promised to pull US troops out of Iraq within 16 months, although Mr Obama has since appeared to waver on the commitment.
“The negotiations are continuing with the American side,” Mr al-Maliki said, reflecting the desire of many MPs to wait until a new administration is in the White House, and Iraq’s provincial elections are over, before making any deal. The agreement would govern such issues as immunity for US troops from prosecution, the use of Iraqi airspace, and which side takes operational control for military missions against insurgents.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish MP, said that the issue of immunity for US forces had become a particularly sensitive subject for Iraqis. “We have suffered so much from immunity. Immunity equals committing crimes. In the name of immunity they have killed people, they have their own prisons, they captured Iraqis. We can’t continue like this,” he said.
Haidar al-Abadi, a close aide to the Prime Minister, said that the US had wanted complete control of Iraqi airspace, since Iraq still had no air force. Mr al-Abadi said that the Government had rejected the demand. “Air-space will be decided by the Iraqi Government,” he said.
In a rebuff to the Mr al-Maliki the Pentagon said any timetable would be [artificial] and withdrawal would depend on conditions on the ground.
The Times : Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demands US withdrawal timetable
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
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WaPo : McCain Responds to Maliki's Call for an Iraq Withdrawal Timetable
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
McCain Responds to Maliki's Call for an Iraq Withdrawal Timetable
By Michael D. Shear | July 8, 2008
Sen. John McCain, who has repeatedly derided anyone who advocated a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, now suddenly finds himself in a political box as the American-backed Iraqi leadership yesterday raised the prospect of exactly that.
For the first time on Monday, Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki said in a statement from his office that the two countries should consider deciding the future of American troops with "a memorandum of understanding to put a timetable on their withdrawal."
McCain was silent on the comments Monday. But today, his top foreign policy adviser declined to criticize Maliki or distance McCain from him. And they sought to portray Maliki's comments as consistent with the Republican nominee's long-standing position.
"Senator McCain has always said that conditions on the ground -- including the security threats posed by extremists and terrorists, and the ability of Iraqi forces to meet those threats -- would be key determinants in U.S. force levels," said adviser Randy Scheunemann, who criticized Sen. Barack Obama's "constantly shifting positions" on Iraq.
But McCain's position on the question of a specific timetable for withdrawal has been shifting as the candidate moved from the Republican primary into the general election.
In speeches, town hall meetings, interviews and campaign commercials, McCain has said a timetable would provide terrorists the knowledge of how long they have to wait until American troops are gone. He has repeatedly said that setting a date for withdrawal would lead to "chaos, genocide and we will be back with greater sacrifice."
His rhetoric has been withering and aimed at both Democrats and Republicans. During the waning days of the GOP primary, he eviscerated former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for a comment that McCain said amounted to support for a timetable.
Romney disputed that, but the damage to his candidacy was unmistakable. Later, McCain turned his fire on Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, accusing them of endangering Americans by advocating a specific timetable for withdrawal.
"It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal," he said in a California speech.
In that speech, McCain offered his "vision" for 2013, by which time he said most of the troops would be gone from Iraq. That was quickly seen by many observers as a timetable for withdrawal by that date.
But immediately after the speech, McCain disputed the idea that he was setting a firm date for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, telling reporters that he is "promising that we will succeed in Iraq" but not promising that troops will come home if that success has not materialized.
"I'm not putting a date on it. It could be next month. It could be next year," he told reporters on the Straight Talk Express bus. "I said by the end of my first term we will have succeeded in Iraq.... This is what I want to achieve. This is what I believe is achievable."
McCain fought Democratic attempts in Congress to legislate the withdrawal of troops. And he famously said troops might be in Iraq for as long as 100 years, though he says that referred to a Korea-like presence, not active fighting like that occurring now.
On Tuesday, McCain's campaign declined to respond directly to the question of whether he now supports the idea of setting a date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.
Speaking on MSNBC Tuesday morning, McCain said that "The fact is that we and the Iraqis will deal in what is in the national security interests of both countries. And there is no reason to assume that the Iraqis aren't going to act in what they perceive as their national
interest. I believe we will enact ours and I believe we will all come home."
By Michael D. Shear | July 8, 2008
Sen. John McCain, who has repeatedly derided anyone who advocated a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, now suddenly finds himself in a political box as the American-backed Iraqi leadership yesterday raised the prospect of exactly that.
For the first time on Monday, Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki said in a statement from his office that the two countries should consider deciding the future of American troops with "a memorandum of understanding to put a timetable on their withdrawal."
McCain was silent on the comments Monday. But today, his top foreign policy adviser declined to criticize Maliki or distance McCain from him. And they sought to portray Maliki's comments as consistent with the Republican nominee's long-standing position.
"Senator McCain has always said that conditions on the ground -- including the security threats posed by extremists and terrorists, and the ability of Iraqi forces to meet those threats -- would be key determinants in U.S. force levels," said adviser Randy Scheunemann, who criticized Sen. Barack Obama's "constantly shifting positions" on Iraq.
But McCain's position on the question of a specific timetable for withdrawal has been shifting as the candidate moved from the Republican primary into the general election.
In speeches, town hall meetings, interviews and campaign commercials, McCain has said a timetable would provide terrorists the knowledge of how long they have to wait until American troops are gone. He has repeatedly said that setting a date for withdrawal would lead to "chaos, genocide and we will be back with greater sacrifice."
His rhetoric has been withering and aimed at both Democrats and Republicans. During the waning days of the GOP primary, he eviscerated former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for a comment that McCain said amounted to support for a timetable.
Romney disputed that, but the damage to his candidacy was unmistakable. Later, McCain turned his fire on Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, accusing them of endangering Americans by advocating a specific timetable for withdrawal.
"It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal," he said in a California speech.
In that speech, McCain offered his "vision" for 2013, by which time he said most of the troops would be gone from Iraq. That was quickly seen by many observers as a timetable for withdrawal by that date.
But immediately after the speech, McCain disputed the idea that he was setting a firm date for withdrawal of troops from Iraq, telling reporters that he is "promising that we will succeed in Iraq" but not promising that troops will come home if that success has not materialized.
"I'm not putting a date on it. It could be next month. It could be next year," he told reporters on the Straight Talk Express bus. "I said by the end of my first term we will have succeeded in Iraq.... This is what I want to achieve. This is what I believe is achievable."
McCain fought Democratic attempts in Congress to legislate the withdrawal of troops. And he famously said troops might be in Iraq for as long as 100 years, though he says that referred to a Korea-like presence, not active fighting like that occurring now.
On Tuesday, McCain's campaign declined to respond directly to the question of whether he now supports the idea of setting a date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.
Speaking on MSNBC Tuesday morning, McCain said that "The fact is that we and the Iraqis will deal in what is in the national security interests of both countries. And there is no reason to assume that the Iraqis aren't going to act in what they perceive as their national
interest. I believe we will enact ours and I believe we will all come home."
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AFP : Iraq to reject US deal without pullout timetable
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Iraq to reject US deal without pullout timetable
July 8, 2008
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) — Iraq said on Tuesday it will not reach any security pact with Washington unless it sets a date for the pullout of US-led foreign troops, a proposal turned down by US President George W. Bush.
The Shiite-led government's demand -- which was swiftly rejected by Washington -- underlines Iraq's new tougher stand in complex negotiations aimed at striking a security deal more than five years after the US-led invasion.
"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie told reporters in the holy city of Najaf.
Baghdad and Washington are negotiating a deal that would see the presence of US-led forces beyond 2008 when the UN mandate which provides the legal basis for a foreign troop presence in Iraq expires.
The security pact, also known as Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), has to be signed by July 31 according to a previous agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but it has provoked strong opposition in Iraq.
And the US State Department rejected the Iraqi demand for a specific timetable.
"The US government and the government of Iraq are in agreement that we, the US government, we want to withdraw, we will withdraw. However, that decision will be conditions-based," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said.
On Monday, Maliki told Arab ambassadors in Abu Dhabi that he was seeking a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops as part of the security agreement.
"The direction we are taking is to have a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to have a timetable for their withdrawal," Maliki was quoted as saying.
But Rubaie said it was proving "very difficult" to set a date.
"The Iraqi government has spoken about its date, while the foreign party has spoken about its date," he said. "Until now we have not arrived at an agreement on this issue."
On Monday, the White House reacted to Maliki's comments by saying it was not negotiating a "hard date" for a US withdrawal from Iraq but it did not rule out discussions on "time-frames" with Baghdad.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the talks were aimed at reaching agreement on a framework for future US-Iraqi relations and on the arrangements to govern the US military presence.
"It is important to understand that these are not talks on a hard date for a withdrawal," he said. "When you make an agreement," he added, however, "that doesn't mean that there won't be some understanding of time-frames."
The negotiations have been more difficult than expected, and the prospect of an agreement in the final months of the Bush administration has aroused controversy in political circles in both Iraq and the United States.
Shiite and Sunni politicians have raised objections, and Democrats in the US Congress have expressed fears that any agreement would tie the hands of the next president.
The sticking points have been the duration of a defence pact, how many bases Washington should retain, what powers the US military should continue to hold to detain Iraqis, and what immunity US troops should have.
The negotiations come amid a marked improvement in the security situation in Iraq that has allowed a drawdown of US forces, which now number 146,000, down from over 160,000.
On Tuesday, Republican White House candidate John McCain warned that security conditions must dictate troop withdrawals.
But his Democratic foe Barack Obama, an early opponent of the war who wants to pull out most combat troops within 16 months, said it was encouraging that Iraq now wanted to work out a timetable for withdrawal.
"We will withdraw, but... the victory we have achieved so far is fragile and (the redeployment) has to be dictated by events and on the ground," McCain said in an interview with MSNBC.
Obama said Maliki's remarks were in line with his own policy.
"I think it's encouraging... that the prime minister himself now acknowledges that in cooperation with Iraq, it's time for American forces to start sending out a timeframe for the withdrawal."
July 8, 2008
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP) — Iraq said on Tuesday it will not reach any security pact with Washington unless it sets a date for the pullout of US-led foreign troops, a proposal turned down by US President George W. Bush.
The Shiite-led government's demand -- which was swiftly rejected by Washington -- underlines Iraq's new tougher stand in complex negotiations aimed at striking a security deal more than five years after the US-led invasion.
"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie told reporters in the holy city of Najaf.
Baghdad and Washington are negotiating a deal that would see the presence of US-led forces beyond 2008 when the UN mandate which provides the legal basis for a foreign troop presence in Iraq expires.
The security pact, also known as Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), has to be signed by July 31 according to a previous agreement between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but it has provoked strong opposition in Iraq.
And the US State Department rejected the Iraqi demand for a specific timetable.
"The US government and the government of Iraq are in agreement that we, the US government, we want to withdraw, we will withdraw. However, that decision will be conditions-based," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said.
On Monday, Maliki told Arab ambassadors in Abu Dhabi that he was seeking a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops as part of the security agreement.
"The direction we are taking is to have a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to have a timetable for their withdrawal," Maliki was quoted as saying.
But Rubaie said it was proving "very difficult" to set a date.
"The Iraqi government has spoken about its date, while the foreign party has spoken about its date," he said. "Until now we have not arrived at an agreement on this issue."
On Monday, the White House reacted to Maliki's comments by saying it was not negotiating a "hard date" for a US withdrawal from Iraq but it did not rule out discussions on "time-frames" with Baghdad.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the talks were aimed at reaching agreement on a framework for future US-Iraqi relations and on the arrangements to govern the US military presence.
"It is important to understand that these are not talks on a hard date for a withdrawal," he said. "When you make an agreement," he added, however, "that doesn't mean that there won't be some understanding of time-frames."
The negotiations have been more difficult than expected, and the prospect of an agreement in the final months of the Bush administration has aroused controversy in political circles in both Iraq and the United States.
Shiite and Sunni politicians have raised objections, and Democrats in the US Congress have expressed fears that any agreement would tie the hands of the next president.
The sticking points have been the duration of a defence pact, how many bases Washington should retain, what powers the US military should continue to hold to detain Iraqis, and what immunity US troops should have.
The negotiations come amid a marked improvement in the security situation in Iraq that has allowed a drawdown of US forces, which now number 146,000, down from over 160,000.
On Tuesday, Republican White House candidate John McCain warned that security conditions must dictate troop withdrawals.
But his Democratic foe Barack Obama, an early opponent of the war who wants to pull out most combat troops within 16 months, said it was encouraging that Iraq now wanted to work out a timetable for withdrawal.
"We will withdraw, but... the victory we have achieved so far is fragile and (the redeployment) has to be dictated by events and on the ground," McCain said in an interview with MSNBC.
Obama said Maliki's remarks were in line with his own policy.
"I think it's encouraging... that the prime minister himself now acknowledges that in cooperation with Iraq, it's time for American forces to start sending out a timeframe for the withdrawal."
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AFP : McCain, Obama at odds over Iraqi withdrawal demand
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
McCain, Obama at odds over Iraqi withdrawal demand
July 8, 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iraq's hardening demand for a pullout deadline for US troops on Tuesday sent shockwaves through the White House campaign, putting Republican hopeful John McCain on the defensive.
McCain, who says it is too early to leave Iraq, said US pull-backs must be dictated by security conditions, after Democrat Barack Obama said the Iraqi government now shared his desire for a timetable for withdrawals.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that Iraq was seeking such an arrangement in talks with Washington on the future US force structure in the country.
Iraq hardened its position on Tuesday, saying it would reject any security pact with Washington unless it set a date for the pullout of US-led foreign soldiers -- a condition turned down by President George W. Bush.
But McCain, who has made staunch support for the US troop "surge" escalation strategy a centerpiece of his campaign, said that recent security gains should not be put at risk by an artificial timetable.
"The Iraqis have made it very clear, including the meetings I had with the president and foreign minister of Iraq, that it is based on conditions on the ground," McCain said in an interview with MSNBC.
"I have always said we will come home with honor and with victory and not through a set timetable," he said, adding that Iraqis would act in their national interest and the United States would act in its own interests.
"We will withdraw, but ... the victory we have achieved so far is fragile and (the redeployment) has to be dictated by events and on the ground," McCain said, mirroring the Pentagon's line on the issue.
The Obama campaign responded by bringing up a comment by McCain from 2004, when he said that if a sovereign Iraqi government asked American forces to quit Iraq, "it's obvious we would have to leave."
"The American people need a strategy for succeeding in Iraq, not just a strategy for staying," said Obama foreign policy advisor Susan Rice.
"John McCain's stubborn refusal to adjust to events on the ground just shows that he has no plan to end this war," she said.
Obama and McCain have been waging a fierce political battle over their plans for US policy in Iraq, an issue that looks set to dominate the presidency of whichever of them emerges triumphant from November's general election.
McCain has said he would aim to get US troops out of Iraq by 2013, but said on one occasion repeatedly used by the Obama campaign that he would be prepared to stay 100 years in a peacekeeping capacity.
Obama has pledged to get US combat troops out within 16 months, at the rate of one or two brigades a month, and this week denied claims he was wavering on that undertaking in the light of security gains in the country.
On Monday, Obama cast Maliki's remarks as in line with his own policy on Iraq, which McCain has branded a strategy for defeat.
"I think that his statement is consistent with my view about how withdrawals should proceed," the Illinois senator told reporters in St. Louis, Missouri.
"I think it's encouraging ... that the prime minister himself now acknowledges that in cooperation with Iraq, it's time for American forces to start sending out a timeframe for the withdrawal.
"I hope that this administration as well as John McCain is listening to what Prime Minister al-Maliki has to say."
Maliki told Arab ambassadors in Abu Dhabi on Monday he was pressing for such a timetable in negotiations with Washington on an agreement on the status of US forces in Iraq beyond 2008.
On Tuesday, national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie stiffened the Iraq stand.
"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," he told reporters in the holy city of Najaf.
Rubaie said it was proving "very difficult" to set such a date.
Baghdad and Washington are negotiating a deal that would see the presence of US-led forces in Iraq beyond 2008 when the United Nations mandate which provides the legal basis for a foreign troop presence in Iraq expires.
The security pact, also known as Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), has to be signed by July 31 according to a previous agreement between Bush and Maliki.
July 8, 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Iraq's hardening demand for a pullout deadline for US troops on Tuesday sent shockwaves through the White House campaign, putting Republican hopeful John McCain on the defensive.
McCain, who says it is too early to leave Iraq, said US pull-backs must be dictated by security conditions, after Democrat Barack Obama said the Iraqi government now shared his desire for a timetable for withdrawals.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that Iraq was seeking such an arrangement in talks with Washington on the future US force structure in the country.
Iraq hardened its position on Tuesday, saying it would reject any security pact with Washington unless it set a date for the pullout of US-led foreign soldiers -- a condition turned down by President George W. Bush.
