The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 2004

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash
Defense secretary's remark to troops fuels conspiracy theories
From Jamie McIntyre
CNN Washington




WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.

The independent panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed Flight 93, apparently because they feared the passengers would overwhelm them.

U.S. Troops Strongly Support Bush and the War

The majority of U.S. soldiers do not blame President Bush or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for a shortage of body armor in Iraq but instead say Congress should be held responsible, according to a new poll by the Military Times.

Sixty percent blame Congress for the shortage of body armor in the combat zone, reports USA Today in its coverage of the Times survey. In more bad news for congressional Iraq War critics, 63 percent of active duty personnel said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war.

Further confounding media attempts to demoralize the troops, 66 percent of soldiers surveyed say the war is worth fighting.

In addition, 87 percent of soldiers say they're satisfied with their jobs and, if given the choice today, only a quarter of troops surveyed say they'd leave the service. The latter number is particularly impressive, considering that nearly half say they expect to be there more than five years.

The Military Times Poll surveyed 1,423 active-duty subscribers to Air Force Times, Army Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times in late November and early December. The poll has a margin of error of +/�2.6 percent.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Showing bias in Iraq war coverage

By Joseph Perkins


A new Gallup survey is rather disquieting for those of us in the media. It finds that not even a quarter of Americans perceive either television or newspaper reporters to have �very high� or �high� standards of ethics and honesty.
There are various explanations for that perception in the eyes of the public. But one major contributing factor is the public�s perception that some of what they read on the front pages of the major dailies or watch on the evening news is politically slanted.
Indeed, the public need look no further than coverage of the war in Iraq to see prima facie evidence of media bias. Take the recent incident involving Edward Lee Pitts, a reporter with the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Pitts sat in on a town-hall-style meeting in Kuwait between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and soldiers awaiting deployment to Iraq.
Rather than simply report the give-and-take between Rummy and the troops, Pitts got himself into the act. He surreptitiously �worked on� questions about vehicle armor with soldiers, questions the soldiers almost certainly would not have asked on their own, that the reporter knew would put the defense secretary on the spot.
Then, as Pitts later boasted in an e-mail, he �went and found the Sgt. in charge of microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out the crowd.�
What was really groovy, Pitts continued, �was that after the event was over the throng of national media following Rumsfeld � The New York Times, AP, all the major networks � swarmed to the two soldiers I brought from the unit I am embedded with.�
Then there�s Kevin Sites, the NBC News correspondent, who was embedded with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. During last month�s military campaign to retake Fallujah from the insurgents, Sites filmed the shooting of an apparently injured enemy fighter by a Marine.
The footage was broadcast not only here in the United States, but throughout the world. It further inflamed anti-American sentiments in the Arab streets, not to mention among Iraq�s Sunni minority.
Sites denies being an anti-war activist. He professes to be �shocked to see myself painted� that way. Yet, his previous work, featuring photos of captured Iraqis, appears on a Web site entitled �Images Against War.� Surely, the anti-war site did not use the lens-man�s work without his assent.
Finally, there�s the Abu Ghraib story. It made worldwide news after a sensational report last spring on �60 Minutes II,� featuring CBS News �correspondent� Dan Rather, exposing abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers.
Now, CBS producers have never broadcasted footage of the various men (and at least one woman) who have been beheaded by insurgents (or terrorists) in Iraq. Yet, they chose to air highly inflammatory photographs showing American soldiers mistreating captured Iraqis.
It would be one thing if CBS had been exposing a cover-up by the Pentagon. But the fact is that, a month before the �60 Minutes II� report aired, the Army announced that 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty for degrading Iraqi prisoners.
As it happens, the Abu Ghraib prison photos that aired on �60 Minutes II� were obtained by CBS News producer Mary Mapes. She�s the same producer who obtained the phony documents suggesting that President Bush did not fulfill his Vietnam-era National Guard obligations.
Of course, Mapes and her colleagues at CBS News would deny being anti-Bush, would deny being anti-war.
Questions about armor plating for the Humvees used in Iraq needed asking. The story about the Marine shooting an apparently injured, apparently unarmed insurgent fighter needed telling. And scandalous treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib needed exposure.
But as Marshall McLuhan, the so-called Oracle of the Electronic Age, famously said: �The medium is the massage.�
Indeed, when stories appear on the front pages of major dailies or air on the evening news offering decidedly negative assessments of America�s prosecution of the war in Iraq, or reflecting badly upon this nation�s men and women in uniform, many Americans wonder about the reporter�s motivation.
In many cases, if not most, the reporter may simply be calling it as he or she sees it. But in at least some cases, it seems, the reporter�s story is driven by anti-war bias.



