Moderate Voters.org

Obvious Question in Plame Case Had Early Answer.

Tom Hamburger & Richard T. Cooper, Los Angeles Times:

Almost three years ago, as Patrick J. Fitzgerald settled in as the newly appointed special counsel in charge of the Valerie Plame leak investigation, he learned a startling secret.
Washington was ablaze with speculation about who had revealed Plame's identity as a covert CIA officer to syndicated columnist Robert Novak; senior White House officials were considered the likely culprits. But Fitzgerald, reading FBI reports just after taking charge, learned that federal investigators already knew Novak's primary source — a gossipy State Department official who seemed to have strained relations with the White House.
So if the mystery was already solved, why did Fitzgerald's investigation continue for almost 36 more months? Why does I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, still face criminal charges in connection with the Plame leak? And why were other senior officials left twisting in the wind, facing possible indictment?
Such questions are at the heart of a furor that erupted late last month after the revelation that several months after Novak's column naming Plame appeared in July 2003, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage had informed his superiors — and then the Justice Department, which was investigating the leak — that he had been Novak's primary source. Armitage's reasons for talking to Novak remain unclear. He was known for his skepticism on some aspects of President Bush's Iraq war strategy, but also for his penchant to gossip.
Did the special counsel, operating behind the veil of secrecy of all such inquiries, abuse his authority in a witch hunt?
The discovery of Armitage's role — and the fact that it had been known to investigators so early — is stirring administration defenders to fury.
Yet the information on Armitage — first revealed in a new book — along with court filings and interviews with former White House staffers and others familiar with the inquiry, suggest Fitzgerald pressed ahead because he learned quickly that Armitage was not alone in discussing Plame with reporters. Top White House officials had talked about her as well.
Early on, the prosecutor learned that Rove may have been a corroborating source for the information Armitage provided to Novak. That fact alone would have compelled the special counsel to push on with the investigation, in the view of some experts.

Senate Finds No Al-Qaida-Saddam Link.

Associated Press:

Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.

The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, President Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."

Iraq Post-War Plan Muzzled.

Fascinating article about Iraq pre-war planning.

Stephanie Heinatz, Daily Press:

Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq.

Scheid, who is also the commander of Fort Eustis in Newport News, made his comments in an interview with the Daily Press. He retires in about three weeks.

On Sept. 10, 2001, he was selected to be the chief of logistics war plans.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he said, "life just went to hell."

That day, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, told his planners, including Scheid, to "get ready to go to war."

A day or two later, Rumsfeld was "telling us we were going to war in Afghanistan and to start building the war plan. We were going to go fast.

"Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan ... Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq."

Clarification of the Huge Chevron Gulf Oil Discovery.

Randy Kirk, Energy Bulletin:

The September 5th announcement by Chevron and Devon and Statoil of the huge Gulf of Mexico discovery should be clarified. The announcement claims that the discovery could increase US proven reserves of oil by as much as 50%. However, the total amounts are highly speculative.

The range of amount -- from 3 billion to 15 billion (in itself a huge range -- reserves of Exxon Mobile are around 14 billion barrels total) is comprised of no single field of more than 300 million barrels. An entire area of as much as 15 billion barrels with no "giant" over 1 Bn bar oil field is unusual.

The area is very deep: 7000 feet of seawater and a further 20,000 feet below the ground. That is about 3 miles below the surface, in 1+ miles of deep water. The normal time to accurately estimate oil and gas field size is months. These fields are more challenging because of the extreme depths. It is therefore likely that very little is known with certainty about the potential reserves from a geological standpoint.

The wells are located in deep water and will not be served by underground GOM pipelines. The oil will be pumped directly to tankers. Pipelines are faster and more efficient, and tankers will put a higher price and limited the amount of oil pumped out.

The wells are most likely mainly natural gas, as they are very deep. All estimates are in barrels of oil equivalent. Oil tends to form closer to the surface, gas deeper. Therefore the discovery is likely to impact natural gas markets, not oil, if the gas exists in meaningful quantities.

The US Senate is weeks away from voting on the lifting of the 25-year ban on offshore drilling off the majority of the coasts in the US. This offshore drilling bill was approved in the Congress but political analysts believe the bill will face more opposition in the Senate. The oil industry stands to make high profits if Congress will open up Florida and the Offshore East coast to drilling. To date the offshore drilling bill has not been approved by both houses because of environmental interests. A large potential oil “discovery” in the Gulf would provide evidence that the passing of the offshore oil bill would be beneficial.

The announcement is reminiscent of the Mexican "huge oil discovery" announced last year, of a possible 10 billion barrels, which was quietly revised this year to around 43 million barrels, a downward revision of 99.57%. This similar "discovery" was made in Mexico last year a few months before the Mexican parliament was to vote on Pemex (state oil co)'s budget and rights to expand drilling. This illustrates the potential political pressure to announce oil and gas discoveries.

A New Issue in the Election Mix.

Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times:

When President Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to quickly provide him new legal authority to bring suspected terrorists to trial, he may have answered a political riddle: What issue would Republicans use to sharpen their contrasts with Democrats over national security in the approaching midterm election?

Bush's challenge to lawmakers could reshape the legislative landscape on the question of trying terrorists and inject a volatile dispute into the 2006 election, analysts say.

The Supreme Court in June forced Bush to seek a new legislative framework for trying suspected terrorists when it threw out as unconstitutional the military commission system he had established.

Until now, the dispute over establishing a system to replace the military commissions has not generated much attention outside of legal circles.

But several analysts said Bush emphatically changed that dynamic Wednesday by announcing that he had moved 14 high-profile detainees to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — and declaring that he intended to bring them to trial as quickly as Congress approved new rules.