But McCain, who has made staunch support for the US troop "surge" escalation strategy a centerpiece of his campaign, said that recent security gains should not be put at risk by an artificial timetable.
"The Iraqis have made it very clear, including the meetings I had with the president and foreign minister of Iraq, that it is based on conditions on the ground," McCain said in an interview with MSNBC.
"I have always said we will come home with honor and with victory and not through a set timetable," he said, adding that Iraqis would act in their national interest and the United States would act in its own interests.
"We will withdraw, but ... the victory we have achieved so far is fragile and (the redeployment) has to be dictated by events and on the ground," McCain said, mirroring the Pentagon's line on the issue.
The Obama campaign responded by bringing up a comment by McCain from 2004, when he said that if a sovereign Iraqi government asked American forces to quit Iraq, "it's obvious we would have to leave."
"The American people need a strategy for succeeding in Iraq, not just a strategy for staying," said Obama foreign policy advisor Susan Rice.
"John McCain's stubborn refusal to adjust to events on the ground just shows that he has no plan to end this war," she said.
Obama and McCain have been waging a fierce political battle over their plans for US policy in Iraq, an issue that looks set to dominate the presidency of whichever of them emerges triumphant from November's general election.
McCain has said he would aim to get US troops out of Iraq by 2013, but said on one occasion repeatedly used by the Obama campaign that he would be prepared to stay 100 years in a peacekeeping capacity.
Obama has pledged to get US combat troops out within 16 months, at the rate of one or two brigades a month, and this week denied claims he was wavering on that undertaking in the light of security gains in the country.
On Monday, Obama cast Maliki's remarks as in line with his own policy on Iraq, which McCain has branded a strategy for defeat.
"I think that his statement is consistent with my view about how withdrawals should proceed," the Illinois senator told reporters in St. Louis, Missouri.
"I think it's encouraging ... that the prime minister himself now acknowledges that in cooperation with Iraq, it's time for American forces to start sending out a timeframe for the withdrawal.
"I hope that this administration as well as John McCain is listening to what Prime Minister al-Maliki has to say."
Maliki told Arab ambassadors in Abu Dhabi on Monday he was pressing for such a timetable in negotiations with Washington on an agreement on the status of US forces in Iraq beyond 2008.
On Tuesday, national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie stiffened the Iraq stand.
"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," he told reporters in the holy city of Najaf.
Rubaie said it was proving "very difficult" to set such a date.
Baghdad and Washington are negotiating a deal that would see the presence of US-led forces in Iraq beyond 2008 when the United Nations mandate which provides the legal basis for a foreign troop presence in Iraq expires.
The security pact, also known as Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), has to be signed by July 31 according to a previous agreement between Bush and Maliki.
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CBS : McCain Responds to Maliki’s Timetable for Troop Withdrawal from Iraq
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
McCain Responds to Maliki’s Timetable for Troop Withdrawal from Iraq
by John Bentley | July 8, 2008
(PITTSBURGH) – The U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq “with honor, not according to a set timetable,” John McCain said today, in response to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issuing a statement that said the two countries should “put a timetable on their withdrawal."
“We will be able to withdraw with honor, and I am sure that it will be dictated by the situation on the ground,” McCain said. “I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about, since he has told me that for the many meetings we have had."
Barack Obama’s campaign criticized McCain earlier today for not placing more of the burden for the war in Iraq on the Iraqi government. "It's time for John McCain to explain why he refuses to ask Iraq's leaders to take responsibility for their own future, and why he has completely changed his own stated position that he would leave Iraq when the Iraqis ask us to,” said Susan Rice, Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser. “The American people need a strategy for succeeding in Iraq, not just a strategy for staying, and John McCain's stubborn refusal to adjust to events on the ground just shows that he has no plan to end this war."
McCain was also asked about a recent report by the Associated Press indicating U.S. exports to Iran have risen tenfold, with the largest export being cigarettes. Before the reporter could finish the question, McCain jumped in and said, "Maybe that’s a way of killing them." He quickly added "I meant that as a joke," and said he was unfamiliar with the report and would have a better answer tomorrow.
by John Bentley | July 8, 2008
(PITTSBURGH) – The U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq “with honor, not according to a set timetable,” John McCain said today, in response to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issuing a statement that said the two countries should “put a timetable on their withdrawal."
“We will be able to withdraw with honor, and I am sure that it will be dictated by the situation on the ground,” McCain said. “I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about, since he has told me that for the many meetings we have had."
Barack Obama’s campaign criticized McCain earlier today for not placing more of the burden for the war in Iraq on the Iraqi government. "It's time for John McCain to explain why he refuses to ask Iraq's leaders to take responsibility for their own future, and why he has completely changed his own stated position that he would leave Iraq when the Iraqis ask us to,” said Susan Rice, Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser. “The American people need a strategy for succeeding in Iraq, not just a strategy for staying, and John McCain's stubborn refusal to adjust to events on the ground just shows that he has no plan to end this war."
McCain was also asked about a recent report by the Associated Press indicating U.S. exports to Iran have risen tenfold, with the largest export being cigarettes. Before the reporter could finish the question, McCain jumped in and said, "Maybe that’s a way of killing them." He quickly added "I meant that as a joke," and said he was unfamiliar with the report and would have a better answer tomorrow.
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Bloomberg : U.S. Rejects Iraqi Demand for Timetable on Troop Withdrawal
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
U.S. Rejects Iraqi Demand for Timetable on Troop Withdrawal
By Ed Johnson and Camilla Hall | (Bloomberg) | July 9, 2008
The U.S. government rejected calls by Iraq to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from the country and said the planned reduction in force levels will be dictated by conditions on the ground.
The U.S. and Iraq are negotiating an agreement that will lay the legal boundaries for the operation of coalition forces after their United Nations mandate expires at the end of December.
"We want to withdraw, we will withdraw," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters in Washington yesterday. "However, that decision will be conditions-based."
About 150,000 U.S. soldiers remain in the country, down from a peak of 165,000 at the end of 2007. The last of the five combat brigades sent to the country last year by President George W. Bush as part of a so-called surge to improve security is preparing to come home this month.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of the security pact, scheduled to be agreed on by the end of July.
Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said yesterday the country is seeking a "timeline" for the duration of U.S. fighting operations in the country.
"We are making progress and are committed to departing, as evidenced by the fact that we have transferred over half of the country's provinces to provisional Iraqi control," said Gallegos, according to a transcript. "We're looking at conditions, not calendars here."
The pull back is set in the context of November's U.S. presidential election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has made opposition to the Iraq war and a promise to bring home more troops a key plank of his platform. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, backed the troop surge and says Bush's strategy is working.
The U.S. has conceded to Iraqi demands to lift immunity for private contractors in the country. Iraq has said that it won't accept permanent U.S. bases and won't be used as a staging ground for attacks on neighboring countries.
By Ed Johnson and Camilla Hall | (Bloomberg) | July 9, 2008
The U.S. government rejected calls by Iraq to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from the country and said the planned reduction in force levels will be dictated by conditions on the ground.
The U.S. and Iraq are negotiating an agreement that will lay the legal boundaries for the operation of coalition forces after their United Nations mandate expires at the end of December.
"We want to withdraw, we will withdraw," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters in Washington yesterday. "However, that decision will be conditions-based."
About 150,000 U.S. soldiers remain in the country, down from a peak of 165,000 at the end of 2007. The last of the five combat brigades sent to the country last year by President George W. Bush as part of a so-called surge to improve security is preparing to come home this month.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of the security pact, scheduled to be agreed on by the end of July.
Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said yesterday the country is seeking a "timeline" for the duration of U.S. fighting operations in the country.
"We are making progress and are committed to departing, as evidenced by the fact that we have transferred over half of the country's provinces to provisional Iraqi control," said Gallegos, according to a transcript. "We're looking at conditions, not calendars here."
The pull back is set in the context of November's U.S. presidential election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has made opposition to the Iraq war and a promise to bring home more troops a key plank of his platform. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, backed the troop surge and says Bush's strategy is working.
The U.S. has conceded to Iraqi demands to lift immunity for private contractors in the country. Iraq has said that it won't accept permanent U.S. bases and won't be used as a staging ground for attacks on neighboring countries.
Filed under
Barack Obama,
Iraq,
John McCain,
surge
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, July 08, 2008
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WaPo : Cheney Aides Altered CDC Testimony, Agency Official Says
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Cheney Aides Altered CDC Testimony, Agency Official Says
Ex-Administrator Says Official From Vice President's Office Edited Out Six Pages
By Juliet Eilperin | Washington Post Staff Writer | July 8, 2008
Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said today.
In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett said an official from Cheney's office edited out six pages from the testimony of Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last October.
Several media outlets, including The Washington Post, reported at the time that Gerberding had planned to say that "CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern," among other passages.
Boxer said the administration feared that Gerberding's testimony would force it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. The White House has opposed mandatory limits and insisted that voluntary measures and increased research are the best way to address the problem.
"The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony," Burnett, a 31-year old Stanford-trained economist and a Democrat, wrote in response to an inquiry from Boxer's committee. "CEQ requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change."
Burnett, a member of the wealthy Packard family, has given more than $100,000 to Democratic campaigns in recent years, including $3,600 to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (Ill.). He did not identify who in the vice president's office called him.
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"I'm not interested in pointing fingers at any individual," he said at a news conference with Boxer this morning, adding he was focused on seeing how the federal government will address climate change in response to last year's Supreme Court decision requiring EPA to deal with the issue of rising carbon dioxide emissions. "I'm interested in helping inform the next administration to help make those decisions, while recognizing Congress could act to pass a better law."
Boxer demanded that, in light of Burnett's allegations, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson turn over "every document related to the agency's finding that global warming poses a danger to the public" -- a determination the EPA reached late last year -- and issue a rule finding that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare. The White House has refused to open the e-mail making that finding, which Burnett sent over on Dec. 5, thereby leaving the recommendation in limbo.
"I'm calling on Mr. Johnson to act now, and if he doesn't have the courage or the strength or determination to act, he should resign," Boxer said.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride declined to comment in detail on Burnett's allegations, saying, "We don't comment on internal deliberations."
However, White House spokesman Tony Fratto noted that White House officials in past administrations have vetted congressional testimony from agency officials.
"There's absolutely nothing unusual here in terms of the interagency review process, whether it's testimony, rules or anything else," Fratto said in an interview. "The process exists so that other offices and departments have the opportunity to comment and offer their views. There's nothing unusual about that, there's nothing nefarious about that, and there's nothing different here from previous administrations."
Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said the latest revelations confirm that the vice president has been steering the nation's environmental policy during President Bush's tenure.
"For years, we've suspected that Cheney was the puppeteer for administration policy on global warming," O'Donnell said. "This kiss-and-tell account appears to confirm the worst."
Ex-Administrator Says Official From Vice President's Office Edited Out Six Pages
By Juliet Eilperin | Washington Post Staff Writer | July 8, 2008
Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said today.
In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett said an official from Cheney's office edited out six pages from the testimony of Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last October.
Several media outlets, including The Washington Post, reported at the time that Gerberding had planned to say that "CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern," among other passages.
Boxer said the administration feared that Gerberding's testimony would force it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. The White House has opposed mandatory limits and insisted that voluntary measures and increased research are the best way to address the problem.
"The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony," Burnett, a 31-year old Stanford-trained economist and a Democrat, wrote in response to an inquiry from Boxer's committee. "CEQ requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change."
Burnett, a member of the wealthy Packard family, has given more than $100,000 to Democratic campaigns in recent years, including $3,600 to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (Ill.). He did not identify who in the vice president's office called him.
ad_icon
"I'm not interested in pointing fingers at any individual," he said at a news conference with Boxer this morning, adding he was focused on seeing how the federal government will address climate change in response to last year's Supreme Court decision requiring EPA to deal with the issue of rising carbon dioxide emissions. "I'm interested in helping inform the next administration to help make those decisions, while recognizing Congress could act to pass a better law."
Boxer demanded that, in light of Burnett's allegations, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson turn over "every document related to the agency's finding that global warming poses a danger to the public" -- a determination the EPA reached late last year -- and issue a rule finding that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare. The White House has refused to open the e-mail making that finding, which Burnett sent over on Dec. 5, thereby leaving the recommendation in limbo.
"I'm calling on Mr. Johnson to act now, and if he doesn't have the courage or the strength or determination to act, he should resign," Boxer said.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride declined to comment in detail on Burnett's allegations, saying, "We don't comment on internal deliberations."
However, White House spokesman Tony Fratto noted that White House officials in past administrations have vetted congressional testimony from agency officials.
"There's absolutely nothing unusual here in terms of the interagency review process, whether it's testimony, rules or anything else," Fratto said in an interview. "The process exists so that other offices and departments have the opportunity to comment and offer their views. There's nothing unusual about that, there's nothing nefarious about that, and there's nothing different here from previous administrations."
Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, said the latest revelations confirm that the vice president has been steering the nation's environmental policy during President Bush's tenure.
"For years, we've suspected that Cheney was the puppeteer for administration policy on global warming," O'Donnell said. "This kiss-and-tell account appears to confirm the worst."
Filed under
climate,
Dick Cheney,
environment,
health
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, July 08, 2008
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WSJ : Iraq's Oil Surge
Monday, July 07, 2008
Iraq's Oil Surge
July 5, 2008
Here's a thought experiment: Assume that Iraq's democratic government declared it was nationalizing its oil industry, a la Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, while excluding American companies from the country. How do you think U.S. politicians would react? With angry cries of "ingratitude" and "this is what Americans died for"?
Of course they would, led no doubt by that critic for all reasons, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. So it is passing strange that Mr. Schumer and other Senators are now assailing Iraq precisely because it is opening up to foreign oil companies, especially to U.S. majors like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. For some American pols, everything that happens in Iraq is bad news, especially when it's good news for the U.S.
Iraq announced this week that it is inviting global competition to develop its major oil reserves, with 35 oil companies invited to bid. By tapping outside capital and expertise, Iraq hopes to increase production by 60%, providing a much-needed boost to its own coffers and the world's tight oil supply.
This is welcome news. With elections looming later this year and next, the temptation for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government must have been to play the nationalist card – the way that Mr. Schumer did against Dubai Ports World's proposed U.S. investment in 2006 (see, for instance, "Ports of Gall"). Many Iraqis remain suspicious of outside oil companies – the legacy of a colonial past in which Iraq felt exploited for its oil.
Instead, Iraq chose competitive bidding that will bring in the best expertise to exploit its national resource. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani is predicting that, with outside help, Iraq could become the second or third largest oil-producing country in the world. Today it produces about 2.5 million barrels a day, compared to 11 million for the world-leading Saudis. Foreign companies will be required to have an Iraqi partner, and to hire Iraqis, while most oil revenues will still flow to the Iraqi people.
What seems to irk Mr. Schumer – and running mates John Kerry and Missouri's Claire McCaskill – is Iraq's decision to sign shorter-term, no-bid service contracts with Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Total and Chevron. Most of these firms had extensive experience in Iraq prior to Saddam Hussein's nationalization, and were chosen because their knowledge will help Iraq boost near-term production. The contracts will run no more than two years, and all five firms have spent the past three years providing training, analysis and advice to Iraq – free of charge.
The Democrats nonetheless stomped their feet in a letter last week to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They demanded that she intervene to stop the Iraqis "from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a [national oil law] is in effect in Iraq." Their complaint is that a hydrocarbon law is one of the Bush Administration's "benchmarks for reconciliation" in Iraq, and that these oil contracts would only "further deepen political tension in Iraq and put our service members in even greater danger." They also griped that the five firms would get an "insider's advantage" to later oil bidding.
Also piling on is House baron Henry Waxman, who is upset with a separate contract that the Kurdistan Regional Government has signed with Texas's Hunt Oil. Mr. Waxman thinks the Bush Administration didn't do enough to stop the deal. Then again, this is old news, as the contract was signed last year. And while the Baghdad central government wasn't pleased the Kurds had moved on a contract without national approval, the deal hasn't impeded Iraq's broader progress.
We doubt French politicians are objecting to Total's contract, but American Democrats are so blinkered about Iraq that they now object even to U.S. companies getting business on the merits. The hydrocarbon law would help to clarify revenue-sharing between Baghdad and Iraq's outlying provinces. But even without that law, oil revenues are already flowing throughout the country, including to Sunni-majority areas.
The faster and more efficiently the oil deposits are developed, the more revenue there will be to distribute. And the faster Iraq will be able to rebuild on its own – which is what Democrats say they want. Meanwhile, by inviting foreign partners, Iraq is avoiding the trap of nationalization that has harmed so many countries. It concentrates political power, undermining democracy. National oil companies also tend to underinvest in technology, letting harder-to-exploit oil become a wasting asset.
What the U.S. should promote in Iraq is some kind of oil trust, or stock or revenue dispersal, that would give individual Iraqis a share of their oil wealth. This would be both a tool to build national unity and to prevent any one political group from dominating Iraq's main revenue source. If Mr. Schumer wants to help on that score, he might do some good.