Friday, December 24, 2004

91 Veterans Ask To Have Their Votes Counted Too

December 23, 2004

By KOMO Staff & News Services


KING COUNTY - A lawyer for the Washington state Republican Party and a group of veterans presented 91 affidavits Thursday to the King County elections director.

The statements say members of the military lost their right to vote when their absentee ballots went uncounted because of signature mis-matches or other problems. Republicans say they should be included.

The three-member county canvassing board is meeting today to consider more than 700 other disputed ballots that the state Supreme Court ruled can now be counted.

A spokeswoman says after the board finishes its work, King County elections officials expect to certify the results by 5 o'clock -- a little later than the previously expected time of 3 o'clock.

Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray

John Kerry is filing papers in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in support of a recount effort in that state, reports Truthout.


At the center of the Kerry filing are motions to preserve and discover � expeditiously � information regarding the Triad Systems voting machines used in Election 2004.


Sherole Eaton, deputy director of elections for Hocking County, swore an affidavit describing how she witnessed tampering of the electronic voting equipment by a Triad representative.


Kerry lost the Ohio vote by a narrow margin and therefore has the necessary standing to get results from the court. Heretofore the original complainants, the Green and Libertarian parties, have been unsuccessful in their recount efforts � since no recount would deliver Ohio to either party.

According to the Truthout report, the Democratic Party is also quietly putting financial resources into the Ohio recount effort.


The report cited the effectiveness of telephone calls and letters to Kerry to challenge the election.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Albania, Poland pledge to keep troops in Iraq





TIRANA, Dec. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Albania and Poland reconfirmed on Tuesday that their troops will stay in Iraq to help maintain stability in the country.

"We shall continue our contribution to assisting the country ina normal development of elections next year," said Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano when he met with his visiting Polish counterpart, Marek Belka.

Both prime ministers hoped that the situation in Iraq would calm down for the elections scheduled for Jan. 30.

"What we are doing in Iraq is not only for the sake of the Iraqi people but for the safety of the whole region and the world,as terrorism is global. Nobody can hide from terrorism and we should persecute terrorism," Belka said.

He hoped that the situation would stabilize in Iraq so that thetroops could "hand over the tasks to the Iraqi army and police we are training." Last week Warsaw said it would cut the number of its troops in Iraq from 2,400 to 1,700 in February.

A strong ally of the United States since the start of the Iraq war, Poland administers a zone south of Baghdad and is leader of amultinational force of 6,000 troops.

Meanwhile, Albania supported the US-led war in Iraq and has a small contingent of 71 troops serving alongside US forces in the town of Mosul.


"I Call the President Imam Bush": A Turning Point in Islamic and World History


By Stephen Schwartz Published 12/22/2004




If one were to rely on the mainstream Western media, one would assume that the situation in Iraq represents nothing more than a disaster and a horrible error by the United States. This media spin, which is more pronounced and strident than any in recent memory, is based on two critical flaws in the way Western media work.



The first is the most obvious and is known to millions: the bias of Western reporters, and nearly all the experts and other sources on which they depend, against the Bush administration's policy of democratization in the Middle East. For such commentators, the failure of the Bush intervention in Iraq was a foregone conclusion. In many cases, including those of Arabist and ethnic Arab academic experts, opposition to democratization is based on breathtakingly prejudicial stereotypes.