By linking the trial of key figures suspected in the Sept. 11 attacks to agreement on a new legal structure, Bush's announcement is likely to increase the pressure on Congress.

Bush also may be establishing a line of contrast with Democrats. Many Democrats believe that by heightening the focus on the detainee trial issue two months before the midterm congressional election, the president may be seeking to replicate a successful GOP strategy from the 2002 campaign.

CIA Can Still Get Tough on Detainees.

Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times:

New U.S. policies on the treatment and interrogation of terrorism suspects outlined this week by the Bush administration mean that the military no longer will resort to harsh or extreme methods to obtain information — but that the CIA could.

The new administration approach, first presented by President Bush in a speech Wednesday and detailed later by administration and military officials, followed an internal administration debate over the question of how best to extract intelligence from the most notorious suspects apprehended in the war on terrorism.

But by assigning the CIA to use tough, undefined methods on some detainees, the policy outlined by Bush may raise new questions about U.S. procedures and invite more criticism from human rights advocates and allies.

For the five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration's top leaders and senior policymakers have supported the use of harsh methods to obtain information that could head off future attacks and save lives. But military officers have insisted that such interrogation tactics are unproductive — and inevitably lead to abuse.

On Wednesday, after years of internal debates, the administration outlined a compromise meant to reconcile the position of hard-liners and military traditionalists.

The Army, morally and culturally averse to using unorthodox interrogation methods, will get out of the business of using tough tactics against detainees under the compromise. The new Army field manual authorizes only 19 interrogation techniques and bans the most controversial tactics that critics said amounted to torture — hooding prisoners, conducting mock executions, and strapping detainees to boards and using water to simulate drowning.

But the CIA will reserve the right to use the tougher tactics. Bush said such methods had been effective in getting some of the 14 top Al Qaeda suspects held by the agency to talk. Administration officials said the CIA tactics would be legal and fall well short of torture and abuse. But the president and others have pointedly refused to say what those tougher methods might be.

The compromise may satisfy the military, which can now say its soldiers will always comply with international treaties and steer well clear of torture. But it is not certain whether the new policy will satisfy those who have raised questions about American interrogation practices, including human rights advocates and members of Congress.

Lawyers and G.O.P. Chiefs Resist Proposal on Tribunal.

Kate Zernike, New York Times:

The Bush administration’s proposal to bring leading terrorism suspects before military tribunals met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny or do enough to repair the nation’s tarnished reputation internationally.
Democrats, meanwhile, said they were inclined to go along with Senate Republicans drafting an alternative to the White House plan, one that would allow defendants more rights. That left Republicans to argue among themselves about what the tribunals would look like and threatened to rob the issue of the political momentum the White House hoped it would provide going into the closely fought midterm elections.
A day after President Bush unveiled the plan at the White House, senior administration officials said Mr. Bush was willing to negotiate with Congress about the shape of legislation to establish tribunals, which would replace those struck down in June by the Supreme Court.
The administration officials, who agreed to discuss internal administration deliberations in exchange for anonymity, said the decision to transfer high-level terror suspects from Central Intelligence Agency prisons to military custody had been the result of months of secret debate at the highest levels of government.
The officials said the change had been most vigorously championed by the State Department, under Condoleezza Rice, against some resistance from a range of officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who had defended the status quo, in which high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, including the man identified as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, have been held in secret C.I.A custody.

Questions Raised About Bush’s Primary Claims in Defense of Secret Detention System.

Mark Mazzetti, New York Times:

In defending the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret network of prisons on Wednesday, President Bush said the detention system had used lawful interrogation techniques, was fully described to select members of Congress and led directly to the capture of a string of terrorists over the past four years.
A review of public documents and interviews with American officials raises questions about Mr. Bush’s claims on all three fronts.
Mr. Bush described the interrogation techniques used on the C.I.A. prisoners as having been “safe, lawful and effective,” and he asserted that torture had not been used. But the Bush administration has yet to make public the legal papers prepared by government lawyers that served as the basis for its determination that those procedures did not violate American or international law.
The president said the Department of Justice approved a set of aggressive interrogation practices for C.I.A. detainees in 2002 after milder ones proved ineffective on Abu Zubaydah, the first of the Qaeda leaders taken into custody.
Current and former government officials said that specific interrogation methods were addressed in a series of documents, including an August 2002 memorandum by the Justice Department that authorized the C.I.A.’s use of 20 interrogation practices.
The August 2002 document, which was leaked to reporters in 2004, said interrogation methods just short of those that might cause pain comparable to “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death” could be allowable without being considered torture.
The memorandum was repudiated in another Justice Department document at the end of 2004, and Congressional officials said on Thursday that they had not received documents from the administration explaining the legal underpinnings of the program.

Panel Set to Release Just Part of Report On Run-Up to War.

Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post:

A long-awaited Senate analysis comparing the Bush administration's public statements about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private remains mired in partisan recrimination and will not be released before the November elections, key senators said yesterday.

Instead, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will vote today to declassify two less controversial chapters of the panel's report, on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, for release as early as Friday. One chapter has concluded that Iraqi exiles in the Iraqi National Congress, who were subsidized by the U.S. government, tried to influence the views of intelligence officers analyzing Hussein's efforts to create weapons of mass destruction.

"It is clear to me, at least, that the INC information provided to the Department of Defense was misleading, that the government spent unnecessary amounts of money supporting that group, and all of that helped create bogus reasons to go to war," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the intelligence committee.

Under pressure from Democrats, Republicans on the committee agreed in February 2004 to write a report on the use of prewar intelligence, but the effort has languished amid partisan feuding. Last year, angry Democrats briefly shut down the Senate to protest the pace of the investigation.