July 5, 2008
Here's a thought experiment: Assume that Iraq's democratic government declared it was nationalizing its oil industry, a la Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, while excluding American companies from the country. How do you think U.S. politicians would react? With angry cries of "ingratitude" and "this is what Americans died for"?
Of course they would, led no doubt by that critic for all reasons, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. So it is passing strange that Mr. Schumer and other Senators are now assailing Iraq precisely because it is opening up to foreign oil companies, especially to U.S. majors like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. For some American pols, everything that happens in Iraq is bad news, especially when it's good news for the U.S.
Iraq announced this week that it is inviting global competition to develop its major oil reserves, with 35 oil companies invited to bid. By tapping outside capital and expertise, Iraq hopes to increase production by 60%, providing a much-needed boost to its own coffers and the world's tight oil supply.
This is welcome news. With elections looming later this year and next, the temptation for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government must have been to play the nationalist card – the way that Mr. Schumer did against Dubai Ports World's proposed U.S. investment in 2006 (see, for instance, "Ports of Gall"). Many Iraqis remain suspicious of outside oil companies – the legacy of a colonial past in which Iraq felt exploited for its oil.
Instead, Iraq chose competitive bidding that will bring in the best expertise to exploit its national resource. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani is predicting that, with outside help, Iraq could become the second or third largest oil-producing country in the world. Today it produces about 2.5 million barrels a day, compared to 11 million for the world-leading Saudis. Foreign companies will be required to have an Iraqi partner, and to hire Iraqis, while most oil revenues will still flow to the Iraqi people.
What seems to irk Mr. Schumer – and running mates John Kerry and Missouri's Claire McCaskill – is Iraq's decision to sign shorter-term, no-bid service contracts with Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Total and Chevron. Most of these firms had extensive experience in Iraq prior to Saddam Hussein's nationalization, and were chosen because their knowledge will help Iraq boost near-term production. The contracts will run no more than two years, and all five firms have spent the past three years providing training, analysis and advice to Iraq – free of charge.
The Democrats nonetheless stomped their feet in a letter last week to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They demanded that she intervene to stop the Iraqis "from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a [national oil law] is in effect in Iraq." Their complaint is that a hydrocarbon law is one of the Bush Administration's "benchmarks for reconciliation" in Iraq, and that these oil contracts would only "further deepen political tension in Iraq and put our service members in even greater danger." They also griped that the five firms would get an "insider's advantage" to later oil bidding.
Also piling on is House baron Henry Waxman, who is upset with a separate contract that the Kurdistan Regional Government has signed with Texas's Hunt Oil. Mr. Waxman thinks the Bush Administration didn't do enough to stop the deal. Then again, this is old news, as the contract was signed last year. And while the Baghdad central government wasn't pleased the Kurds had moved on a contract without national approval, the deal hasn't impeded Iraq's broader progress.
We doubt French politicians are objecting to Total's contract, but American Democrats are so blinkered about Iraq that they now object even to U.S. companies getting business on the merits. The hydrocarbon law would help to clarify revenue-sharing between Baghdad and Iraq's outlying provinces. But even without that law, oil revenues are already flowing throughout the country, including to Sunni-majority areas.
The faster and more efficiently the oil deposits are developed, the more revenue there will be to distribute. And the faster Iraq will be able to rebuild on its own – which is what Democrats say they want. Meanwhile, by inviting foreign partners, Iraq is avoiding the trap of nationalization that has harmed so many countries. It concentrates political power, undermining democracy. National oil companies also tend to underinvest in technology, letting harder-to-exploit oil become a wasting asset.
What the U.S. should promote in Iraq is some kind of oil trust, or stock or revenue dispersal, that would give individual Iraqis a share of their oil wealth. This would be both a tool to build national unity and to prevent any one political group from dominating Iraq's main revenue source. If Mr. Schumer wants to help on that score, he might do some good.
Filed under
Hunt Oil,
Iraq,
iraq oil law,
oil
by Winter Patriot
on Monday, July 07, 2008
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WaPo : Post-9/11 Dragnet Turns Up Surprises
Monday, July 07, 2008
Post-9/11 Dragnet Turns Up Surprises
Biometrics Link Foreign Detainees To Arrests in U.S.
By Ellen Nakashima | Washington Post Staff Writer | July 6, 2008
In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States.
There was the suspected militant fleeing Somalia who had been arrested on a drug charge in New Jersey. And the man stopped at a checkpoint in Tikrit who claimed to be a dirt farmer but had 11 felony charges in the United States, including assault with a deadly weapon.
The records suggest that potential enemies abroad know a great deal about the United States because many of them have lived here, officials said. The matches also reflect the power of sharing data across agencies and even countries, data that links an identity to a distinguishing human characteristic such as a fingerprint.
"I found the number stunning," said Frances Fragos Townsend, a security consultant and former assistant to the president for homeland security. "It suggested to me that this was going to give us far greater insight into the relationships between individuals fighting against U.S. forces in the theater and potential U.S. cells or support networks here in the United States."
The fingerprinting of detainees overseas began as ad-hoc FBI and U.S. military efforts shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It has since grown into a government-wide push to build the world's largest database of known or suspected terrorist fingerprints. The effort is being boosted by a presidential directive signed June 5, which gave the U.S. attorney general and other cabinet officials 90 days to come up with a plan to expand the use of biometrics by, among other things, recommending categories of people to be screened beyond "known or suspected" terrorists.
Fingerprints are being beamed in via satellite from places as far-flung as the jungles of Zamboanga in the southern Philippines; Bogota, Colombia; Iraq; and Afghanistan. Other allies, such as Sweden, have contributed prints. The database can be queried by U.S. government agencies and by other countries through Interpol, the international police agency.
Civil libertarians have raised concerns about whether people on the watch lists have been appropriately determined to be terrorists, a process that senior government officials acknowledge is an art, not a science.
Large-scale identity systems "can raise serious privacy concerns, if not singly, then jointly and severally," said a 2007 study by the Defense Science Board Task Force on Defense Biometrics. The ability "to cross reference and draw new, previously unimagined, inferences," is a boon for the government and the bane of privacy advocates, it said.
An FBI Mission
The effort, officials say, is bearing fruit.
"The bottom line is we're locking people up," said Thomas E. Bush III, FBI assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services division. "Stopping people coming into this country. Identifying IED-makers in a way never done before. That's the beauty of this whole data-sharing effort. We're pushing our borders back."
In December 2001, an FBI team was sent on an unusual mission to Afghanistan. The U.S. military had launched a wave of airstrikes aimed at killing or capturing al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban hosts. The FBI team was to fingerprint and interview foreign fighters as if they were being booked at a police station.
The team, led by Paul Shannon, a veteran FBI agent embedded with U.S. special forces, traveled to the combat zone toting briefcases outfitted with printer's ink, hand rollers and paper cards. The agents worked in Kandahar and Kabul. They traversed the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They hand-carried the fingerprint records from Afghanistan to Clarksburg, W.Va., home to the FBI's criminal biometric database.
As they analyzed the results, they were surprised to learn that one out of every 100 detainees was already in the FBI's database for arrests. Many arrests were for drunken driving, passing bad checks and traffic violations, FBI officials said.
"Frankly I was surprised that we were getting those kind of hits at all," recalled Townsend, who left government in January. They identified "a potential vulnerability" to national security the government had not fully appreciated, she said.
The people being fingerprinted had come from the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. They were mostly in their 20s, Shannon recalled. "One of the things we learned is we were dealing with relatively young guys who were very committed and what they would openly tell you is that when they got out they were going back to jihad," he said. "They'd already made this commitment."
One of the first men fingerprinted by the FBI team was a fighter who claimed he was in Afghanistan to learn the ancient art of falconry. But a fingerprint check showed that in August 2001 he had been turned away from Orlando International Airport by an immigration official who thought he might overstay his visa. Mohamed al Kahtani would later be named by the Sept. 11 Commission as someone who allegedly had sought to participate in hijackings. He currently is in custody at Guantanamo Bay.
Similarly, in 2004, an FBI team choppered to a remote desert camp on the Iraq-Iran border, home to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), whose aim is to overthrow the Iranian government. The MEK lead an austere lifestyle in which men are segregated from women and material goods are renounced. The U.S. State Department considers the organization to be a terrorist group.
The FBI team fingerprinted 3,800 fighters. More than 40, Shannon said, had previous criminal records in the agency's database.
While the FBI was busy collecting fingerprints, the military was setting up its own biometrics database, adding in iris and facial data as well. By October, the two organizations agreed to collaborate, running queries through both systems. The very first match was on the man who claimed to be a poor dirt farmer. Among his many charges were misdemeanors for theft and public drunkenness in Chicago and Utah, a criminal record that ran from 1993 to 2001, said Herb Richardson, who serves as operations manager for the military's Automated Biometric Identification System under a contract with Ideal Innovations of Arlington.
Many of those with U.S. arrest records had come to the United States to study, said former Criminal Justice Information Services head Michael Kirkpatrick, who led the FBI effort to use biometrics in counterterrorism after Sept. 11. "It suggests there was some familiarity with Western culture, the United States specifically, and for whatever reason they did not agree with that culture," he said. "Either they became disaffected or put up with it, and then they went overseas."
Errors in matching, though rare, have occurred. In a noted 2004 case, Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield was erroneously named as a suspect in the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people. FBI lab analysts matched a print lifted from a plastic bag at the crime scene to his fingerprints that were stored in the FBI's criminal database because of a 1985 arrest for auto burglary when he was a teenager. The charge had been dismissed. After a critical Justice Department Inspector General audit, the FBI made fixes in its system. A recent inspector general report found the FBI fingerprint matching to be generally accurate.
Worries About Watch List
Civil libertarians, however, worry that the systems are not transparent enough for outsiders to tell how the government decides who belongs on a watch list and how that information is handled.
"The day when the federal government can tell people the basis they've been put on the watch list is the day we can have more confidence in biometric identification," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Vetting the data is the job of analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center, an office park-like complex in McLean run by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Analysts there scour intelligence reports to create the master international terrorist watch list.
"You cannot draw a bright red line and say that's a terrorist, this person isn't," said Russ Travers, an NCTC deputy director. "If somebody swears allegiance to Bin Laden, that's an easy case. If somebody goes to a terrorist training camp, that's probably an easy case. What if a person goes to a camp and decides, 'I don't want to go to a camp, I want to go home.' Where do you draw the line?"
Investigators are working on ever more sophisticated ways to evaluate the data. Analysts at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, for instance, use software to scrutinize intelligence reports from sources such as electronic surveillance and informants. They then link the information to a person's biographic and biometric data, and look for relationships that might detect terrorists and plots.
For example, a roadside bomb may explode and a patrol may fingerprint bystanders because insurgents have been known to remain at the scene to observe the results of their work. Prints also can be lifted off tiny fragments of exploded bombs, said military officials and contractors involved in the work.
Analysts are not just trying to identify the prints on the bomb. They want to find out who the bomb-carrier associates with. Who he calls. Who calls him. That could lead to the higher-level operatives who planned and financed attacks.
Already, fingerprints lifted off a bomb fragment have been linked to people trying to enter the United States, they said.
In a separate data-sharing program, 365 Iraqis who have applied to the Department of Homeland Security for refugee status have been denied because their fingerprints turned up in the Defense Department's database of known or suspected terrorists, Richardson said.
If Iraq and Afghanistan were a proving ground of sorts for biometric watch-listing, the U.S. government is moving quickly to try to build a domestic version. Since September 2006, Homeland Security and the FBI have been operating a pilot program in which police officers in Boston, Dallas and Houston run prints of arrestees against a Homeland Security database of immigration law violators and a State Department database of people refused visas. Federal job applicants' prints also are run against the databases. To date, some 500 people have been found in the database and thus are of interest to Homeland Security officials.
Steve Nixon, a director at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the effort is key to national security.
"When we look at the road and the challenges, globalization and the spread of technology has empowered small groups of individuals, bad guys, to be more powerful than at any other time in history," he said. "We have to know who these people are when we encounter them. A lot of what we're doing in intelligence now is trying to identify a person. Biometrics is a key element of that."
Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
Biometrics Link Foreign Detainees To Arrests in U.S.
By Ellen Nakashima | Washington Post Staff Writer | July 6, 2008
In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States.
There was the suspected militant fleeing Somalia who had been arrested on a drug charge in New Jersey. And the man stopped at a checkpoint in Tikrit who claimed to be a dirt farmer but had 11 felony charges in the United States, including assault with a deadly weapon.
The records suggest that potential enemies abroad know a great deal about the United States because many of them have lived here, officials said. The matches also reflect the power of sharing data across agencies and even countries, data that links an identity to a distinguishing human characteristic such as a fingerprint.
"I found the number stunning," said Frances Fragos Townsend, a security consultant and former assistant to the president for homeland security. "It suggested to me that this was going to give us far greater insight into the relationships between individuals fighting against U.S. forces in the theater and potential U.S. cells or support networks here in the United States."
The fingerprinting of detainees overseas began as ad-hoc FBI and U.S. military efforts shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It has since grown into a government-wide push to build the world's largest database of known or suspected terrorist fingerprints. The effort is being boosted by a presidential directive signed June 5, which gave the U.S. attorney general and other cabinet officials 90 days to come up with a plan to expand the use of biometrics by, among other things, recommending categories of people to be screened beyond "known or suspected" terrorists.
Fingerprints are being beamed in via satellite from places as far-flung as the jungles of Zamboanga in the southern Philippines; Bogota, Colombia; Iraq; and Afghanistan. Other allies, such as Sweden, have contributed prints. The database can be queried by U.S. government agencies and by other countries through Interpol, the international police agency.
Civil libertarians have raised concerns about whether people on the watch lists have been appropriately determined to be terrorists, a process that senior government officials acknowledge is an art, not a science.
Large-scale identity systems "can raise serious privacy concerns, if not singly, then jointly and severally," said a 2007 study by the Defense Science Board Task Force on Defense Biometrics. The ability "to cross reference and draw new, previously unimagined, inferences," is a boon for the government and the bane of privacy advocates, it said.
An FBI Mission
The effort, officials say, is bearing fruit.
"The bottom line is we're locking people up," said Thomas E. Bush III, FBI assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services division. "Stopping people coming into this country. Identifying IED-makers in a way never done before. That's the beauty of this whole data-sharing effort. We're pushing our borders back."
In December 2001, an FBI team was sent on an unusual mission to Afghanistan. The U.S. military had launched a wave of airstrikes aimed at killing or capturing al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban hosts. The FBI team was to fingerprint and interview foreign fighters as if they were being booked at a police station.
The team, led by Paul Shannon, a veteran FBI agent embedded with U.S. special forces, traveled to the combat zone toting briefcases outfitted with printer's ink, hand rollers and paper cards. The agents worked in Kandahar and Kabul. They traversed the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They hand-carried the fingerprint records from Afghanistan to Clarksburg, W.Va., home to the FBI's criminal biometric database.
As they analyzed the results, they were surprised to learn that one out of every 100 detainees was already in the FBI's database for arrests. Many arrests were for drunken driving, passing bad checks and traffic violations, FBI officials said.
"Frankly I was surprised that we were getting those kind of hits at all," recalled Townsend, who left government in January. They identified "a potential vulnerability" to national security the government had not fully appreciated, she said.
The people being fingerprinted had come from the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. They were mostly in their 20s, Shannon recalled. "One of the things we learned is we were dealing with relatively young guys who were very committed and what they would openly tell you is that when they got out they were going back to jihad," he said. "They'd already made this commitment."
One of the first men fingerprinted by the FBI team was a fighter who claimed he was in Afghanistan to learn the ancient art of falconry. But a fingerprint check showed that in August 2001 he had been turned away from Orlando International Airport by an immigration official who thought he might overstay his visa. Mohamed al Kahtani would later be named by the Sept. 11 Commission as someone who allegedly had sought to participate in hijackings. He currently is in custody at Guantanamo Bay.
Similarly, in 2004, an FBI team choppered to a remote desert camp on the Iraq-Iran border, home to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), whose aim is to overthrow the Iranian government. The MEK lead an austere lifestyle in which men are segregated from women and material goods are renounced. The U.S. State Department considers the organization to be a terrorist group.
The FBI team fingerprinted 3,800 fighters. More than 40, Shannon said, had previous criminal records in the agency's database.
While the FBI was busy collecting fingerprints, the military was setting up its own biometrics database, adding in iris and facial data as well. By October, the two organizations agreed to collaborate, running queries through both systems. The very first match was on the man who claimed to be a poor dirt farmer. Among his many charges were misdemeanors for theft and public drunkenness in Chicago and Utah, a criminal record that ran from 1993 to 2001, said Herb Richardson, who serves as operations manager for the military's Automated Biometric Identification System under a contract with Ideal Innovations of Arlington.