Few American intellectuals would ever, in the 1950s, have predicted that the time would come when the very concept of "democracy" would be the object of so much polemical contempt in the democracies themselves. And fewer still would have predicted that Arab adherents, as so many now do, would one day reject altogether the appropriateness of democracy in their countries. When Arab academic and media figures declare that their people are unprepared for democracy, and cannot go beyond limited and culture-bound reforms, one wonders if they realize how arrogant and cruel they sound. In the past, we all seemed to agree that democracy was a universal and benevolent value, for which all peoples, at least outside the palaces, strove.



The second serious defect in the methodology of Western media, when dealing with Iraq, is their lack of knowledge about Islam. Reporters seem to continue to base their dispatches on off-the-street quotes and Iraqi official handouts. Much more homework needs to be done, especially considering that American lives have been sacrificed for the future of Iraq. Western reporters seldom study Islam or seek out authoritative representatives of the Islamic leaderships; and when, almost as if by accident, they encounter such figures, they seem never to know what questions to ask them.



Terrorism continues in Iraq and monopolizes headlines. But there is much more to be said about the situation in that country, and it has to do with much more than the restoration of public services and infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest story left unreported in the West is the extraordinary exuberance about the Iraqi election, set for January 30, among Iraqi Shias.



I know about this because I spend a great deal of time talking to Iraqi Shia religious leaders, some of whom commute back and forth between Iraq and the U.S. The effervescence among them must be experienced to be believed. One prominent Shia in the U.S. told me, "I call the president Imam Bush." (In Shia Islam, the imams are the chief religious guides throughout the history of the sect.) "He is a believer in God, he is just, and I believe he will keep his promise to hold a fair election on January 30," my interlocutor said. "He liberated Kerbala and Najaf [the Shia holy cities]. He has done more for Shias than anybody else in history."



Shias comprise at least 65 percent of the Iraqi population. It is clear that the January 30 election will produce a Shia-majority government. The Iraqi Shias have produced a unity ticket for the elections under the direction of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leading Iraqi Shia cleric. Sistani has severely condemned any Shia who might obstruct the election. Sistani and his colleagues have managed to silence the disruptive Moqtada ul-Sadr in the interest of orderly elections.



Still, even if they can anticipate a Shia sweep in Iraq, Westerners generally seem unable to grasp the full meaning, for the Islamic world, of such a fact. Unequivocal Arab Shia control over their holy sites will represent a major, new historical chapter. Notwithstanding superficial Western reportage and alarmist propaganda by Arab Sunnis, Arab Shias do not obey the commands of Iranian Shias. Iraqi Shias never accepted Khomeini's conception of clerical governance, which had no basis in Islamic doctrine, and was actually a heresy. There is no serious evidence that, if a Shia majority is brought to power in Iraq, a Khomeinist regime would be established.



In addition, the Khomeinist scheme has been discredited in Iran itself, and that country's majority is trying to find a way out of it. Yet it is amazing to see Western media and politicians, as well as some Arab politicians and rulers, proclaiming the "menace" of Shia rule in Iraq. Naturally, the former Sunni elite who misruled Iraq with the support of Saddam, and Saudi-backed Wahhabi jihadists who hate Shias even more than they do Jews and Christians, seek to disrupt the electoral process in Iraq. But Westerners have no justification to back away from the commitment to elections in Iraq, merely on the basis of Sunni complaints or threats. Some Western experts warn that the triumph of the Shias would bring about a civil war in Iraq; but what other than a civil war is presently going on? Sunni terrorists wreak havoc and devastating bloodshed wherever they can. If anything, a definitive Shia victory would be a powerful incentive for Sunnis to cease their terrorism.



The wider regional and global ripples of a Shia government in Iraq are likely to be as significant as the transfer of power itself. A nonclerical Shia regime in Baghdad, governing Kerbala and Najaf, would powerfully encourage completion of democratization in Iran. Its success would also draw Lebanese Shias away from the extremist clerical leadership of Hezbollah. A stable post-Ba'athist regime in Iraq could provide a significant model for Syrians as they work their way out of the Bashir Assad dictatorship. Above all, however, a Shia regime in Iraq will provide a stunning exemplar of Arab-Islamic pluralism, that is, an alternative to the model of Sunni monolithism found in Saudi Arabia, and which the Saudis have sought to export throughout the global community of Sunni Islam.