After nearly three years, the heart of the report remains incomplete. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Democrats produced 511 administration statements to be analyzed, a virtually impossible task. At this point, the section is 800 pages long, accompanied by 40,000 documents, and is nowhere near ready for release, he said.

Inmates Report Mental Illness at High Levels.

Erik Eckholm, New York Times:

More than half the inmates in the country’s prisons and jails reported mental health problems within the last year, according to a Justice Department survey released yesterday.
The figures are higher than reported in past studies because inmates describing any symptoms of problems like major depression or mania were counted along with those with diagnosed psychiatric disorders, said Fred Osher, director of health systems at the Council on State Governments. Further evaluations would be required to make an official diagnosis of a mental illness.
Still, Dr. Osher said, the findings “underscore what every prison administrator knows — that large numbers of individuals with mental health problems are cycling through their facilities.” Correctional institutions have given increased attention to mental health treatment in recent years, he said, but the new findings highlight the need for intensive screening.
The findings also suggest the need to connect released prisoners with mental health treatment in the community, a goal of the emerging “re-entry” movement that tries to prevent ex-convicts from returning to prison. Prisoners with mental health problems were more likely to have had repeated incarcerations and substance abuse problems and to have been homeless, the study found.
Separate findings were reported for state prisons, where 56 percent of inmates were found to have mental health problems; federal prisons, where the figure was 45 percent; and jails, where it was 64 percent. The figure may be higher for jails, the report said, because they often hold mentally ill prisoners temporarily before they are moved to psychiatric facilities.
Women reported higher rates of mental health problems than men, and whites had higher rates than black and Hispanic inmates.

New Global Warming Fear.

Seth Borenstein, Chicago Sun-Times:

Global warming gases trapped in the soil are bubbling out of the thawing permafrost in amounts far higher than previously thought and may trigger what researchers warn is a climate time bomb.

Methane -- a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide -- is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being published today.

"The effects can be huge," said lead author Katey Walter of the University of Alaska. "It's coming out a lot and there's a lot more to come out."

Scientists worry about a global warming vicious cycle that was not part of their already gloomy climate forecast: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that has been continuously frozen for thousands of years. Thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost and so on.

"The higher the temperature gets, the more permafrost we melt, the more tendency it is to become a more vicious cycle," said Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution.

Southern Women Breaking Up with Bush.

Associated Press:

President Bush's once-solid relationship with Southern women is on the rocks.

"I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant," said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. "He's been an embarrassment."

In the heart of Dixie, comparisons to Grant, a symbol of the Union, is the worst sort of insult, especially from a Macon woman who voted for Bush in 2000 but turned away in 2004.

In recent years, Southern women have been some of Bush's biggest fans, defying the traditional gender gap in which women have preferred Democrats to Republicans. Bush secured a second term due in large part to support from 54 percent of Southern female voters while women nationally favored Democrat John Kerry, 51-48 percent.

"In 2004, you saw an utter collapse of the gender gap in the South," said Karen Kaufmann, a professor of government at the University of Maryland who has studied women's voting patterns. White Southern women liked Bush because "he spoke their religion and he spoke their values."

Now, anger over the Iraq war and frustration with the country's direction have taken a toll on the president's popularity and stirred dissatisfaction with the Republican-held Congress.

Republicans on the ballot this November have reason to worry. A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that three out of five Southern women surveyed said they planned to vote for a Democrat in the midterm elections. With control of the Senate and House in the balance, such a seismic shift could have dire consequences for the GOP.

Mixed Messages on Torture.

Mark Benjamin, Salon.com:

In the war on terror, abusive interrogations of suspects don't work. You get faulty information. The rough stuff has been proven worthless and should be banned.

Or, harsh interrogation tactics have been a successful and indispensable tool that has generated crucial intelligence to foil terror plots that would have otherwise caused death and destruction inside the United States.

Both versions were true in Washington on Wednesday, depending on whom you asked -- the Pentagon or the White House -- and depending on whether you watched the president's nationally broadcast afternoon press conference or a press conference by a general on a cable channel little seen outside military bases.

On Wednesday afternoon, President Bush announced the transfer of 14 high-value terrorism suspects to Guantánamo for trials. He said that the suspects had been held outside the country by the CIA, and then admitted they had been detained as part of a secret program that also included specialized interrogation techniques, techniques the president described as "tough." Most observers believe the president was referring to a long-rumored program involving secret CIA prisons, or "black sites," where terrorism suspects have allegedly been sequestered, interrogated and perhaps tortured.

Meanwhile, across the Potomac, an Army general unveiled a new Army interrogations manual designed to fit squarely within the protections of the Geneva Conventions. That new manual specifically bars hooding, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, mock executions and many of the other "tough" techniques allegedly practiced in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and the black sites.

Diminished Public Appetite for Military Force and Mideast Oil.

Pew Research Center:

Five years later, Americans' views of the impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have changed little, but opinions about how best to protect against future attacks have shifted substantially. In particular, far more Americans say reducing America's overseas military presence, rather than expanding it, will have a greater effect in reducing the threat of terrorism.

By a 45% to 32% margin, more Americans believe that the best way to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks on the U.S. is to decrease, not increase, America's military presence overseas. This is a stark reversal from the public's position on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. In the summer of 2002, before serious public discussion of removing Saddam Hussein from power had begun, nearly half (48%) said that the best way to reduce terrorism was to increase our military involvement overseas, while just 29% said less involvement would make us safer.

Similarly, in 2002 a 58% majority felt that military strikes against nations developing nuclear weapons were a very important way to reduce future terrorism. Today, just 43% express the same level of support for such action.