Many of those with U.S. arrest records had come to the United States to study, said former Criminal Justice Information Services head Michael Kirkpatrick, who led the FBI effort to use biometrics in counterterrorism after Sept. 11. "It suggests there was some familiarity with Western culture, the United States specifically, and for whatever reason they did not agree with that culture," he said. "Either they became disaffected or put up with it, and then they went overseas."
Errors in matching, though rare, have occurred. In a noted 2004 case, Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield was erroneously named as a suspect in the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people. FBI lab analysts matched a print lifted from a plastic bag at the crime scene to his fingerprints that were stored in the FBI's criminal database because of a 1985 arrest for auto burglary when he was a teenager. The charge had been dismissed. After a critical Justice Department Inspector General audit, the FBI made fixes in its system. A recent inspector general report found the FBI fingerprint matching to be generally accurate.
Worries About Watch List
Civil libertarians, however, worry that the systems are not transparent enough for outsiders to tell how the government decides who belongs on a watch list and how that information is handled.
"The day when the federal government can tell people the basis they've been put on the watch list is the day we can have more confidence in biometric identification," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Vetting the data is the job of analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center, an office park-like complex in McLean run by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Analysts there scour intelligence reports to create the master international terrorist watch list.
"You cannot draw a bright red line and say that's a terrorist, this person isn't," said Russ Travers, an NCTC deputy director. "If somebody swears allegiance to Bin Laden, that's an easy case. If somebody goes to a terrorist training camp, that's probably an easy case. What if a person goes to a camp and decides, 'I don't want to go to a camp, I want to go home.' Where do you draw the line?"
Investigators are working on ever more sophisticated ways to evaluate the data. Analysts at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, for instance, use software to scrutinize intelligence reports from sources such as electronic surveillance and informants. They then link the information to a person's biographic and biometric data, and look for relationships that might detect terrorists and plots.
For example, a roadside bomb may explode and a patrol may fingerprint bystanders because insurgents have been known to remain at the scene to observe the results of their work. Prints also can be lifted off tiny fragments of exploded bombs, said military officials and contractors involved in the work.
Analysts are not just trying to identify the prints on the bomb. They want to find out who the bomb-carrier associates with. Who he calls. Who calls him. That could lead to the higher-level operatives who planned and financed attacks.
Already, fingerprints lifted off a bomb fragment have been linked to people trying to enter the United States, they said.
In a separate data-sharing program, 365 Iraqis who have applied to the Department of Homeland Security for refugee status have been denied because their fingerprints turned up in the Defense Department's database of known or suspected terrorists, Richardson said.
If Iraq and Afghanistan were a proving ground of sorts for biometric watch-listing, the U.S. government is moving quickly to try to build a domestic version. Since September 2006, Homeland Security and the FBI have been operating a pilot program in which police officers in Boston, Dallas and Houston run prints of arrestees against a Homeland Security database of immigration law violators and a State Department database of people refused visas. Federal job applicants' prints also are run against the databases. To date, some 500 people have been found in the database and thus are of interest to Homeland Security officials.
Steve Nixon, a director at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said the effort is key to national security.
"When we look at the road and the challenges, globalization and the spread of technology has empowered small groups of individuals, bad guys, to be more powerful than at any other time in history," he said. "We have to know who these people are when we encounter them. A lot of what we're doing in intelligence now is trying to identify a person. Biometrics is a key element of that."
Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
Filed under
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homegrown terrorism,
lawyers,
refugees
by Winter Patriot
on Monday, July 07, 2008
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NYT : Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal
Monday, July 07, 2008
Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal
By SOMINI SENGUPTA | July 7, 2008
BHOPAL, India — Hundreds of tons of waste still languish inside a tin-roofed warehouse in a corner of the old grounds of the Union Carbide pesticide factory here, nearly a quarter-century after a poison gas leak killed thousands and turned this ancient city into a notorious symbol of industrial disaster.
The toxic remains have yet to be carted away. No one has examined to what extent, over more than two decades, they have seeped into the soil and water, except in desultory checks by a state environmental agency, which turned up pesticide residues in the neighborhood wells far exceeding permissible levels.
Nor has anyone bothered to address the concerns of those who have drunk that water and tended kitchen gardens on this soil and who now present a wide range of ailments, including cleft palates and mental retardation, among their children as evidence of a second generation of Bhopal victims, though it is impossible to say with any certainty what is the source of the afflictions.
Why it has taken so long to deal with the disaster is an epic tale of the ineffectiveness and seeming apathy of India’s bureaucracy and of the government’s failure to make the factory owners do anything about the mess they left. But the question of who will pay for the cleanup of the 11-acre site has assumed new urgency in a country that today is increasingly keen to attract foreign investment.
It was here that on Dec. 3, 1984, a tank inside the factory released 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas, killing those who inhaled it while they slept. At the time, it was called the world’s worst industrial accident. At least 3,000 people were killed immediately. Thousands more may have died later from the aftereffects, though the exact death toll remains unclear.
More than 500,000 people were declared to be affected by the gas and awarded compensation, an average of $550. Some victims say they have yet to receive any money. Efforts to extradite Warren M. Anderson, the chief executive of Union Carbide at the time, from the United States continue, though apparently with little energy behind them.
Advocates for those who live near the site continue to hound the company and their government. They chain themselves to the prime minister’s residence one day and dog shareholder meetings on another, refusing to let Bhopal become the tragedy that India forgot. They insist that Dow Chemical Company, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, also bought its liabilities and should pay for the cleanup.
“Had the toxic waste been cleaned up, the contaminated groundwater would not have happened,” says Mira Shiva, a doctor who heads the Voluntary Health Association, one of many groups pressing for Dow to take responsibility for the cleanup. “Dow was the first crime. The second crime was government negligence.”
Dow, based in Michigan, says it bears no responsibility to clean up a mess it did not make. “As there was never any ownership, there is no responsibility and no liability — for the Bhopal tragedy or its aftermath,” Scot Wheeler, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail message.
Mr. Wheeler pointed out that the former factory property, along with the waste it contained, had been turned over to the Madhya Pradesh State government in June 1998, and that “for whatever reason most of us do not know or fully understand, the site remains unremediated.”
He went on to say that Dow could not finance remediation efforts, even if it wanted to, because it could potentially open up the company to further liabilities.
In a letter to the Indian ambassador to the United States in 2006, the Dow chairman, Andrew N. Liveris, sought assurance from the government that it would not be held liable for the mess on the old factory site, “in your efforts to ensure that we have the appropriate investment climate.”
The claims have divided the government itself. It is now in the throes of a debate over who will pay — a debate that might have taken place behind closed doors were it not for a series of public information requests by advocates for Bhopal residents that turned up revealing government correspondence.
It showed that one arm of the government, the Chemicals and Petrochemicals Ministry, entrusted with the cleanup of the site, has wanted Dow to put down a $25 million deposit toward the cost of remediation, while other senior officials warned that forcing Dow’s hand could endanger future investments in the country.
A senior government official, prohibited from speaking publicly on such a contentious issue, described the quandary. “Do you want $1 billion in investment, or do you want this sticky situation to continue?” the official said, calling it a stalemate.
The government is expected to make a final decision later this year.
Beyond who will pay for the cleanup here, the question is why 425 tons of hazardous waste — some local advocates allege there is a great deal more, buried in the factory grounds — remain here 24 years after the leak?
There are many answers. The company was allowed to dump the land on the government before it was cleaned up. Lawsuits by advocacy groups are still winding their way through the courts. And a network of often lethargic, seemingly apathetic government agencies do not always coordinate with one another.
The result is a wasteland in the city’s heart. The old factory grounds, frozen in time, are an overgrown 11-acre forest of corroded tanks and pipes buzzing with cicadas, where cattle graze and women forage for twigs to cook their evening meal.
Since the disaster, ill-considered decisions on the part of local residents have only compounded the problems and heightened their health risks. Just beyond the factory wall is a blue-black open pit. Once the repository of chemical sludge from the pesticide plant, it is now a pond where slum children and dogs dive on hot afternoons. Its banks are an open toilet. In the rainy season, it overflows through the slum’s muddy alleys.
The slum rose up shortly after the gas leak. Poor people flocked here, seeking cheap land, and put up homes right up to the edge of the sludge pond. Once, the pond was sealed with concrete and plastic. But in the searing heat, the concrete cover eventually collapsed.
The first tests of groundwater began, inexplicably, 12 years after the gas leak. The state pollution control board turned up traces of pesticides, including endosulfan, lindane, trichlorobenzene and DDT. Soil sediments were not tested. The water was never compared with water in other city neighborhoods. The pollution board saw no cause for alarm.
Nevertheless, in 2004, complaints from residents led the Supreme Court to order the state to supply clean drinking water to the people living around the factory. By then, nearly 20 years had gone by.
“It is a scandal that the hazardous wastes left behind by Union Carbide unattended for 20 years have now migrated below ground and contaminated the groundwater below the factory and in its neighborhood,” wrote Claude Alvares, a monitor for India’s Supreme Court, who visited here in March 2005.
He tasted the water from one well. “I had to spit out everything,” he wrote in his report. The water “had an appalling chemical taste.” Neighborhood women brought out their utensils to show how the water had corroded them.
As his report went on to point out, the government was long ago made aware of the likelihood of contamination. A government research center warned more than 10 years ago that, if left untreated, the toxic residue on the factory grounds would seep into the soil and water.
Around the same time, under public pressure, state authorities finally scooped up the toxic waste that had lain in clumps around the factory grounds, and stored it inside the tin-roofed warehouse. The warehouse was padlocked only about four years ago.
The waste was supposed to be taken to an incinerator in neighboring Gujarat, but the government has yet to find a contractor willing to pack it into small, transportable parcels. There have been delays in acquiring transport permits, too, with citizens groups raising new questions about the hazards of transporting the waste.
Ajay Vishoni, the state gas and health minister, said he was confident that none of the waste was hazardous anymore, nor had anyone proved to his satisfaction that it had ever caused the contamination of the groundwater. “There is hype,” he said.
In 2005, a state-financed study called for long-term epidemiological studies to determine the impact of contaminated drinking water, concluding that while the levels of toxic contaminants were not very high, water and soil contamination had caused an increase in respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments.
In the Shiv Nagar slum about half a mile from the factory, there is a boy, Akash, who was born with an empty socket for a left eye. Now 6, he cannot see properly or speak. He is a cheerful child who plays in the lanes near his house.
His father, Shobha Ram, a maker of sweets who bought land here many years after the gas leak and built himself a two-room house, said the boy’s afflictions were caused by the hand-pumped well from where his family drew water on the edge of the sludge pond for years. He said it had not occurred to him that the water could be laced with pesticides.
“We knew the gas incident took place,” he said. “We never thought the contaminated water would come all the way to our house.”
The stories repeat themselves in the nearby slums. In Blue Moon, Muskan, a 2-year-old girl, cannot walk, speak or understand what is happening around her. Her father, Anwar, blames the water.
In Arif Nagar, Nawab and Hassan Mian, brothers who are 8 and 12, move through their house like newly hatched birds, barely able to stand. They have no control over their muscles. Their mother, Fareeda Bi, is unsure of exactly what caused their ailment, but she, too, blames the water.
“There are more children like this in the neighborhood,” she said, “who cannot walk, who cannot see.”
To compound the tragedy, there is no way to know to what extent the water is to blame. The government suspended long-term public health studies many years ago.
By SOMINI SENGUPTA | July 7, 2008
BHOPAL, India — Hundreds of tons of waste still languish inside a tin-roofed warehouse in a corner of the old grounds of the Union Carbide pesticide factory here, nearly a quarter-century after a poison gas leak killed thousands and turned this ancient city into a notorious symbol of industrial disaster.
The toxic remains have yet to be carted away. No one has examined to what extent, over more than two decades, they have seeped into the soil and water, except in desultory checks by a state environmental agency, which turned up pesticide residues in the neighborhood wells far exceeding permissible levels.
Nor has anyone bothered to address the concerns of those who have drunk that water and tended kitchen gardens on this soil and who now present a wide range of ailments, including cleft palates and mental retardation, among their children as evidence of a second generation of Bhopal victims, though it is impossible to say with any certainty what is the source of the afflictions.
Why it has taken so long to deal with the disaster is an epic tale of the ineffectiveness and seeming apathy of India’s bureaucracy and of the government’s failure to make the factory owners do anything about the mess they left. But the question of who will pay for the cleanup of the 11-acre site has assumed new urgency in a country that today is increasingly keen to attract foreign investment.
It was here that on Dec. 3, 1984, a tank inside the factory released 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas, killing those who inhaled it while they slept. At the time, it was called the world’s worst industrial accident. At least 3,000 people were killed immediately. Thousands more may have died later from the aftereffects, though the exact death toll remains unclear.
More than 500,000 people were declared to be affected by the gas and awarded compensation, an average of $550. Some victims say they have yet to receive any money. Efforts to extradite Warren M. Anderson, the chief executive of Union Carbide at the time, from the United States continue, though apparently with little energy behind them.
Advocates for those who live near the site continue to hound the company and their government. They chain themselves to the prime minister’s residence one day and dog shareholder meetings on another, refusing to let Bhopal become the tragedy that India forgot. They insist that Dow Chemical Company, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, also bought its liabilities and should pay for the cleanup.
“Had the toxic waste been cleaned up, the contaminated groundwater would not have happened,” says Mira Shiva, a doctor who heads the Voluntary Health Association, one of many groups pressing for Dow to take responsibility for the cleanup. “Dow was the first crime. The second crime was government negligence.”
Dow, based in Michigan, says it bears no responsibility to clean up a mess it did not make. “As there was never any ownership, there is no responsibility and no liability — for the Bhopal tragedy or its aftermath,” Scot Wheeler, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail message.
Mr. Wheeler pointed out that the former factory property, along with the waste it contained, had been turned over to the Madhya Pradesh State government in June 1998, and that “for whatever reason most of us do not know or fully understand, the site remains unremediated.”
He went on to say that Dow could not finance remediation efforts, even if it wanted to, because it could potentially open up the company to further liabilities.
In a letter to the Indian ambassador to the United States in 2006, the Dow chairman, Andrew N. Liveris, sought assurance from the government that it would not be held liable for the mess on the old factory site, “in your efforts to ensure that we have the appropriate investment climate.”
The claims have divided the government itself. It is now in the throes of a debate over who will pay — a debate that might have taken place behind closed doors were it not for a series of public information requests by advocates for Bhopal residents that turned up revealing government correspondence.
It showed that one arm of the government, the Chemicals and Petrochemicals Ministry, entrusted with the cleanup of the site, has wanted Dow to put down a $25 million deposit toward the cost of remediation, while other senior officials warned that forcing Dow’s hand could endanger future investments in the country.
A senior government official, prohibited from speaking publicly on such a contentious issue, described the quandary. “Do you want $1 billion in investment, or do you want this sticky situation to continue?” the official said, calling it a stalemate.
The government is expected to make a final decision later this year.
Beyond who will pay for the cleanup here, the question is why 425 tons of hazardous waste — some local advocates allege there is a great deal more, buried in the factory grounds — remain here 24 years after the leak?
There are many answers. The company was allowed to dump the land on the government before it was cleaned up. Lawsuits by advocacy groups are still winding their way through the courts. And a network of often lethargic, seemingly apathetic government agencies do not always coordinate with one another.
The result is a wasteland in the city’s heart. The old factory grounds, frozen in time, are an overgrown 11-acre forest of corroded tanks and pipes buzzing with cicadas, where cattle graze and women forage for twigs to cook their evening meal.
Since the disaster, ill-considered decisions on the part of local residents have only compounded the problems and heightened their health risks. Just beyond the factory wall is a blue-black open pit. Once the repository of chemical sludge from the pesticide plant, it is now a pond where slum children and dogs dive on hot afternoons. Its banks are an open toilet. In the rainy season, it overflows through the slum’s muddy alleys.
The slum rose up shortly after the gas leak. Poor people flocked here, seeking cheap land, and put up homes right up to the edge of the sludge pond. Once, the pond was sealed with concrete and plastic. But in the searing heat, the concrete cover eventually collapsed.
The first tests of groundwater began, inexplicably, 12 years after the gas leak. The state pollution control board turned up traces of pesticides, including endosulfan, lindane, trichlorobenzene and DDT. Soil sediments were not tested. The water was never compared with water in other city neighborhoods. The pollution board saw no cause for alarm.
Nevertheless, in 2004, complaints from residents led the Supreme Court to order the state to supply clean drinking water to the people living around the factory. By then, nearly 20 years had gone by.
“It is a scandal that the hazardous wastes left behind by Union Carbide unattended for 20 years have now migrated below ground and contaminated the groundwater below the factory and in its neighborhood,” wrote Claude Alvares, a monitor for India’s Supreme Court, who visited here in March 2005.