The reactionary wing of the Saudi royal family may have a great deal to lose from successful elections in Iraq. To emphasize, Wahhabism, the official religion in the Saudi kingdom, preaches violence against Shias, and a Shia-led Iraq with a system of popular sovereignty would be an enormous humiliation to the Wahhabis. But more important, as the American architects of the Iraqi experiment have understood, Iraq has immense resources in terms of education and entrepreneurship, aside from the economic cushion of its oil.



President Bush is quite correct when he states that the terrorists hate Americans for who we are, not for what we do. The Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, who encourage al-Qaida and other terrorists, including Zarqawi in Iraq, repudiate the very concept of voting, parliamentarism, and democracy. Shias do not reject these principles. A prosperous Shia-led electoral regime in Iraq, on its long northern border, could be the ultimate nightmare for the Saudi hardliners, particularly since the oil industry in the kingdom is centered in the Saudi Eastern Province, which has a Shia majority -- and Shias have suffered a near-genocidal discrimination at Wahhabi hands. Saudi Arabia has always dealt with Shia dissidence by labeling it as a product of Iran. But if Shia dissidents in the Saudi kingdom are inspired by Iraq they will gain immense credibility.



Finally, the worldwide effect of transitions to democracy, in countries typically considered impossibly distant from one another, cannot be belied. Looking at the last quarter of the 20th century, we observe a process that began in Spain in 1975, with the death of dictator Francisco Franco. The Spanish business class and political elite carried out a peaceful process of democratization. Spain was only the first such instance. Although Iran and Nicaragua later saw major convulsions in their societies, and brutal wars broke out in Yugoslavia and Africa, many more countries entered on the road of peaceful democratization, including, finally, Nicaragua and some of the ex-Yugoslav states. The number of countries that settled a change in their political affairs peacefully came to far outnumber those with recourse to armed conflict: they include the Philippines, all the rest of the former Baltic and East European Communist states (although Russia, as always, remains a problem), Taiwan, South Korea, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey.



Many of these countries have a legacy of rule by ideological parties acting as a foundation for the state, typically with the backing of the military. This was the experience of Taiwan with the Guomindang, Mexico under the so-called Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and Turkey ruled by the Republican People's Party. Saddam's Ba'athism was merely a variation of this 20th century model, as was the Soviet Communism that is finally disappearing, one hopes, from Ukraine.



There should be no reason to doubt the universality of democracy, or the contagious nature of elections in Iraq, and, for that matter, in Ukraine. As Iraq's ballot boxes may trump the viciousness of its terrorists, the Palestinians may also join the new wave of democratization. Ukrainians vote, Palestinians vote, Iraqis vote, and a new phase in world history begins. This is the true meaning of globalization, especially in the age of the internet and satellite television.



Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia is much less a form of Islam than an ideology employed to keep the royal family in power, and if the removal of the ideological state may be effected peacefully in Kyiv, why not in Riyadh? Saudi subjects could leap ahead of their Iraqi neighbors, for I cannot imagine that if Ukraine succeeds in a bloodless democratization, Saudi subjects will not be inspired to ask why they, too, cannot follow the road of the Orange Revolution, rather than that of the black-bannered jihad, and voting boxes protected by American lives, in Iraq. And that will mean a decisive blow to terrorist jihadism throughout the world

Department of Justice: Second Amendment Is Individual Right

Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004
The U.S. Department of Justice has declared that the Second Amendment explicitly recognizes the right of individual Americans to own and carry firearms. Gun rights advocates call the statement a "good first step" but cautioned that it is not the end of the gun control debate.

The "Memorandum Opinion for the Attorney General" released on the Internet last week is titled "Whether the Second Amendment Secures an Individual Right." The 103-page report, with 437 footnotes, concluded that "the Second Amendment secures a personal right of individuals, not a collective right that may only be invoked by a State or a quasi-collective right restricted to those persons who serve in organized militia units."
That conclusion is based, according to the authors, "on the Amendment's text, as commonly understood at the time of its adoption and interpreted in light of other provisions of the Constitution and the Amendment's historical antecedents."