Yet most Americans do not believe that the ability of terrorists to launch another attack against the U.S. has been diminished. Rather, 62% say terrorists' capabilities are the same (37%) or greater (25%) than they were at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. This view has remained stable since the summer of 2002.

Army to Use Geneva Rules for Detainees.

Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times:

Bowing to critics of its tough interrogation policies, the Pentagon is issuing a new Army field manual that provides Geneva Convention protections for all detainees and eliminates a secret list of interrogation tactics.

The manual, set for release today, also reverses an earlier decision to maintain two interrogation standards — one for traditional prisoners of war and another for "unlawful combatants" captured during a conflict but not affiliated with a nation's military force. It will ban the use of such controversial methods as forcing prisoners to endure long periods of solitary confinement, using military dogs to threaten prisoners, putting hoods over inmates' heads and strapping detainees to boards and dunking them in water to simulate drowning, defense officials said.

The manual and its related policy directives — the legal framework for interrogations — originally were to be released in the spring. But when State Department officials and Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee raised objections, they were pulled back.

The Pentagon's decision to drop the objectionable provisions appears to mark a victory for advocates of closer U.S. adherence to the protections of the Geneva Convention, an international agreement on the treatment of prisoners and others during wartime. Human rights groups said they planned to study the manual carefully to see what parts of the international treaty it included and what it left out.

"If the new field manual embraces the Geneva Convention, it is an important return to the rule of law," said Jumana Musa, an advocacy director for Amnesty International. "It is an important public statement."

Study Links Health Risks, 9/11.

Ellen Barry, Los Angeles Times:

The largest study of rescue workers at the World Trade Center site has found that 70% developed breathing problems while working there and — to the surprise of doctors — many were still suffering years later.

As they labored on "the pile," responders breathed in a caustic, pulverized dust that penetrated deep into their lungs and sinus cavities. The dust contained "trillions upon trillions of microscopic shards of glass," as well as asbestos and other carcinogens, Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, co-author of the study at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said Tuesday.

"So, what's going to be the future for these people? Will they die of the illnesses they are now suffering?" Landrigan said. "I don't know."

Researchers at Mount Sinai said they hoped the findings would establish a conclusive link between illness and work done at ground zero. Dr. Stephen Levin, the director of Mount Sinai's monitoring program and a co-author of the study, complained that his patients were "being called malingerers and liars and cheats" when they sought health benefits from the government.

Newest Army Recruits: The Over-35 Crowd.

Patrik Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor:

Private Dilling's success on Range 18 was a quiet affirmation for a graying computer repairman given a second chance when the Army raised its enlistment age limit from 35 to 42 in June. "I told my sons never to have regrets," he says a day after the shooting test as he catches breaths at a team-building challenge course deep in the Fort Jackson woods. "Well, I finally took my own advice."

In an era when professional athletes compete into their 40s, Congress approved the change to help the Army, which came up short in its recruiting effort in the first half of 2005. But some military experts say it's a criticism of the world's most powerful volunteer army that, for the first time, appears unable to rouse enough young men and women to do what has typically been a young person's job.

"In part, this decision is an indication of how difficult the recruiting environment is right now," says Representative Vic Snyder (D) of Arkansas, the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the House Armed Services Committee. "But this pushing back of the age is also part of a changing society, a healthier and longer-living society, and Army standards ought to reflect that."

So far, the move has had a minor effect on overall enlistment, with 405 recruits over age 35 and 11 over age 40 joining the Army. Still, the numbers are part of a brighter recruitment picture for the Army that made its quota for 14 straight months, according to Army officials at Fort Knox, Ky.

Democrats Push for Own Religious Voice.

Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press:

Thirteen years ago, David Wilhelm, then chairman of the Democratic Party, told the conservative Christian Coalition that good Christians could belong to either major political party.
He was hissed.
Today, Wilhelm wants to spread that message to a different audience - Democrats. He's hoping for a better response.
With a leading poll showing only one in four Americans viewing the Democratic Party as friendly to religion, Wilhelm and a broad-based group of Christian Democratic activists are starting an Internet effort to organize religious voters whose views might be compatible with Democrats.
The site, http://www.FaithfulDemocrats.com , will go online Tuesday and showcase theologians, party strategists, political leaders and bloggers in hopes of conducting a national discussion on politics and faith.
"It struck me as strange that people whose political world is motivated by faith had to be Republican. Democrats need to be on the playing field," Wilhelm said.
He said the site will give religious Democrats "the moral support and some language they can use."

The Year of Living Fearfully.

Good reality check on what's happening in Iran.

Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek:

It's 1938, says the liberal columnist Richard Cohen, evoking images of Hitler's armies massing in the face of an appeasing West. No, no, says Newt Gingrich, the Third World War has already begun. Neoconservatives, who can be counted on to escalate, argue that we're actually in the thick of the Fourth World War. The historian Bernard Lewis warned a few weeks ago that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could be planning to annihilate Israel (and perhaps even the United States) on Aug. 22 because it was a significant day for Muslims.

To review a bit of history: in 1938, Adolf Hitler launched what became a world war not merely because he was evil but because he was in complete control of the strongest country on the planet. At the time, Germany had the world's second largest industrial base and its mightiest army. (The American economy was bigger, but in 1938 its army was smaller than that of Finland.) This is not remotely comparable with the situation today.

Iran does not even rank among the top 20 economies in the world. The Pentagon's budget this year is more than double Iran's total gross domestic product ($181 billion, in official exchange-rate terms). America's annual defense outlay is more than 100 times Iran's. Tehran's nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but its program is not nearly as advanced as is often implied. Most serious estimates suggest that Iran would need between five and 10 years to achieve even a modest, North Korea-type, nuclear capacity.

Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall—and crazy. During the cold war, many hawks argued that the Soviet Union could not be deterred because the Kremlin was evil and irrational. The great debate in the 1970s was between the CIA's wimpy estimate of Soviet military power and the neoconservatives' more nightmarish scenario. The reality turned out to be that even the CIA's lowest estimates of Soviet power were a gross exaggeration. During the 1990s, influential commentators and politicians—most prominently the Cox Commission—doubled the estimates of China's military spending, using largely bogus calculations. And then there was the case of Saddam Hussein's capabilities. Saddam, we were assured in 2003, had nuclear weapons—and because he was a madman, he would use them.

Iran is run by a nasty regime that destabilizes an important part of the world, frustrates American and Western interests, and causes problems for allies like Israel. But let's get some perspective. The United States is far more powerful than Iran. And, on the issue of Tehran's nuclear program, Washington is supported by most of the world's other major powers. As long as the alliance is patient, united and smart—and keeps the focus on Tehran's actions not Washington's bellicosity—the odds favor America. Ahmadinejad presides over a country where more than 40 percent of the population lives under the poverty line; his authority is contested, and Iran's neighbors are increasingly worried and have begun acting to counter its influence. If we could contain the Soviet Union, we can contain Iran. Look at your calendar: it's 2006, not 1938.

We are always interested in your thoughts and ideas. Write us at blog@moderatevoters.org.

"Moderate" is not a 4-letter word!

2 U.S. Reports Seek to Counter Conspiracy Theories About 9/11.

Just when you think you have heard everything.

Jim Dwyer, New York Times:

Faced with an angry minority of people who believe the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a shadowy and sprawling plot run by Americans, separate reports were published this week by the State Department and a federal science agency insisting that the catastrophes were caused by hijackers who used commercial airliners as weapons.

The official narrative of the attacks has been attacked as little more than a cover story by an assortment of radio hosts, academics, amateur filmmakers and others who have spread their arguments on the Internet and cable television in America and abroad. As a motive, they suggest that the Bush administration wanted to use the attacks to justify military action in the Middle East.

Most elaborately, they propose that the collapse of the World Trade Center was actually caused by explosive charges secretly planted in the buildings, rather than by the destructive force of the airliners that thundered into the towers and set them ablaze.

The government reports and officials say the demolition argument is utterly implausible on a number of grounds. Indeed, few proponents of the explosives theory are willing to venture explanations of how daunting logistical problems would be overcome, such as planting thousands of pounds of explosives in busy office towers.

Nevertheless, federal officials say they moved to affirm the conventional history of the day because of the persistence of what they call “alternative theories.” On Wednesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a seven-page study based on its earlier 10,000-page report on how and why the trade center collapsed. The full report, released a year ago, and the new study, in a question and answer format, are available online at http://wtc.nist.gov.

A nationwide poll taken earlier this summer by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of those surveyed said the federal government either took part in the attacks or allowed them to happen. And 16 percent said the destruction of the trade center was aided by explosives hidden in the buildings. The survey questioned 1,010 adults by telephone and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points. Details are available at http://newspolls.org.

The demolition theory has managed to endure what would seem to be enormous obstacles to its practicality. Controlled demolition is done from the bottom of buildings, not the top, to take advantage of gravity, and there is little dispute that the collapse of the two towers began high in the towers, in the areas where the airplanes struck.

Moreover, a demolition project would have required the tower walls to be opened on dozens of floors, followed by the insertion of thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses and ignition mechanisms, all sneaked past the security stations, inside hundreds of feet of walls on all four faces of both buildings. Then the walls presumably would have been closed up.

All this would have had to take place without attracting the notice of any of the thousands of tenants and workers in either building; no witness has ever reported such activity. Then on the morning of Sept. 11, the demolition explosives would have had to withstand the impacts of the airplanes, since the collapse did not begin for 57 minutes in one tower, and 102 minutes in the other.

We are always interested in your thoughts and ideas. Write us at blog@moderatevoters.org.

"Moderate" is not a 4-letter word!

I No Longer Have Power to Save Iraq from Civil War, Warns Shia Leader.

This is extremely serious. If the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has been so successful in calming tensions in Iraq, is giving up, the future can't be very bright.

Not sure which is worse - Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani waning or Muqtada al-Sadr rising.

Gethin Chamberlain & Aqeel Hussein, Telegraph:

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.

Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.

"I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters."

It is a devastating blow to the remaining hopes for a peaceful solution in Iraq and spells trouble for British forces, who are based in and around the Shia stronghold of Basra.

The cleric is regarded as the most important Shia religious leader in Iraq and has been a moderating influence since the invasion of 2003. He ended the fighting in Najaf between Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi army and American forces in 2004 and was instrumental in persuading the Shia factions to fight the 2005 elections under the single banner of the United Alliance.

However, the extent to which he has become marginalised was demonstrated last week when fighting broke out in Diwaniya between Iraqi soldiers and al-Sadr's Mehdi army. With dozens dead, al-Sistani's appeals for calm were ignored. Instead, the provincial governor had to travel to Najaf to see al-Sadr, who ended the fighting with one telephone call.

Al-Sistani's aides say that he has chosen to stay silent rather than suffer the ignominy of being ignored. Ali al-Jaberi, a spokesman for the cleric in Khadamiyah, said that he was furious that his followers had turned away from him and ignored his calls for moderation.

We are always interested in your thoughts and ideas. Write us at blog@moderatevoters.org.

"Moderate" is not a 4-letter word!

Number of Uninsured Children Rises.

Christopher Lee, Washington Post:

For the better part of a decade, fewer and fewer American children have gone without health insurance each year, a trend that diverged sharply from the seemingly inexorable rise in the number of adults without coverage.

No more.