He tasted the water from one well. “I had to spit out everything,” he wrote in his report. The water “had an appalling chemical taste.” Neighborhood women brought out their utensils to show how the water had corroded them.
As his report went on to point out, the government was long ago made aware of the likelihood of contamination. A government research center warned more than 10 years ago that, if left untreated, the toxic residue on the factory grounds would seep into the soil and water.
Around the same time, under public pressure, state authorities finally scooped up the toxic waste that had lain in clumps around the factory grounds, and stored it inside the tin-roofed warehouse. The warehouse was padlocked only about four years ago.
The waste was supposed to be taken to an incinerator in neighboring Gujarat, but the government has yet to find a contractor willing to pack it into small, transportable parcels. There have been delays in acquiring transport permits, too, with citizens groups raising new questions about the hazards of transporting the waste.
Ajay Vishoni, the state gas and health minister, said he was confident that none of the waste was hazardous anymore, nor had anyone proved to his satisfaction that it had ever caused the contamination of the groundwater. “There is hype,” he said.
In 2005, a state-financed study called for long-term epidemiological studies to determine the impact of contaminated drinking water, concluding that while the levels of toxic contaminants were not very high, water and soil contamination had caused an increase in respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments.
In the Shiv Nagar slum about half a mile from the factory, there is a boy, Akash, who was born with an empty socket for a left eye. Now 6, he cannot see properly or speak. He is a cheerful child who plays in the lanes near his house.
His father, Shobha Ram, a maker of sweets who bought land here many years after the gas leak and built himself a two-room house, said the boy’s afflictions were caused by the hand-pumped well from where his family drew water on the edge of the sludge pond for years. He said it had not occurred to him that the water could be laced with pesticides.
“We knew the gas incident took place,” he said. “We never thought the contaminated water would come all the way to our house.”
The stories repeat themselves in the nearby slums. In Blue Moon, Muskan, a 2-year-old girl, cannot walk, speak or understand what is happening around her. Her father, Anwar, blames the water.
In Arif Nagar, Nawab and Hassan Mian, brothers who are 8 and 12, move through their house like newly hatched birds, barely able to stand. They have no control over their muscles. Their mother, Fareeda Bi, is unsure of exactly what caused their ailment, but she, too, blames the water.
“There are more children like this in the neighborhood,” she said, “who cannot walk, who cannot see.”
To compound the tragedy, there is no way to know to what extent the water is to blame. The government suspended long-term public health studies many years ago.
Filed under
Bhopal,
environment,
India,
toxic waste,
Union Carbide
by Winter Patriot
on Monday, July 07, 2008
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NYT : Gunmen Kill U.N. Official in Somalia
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Gunmen Kill U.N. Official in Somalia
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: July 7, 2008
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Gunmen opened fire on people leaving a mosque in Mogadishu on Sunday night, killing one of the country’s senior United Nations officials and wounding his son and another man, a witness and a family member said.
Attacks on officials, including those working for the United Nations and international aid agencies, are common in Somalia, where Islamic militants have vowed to fight an insurgency against the country’s weak government, which is supported by the United Nations.
Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the United Nations Development Program for Somalia, was covered in blood and unconscious as he was rushed to a hospital after Sunday’s shooting, said Hassan Ali, a witness and a neighbor of Mr. Ahmed’s. Mr. Ali said it was not clear how seriously Mr. Ahmed’s son and the other man had been wounded.
Mr. Ahmed’s wife, Masteho Abubakr Yusus, later said in an interview that her husband had died at the African Union hospital.
The shooting occurred a day after an explosion killed a Somali official, his wife and four other people in Mogadishu.
On June 21, Hassan Muhammad Ali, head of the office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, was abducted from his home on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: July 7, 2008
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Gunmen opened fire on people leaving a mosque in Mogadishu on Sunday night, killing one of the country’s senior United Nations officials and wounding his son and another man, a witness and a family member said.
Attacks on officials, including those working for the United Nations and international aid agencies, are common in Somalia, where Islamic militants have vowed to fight an insurgency against the country’s weak government, which is supported by the United Nations.
Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the United Nations Development Program for Somalia, was covered in blood and unconscious as he was rushed to a hospital after Sunday’s shooting, said Hassan Ali, a witness and a neighbor of Mr. Ahmed’s. Mr. Ali said it was not clear how seriously Mr. Ahmed’s son and the other man had been wounded.
Mr. Ahmed’s wife, Masteho Abubakr Yusus, later said in an interview that her husband had died at the African Union hospital.
The shooting occurred a day after an explosion killed a Somali official, his wife and four other people in Mogadishu.
On June 21, Hassan Muhammad Ali, head of the office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, was abducted from his home on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
NYT : Afghans Say New U.S. Strike Killed Civilians
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Afghans Say New U.S. Strike Killed Civilians
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA | July 7, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Local officials in eastern Afghanistan said Sunday that an American airstrike killed at least 27 civilians in a wedding party, most of them women and children and including the bride. Officials of the American-led coalition disputed the report, saying that the airstrike killed militants and that there was no evidence of women and children at the scene.
The attack early Sunday in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar Province was the second in the past three days in which many civilian deaths were reported.
The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has ordered an investigation into a helicopter strike on Friday in Nuristan Province in which the provincial governor said 22 civilians had been killed and 7 wounded.
The United States military has also disputed that account, saying that only people who had been firing on coalition forces were hit.
The governor of Deh Bala district, Hamisha Gul, said the airstrike on Sunday came while a group of women and children were walking from the bride’s village, Kamalai, to the groom’s home. Tradition holds that women and children walk with the bride separately from the men.
Mr. Gul said residents had reported finding “so far 27 bodies, including two men, and the others are all women and children.”
He added, “The new bride is among the deaths.”
A member of Parliament from the area, Babrak Shinwary, said in an interview in Kabul that he had received phone calls from his constituents with similar reports.
Dr. Ajmal Pardis, director of public health in Nangarhar Province, said the hospital in Jalalabad, its capital, had received five patients, three women and two men, wounded in the airstrike.
A statement from the coalition forces in Afghanistan said several militants were killed in the airstrike, which was ordered after the forces received intelligence reports of a large gathering of combatants in Deh Bala.
“We have no reports of civilian casualties, and there were no women and children there,” Capt. Christian Patterson, a coalition spokesman, said.
Mr. Gul, the district governor, said that he had heard reports of militants being in the area but that all of the dead were civilians.
Civilian casualties have been a continuing issue in Afghanistan, and President Karzai has rebuked American and NATO forces for what he has called carelessness in their military operations.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA | July 7, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — Local officials in eastern Afghanistan said Sunday that an American airstrike killed at least 27 civilians in a wedding party, most of them women and children and including the bride. Officials of the American-led coalition disputed the report, saying that the airstrike killed militants and that there was no evidence of women and children at the scene.
The attack early Sunday in the Deh Bala district of Nangarhar Province was the second in the past three days in which many civilian deaths were reported.
The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has ordered an investigation into a helicopter strike on Friday in Nuristan Province in which the provincial governor said 22 civilians had been killed and 7 wounded.
The United States military has also disputed that account, saying that only people who had been firing on coalition forces were hit.
The governor of Deh Bala district, Hamisha Gul, said the airstrike on Sunday came while a group of women and children were walking from the bride’s village, Kamalai, to the groom’s home. Tradition holds that women and children walk with the bride separately from the men.
Mr. Gul said residents had reported finding “so far 27 bodies, including two men, and the others are all women and children.”
He added, “The new bride is among the deaths.”
A member of Parliament from the area, Babrak Shinwary, said in an interview in Kabul that he had received phone calls from his constituents with similar reports.
Dr. Ajmal Pardis, director of public health in Nangarhar Province, said the hospital in Jalalabad, its capital, had received five patients, three women and two men, wounded in the airstrike.
A statement from the coalition forces in Afghanistan said several militants were killed in the airstrike, which was ordered after the forces received intelligence reports of a large gathering of combatants in Deh Bala.
“We have no reports of civilian casualties, and there were no women and children there,” Capt. Christian Patterson, a coalition spokesman, said.
Mr. Gul, the district governor, said that he had heard reports of militants being in the area but that all of the dead were civilians.
Civilian casualties have been a continuing issue in Afghanistan, and President Karzai has rebuked American and NATO forces for what he has called carelessness in their military operations.
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.
Filed under
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airstrike,
civilian casualties
by Winter Patriot
on Sunday, July 06, 2008
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WaPo : Not So Quiet on the Third Front
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Not So Quiet on the Third Front
By Dana Milbank | July 3, 2008
At this rate, the October Surprise won't be very surprising.
The threats, counterthreats, and counter-counterthreats between Israel, Iran and the United States have reached new levels of hysteria in recent days. Israel openly threatens to attack Iran's nuclear program, Iran threatens to shut down oil-shipping lanes, and the commander of the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, says this would be an "act of war" requiring an American military response.
That was the backdrop yesterday as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced the cameras in the Pentagon briefing room. Mullen, just back from a trip to Israel that further raised speculation about an Israeli attack, was asked whether Cosgriff's saber rattling would raise tensions with Iran.
"Actually," the chairman replied, "I think Admiral Cosgriff, who made that statement, is making an accurate statement."
Or, as John McCain might sing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
The doldrums of the Fourth of July recess have been enlivened by fresh talk of another war. Is it a diplomatic bluff or a serious possibility? Perhaps some of each: Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told the Associated Press yesterday that the possibility of an attack is "craziness" -- but, just in case, he also made sure in the same interview to speak about progress in negotiations with the West.
The administration, for its part, seems eager to convince Iran that President Bush is crazy enough to sanction an attack. In the Rose Garden yesterday, Brett Baier of Fox News asked Bush how confident he is that Israel won't launch a military attack on Iran before the end of the year. "I have always said that all options are on the table, but the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically," came Bush's mild reply.
ABC's Martha Raddatz invited Bush to "strongly discourage Israel" from such an activity. The president declined. "I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be to solve this problem diplomatically," he said.
Neither did the State Department offer discouragement. Spokesman Sean McCormack, at his daily briefing, said the matter of an Israeli strike isn't "under our control." When it was pointed out that the U.S. controls Iraqi airspace, through which Israeli warplanes would travel to hit Iran, McCormack declined to answer a "hypothetical question involving military planning."
As in most things involving the Bush administration, clarity can be found in the name Cheney -- in this case the vice president's daughter Liz, speaking last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think the Iranians have to believe that we will use force if necessary, and I'm concerned because you had statements for a period of time there from people like the commander in Centcom, who has since been relieved, suggesting that force was off the table," she said.
Liz Cheney further recommended doing "everything we can to dispel this idea that, somehow, we don't have the capacity militarily to take action," and she said it is crucial to make Iran realize, "despite what you may be hearing from Congress, despite what you may be hearing from others in the administration who might be saying force isn't on the table, that we're serious." As for an Israeli strike on Iran, she said: "I certainly don't think that we should do anything but support them."
Cheney may soon get her chance. Last month, Israel held a major military drill that was widely seen as preparation for an attack on Iran's nuclear program. Around the same time, three prominent Israeli officials made public comments about the likelihood of an attack. Then came Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker reporting an increase in U.S. covert activities in Iran, along with Iran's threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large chunk of the world's oil passes. This week, ABC News featured an unnamed senior defense official talking about "an increasing likelihood" of an Israeli attack by the end of the year.
In front of the cameras yesterday, Mullen tried to warn about the military problems such an attack would set off. "This is a very unstable part of the world," the chairman said, "and I don't need it to be more unstable." With troops already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, he acknowledged that "opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful" on the U.S. military. The chief warrior therefore appealed for "other elements of national power to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure."
But Mullen, informed by his discussions with Israeli military officials, did not offer much reassurance that an Israeli strike could be avoided. Iran, he said, is "still on a path to get to nuclear weapons, and I think that's something that needs to be deterred."
Might Iran have enough nuclear fuel to build a bomb by the year's end?
"I don't want to address that," the chairman said.
Is Israel operating on a shorter time frame than the United States?
Mullen said past discussions "indicated that they were."
Is there a danger that all the bluffing could cause an actual war?
"It is high stakes, there's no question, in this part of the world, and I guess I'd just leave it at that."
By Dana Milbank | July 3, 2008
At this rate, the October Surprise won't be very surprising.
The threats, counterthreats, and counter-counterthreats between Israel, Iran and the United States have reached new levels of hysteria in recent days. Israel openly threatens to attack Iran's nuclear program, Iran threatens to shut down oil-shipping lanes, and the commander of the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, says this would be an "act of war" requiring an American military response.
That was the backdrop yesterday as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced the cameras in the Pentagon briefing room. Mullen, just back from a trip to Israel that further raised speculation about an Israeli attack, was asked whether Cosgriff's saber rattling would raise tensions with Iran.
"Actually," the chairman replied, "I think Admiral Cosgriff, who made that statement, is making an accurate statement."
Or, as John McCain might sing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
The doldrums of the Fourth of July recess have been enlivened by fresh talk of another war. Is it a diplomatic bluff or a serious possibility? Perhaps some of each: Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told the Associated Press yesterday that the possibility of an attack is "craziness" -- but, just in case, he also made sure in the same interview to speak about progress in negotiations with the West.
The administration, for its part, seems eager to convince Iran that President Bush is crazy enough to sanction an attack. In the Rose Garden yesterday, Brett Baier of Fox News asked Bush how confident he is that Israel won't launch a military attack on Iran before the end of the year. "I have always said that all options are on the table, but the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically," came Bush's mild reply.
ABC's Martha Raddatz invited Bush to "strongly discourage Israel" from such an activity. The president declined. "I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be to solve this problem diplomatically," he said.
Neither did the State Department offer discouragement. Spokesman Sean McCormack, at his daily briefing, said the matter of an Israeli strike isn't "under our control." When it was pointed out that the U.S. controls Iraqi airspace, through which Israeli warplanes would travel to hit Iran, McCormack declined to answer a "hypothetical question involving military planning."
As in most things involving the Bush administration, clarity can be found in the name Cheney -- in this case the vice president's daughter Liz, speaking last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think the Iranians have to believe that we will use force if necessary, and I'm concerned because you had statements for a period of time there from people like the commander in Centcom, who has since been relieved, suggesting that force was off the table," she said.
Liz Cheney further recommended doing "everything we can to dispel this idea that, somehow, we don't have the capacity militarily to take action," and she said it is crucial to make Iran realize, "despite what you may be hearing from Congress, despite what you may be hearing from others in the administration who might be saying force isn't on the table, that we're serious." As for an Israeli strike on Iran, she said: "I certainly don't think that we should do anything but support them."
Cheney may soon get her chance. Last month, Israel held a major military drill that was widely seen as preparation for an attack on Iran's nuclear program. Around the same time, three prominent Israeli officials made public comments about the likelihood of an attack. Then came Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker reporting an increase in U.S. covert activities in Iran, along with Iran's threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large chunk of the world's oil passes. This week, ABC News featured an unnamed senior defense official talking about "an increasing likelihood" of an Israeli attack by the end of the year.
In front of the cameras yesterday, Mullen tried to warn about the military problems such an attack would set off. "This is a very unstable part of the world," the chairman said, "and I don't need it to be more unstable." With troops already stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, he acknowledged that "opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful" on the U.S. military. The chief warrior therefore appealed for "other elements of national power to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure."
But Mullen, informed by his discussions with Israeli military officials, did not offer much reassurance that an Israeli strike could be avoided. Iran, he said, is "still on a path to get to nuclear weapons, and I think that's something that needs to be deterred."
Might Iran have enough nuclear fuel to build a bomb by the year's end?
"I don't want to address that," the chairman said.
Is Israel operating on a shorter time frame than the United States?
Mullen said past discussions "indicated that they were."
Is there a danger that all the bluffing could cause an actual war?
"It is high stakes, there's no question, in this part of the world, and I guess I'd just leave it at that."
WaPo : Progress Cited on U.S.-Iraq Pacts
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Progress Cited on U.S.-Iraq Pacts
Foreign Minister Says Nations Are Working to Resolve Differences
By Sudarsan Raghavan | Washington Post Foreign Service | July 3, 2008
BAGHDAD, July 2 -- The United States and Iraq are making progress on complex political and security agreements that would allow U.S. troops to operate in the country next year, Iraq's foreign minister said Wednesday.
"We have reached a comfortable stage of negotiations, and the differences have been narrowed," Hoshyar Zebari told reporters.
The comments came nearly three weeks after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that negotiations had "reached a dead end." The talks have been bogged down by concerns over Iraq's sovereignty as well as growing fears of a possible long-term American presence.
A U.N. mandate sanctioning the U.S. role in Iraq is to expire Dec. 31, and U.S. officials have said they would like to complete a deal by the end of this month.