The Aug. 24 memorandum stated that it did not consider the "substance" of the individual right to own and carry firearms or the legitimacy of government attempts to limit the right. The document also declared that the authors were not calling into question the constitutionality of any particular limitations on owning, carrying or using firearms.

Joe Waldron, executive of Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), told Cybercast News Service that the memorandum was "a good start, a good first step."

"What this does," Waldron explained, "is it puts the federal government - the U.S. Justice Department, which is the nation's chief law enforcement agency - on record as recognizing that the Second Amendment, without question, is intended to apply to individuals and not to collective organizations such as the National Guard or any kind of lesser militia."

The memo does not protect individuals from being prosecuted under gun laws, Waldron acknowledged, but he said it did require a fundamental change in how the government approaches those cases.

Civil Rights

"It changes the courts' view of the issue, and it applies a stricter standard of scrutiny as to whether or not a given law does infringe on an individual's constitutional rights," Waldron said. "They have to look at it from a civil rights perspective now instead of just [whether] the individual violated a given law."

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence did not return calls seeking comment on the Justice Department's determination, but the organization has spoken out against the "individual rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment frequently in the past, including in an amicus brief filed in federal court in 1999.

Gun Grabbers: Second Amendment 'Depleted'

"The fact that militia members are no longer required to supply their own arms when reporting for service has depleted the Second Amendment of most of its vitality," Brady Center stated. "And, in fact, the Second Amendment remains relevant today because the rights it protects are held by the National Guard."

Dennis Henigan, director of Brady Center's Legal Action Project, also spoke against the "individual rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment at James Madison University in 2002.

"Both the language and history of the Second Amendment show that its subject matter was not individual rights," Henigan said, "but rather the distribution of military power in society between the states and the federal government."

The Justice Department rejected Brady Center's argument.


'A Right of Individuals'


"A 'right of the people' is ordinarily and most naturally a right of individuals, not of a State and not merely of those serving the State as militiamen. The phrase 'keep arms' at the time of the Founding usually indicated the private ownership and retention of arms by individuals as individuals, not the stockpiling of arms by a government or its soldiers, and the phrase certainly had that meaning when used in connection with a 'right of the people,'" the Justice Department's report stated.

"Moreover, the Second Amendment appears in the Bill of Rights amid amendments securing numerous individual rights, a placement that makes it likely that the right of the people to keep and bear arms likewise belongs to individuals," the document continued.

Waldron expects the opinion to be introduced in support of the individual rights of gun owners in several cases working their way through the federal courts. His hope is that one of those cases will reach the Supreme Court.

"Is this the end, is this the Omega? Absolutely not," Waldron said. "The Omega will come when the Supreme Court begins to overturn selected gun control laws based on the fact that they do infringe upon the individual right protected in the Constitution."

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Rumsfeld's Questioner Wrong About Unit's Armor

The reporter who managed to get a National Guardsman serving in Iraq to question Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about why his unit's vehicles lacked sufficient armor coached the soldier using false information.

In fact, by the time Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts rehearsed Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson on what to say to Rumsfeld, the Pentagon had already up-armored 97 percent of the vehicles in Thomas' 278th Regimental Combat Team, senior members of the Army's combat systems development and acquisition team said Thursday. Further undermining the premise of Pitts' question, orders to up-armor the last 20 of the 278th's 830 vehicles were already in the pipeline when he engineered the bogus inquiry.

According to the Maryville, Tenn., Daily Times - a rival to Pitts' paper - Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes and Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson said during last week's Pentagon briefing that routine pre-deployment preparations before proceeding to Iraq included adding protective armor plates to the last 20 vehicles of the Tennessee-based 278th Regimental Combat Team's 830 vehicles.

"When the question was asked, 20 vehicles remained to be up-armored at that point," Gen. Speakes said, in comments completely ignored by the major media.

"We completed those 20 vehicles in the next day," he said. "In other words, we completed all the armoring within 24 hours of the time the question was asked," Gen. Speakes added.

The eye-opening revelations by Gen. Speakes and Gen. Sorenson first gained national exposure on FreeRepublic.com late Friday.