For the first time since 1998, the number of children younger than 18 without health coverage ticked upward last year by 361,000, along with the overall increase in the ranks of the uninsured, according to census figures released last week. Of the nation's nearly 74 million children, about 8.3 million, or 11.2 percent, lacked coverage in 2005, up from 10.8 percent the year before.

The discouraging development surprised some health experts, who attributed the change to budget crunches that led some states to curtail enrollment of children in government-subsidized plans and steady declines in the number of people who receive health insurance through their jobs.

Children without health coverage are three times as likely as insured children to lack a regular doctor, according to a report released last month by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Research from the American College of Physicians in 2000 found that uninsured children were less likely to be up to date on immunizations and to receive treatment for sore throats, earaches and other common childhood illnesses. A University of Texas study found that kids with insurance tend to have fewer school absences.

Fuel Cells 'are Key to Economic Progress'.

Ian Limbach, Financial Times:

Continued economic development requires a new energy regime to free the global economy of reliance on depleting fossil fuels, a US expert says.

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and a fellow at the Wharton School’s executive education programme, said: “We are reaching the peak in oil output. The International Energy Agency says this will occur in 2037 - some say earlier, others say later. But what they are arguing about is a 20-year difference. That is a very narrow window to change an entire energy regime for the planet,” he says.

Peak oil refers to the theoretical point at which half the earth’s petroleum has been extracted and production enters a terminal decline. Prices for the increasingly rare commodity are expected to then become too high to support a petroleum-based economy. Many oil producing countries are believed to have already surpassed their individual peaks and Chevron reports that oil production is already declining in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries.

Mr Rifkin told a meeting of experts in Italy that ignoring the problem would stunt growth in the world economy. “The main issue is the cost of energy, both the direct cost as well as the indirect cost of global warming.”

The solution, he says, are fuel cells that produces electricity from hydrogen and oxygen through an electrochemical process, which are potentially more efficient and less polluting than internal combustion engines. Today, fuel cells are expensive and quite rare.

Mr Rifkin dismisses claims that hydrogen fuel cell technology is too futuristic or ‘fringe’ to be taken seriously, pointing to advanced development programmes in the United States and Europe. Over the past few months, he has been invited to advise on energy policy by Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, Slovenian President Janez Drnovšek and the heads of many European regional governments. “Industry is in the conversation but it is not leading,” he adds.

'Mortgage Moms' May Star in Midterm Vote.

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum & Chris Cillizza, Washington Post:

At first glance, the economy's role in this year's midterm elections is a puzzle. Economic growth and unemployment are at levels that in past years would have been a clear political asset for the party in power.
But one layer down in the statistics, the answer is more clear. Flat wages and rising debt nationally have converged to leave millions of middle-class households feeling acutely vulnerable to bumps in their financial planning. The most visible of these are rising energy prices and a softening housing market.
A less obvious but powerful variable is the interest paid by people carrying credit card debt or mortgages whose monthly payments vary with interest rates. People buffeted by these trends have given rise to a new and volatile voting block.
"People like this are making a large ripple across the body politic," said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. When added to the growing opposition to the war in Iraq, he said, worry about this economic crunch "is creating a political environment that is not that friendly to the party in power."
Every election cycle has its own important set of undecided, or swing, voters. In 2000, it was the "soccer moms," targeted by both parties with appeals based on education and quality-of-life concerns. In 2004, it was the security moms, normally Democratic-trending women whose concerns about terrorism helped give Bush his margin of victory.
This year could mark the emergence of what might be called mortgage moms -- voters whose sense of well-being is freighted with anxiety about their families' financial squeeze. Democrats are betting that this factor is strong enough to trump security or cultural values issues.

G.O.P. Sets Aside Work on Immigration.

Carl Hulse & Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times:

As they prepare for a critical pre-election legislative stretch, Congressional Republican leaders have all but abandoned a broad overhaul of immigration laws and instead will concentrate on national security issues they believe play to their political strength.
With Congress reconvening Tuesday after an August break, Republicans in the House and Senate say they will focus on Pentagon and domestic security spending bills, port security legislation and measures that would authorize the administration’s terror surveillance program and create military tribunals to try terror suspects.
“We Republicans believe that we have no choice in the war against terror and the only way to do it is to continue to take them head-on whether it is in Iraq or elsewhere,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader.
A final decision on what do about immigration policy awaits a meeting this week of senior Republicans. But key lawmakers and aides who set the Congressional agenda say they now believe it would be politically risky to try to advance an immigration measure that would showcase party divisions and need to be completed in the 19 days Congress is scheduled to meet before breaking for the election.
“I don’t see how you bridge that divide between us and the Senate,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. “I don’t see it happening. I really don’t.”

More GOP Districts Counted as Vulnerable.

Dan Balz & David S. Broder, Washington Post:

Facing the most difficult political environment since they took control of Congress in 1994, Republicans begin the final two months of the midterm campaign in growing danger of losing the House while fighting to preserve at best a slim majority in the Senate, according to strategists and officials in both parties.
Over the summer, the political battlefield has expanded well beyond the roughly 20 GOP House seats originally thought to be vulnerable. Now some Republicans concede there may be almost twice as many districts from which Democrats could wrest the 15 additional seats they need to take control.
President Bush's low approval ratings, the sharp divisions over the war in Iraq, dissatisfaction with Congress, and economic anxiety caused by high gasoline prices and stagnant wages have alienated independent voters, energized the Democratic base and thrown once-safe Republican incumbents on the defensive.
Despite these advantages, Democratic strategists say they see ways they could fall short of their goal of capturing one or both houses of Congress. They cite what they consider to be a superior Republican get-out-the-vote operation, a coming barrage of negative ads aimed at their challenger candidates, and a sizable cash-on-hand disparity between the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee.