Zebari, who recently returned from meetings with U.S. officials in Washington, said the United States had shown "a great deal of flexibility on many thorny issues." In particular, he said, U.S. officials agreed to lift immunity for private security contractors, allowing them to be prosecuted under Iraqi law. The legal shields have enraged Iraqis, especially since 17 Iraqi civilians were killed last year in a shooting incident involving Blackwater Worldwide, a private security company.
"It is a sensitive issue for the Iraqi public," Zebari said.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said that she could not comment on the ongoing negotiations but added that they were taking place in "a constructive spirit."
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Negotiations began in March on the two U.S.-drafted pacts: a status-of-forces agreement that governs the legal protections and responsibilities of U.S. troops, and a strategic framework for the overall U.S.-Iraqi political and military relationship.
Despite the progress, many hurdles remain that could delay the signing of the pacts, Zebari said. For instance, the two sides differ on the authority and level of independence of U.S. troops in future military operations.
But Zebari said U.S. negotiators were open to the idea of Iraqis controlling their own airspace, as long as they have proper air power and technology.
Zebari said immunity for U.S. troops, which many Iraqis would like lifted, was still being debated. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, American soldiers have been involved in several high-profile cases of killing, torturing or abusing Iraqis. U.S. officials have strongly opposed the lifting of immunity for American soldiers.
"Who will charge American soldiers with military violations against Iraqis, outside their official duties, when there is no combat?" Zebari asked.
The Iraqis are demanding control over detention centers where Iraqis are held and sole authority to arrest and detain Iraqis. They are also concerned about the number of U.S. military bases and how long they will be operational.
"We haven't reached any final conclusions," Zebari said. "But in all these issues, there is movement. They are not static."
Zebari said any agreement would be in place for perhaps a year or two and then subject to review. If no agreements are reached by the end of the year, he said, the sides would have to negotiate an interim deal.
Some Iraqi lawmakers welcome the idea of an interim deal. Ayad Jamaludeen, a secular Shiite member of parliament, said there was not enough time left in the Bush administration to reach a comprehensive agreement satisfactory to Iraq and the United States. After a new U.S. president is in office, "we shall both have ample time to negotiate and reach a binding agreement for both sides," he said.
But Mohsin al-Sadoun, a Kurdish lawmaker, said he preferred completing the agreements now "rather than going again to the U.N. Security Council every year or six months" for extensions.
Zebari also announced that Jordan's King Abdullah II and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would soon visit Iraq, although he did not provide dates. Abdullah would become the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq since the invasion.
In the southern city of Amarah, Iraqi security forces arrested three top loyalists of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a crackdown on militias, police said. Sadr officials said the men -- Abdul Jabar Wahid, Abdul Latif Jawad and Fadhil Na'ima -- are senior members of the local governing council in Maysan province, of which Amarah is the capital.
Salah al-Obaidi, a senior spokesman for Sadr, denounced the arrests as part of a concerted effort by the Iraqi government to undermine the cleric's movement. Sadr had agreed to cooperate with the military offensive in Amarah as long as Iraqi soldiers did not indiscriminately target his followers without proper evidence and court-issued arrest warrants. Obaidi said the arrests violated the deal.
"In every province where a military operation takes place, the first to be targeted are the Sadrists," Obaidi said. "We are at a point where there is no longer a chance for negotiation, understanding or dialogue."
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
Foreign Minister Says Nations Are Working to Resolve Differences
By Sudarsan Raghavan | Washington Post Foreign Service | July 3, 2008
BAGHDAD, July 2 -- The United States and Iraq are making progress on complex political and security agreements that would allow U.S. troops to operate in the country next year, Iraq's foreign minister said Wednesday.
"We have reached a comfortable stage of negotiations, and the differences have been narrowed," Hoshyar Zebari told reporters.
The comments came nearly three weeks after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that negotiations had "reached a dead end." The talks have been bogged down by concerns over Iraq's sovereignty as well as growing fears of a possible long-term American presence.
A U.N. mandate sanctioning the U.S. role in Iraq is to expire Dec. 31, and U.S. officials have said they would like to complete a deal by the end of this month.
Zebari, who recently returned from meetings with U.S. officials in Washington, said the United States had shown "a great deal of flexibility on many thorny issues." In particular, he said, U.S. officials agreed to lift immunity for private security contractors, allowing them to be prosecuted under Iraqi law. The legal shields have enraged Iraqis, especially since 17 Iraqi civilians were killed last year in a shooting incident involving Blackwater Worldwide, a private security company.
"It is a sensitive issue for the Iraqi public," Zebari said.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said that she could not comment on the ongoing negotiations but added that they were taking place in "a constructive spirit."
ad_icon
Negotiations began in March on the two U.S.-drafted pacts: a status-of-forces agreement that governs the legal protections and responsibilities of U.S. troops, and a strategic framework for the overall U.S.-Iraqi political and military relationship.
Despite the progress, many hurdles remain that could delay the signing of the pacts, Zebari said. For instance, the two sides differ on the authority and level of independence of U.S. troops in future military operations.
But Zebari said U.S. negotiators were open to the idea of Iraqis controlling their own airspace, as long as they have proper air power and technology.
Zebari said immunity for U.S. troops, which many Iraqis would like lifted, was still being debated. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, American soldiers have been involved in several high-profile cases of killing, torturing or abusing Iraqis. U.S. officials have strongly opposed the lifting of immunity for American soldiers.
"Who will charge American soldiers with military violations against Iraqis, outside their official duties, when there is no combat?" Zebari asked.
The Iraqis are demanding control over detention centers where Iraqis are held and sole authority to arrest and detain Iraqis. They are also concerned about the number of U.S. military bases and how long they will be operational.
"We haven't reached any final conclusions," Zebari said. "But in all these issues, there is movement. They are not static."
Zebari said any agreement would be in place for perhaps a year or two and then subject to review. If no agreements are reached by the end of the year, he said, the sides would have to negotiate an interim deal.
Some Iraqi lawmakers welcome the idea of an interim deal. Ayad Jamaludeen, a secular Shiite member of parliament, said there was not enough time left in the Bush administration to reach a comprehensive agreement satisfactory to Iraq and the United States. After a new U.S. president is in office, "we shall both have ample time to negotiate and reach a binding agreement for both sides," he said.
But Mohsin al-Sadoun, a Kurdish lawmaker, said he preferred completing the agreements now "rather than going again to the U.N. Security Council every year or six months" for extensions.
Zebari also announced that Jordan's King Abdullah II and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would soon visit Iraq, although he did not provide dates. Abdullah would become the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq since the invasion.
In the southern city of Amarah, Iraqi security forces arrested three top loyalists of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in a crackdown on militias, police said. Sadr officials said the men -- Abdul Jabar Wahid, Abdul Latif Jawad and Fadhil Na'ima -- are senior members of the local governing council in Maysan province, of which Amarah is the capital.
Salah al-Obaidi, a senior spokesman for Sadr, denounced the arrests as part of a concerted effort by the Iraqi government to undermine the cleric's movement. Sadr had agreed to cooperate with the military offensive in Amarah as long as Iraqi soldiers did not indiscriminately target his followers without proper evidence and court-issued arrest warrants. Obaidi said the arrests violated the deal.
"In every province where a military operation takes place, the first to be targeted are the Sadrists," Obaidi said. "We are at a point where there is no longer a chance for negotiation, understanding or dialogue."
Special correspondents Saad al-Izzi and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad, Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
NYT : The ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire
By PATRICIA COHEN | July 3, 2008
MADISON, Wis. — When Michael Olneck was standing, arms linked with other protesters, singing “We Shall Not Be Moved” in front of Columbia University’s library in 1968, Sara Goldrick-Rab had not yet been born.
When he won tenure at the University of Wisconsin here in 1980, she was 3. And in January, when he retires at 62, Ms. Goldrick-Rab will be just across the hall, working to earn a permanent spot on the same faculty from which he is departing.
Together, these Midwestern academics, one leaving the professoriate and another working her way up, are part of a vast generational change that is likely to profoundly alter the culture at American universities and colleges over the next decade.
Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors who many of the nearly 50 academics interviewed by The New York Times believe are different from their predecessors — less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate.
“There’s definitely something happening,” said Peter W. Wood, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, which was created in 1987 to counter attacks on Western culture and values. “I hear from quite a few faculty members and graduate students from around the country. They are not really interested in fighting the battles that have been fought over the last 20 years.”
Individual colleges and organizations like the American Association of University Professors are already bracing for what has been labeled the graying of the faculty. More than 54 percent of full-time faculty members in the United States were older than 50 in 2005, compared with 22.5 percent in 1969. How many will actually retire in the next decade or so depends on personal preferences and health, as well as how their pensions fare in the financial markets.
Yet already there are signs that the intense passions and polemics that roiled campuses during the past couple of decades have begun to fade. At Stanford a divided anthropology department reunited last year after a bitter split in 1998 broke it into two entities, one focusing on culture, the other on biology. At Amherst, where military recruiters were kicked out in 1987, students crammed into a lecture hall this year to listen as alumni who served in Iraq urged them to join the military.
In general, information on professors’ political and ideological leanings tends to be scarce. But a new study of the social and political views of American professors by Neil Gross at the University of British Columbia and Solon Simmons at George Mason University found that the notion of a generational divide is more than a glancing impression. “Self-described liberals are most common within the ranks of those professors aged 50-64, who were teenagers or young adults in the 1960s,” they wrote, making up just under 50 percent. At the same time, the youngest group, ages 26 to 35, contains the highest percentage of moderates, some 60 percent, and the lowest percentage of liberals, just under a third.
When it comes to those who consider themselves “liberal activists,” 17.2 percent of the 50-64 age group take up the banner compared with only 1.3 percent of professors 35 and younger.
“These findings with regard to age provide further support for the idea that, in recent years, the trend has been toward increasing moderatism,” the study says.
The authors are not talking about a political realignment. Democrats continue to overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans among faculty, young and old. But as educators have noted, the generation coming up appears less interested in ideological confrontations, summoning Barack Obama’s statement about the elections of 2000 and 2004: “I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage.”
With more than 675,000 professors at the nation’s more than 4,100 four-year and two-year institutions, it is easy to find faculty members, young and old, who defy any mold. Still, this move to the middle is “certainly the conventional wisdom,” said Jack H. Schuster, who along with Martin J. Finkelstein, wrote “The American Faculty,” a comprehensive analysis of existing data on the profession. “The agenda is different now than what it had been.”
With previous battles already settled, like the creation of women’s and ethnic studies departments, moderation can be found at both ends of the political spectrum. David DesRosiers, executive director of the Veritas Fund for Higher Education Reform, which contributes to conservative activities on campuses, said impending retirements present an opportunity. However, he added, “we’re not looking for fights,” but rather “a civil dialogue.” His model? A seminar on great books at Princeton jointly taught by two philosophers, the left-wing Cornel West and the right-wing Robert P. George.
Changes in institutions of higher education themselves are reinforcing the generational shuffle. Health sciences, computer science, engineering and business — fields that have tended to attract a somewhat greater proportion of moderates and conservatives — have grown in importance and size compared with the more liberal social sciences and humanities, where many of the bitterest fights over curriculum and theory occurred.
At the same time, shrinking public resources overall and fewer tenure-track jobs in the humanities have pushed younger professors in those fields to concentrate more single-mindedly on their careers. Academia, once somewhat insulated from market pressures, is today treated like a business. This switch is a “major ideological and philosophical shift in how society views higher education,” Mr. Schuster and Mr. Finkelstein write in “The American Faculty.”
And with more women in the ranks (nearly 40 percent of the total in 2005 compared with 17.3 percent in 1969), different sorts of issues like family-friendly benefits have been brought to the table.
One way to understand the sense that a new mood is emerging on American campuses is to look at the difference between the world that existed when Mr. Olneck was making his way and the one in which Ms. Goldrick-Rab is coming up.
The ’60s Generation
Michael Olneck slides into a booth at Kabul Restaurant on State Street, a few steps from the sprawling Madison campus and its 41,000 students. “I was a pink-diaper baby,” he said pushing his bicycle helmet aside and smoothing the unruly strands of gray hair on his head.
His father was a Socialist. Right out of high school, in 1964, Mr. Olneck organized support for the Mississippi Project’s black voter-registration drives. Later, he took a bus to Washington to protest the war in Vietnam, served on the strike coordinating committee at Harvard during the American invasion of Cambodia in 1970 and demonstrated at President Nixon’s inauguration in 1973.
Similar events embedded themselves in the minds of many students at the time. A few blocks from the restaurant is a plaque commemorating protests that rattled the university in the 1960s and ’70s: the seizure of the student movement by radicals, the deadly bombing of a campus research lab, the clubbing of antiwar demonstrators.
Those sorts of experiences are alien to younger professors, Mr. Olneck explained, so “they may not be as instinctively anti-authoritarian; they just don’t have that in their background.”
The protests ultimately died down here and elsewhere. Mr. Olneck ended up in front of the class, and like many academics from his generation, he brought the same spirited questioning and conscience that had animated his student years to his job as an education and sociology professor.
Yet to some traditionalists, preoccupations like Mr. Olneck’s grated. The conservative philosopher Allan Bloom captured the bitter splits — better known as the culture wars — in his influential best seller “The Closing of the American Mind” in 1987. He detailed fights over the scarcity of women and people of color in the curriculum, the proliferation of pop-culture courses, doubts about the existence of any eternal truths and new theories that declared moral values to be merely an expression of power. These rancorous disputes often spilled into the nation’s political discourse.
When Mr. Olneck earned his degree, traditional views of American education were also being upended. Radical revisionists ridiculed the view of public education as a beneficent democratic project. They raised questions about equal access, how schools reinforced class differences, and whether social science should, or even could be free of ideology.
At the start of his career, Mr. Olneck traced the links between where someone’s family came from and where they ended up on the economic and social ladder. Although he has done quantitative research, 20 years ago he jettisoned number-centric studies for historical narrative, exploring how schools throughout the 20th century responded to immigrants and diversity. In his work one can detect some of the era’s preoccupations when he argues, for instance, that fights over bilingualism and standard English were about power.
The same goes for his extracurricular activities. In 1989 he worked to kick the R.O.T.C. off campus because of the Defense Department’s ban on homosexuals. (The effort failed.) More recently, his neighborhood was riled by a Walgreens plan to open a drugstore. “All these people who had protested the war and civil rights,” Mr. Olneck said, laughing; Walgreens “didn’t know what hit ’em.”
Last fall, he taught Race, Ethnicity and Inequality in American Education, which he introduces in the syllabus: “Schools in the United States promise equal opportunity. They have not kept that promise. In this course, we will try to find out why.” Like many sociologists and education researchers, Mr. Olneck said that today both the kinds of analyses and the theories that prevailed when he was in college have changed. Overarching narratives, societal critiques and clarion calls for change — of the capitalist system or the social structure — have gone out of style. Today, with advances in statistical methods, many sociologists have moved to model themselves on clinical researchers with large, randomized experiments as their gold standard. In their eyes, this more scientific approach is less explicitly ideological than other kinds of research.
Ms. Goldrick-Rab has embraced such experiments. A graduate course she created — partly based on her research of community colleges — focused on “educational opportunity and inequality” at community colleges, with an “emphasis on the critical evaluation and assessment of current up-to-date research.”
Another Wisconsin professor, Erik Olin Wright, a 61-year-old sociologist and a Marxist theorist, described it this way: “There has been some shift away from grand frameworks to more focused empirical questions.”
As for his own approach, Mr. Wright said, “in the late ’60s and ’70s, the Marxist impulse was central for those interested in social justice.” Now it resides at the margins.
A New Generation
“I was part of a new wave of hires,” Sara Goldrick-Rab said, peering over the top of her laptop at her favorite off-campus work site, the Espresso Royale cafe. She came to the University of Wisconsin in 2004 and, like Mr. Olneck, has a joint appointment in educational policy studies and sociology, both departments considered among the best in the country.
Now 31, she grew up in a Washington suburb, Fairfax, Va., when Ronald Reagan was in the White House and corporate mergers were the rage. At George Washington University she was active in a campaign to end the death penalty, but for most of her classmates the late 1990s were marked by economic growth, peace and student apathy.
“My generation is not so ideologically driven,” she said.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to engage a larger audience and influence policy. She considers herself the “intellectual heir” of her senior colleagues — “It’s like working with your grandparents,” she said fondly — and she cares deeply about educational inequality, often writing about the subject on a blog she created with her husband.
But she also is aware of differences between the generations.
A Sensibility Gap
“Senior people evaluate us for tenure and the standards they use and what we think is important are different,” she said. They want to question values and norms; “we are more driven by data.”
Her newest project is collaborating on what she calls the “first rigorous test in the country” to measure whether needs-based financial aid increases the chances that low-income students will graduate from college. It involves 42 colleges and 6,000 students, and will combine statistics with more in-depth interviews.