In a Dec. 8 exchange during a question-and-answer session in Kuwait, Spc. Wilson asked Rumsfeld, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?"

Unaware that Wilson's questioned was based on false information, the Defense Secretary replied, in part: "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have."

Pitts later admitted that the idea to question Rumsfeld about the unit's armor was his, and that he thoroughly coached the National Guardsman on what to say.

President Bush Named Time's Person of 2004

NewsMax Wires
Monday, Dec. 20, 2004
NEW YORK -- After winning re-election and "reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style," President George Bush for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year.

The magazine's editors tapped Bush "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes -- and ours -- on his faith in the power of leadership." Time's 2004 Person of the Year package, on newsstands Monday, includes an Oval Office interview with Bush, an interview with his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and a profile of Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove.
In an interview with the magazine, Bush attributed his victory over Democratic candidate John Kerry to his foreign policy and the wars he began in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The election was about the use of American influence," Bush said.

After a grueling campaign, Bush remains a polarizing figure in America and around the world, and that's part of the reason he earned the magazine's honor, said Managing Editor Jim Kelly.

"Many, many Americans deeply wish he had not won," Kelly said in a telephone interview. "And yet he did."

In the Time article, Bush said he relishes that some people dislike him.

"I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them," Bush said. "On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are."


Six Other Presidents


Bush joins six other presidents who have twice won the magazine's top honor: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower (first as a general), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Franklin Roosevelt holds the record with three nods from the editors.

Kelly said Bush has changed dramatically since he was named Person of the Year in 2000 after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency.

"He is not the same man," Kelly said. "He's a much more resolute man. He is personally as charming as ever but I think the kind of face he's shown to the American public is one of much, much greater determination."

The magazine gives the honor to the person who had the greatest impact, good or bad, over the year.

Asked on ABC's "This Week" how Bush reacted when he learned of Time's decision, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the president was "not worried about what pundits might be saying."

Card praised Bush as a "great liberator" for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq and lauded Bush's tax cuts, education and Medicare reform packages and plans to remake Social Security.

"So I think he's got the right ingredients to be recognized as the Person of the Year," Card said.

Kelly said other candidates included Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, "because in different ways their movies tapped in to deep cultural streams," and political strategist Rove, who is widely credited with engineering Bush's win. Kelly said choosing Rove alone would have taken away from the credit he said Bush deserves.

This is the first time an individual has won the award since 2001, when then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was celebrated for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The American soldier earned the honor last year; in 2002, the magazine tapped Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who wrote a critical memo on FBI intelligence failures, and Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on scandals at Enron and Worldcom.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Greens Concede Kyoto Will Not Impact 'Global Warming'

By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
December 17, 2004

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNSNews.com) - After a
relentless attack on the United States for opposing
the Kyoto Protocol, environmental groups concede the
international treaty will have no impact on what they
believe to be impending catastrophic global warming.

Despite the fact that green groups at the U.N. climate
summit in Buenos Aires called President George Bush
"immoral" and "illegitimate" for not supporting the
Kyoto Protocol, the groups themselves concede the
Protocol will only have "symbolic" effect on climate
because they believe it is too weak. Kyoto is an
international treaty that seeks to limit greenhouse
gases of the developed countries by 2012.

"I think that everybody agrees that Kyoto is really,
really hopeless in terms of delivering what the planet
needs," Peter Roderick of Friends of the Earth
International told CNSNews.com.

"It's tiny, it's tiny, tiny, it's tiny," Roderick
said. "It is woefully inadequate, woefully. We need
huge cuts to protect the planet from climate change."

But just because Kyoto may end up having little or no
impact on the climate, that did not stop Roderick from
blasting President Bush for the White House's
environmental policies.

Roderick cited "deep psychological reasons" as to why
the Bush administration opposed the Protocol.

"[Bush] comes across as not caring," Roderick said. "I
am sure he does care in his own life personally about
many things, [but] I think also that he is scared, he
is fearful, he is fearful about wanting to continue in
power.