Can Recast Clinton Play to Nation?

Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times:

Six years ago, when Hillary Rodham Clinton first ran for the U.S. Senate, Republican Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds derided her as a carpetbagger who brought nothing to New York but overweening ambition.

Today, he raves about their relationship. "I've found her always willing to listen and to roll up her sleeves and go to work with me," the Buffalo-area lawmaker said in a phone call between recent campaign stops.

Loved and hated nationally as a liberal crusader who sought to reinvent the country's healthcare system in one audacious swoop, Clinton is widely seen in her adopted home state as something else entirely: a bipartisan problem-solver who has never seen an issue too parochial for her concern.

Garry Douglas, president of the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce, said his organization presented Clinton with a wish list of roughly a dozen items during her first campaign, including a new crossing at the nearby Canadian border and expanded broadband access for the rural region. She delivered on every one, said Douglas, a Republican who voted against Clinton in 2000 but supports her reelection. Far from the imperial senator he expected, "I have found her to be remarkable in her accessibility," Douglas said.

Clinton strategists are mindful of how New York's Nov. 7 election returns will be studied. They are prepared to argue that a strong showing in traditionally Republican upstate New York proves that, if she runs for president, Clinton can reach beyond hard-core Democrats and win over independents and even dubious Republicans.

Yet skepticism abounds.

The hands-across-the-aisle approach has helped refashion Clinton's image at home. In September 2000, during her first Senate race, 62% of New York voters described Clinton as a liberal and 23% as a moderate, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. A follow-up survey this June found 47% describing Clinton as a liberal, and 34% calling her a moderate. Nearly one in three Republicans approved of her job performance.

But changing her image outside New York is another matter.

A White House bid is different than running for reelection to the Senate; political philosophy matters much more, and it is hard for candidates to pork-barrel their way to the presidency.

Number of Republicans Declines to 32-Month Low.

Rasmussen Reports:

The number of Americans calling themselves Republican has fallen to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years. Just 31.9% of American adults now say they’re affiliated with the GOP. That’s down from 37.2% in October 2004 and 34.5% at the beginning of 2006. These results come from Rasmussen Reports tracking surveys of 15,000 voters per month and have a margin of sampling error smaller than a percentage point.

The number of Democrats has grown slightly, from 36.1% at the beginning of the year to 37.3% now.

Those who claim to be unaffiliated have increased to 30.8% this month. That’s the highest total recorded since Rasmussen Reports began releasing this data in January 2004.

Add it all together and the Democrats have their biggest net advantage—more than five percentage points—since January 2004. In the first month of 2006, the Democrats’ advantage was just 1.6 percentage points. Last month, 32.8% of adults said they were Republicans and 36.8% identified themselves as Democrats.

While the party affiliation trends continue moving in the Democrats’ direction, the battle for control of the Senate keeps getting closer. Our September 1 update of the Senate Balance of Power summary shows Republicans likely to emerge from Election 2006 with 50 seats, Democrats with 47, and 3 in the Toss-Up category.

Voters Everywhere Agree Political System “Badly Broken”.

Rasmussen Reports:

A plurality of voters in each of 32 states agree that the political system in the U.S. is “badly broken.” Percentages range from a high of 63% in Vermont to 47% in Nebraska, but all point in the same direction (see state-by-state results). The Rasmussen Reports surveys were conducted as part of a series of Election 2006 polls on Senate and Governor’s races across the nation.

An earlier national survey found that just 48% of American adults believe that elections are generally fair to voters. That number has been fairly consistent since we began polling on the topic in the mid-90s. The only change has been the partisan details. In the 1990s, with a Democrat in the White House, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to believe that elections are fair. Now, with a Republican in the White House, the partisan perspectives have reversed.

There was little geographic difference on the question of whether individuals should be required to present photo identification (such as a driver’s license) when they go to the polls. Support for this approach ranged from 60% in Vermont to 92% in Florida.

Maine was the only other state to register below the 73% level of support for requiring photo ID’s.

Sectarian Violence is Now Spreading Beyond Baghdad.

USA Today:

Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq, reflecting the most complex security challenges since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said Friday.

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," it said in a quarterly report to Congress on U.S. efforts to stabilize the country.

That assessment, which has been expressed publicly by U.S. military commanders and others in recent weeks, was tempered by a degree of optimism that the Iraqi government — with support from U.S. troops — will succeed in quelling the sectarian strife. Optimism among ordinary Iraqis, however, has declined, the 63-page report said.

When asked whether they believe "things will be better" in the future, the percentage of Iraqis responding positively has dropped fairly consistently over the past year — whether they were asked to look ahead six months, one year or five years — according to polling data cited in the report.

The report is the first to Congress since the Iraqi government assembled its full slate of ministers in early June. Since then, sectarian tensions have increased, "manifested in an increasing number of execution-style killings, kidnappings and attacks on civilians" and growing numbers of people forced from their homes, it said.

It said sectarian violence has spread from Baghdad into Diyala and Kirkuk provinces north of the capital. It also cited a rising problem with violence in the predominantly Shiite southern region, especially in the city of Basra.

The Pentagon Plans for an African Command.

Sally B. Donnelly, Time:

In what may be the most glaring admission that the U.S. military needs to dramatically readjust how it will fight what it calls 'the long war,' the Pentagon is expected to announce soon that it will create an entirely new military command to focus on the globe's most neglected region: Africa.

Pentagon sources say that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is close to approving plans for an African Command, which would establish a military organization to singlehandedly deal with the entire continent of Africa. It would be a sign of a significant strategic shift in Administration policy, reflecting the need to put more emphasis on proactive, preventative measures rather than maintaining a defensive posture designed for the Cold War.