As for partisan politics, when she wrote an article in May for Pajamasmedia.com about welfare reform cutting off poor people’s access to higher education, some friends and co-workers were surprised by its appearance on that conservative blog. She said she didn’t know; she had not paid attention to its political bent.
When Ms. Goldrick-Rab speaks of added pressures on her generation, she talks about being pregnant or taking care of her 17-month-old while trying to earn tenure. The lack of paid leave for mothers is high on her list of complaints about university life.
At a conference titled “Generational Shockwaves,” sponsored in November by the TIAA-CREF Institute, Joan Girgus, a special assistant to the dean of faculty at Princeton, underscored how these sorts of concerns were increasingly on the minds of younger faculty members. Universities need to focus more on the “life” side of the work-life balance “because faculties historically were almost entirely male and the wives took care of the family side,” Ms. Girgus said. “I don’t think we can do that anymore.” Ask Ms. Goldrick-Rab if she believes there is a gap between her generation and the boomers, and she immediately answers yes.
Mr. Olneck and Mr. Wright are more cautious. “Some of my closest colleagues are 25 years younger than I am and I feel absolutely no barrier of sensibility,” Mr. Wright said.
For him, the institutional shifts outweigh any others: “I don’t think the big things have anything to do with generational change, but with financial pressures on education,” he said.
Wisconsin is part of the state’s university’s system, for example, but it receives only 18 percent of its total budget from the Legislature. The rest comes from donations, foundations, federal research grants and corporations. Mr. Wright and Mr. Olneck worry how constantly having a hand out — particularly to corporations — may affect attitudes and policies. Mr. Olneck mentioned the long list of labs and classrooms named after companies like Halliburton, Pillsbury and Ford Motor Company.
The market sensibility may account for what Mr. Olneck and others call an increasing careerism among junior faculty members. Jackson Lears, 62, a historian at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said, “I don’t think that necessarily means a move to the right, but a less overt stance of political engagement.”
Gerald Graff, president of the Modern Language Association and author of the 1992 book “Beyond the Culture Wars,” is more skeptical, saying he hasn’t seen evidence of change at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he teaches English. “You’d think that the further we get away from the ’60s, where a lot of our political attitudes are nurtured, there would be,” he said, “but I have to say it doesn’t seem to be happening.”
Certainly some disciplines, like literary studies, seem more resistant to change. Elsewhere, senior faculty members are more likely to hire young scholars in their own mold, while some baby boomers have adopted the attitudes and styles of their younger peers.
But as scholars across fields argue, the historical era in which a generation develops — the Depression, wartime or peaceful affluence — is a defining moment for its members. “My generational paradigm is the end of the cold war,” said Matthew Woessner, a 35-year-old conservative and political scientist at Penn State Harrisburg. He and his wife, April Kelly-Woessner, a political scientist at nearby Elizabethtown College who is a year younger and a moderate, have been analyzing faculty survey responses for a new book. The notion that campuses are naturally radical or the birthplace of social movements, Ms. Kelly-Woessner said, was specific to the 1960s and ’70s. “I think the younger generation does look at it differently.”
By PATRICIA COHEN | July 3, 2008
MADISON, Wis. — When Michael Olneck was standing, arms linked with other protesters, singing “We Shall Not Be Moved” in front of Columbia University’s library in 1968, Sara Goldrick-Rab had not yet been born.
When he won tenure at the University of Wisconsin here in 1980, she was 3. And in January, when he retires at 62, Ms. Goldrick-Rab will be just across the hall, working to earn a permanent spot on the same faculty from which he is departing.
Together, these Midwestern academics, one leaving the professoriate and another working her way up, are part of a vast generational change that is likely to profoundly alter the culture at American universities and colleges over the next decade.
Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors who many of the nearly 50 academics interviewed by The New York Times believe are different from their predecessors — less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate.
“There’s definitely something happening,” said Peter W. Wood, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, which was created in 1987 to counter attacks on Western culture and values. “I hear from quite a few faculty members and graduate students from around the country. They are not really interested in fighting the battles that have been fought over the last 20 years.”
Individual colleges and organizations like the American Association of University Professors are already bracing for what has been labeled the graying of the faculty. More than 54 percent of full-time faculty members in the United States were older than 50 in 2005, compared with 22.5 percent in 1969. How many will actually retire in the next decade or so depends on personal preferences and health, as well as how their pensions fare in the financial markets.
Yet already there are signs that the intense passions and polemics that roiled campuses during the past couple of decades have begun to fade. At Stanford a divided anthropology department reunited last year after a bitter split in 1998 broke it into two entities, one focusing on culture, the other on biology. At Amherst, where military recruiters were kicked out in 1987, students crammed into a lecture hall this year to listen as alumni who served in Iraq urged them to join the military.
In general, information on professors’ political and ideological leanings tends to be scarce. But a new study of the social and political views of American professors by Neil Gross at the University of British Columbia and Solon Simmons at George Mason University found that the notion of a generational divide is more than a glancing impression. “Self-described liberals are most common within the ranks of those professors aged 50-64, who were teenagers or young adults in the 1960s,” they wrote, making up just under 50 percent. At the same time, the youngest group, ages 26 to 35, contains the highest percentage of moderates, some 60 percent, and the lowest percentage of liberals, just under a third.
When it comes to those who consider themselves “liberal activists,” 17.2 percent of the 50-64 age group take up the banner compared with only 1.3 percent of professors 35 and younger.
“These findings with regard to age provide further support for the idea that, in recent years, the trend has been toward increasing moderatism,” the study says.
The authors are not talking about a political realignment. Democrats continue to overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans among faculty, young and old. But as educators have noted, the generation coming up appears less interested in ideological confrontations, summoning Barack Obama’s statement about the elections of 2000 and 2004: “I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage.”
With more than 675,000 professors at the nation’s more than 4,100 four-year and two-year institutions, it is easy to find faculty members, young and old, who defy any mold. Still, this move to the middle is “certainly the conventional wisdom,” said Jack H. Schuster, who along with Martin J. Finkelstein, wrote “The American Faculty,” a comprehensive analysis of existing data on the profession. “The agenda is different now than what it had been.”
With previous battles already settled, like the creation of women’s and ethnic studies departments, moderation can be found at both ends of the political spectrum. David DesRosiers, executive director of the Veritas Fund for Higher Education Reform, which contributes to conservative activities on campuses, said impending retirements present an opportunity. However, he added, “we’re not looking for fights,” but rather “a civil dialogue.” His model? A seminar on great books at Princeton jointly taught by two philosophers, the left-wing Cornel West and the right-wing Robert P. George.
Changes in institutions of higher education themselves are reinforcing the generational shuffle. Health sciences, computer science, engineering and business — fields that have tended to attract a somewhat greater proportion of moderates and conservatives — have grown in importance and size compared with the more liberal social sciences and humanities, where many of the bitterest fights over curriculum and theory occurred.
At the same time, shrinking public resources overall and fewer tenure-track jobs in the humanities have pushed younger professors in those fields to concentrate more single-mindedly on their careers. Academia, once somewhat insulated from market pressures, is today treated like a business. This switch is a “major ideological and philosophical shift in how society views higher education,” Mr. Schuster and Mr. Finkelstein write in “The American Faculty.”
And with more women in the ranks (nearly 40 percent of the total in 2005 compared with 17.3 percent in 1969), different sorts of issues like family-friendly benefits have been brought to the table.
One way to understand the sense that a new mood is emerging on American campuses is to look at the difference between the world that existed when Mr. Olneck was making his way and the one in which Ms. Goldrick-Rab is coming up.
The ’60s Generation
Michael Olneck slides into a booth at Kabul Restaurant on State Street, a few steps from the sprawling Madison campus and its 41,000 students. “I was a pink-diaper baby,” he said pushing his bicycle helmet aside and smoothing the unruly strands of gray hair on his head.
His father was a Socialist. Right out of high school, in 1964, Mr. Olneck organized support for the Mississippi Project’s black voter-registration drives. Later, he took a bus to Washington to protest the war in Vietnam, served on the strike coordinating committee at Harvard during the American invasion of Cambodia in 1970 and demonstrated at President Nixon’s inauguration in 1973.
Similar events embedded themselves in the minds of many students at the time. A few blocks from the restaurant is a plaque commemorating protests that rattled the university in the 1960s and ’70s: the seizure of the student movement by radicals, the deadly bombing of a campus research lab, the clubbing of antiwar demonstrators.
Those sorts of experiences are alien to younger professors, Mr. Olneck explained, so “they may not be as instinctively anti-authoritarian; they just don’t have that in their background.”
The protests ultimately died down here and elsewhere. Mr. Olneck ended up in front of the class, and like many academics from his generation, he brought the same spirited questioning and conscience that had animated his student years to his job as an education and sociology professor.
Yet to some traditionalists, preoccupations like Mr. Olneck’s grated. The conservative philosopher Allan Bloom captured the bitter splits — better known as the culture wars — in his influential best seller “The Closing of the American Mind” in 1987. He detailed fights over the scarcity of women and people of color in the curriculum, the proliferation of pop-culture courses, doubts about the existence of any eternal truths and new theories that declared moral values to be merely an expression of power. These rancorous disputes often spilled into the nation’s political discourse.
When Mr. Olneck earned his degree, traditional views of American education were also being upended. Radical revisionists ridiculed the view of public education as a beneficent democratic project. They raised questions about equal access, how schools reinforced class differences, and whether social science should, or even could be free of ideology.
At the start of his career, Mr. Olneck traced the links between where someone’s family came from and where they ended up on the economic and social ladder. Although he has done quantitative research, 20 years ago he jettisoned number-centric studies for historical narrative, exploring how schools throughout the 20th century responded to immigrants and diversity. In his work one can detect some of the era’s preoccupations when he argues, for instance, that fights over bilingualism and standard English were about power.
The same goes for his extracurricular activities. In 1989 he worked to kick the R.O.T.C. off campus because of the Defense Department’s ban on homosexuals. (The effort failed.) More recently, his neighborhood was riled by a Walgreens plan to open a drugstore. “All these people who had protested the war and civil rights,” Mr. Olneck said, laughing; Walgreens “didn’t know what hit ’em.”
Last fall, he taught Race, Ethnicity and Inequality in American Education, which he introduces in the syllabus: “Schools in the United States promise equal opportunity. They have not kept that promise. In this course, we will try to find out why.” Like many sociologists and education researchers, Mr. Olneck said that today both the kinds of analyses and the theories that prevailed when he was in college have changed. Overarching narratives, societal critiques and clarion calls for change — of the capitalist system or the social structure — have gone out of style. Today, with advances in statistical methods, many sociologists have moved to model themselves on clinical researchers with large, randomized experiments as their gold standard. In their eyes, this more scientific approach is less explicitly ideological than other kinds of research.
Ms. Goldrick-Rab has embraced such experiments. A graduate course she created — partly based on her research of community colleges — focused on “educational opportunity and inequality” at community colleges, with an “emphasis on the critical evaluation and assessment of current up-to-date research.”
Another Wisconsin professor, Erik Olin Wright, a 61-year-old sociologist and a Marxist theorist, described it this way: “There has been some shift away from grand frameworks to more focused empirical questions.”
As for his own approach, Mr. Wright said, “in the late ’60s and ’70s, the Marxist impulse was central for those interested in social justice.” Now it resides at the margins.
A New Generation
“I was part of a new wave of hires,” Sara Goldrick-Rab said, peering over the top of her laptop at her favorite off-campus work site, the Espresso Royale cafe. She came to the University of Wisconsin in 2004 and, like Mr. Olneck, has a joint appointment in educational policy studies and sociology, both departments considered among the best in the country.
Now 31, she grew up in a Washington suburb, Fairfax, Va., when Ronald Reagan was in the White House and corporate mergers were the rage. At George Washington University she was active in a campaign to end the death penalty, but for most of her classmates the late 1990s were marked by economic growth, peace and student apathy.
“My generation is not so ideologically driven,” she said.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to engage a larger audience and influence policy. She considers herself the “intellectual heir” of her senior colleagues — “It’s like working with your grandparents,” she said fondly — and she cares deeply about educational inequality, often writing about the subject on a blog she created with her husband.
But she also is aware of differences between the generations.
A Sensibility Gap
“Senior people evaluate us for tenure and the standards they use and what we think is important are different,” she said. They want to question values and norms; “we are more driven by data.”
Her newest project is collaborating on what she calls the “first rigorous test in the country” to measure whether needs-based financial aid increases the chances that low-income students will graduate from college. It involves 42 colleges and 6,000 students, and will combine statistics with more in-depth interviews.
As for partisan politics, when she wrote an article in May for Pajamasmedia.com about welfare reform cutting off poor people’s access to higher education, some friends and co-workers were surprised by its appearance on that conservative blog. She said she didn’t know; she had not paid attention to its political bent.
When Ms. Goldrick-Rab speaks of added pressures on her generation, she talks about being pregnant or taking care of her 17-month-old while trying to earn tenure. The lack of paid leave for mothers is high on her list of complaints about university life.
At a conference titled “Generational Shockwaves,” sponsored in November by the TIAA-CREF Institute, Joan Girgus, a special assistant to the dean of faculty at Princeton, underscored how these sorts of concerns were increasingly on the minds of younger faculty members. Universities need to focus more on the “life” side of the work-life balance “because faculties historically were almost entirely male and the wives took care of the family side,” Ms. Girgus said. “I don’t think we can do that anymore.” Ask Ms. Goldrick-Rab if she believes there is a gap between her generation and the boomers, and she immediately answers yes.
Mr. Olneck and Mr. Wright are more cautious. “Some of my closest colleagues are 25 years younger than I am and I feel absolutely no barrier of sensibility,” Mr. Wright said.
For him, the institutional shifts outweigh any others: “I don’t think the big things have anything to do with generational change, but with financial pressures on education,” he said.
Wisconsin is part of the state’s university’s system, for example, but it receives only 18 percent of its total budget from the Legislature. The rest comes from donations, foundations, federal research grants and corporations. Mr. Wright and Mr. Olneck worry how constantly having a hand out — particularly to corporations — may affect attitudes and policies. Mr. Olneck mentioned the long list of labs and classrooms named after companies like Halliburton, Pillsbury and Ford Motor Company.
The market sensibility may account for what Mr. Olneck and others call an increasing careerism among junior faculty members. Jackson Lears, 62, a historian at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said, “I don’t think that necessarily means a move to the right, but a less overt stance of political engagement.”
Gerald Graff, president of the Modern Language Association and author of the 1992 book “Beyond the Culture Wars,” is more skeptical, saying he hasn’t seen evidence of change at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he teaches English. “You’d think that the further we get away from the ’60s, where a lot of our political attitudes are nurtured, there would be,” he said, “but I have to say it doesn’t seem to be happening.”
Certainly some disciplines, like literary studies, seem more resistant to change. Elsewhere, senior faculty members are more likely to hire young scholars in their own mold, while some baby boomers have adopted the attitudes and styles of their younger peers.
But as scholars across fields argue, the historical era in which a generation develops — the Depression, wartime or peaceful affluence — is a defining moment for its members. “My generational paradigm is the end of the cold war,” said Matthew Woessner, a 35-year-old conservative and political scientist at Penn State Harrisburg. He and his wife, April Kelly-Woessner, a political scientist at nearby Elizabethtown College who is a year younger and a moderate, have been analyzing faculty survey responses for a new book. The notion that campuses are naturally radical or the birthplace of social movements, Ms. Kelly-Woessner said, was specific to the 1960s and ’70s. “I think the younger generation does look at it differently.”
Filed under
education,
liberal media,
politics
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, July 03, 2008
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WaPo : Pentagon Fights EPA On Pollution Cleanup
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Pentagon Fights EPA On Pollution Cleanup
By Lyndsey Layton | Washington Post Staff Writer | June 30, 2008
The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment.
The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed.
The actions are part of a standoff between the Pentagon and environmental regulators that has been building during the Bush administration, leaving the EPA in a legal limbo as it addresses growing concerns about contaminants on military bases that are seeping into drinking water aquifers and soil.
Under executive branch policy, the EPA will not sue the Pentagon, as it would a private polluter. Although the law gives final say to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson in cleanup disputes with other federal agencies, the Pentagon refuses to recognize that provision. Military officials wrote to the Justice Department last month to challenge EPA's authority to issue the orders and asked the Office of Management and Budget to intervene.
Experts in environmental law said the Pentagon's stand is unprecedented.
"This is stunning," said Rena Steinzor, who helped write the Superfund laws as a congressional staffer and now teaches at the University of Maryland Law School and is president of the nonprofit Center for Progressive Reform. "The idea that they would refuse to sign a final order -- that is the height of amazing nerve."
Pentagon officials say they are voluntarily cleaning up the three sites named in the EPA's "final orders" -- Fort Meade in Maryland, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.