The Pentagon has five geographic Unified Combatant Commands around the world and responsibility for Africa is awkwardly divided among three of those: European Command, Pacific Command and Central Command — which is also responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Creating an African Command would be an important structural move to coordinate U.S. defense policy for the continent, as well as provide a single military organization for agencies like the State Department and the CIA to work with in the region.

Voters Hearing Countless Ways of Saying ‘Sorry’.

Mark Leibovich, New York Times:

When politicians make the ruinous mistake of actually saying what they mean in public — or, at the very least, breaching the talking-point orthodoxy that is demanded of them — they crack open an unintended window into their character. Public apologies are an effort to shut this window as quickly as possible.

Politicians have been apologizing for as long as they have been getting in trouble, of course. But the recent wave has been remarkable in its frequency and sweep. A Washington Republican Senate candidate, Mike McGavick, stunned many last month when he apologized on his campaign blog for “the very worst and most embarrassing things in my life,” and then catalogued a roster that included a previously undisclosed drunken-driving citation from 13 years ago and a questionable campaign advertisement he allowed 18 years ago.

“None of these apologies are effective because no one believes them anymore,” said Chuck Todd, editor of the daily political tip-sheet, Hotline.

The notion of political apologies has become cheapened by the caveats that often accompany, and dilute, them, Mr. Todd said.

Mr. Allen offers something of an object lesson. “I do apologize if he’s offended by that” was Mr. Allen’s first attempt in L’affaire Macaca before his mea culpas spiraled into progressive handwringing and culminated in a phone call to his victim, S. R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old volunteer for his opponent, James Webb. (The Webb campaign questioned whether the remark was a racist slur because macaca can refer to a monkey.)

As a general rule, apologies lose their potency as time elapses, a principle articulated by Alben W. Barkley, Harry S. Truman’s vice president, who said, “If you have to eat crow, eat it while it’s hot.” This is especially true in a time of bloggers, live microphones and camera-toting “trackers” from rival campaigns, when any gaffe can immediately find its way onto the Internet.

Rep. Harris Goes From GOP Darling to Liability.

Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times:

She's called for a Christian theocracy so Congress won't "legislate sin." She's lost a dozen key campaign staffers in the home stretch, advertised endorsements she didn't get and failed to pick up a single recommendation from Florida's leading newspapers.

Rep. Katherine Harris — the former darling of the Republican Party for her pivotal role in the 2000 presidential recount — has stumbled so badly in her bid for the U.S. Senate that pollsters and pundits no longer focus on her longshot chances against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson in November, but instead on the outlook for Tuesday's primary race against virtual unknowns.

Three polls released this week all put Harris, 49, at least 16 percentage points ahead of her three Republican rivals. But with two of the challengers closing in on her, and the share of undecided voters larger than her advantage, analysts say the contest for the party's nomination is far from over.

Attorney Will McBride and retired Navy Adm. LeRoy Collins Jr. have surged to within striking distance of Harris and have been barnstorming the state in these last days of campaigning in hopes of gaining critical mass amid deeply conflicted Republican voters.

"My message is: 'Republicans, don't throw in the towel. This race is not over. We can still win,' " McBride, 34, said as he hit the highways and airwaves with a tailwind of endorsements that Harris had expected to get.

Iran, Ready For a Test Of Wills.

David Ignatius, Washington Post:

Behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's defiant rhetoric lies a conviction that is widely shared here: Iran is a rising power in the Middle East while the United States is in decline -- and now is the moment for Iran to emerge as a regional superpower.

You hear versions of this cocky nationalism in almost every conversation. And when you look around this surprisingly modern metropolis of 12 million people, it's easy to think that Iran's time may indeed have come. The problem is that its national ambitions are wrapped today in the fanatical language of Ahmadinejad, who emerged from among the hardest of this country's hard-core Islamic revolutionaries. He and his followers seem eager for the confrontation that lies ahead.

The situation in Iraq bolsters Iranian confidence in its test of wills against America. As the Iranians view it, the United States has stumbled into a pit from which it cannot easily escape. There is a disagreement here between pragmatists who see in America's troubles an opportunity to open a mutually beneficial dialogue with the Great Satan and hard-liners who would rather let America suffer.

Take a stroll in Iran's old bazaar, for generations the heart of the city's business life, and you sense the public eagerness for Iran's resurgence. You hear many views about Ahmadinejad, including those of people who tell you frankly that they loathe him, but everyone seems to want a stronger Iran.

The trick for America and its allies is somehow to recognize Iran's ambitions to be a regional power without allowing the revolutionary leadership embodied by Ahmadinejad to further destabilize the Middle East. I'm a naturally optimistic person, but right now that looks to me like Mission Impossible.

California Flirts With Health Insurance.

CBS News:

California would become the only state to offer all its residents government-operated health care under a bill sent Thursday to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, although it's unlikely the governor will sign it.

The bill was among dozens lawmakers approved as they rushed to meet a midnight deadline before the end of the current legislative session.

The health care bill “will make quality health care available to each of us while preserving our freedom of choice as consumers and patients,” the bill's author, Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl, said after the Senate agreed to Assembly amendments on a 24-12 party-line vote.

Under the amended bill, California residents essentially would pay their health insurance premiums, copays and deductibles into a state-funded health insurance program. Money the state spends on health care also would go into the new system.

Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, modeled her bill on a private study that found billing each resident and business an annual premium based on income would be enough to pay for universal health care.

Kuehl said her bill guarantees that patients can choose their own doctors and would allow the state to cut prescription drug costs by negotiating bulk purchases. It also would help cut health care costs through increased efficiencies and reduced administrative costs, she said.