Fort Meade borders residential areas in fast-growing Anne Arundel County; Tyndall and McGuire are in less-populated regions. At all three sites, the military has released toxic chemicals -- some known to cause cancer and other serious health problems -- into the soil and groundwater.
But the EPA has been dissatisfied with the extent and progress of the Pentagon's voluntary efforts.
"Final orders" are the EPA's most potent enforcement tool. If a polluter does not comply, the agency usually can go to court to force compliance and impose fines up to $28,000 a day for each violation.
Cleanup agreements drafted by the EPA for the 12 other sites contain "extensive provisions" that the Pentagon finds unacceptable, officials said.
Congress established the Superfund program in 1980 to clean up the country's most contaminated places, and of the 1,255 sites on the list the Pentagon owns 129 -- the most of any entity. Other federal agencies with properties on the list include NASA and the Energy Department, but they have signed EPA cleanup agreements without protest.
The law was amended in 1986 to stipulate that polluting government agencies should be treated the same as any private entity. During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush pledged to direct all federal facilities to comply with environmental laws and "make them accountable."
In dealing with cleanup efforts, some military branches have been more cooperative than others. The Navy has signed cleanup agreements for all of its Superfund sites, whereas the Air Force has not signed one in 14 years.
But Superfund sites are only one aspect of the Pentagon's environmental problems. It has about 25,000 contaminated properties in all 50 states, and it will cost billions and take decades to clean them up. The Pentagon has a tremendous financial stake in not only how the sites are cleaned but also in which chemicals the government characterizes as toxic.
Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is investigating the Pentagon's compliance with environmental regulation. He said it is evading the law through political maneuvers.
"I find it troubling, not only that the Department of Defense is in flagrant violation of final orders issued by the EPA, but that DOD is now attempting to circumvent the law and Congress' intent by calling on the Department of Justice and the Office of Management and the Budget to intervene," he said in a statement. "The EPA is the expert agency charged by Congress with enforcing our environmental laws, and the Administration needs to allow them to do their job to protect the public health and safety."
EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith said final orders were issued because the agency is worried about drinking water and soil contamination at Fort Meade, Tyndall and McGuire. "Under DOD's management, some of these sites have languished for years, with limited or no cleanup underway," she said.
Other examples of Pentagon resistance to the EPA include its successful effort this year to get greater influence in the process the agency uses to analyze the risks of industrial chemicals. Congressional Democrats, environmental groups and the Government Accountability Office have criticized the change.
The Pentagon has also fought EPA efforts to set new pollution standards on two toxic chemicals widely found on military sites: perchlorate, found in propellant for rockets and missiles, and trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreaser for metal parts.
TCE is the most widespread water contaminant in the country, seeping into aquifers across California, New York, Texas, Florida and elsewhere.
More than 1,000 military sites are contaminated with TCE.
In the late 1990s, EPA scientists found TCE to be much more toxic than earlier believed. In 2001, the EPA prepared tougher new drinking-water standards for TCE to limit human exposure, but the Pentagon challenged those standards and took its case to the White House. The process ground to a halt; seven years later, the EPA still has not issued new TCE limits.
Since Bush took office, one military site has been added to the Superfund list -- the Navy bombing range at Vieques Island, off Puerto Rico.
The site was added after the Puerto Rican governor exercised a federal statute to force its placement on the list.
Maryland has been pushing the EPA to add Fort Detrick in Frederick County to the Superfund list. This month, the state sent a forceful letter to the EPA, suggesting it would follow Puerto Rico's strategy. On Thursday, the EPA informed Maryland that in September it will recommend Fort Detrick be added.
Shari T. Wilson, Maryland's secretary of the environment, said the state needs the Superfund designation because of the Army's erratic efforts to clean up Fort Detrick, which for decades served as the service's center for development of chemical and biological weapons. She said the state wants an independent agency that is focused on public health to oversee the effort and hold the Pentagon accountable.
In 1992, the state found chemical contamination in private wells just outside Fort Detrick. Under a voluntary agreement with the state, the Army removed chemical-soaked earth and rusting drums filled with toxins, set up monitoring wells and connected nearby residents to the city water supply.
Two years later, TCE was detected in a spring outside the base -- the first time it was noticed beyond the facility's boundaries. State officials say that the presence of TCE in the aquifer is a serious concern but that they do not think the contamination poses an immediate health threat.
For nearly 10 years, Maryland has asked the Pentagon to analyze the extent and spread of groundwater contamination, a study that will happen as a matter of course if it is added to the Superfund list.
"It's frustrating," Wilson said. "We need to move ahead and take the steps necessary to ensure for the public the groundwater is protected."
By Lyndsey Layton | Washington Post Staff Writer | June 30, 2008
The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose "imminent and substantial" dangers to public health and the environment.
The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. The contracts would spell out a remediation plan, set schedules, and allow the EPA to oversee the work and assess penalties if milestones are missed.
The actions are part of a standoff between the Pentagon and environmental regulators that has been building during the Bush administration, leaving the EPA in a legal limbo as it addresses growing concerns about contaminants on military bases that are seeping into drinking water aquifers and soil.
Under executive branch policy, the EPA will not sue the Pentagon, as it would a private polluter. Although the law gives final say to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson in cleanup disputes with other federal agencies, the Pentagon refuses to recognize that provision. Military officials wrote to the Justice Department last month to challenge EPA's authority to issue the orders and asked the Office of Management and Budget to intervene.
Experts in environmental law said the Pentagon's stand is unprecedented.
"This is stunning," said Rena Steinzor, who helped write the Superfund laws as a congressional staffer and now teaches at the University of Maryland Law School and is president of the nonprofit Center for Progressive Reform. "The idea that they would refuse to sign a final order -- that is the height of amazing nerve."
Pentagon officials say they are voluntarily cleaning up the three sites named in the EPA's "final orders" -- Fort Meade in Maryland, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.
Fort Meade borders residential areas in fast-growing Anne Arundel County; Tyndall and McGuire are in less-populated regions. At all three sites, the military has released toxic chemicals -- some known to cause cancer and other serious health problems -- into the soil and groundwater.
But the EPA has been dissatisfied with the extent and progress of the Pentagon's voluntary efforts.
"Final orders" are the EPA's most potent enforcement tool. If a polluter does not comply, the agency usually can go to court to force compliance and impose fines up to $28,000 a day for each violation.
Cleanup agreements drafted by the EPA for the 12 other sites contain "extensive provisions" that the Pentagon finds unacceptable, officials said.
Congress established the Superfund program in 1980 to clean up the country's most contaminated places, and of the 1,255 sites on the list the Pentagon owns 129 -- the most of any entity. Other federal agencies with properties on the list include NASA and the Energy Department, but they have signed EPA cleanup agreements without protest.
The law was amended in 1986 to stipulate that polluting government agencies should be treated the same as any private entity. During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush pledged to direct all federal facilities to comply with environmental laws and "make them accountable."
In dealing with cleanup efforts, some military branches have been more cooperative than others. The Navy has signed cleanup agreements for all of its Superfund sites, whereas the Air Force has not signed one in 14 years.
But Superfund sites are only one aspect of the Pentagon's environmental problems. It has about 25,000 contaminated properties in all 50 states, and it will cost billions and take decades to clean them up. The Pentagon has a tremendous financial stake in not only how the sites are cleaned but also in which chemicals the government characterizes as toxic.
Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is investigating the Pentagon's compliance with environmental regulation. He said it is evading the law through political maneuvers.
"I find it troubling, not only that the Department of Defense is in flagrant violation of final orders issued by the EPA, but that DOD is now attempting to circumvent the law and Congress' intent by calling on the Department of Justice and the Office of Management and the Budget to intervene," he said in a statement. "The EPA is the expert agency charged by Congress with enforcing our environmental laws, and the Administration needs to allow them to do their job to protect the public health and safety."
EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith said final orders were issued because the agency is worried about drinking water and soil contamination at Fort Meade, Tyndall and McGuire. "Under DOD's management, some of these sites have languished for years, with limited or no cleanup underway," she said.
Other examples of Pentagon resistance to the EPA include its successful effort this year to get greater influence in the process the agency uses to analyze the risks of industrial chemicals. Congressional Democrats, environmental groups and the Government Accountability Office have criticized the change.
The Pentagon has also fought EPA efforts to set new pollution standards on two toxic chemicals widely found on military sites: perchlorate, found in propellant for rockets and missiles, and trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreaser for metal parts.
TCE is the most widespread water contaminant in the country, seeping into aquifers across California, New York, Texas, Florida and elsewhere.
More than 1,000 military sites are contaminated with TCE.
In the late 1990s, EPA scientists found TCE to be much more toxic than earlier believed. In 2001, the EPA prepared tougher new drinking-water standards for TCE to limit human exposure, but the Pentagon challenged those standards and took its case to the White House. The process ground to a halt; seven years later, the EPA still has not issued new TCE limits.
Since Bush took office, one military site has been added to the Superfund list -- the Navy bombing range at Vieques Island, off Puerto Rico.
The site was added after the Puerto Rican governor exercised a federal statute to force its placement on the list.
Maryland has been pushing the EPA to add Fort Detrick in Frederick County to the Superfund list. This month, the state sent a forceful letter to the EPA, suggesting it would follow Puerto Rico's strategy. On Thursday, the EPA informed Maryland that in September it will recommend Fort Detrick be added.
Shari T. Wilson, Maryland's secretary of the environment, said the state needs the Superfund designation because of the Army's erratic efforts to clean up Fort Detrick, which for decades served as the service's center for development of chemical and biological weapons. She said the state wants an independent agency that is focused on public health to oversee the effort and hold the Pentagon accountable.
In 1992, the state found chemical contamination in private wells just outside Fort Detrick. Under a voluntary agreement with the state, the Army removed chemical-soaked earth and rusting drums filled with toxins, set up monitoring wells and connected nearby residents to the city water supply.
Two years later, TCE was detected in a spring outside the base -- the first time it was noticed beyond the facility's boundaries. State officials say that the presence of TCE in the aquifer is a serious concern but that they do not think the contamination poses an immediate health threat.
For nearly 10 years, Maryland has asked the Pentagon to analyze the extent and spread of groundwater contamination, a study that will happen as a matter of course if it is added to the Superfund list.
"It's frustrating," Wilson said. "We need to move ahead and take the steps necessary to ensure for the public the groundwater is protected."
Filed under
EPA,
pentagon,
pollution,
toxic waste
by Winter Patriot
on Wednesday, July 02, 2008
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Chicago Sun-Times : "Home-grown" terrorists sprung from FBI snitch garden
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
"Home-grown" terrorists sprung from FBI snitch garden
June 15, 2008
A guilty verdict in Ohio this week is being hailed as the first successful prosecution by the feds of a "home grown" terrorist cell in the United States, and so it is. That observation [raises] the question, though: Who grew it?
Law enforcement justifies its employment of criminals as "snitches" with the claim that frequently there's no other way to solve a crime, which is true enough. But in some instances, informants themselves may generate more crime than they're stopping. The latest example of that phenomenon comes from the "War on Terror," where an FBI informant recruited and trained alleged terrorists for the Justice Department to prosecute. According to an AP report in the International Herald Tribune ("Defense attorney says FBI informant manipulated meetings with 3 charged in US terrorism plot," June 10):
Mr. Griffin introduced the defendants, and he was the one who would "get them together to train." He wasn't informing on the group, by this account, he was leading it! Perhaps it's true he's "not that bright," as the prosecutor said, but it's a good bet his FBI handlers are.
The FBI, readers will recall, last year refused to reassure Congress that they do not tolerate "serious violent felonies" by their informants. That seemed like a surprising revelation at the time, but if the FBI is sending out informants who're charged with independently recruiting and training terrorists, the policy of tolerating "serious violent felonies" makes a certain perverse sense, though it's hard to see a valid public safety argument for the approach.
During the '60s and '70s the FBI used famously used spies and provocateurs to counter domestic anti-war and civil rights protesters, with informants even rising to relatively high-profile positions in the movement. The US Senate's Church Committee in 1976 studied the use of informants in counterintelligence and raised:
Most reasonable people would agree the world would be a better place if these three extremists had never met and never been trained in weapons and explosives. So why did the FBI pay an informant for two years to recruit and train them?
June 15, 2008
A guilty verdict in Ohio this week is being hailed as the first successful prosecution by the feds of a "home grown" terrorist cell in the United States, and so it is. That observation [raises] the question, though: Who grew it?
Law enforcement justifies its employment of criminals as "snitches" with the claim that frequently there's no other way to solve a crime, which is true enough. But in some instances, informants themselves may generate more crime than they're stopping. The latest example of that phenomenon comes from the "War on Terror," where an FBI informant recruited and trained alleged terrorists for the Justice Department to prosecute. According to an AP report in the International Herald Tribune ("Defense attorney says FBI informant manipulated meetings with 3 charged in US terrorism plot," June 10):
Three men accused of plotting to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq never would have met if it were not for an FBI informant who lied to create the illusion of a conspiracy, an attorney for one of the defendants said Tuesday during closing arguments in the men's trial.Having not heard the other facts in the case, I can't judge the defendants' guilt or innocence from afar and don't mean to second-guess the jury. But one can certainly judge the wisdom, or the lack thereof, of a paid FBI informant recruiting and training people not otherwise involved in any ongoing criminal enterprise to plan to commit violence.
The informant, former U.S. Army soldier Darren Griffin, initiated conversations about training for a holy war and arranged meetings between the defendants, attorney Stephen Hartman told jurors.
"He admitted he brought these men together," Hartman said. "It was his idea."
Griffin was the key witness against the three — Mohammad Amawi, Marwan El-Hindi and Wassim Mazloum — who have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to kill or maim people outside the United States. They face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.
Jurors on Wednesday will begin deciding the case that began on April 1.
Griffin testified that he won the trust of the men by posing as a disgruntled soldier who converted to Islam. He secretly recorded his conversations with them for about two years until they were arrested in 2006.
At one point, Griffin told an FBI agent that he would meet with the men and "get them together to train," according to a transcript of the conversation.
Hartman said it was clear that Griffin manipulated the defendants and pointed out that investigators arrested them even though they found no guns, explosives or targets.
"He admitted he was fishing. Is that how we do things here now?" said Hartman, who represents El-Hindi. "This case is remarkable for what's not there."
The trial, he said, says a lot about how the government treats Muslims in America since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
All three defendants are Muslim and have ties to the Middle East. All are U.S. citizens except Mazloum, who came to the U.S. legally from Lebanon. El-Hindi was born in Jordan. Amawi was born in the United States but also has Jordanian citizenship.
Justice Department attorney Gregg Sofer scoffed at the notion that Griffin orchestrated the investigation and coerced the defendants. "Darren Griffin isn't that bright," Sofer said Tuesday.
Prosecutors said last week that the three men had been actively planning to recruit and train terrorists while also learning to shoot guns and make bombs. It should not matter that they did not carry out any attacks, Sofer said.
Mr. Griffin introduced the defendants, and he was the one who would "get them together to train." He wasn't informing on the group, by this account, he was leading it! Perhaps it's true he's "not that bright," as the prosecutor said, but it's a good bet his FBI handlers are.
The FBI, readers will recall, last year refused to reassure Congress that they do not tolerate "serious violent felonies" by their informants. That seemed like a surprising revelation at the time, but if the FBI is sending out informants who're charged with independently recruiting and training terrorists, the policy of tolerating "serious violent felonies" makes a certain perverse sense, though it's hard to see a valid public safety argument for the approach.
During the '60s and '70s the FBI used famously used spies and provocateurs to counter domestic anti-war and civil rights protesters, with informants even rising to relatively high-profile positions in the movement. The US Senate's Church Committee in 1976 studied the use of informants in counterintelligence and raised:
the issue of an informant's conduct and behavior. The Committee heard testimony on the difficulties inherent in an informant reporting on violent and criminal activity. To be in a position to report, the informant may have to participate in the unlawful activity to some degree. As one FBI handling agent testified of an informant in a violence-prone element of the Ku Klux Klan, "he couldn't be an angel and be a good informant." Where such an informant is paid and directed by the FBI, the Government may be placed in the at least unseemly posture of involvement through its agents in the activity it is seeking to prevent. At the extreme, the Government's informant may be held to have acted as an agent provocateur, that is, an agent of the Government who has provoked illegal or violent activity.That appears to be at least to some extent what happened in this case, with the informant instigating and encouraging illegal activity instead of merely ratting out others.
Most reasonable people would agree the world would be a better place if these three extremists had never met and never been trained in weapons and explosives. So why did the FBI pay an informant for two years to recruit and train them?
Filed under
entrapment,
FBI,
homegrown terrorism,
Marwan el-Hindi,
Mohammad Amawi,
Wassim Mazloum
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, July 01, 2008
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