"Somewhere in their hearts [the Bush administration
doesn't] seem to care about the future of the planet
and I think that is bad news for the world," Roderick
added. "It is obviously deep psychological reasons, as
to why individuals would feel that way ... [Bush]
seems to have a vision of the world which is not
recognized by millions and millions of people around
the world."

Kyoto: 'Symbolic importance'

While Roderick dismisses the potential impact of the
Kyoto Protocol, he believes the treaty is vital for a
reason that has nothing to do with climate change.

"[The Protocol] is important more in the political
message and the inspiration it is giving people around
the world. People can say 'yeah, our politicians do
care -- they are not just interested in power and
their own greed and in their own money. They do care
about the future of the planet,'" Roderick explained.

"How inspiring it would be for the leaders to get
together and say 'yeah, we are going to do this, we
are all in this together. That's, I think, the sort of
symbolic importance of Kyoto, not the the sort of
nitty-gritty commas and dots in the text [of the
Protocol]," he added.

Roderick believes a global climate emergency can only
be averted by a greenhouse gas limiting treaty of
massive proportions. "We are talking basically of
huge, huge cuts," said Roderick.

The most positive description of the Kyoto Protocol
centers on it fostering the spirit of cooperation in
the international community, according to Roderick.

"The best thing that can be said for it, is it's the
first time that with the exception unfortunately of
the United States, that the international community
has said, 'We need to get together on this and we need
international action.' That's the really important
thing of Kyoto," Roderick said.

Kyoto: 'Important architecture'

Greenpeace International agreed that the Kyoto
Protocol should only be an entry point for controlling
greenhouse gas emissions. Jessica Coven, a
spokesperson for the environmental group, told
CNSNews.com that "Kyoto is our first start and we need
increasing emissions cuts.

"We need all types of actions, but Kyoto is the
important architecture for how we are going to move
forward to curb the problem [of climate change],"
Coven said.

"Global warming, as its name suggests, is a global
problem and we need an international framework like
Kyoto," she added. And despite the Protocol's limited
impact, Coven said President Bush's decision not to
support the treaty is "immoral."

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the Arctic group
that announced their intention this week to seek a
ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights against the United States, "for causing global
warming and its devastating impacts," also denigrated
the global warming treaty.

"The Kyoto Protocol, although again achieved with
great difficulty, doesn't even go near to what has to
get done. It is not anywhere near to what we need in
the Arctic," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chairwoman of
Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

"Kyoto will not stop the dangerous sea level rise from
creating these kinds of enormous challenges that we
are about to face in the future. I know many of you
here believe that we must go beyond [Kyoto]," she said
during a panel discussion.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Key facts: U.S. intelligence bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The following are the highlights of legislation that would enact key intelligence reforms recommended by the September 11 Commission.

The legislation:


establishes the new Director of National Intelligence post to oversee the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. The director is to be approved by the Senate and will have control over much of the budget for U.S. spy agencies. The Pentagon retains control over battlefield assets.

establishes the National Counterterrorism Center to coordinate terrorism-related intelligence and conduct "strategic operational planning," which will include the mission, objectives, tasks and interagency coordination.

creates a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to ensure regulations and policies do not threaten privacy rights or civil liberties.

requires the secretary of homeland security to develop and implement a national strategy for transportation security, including steps to improve aviation, air cargo and maritime security.

calls for greater coordination and communication between all levels of government and emergency response providers.

requires the Department of Homeland Security to increase the numbers of border patrol agents by at least 2,000 per year and customs and immigration agents by at least 800 per year for five years.

tightens visa application requirements; requires a face-to-face consular interview of most applicants for non-immigrant visas between the ages of 14 and 79.

increases criminal penalties for alien smuggling and allows deportation of any alien who received military training from a group designated as a terrorist organization.

provides new authority to pursue "lone wolf" terror suspects who are not affiliated with foreign terror groups.

authorizes funding for better technology and other federal support to improve efforts to fight money laundering and terrorist financing; requires better coordination and building on international coalitions to combat terrorist financing.

supports public diplomacy in foreign policy; supports further financial assistance of Pakistan and Afghanistan; calls for strengthening and assessing the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.











Friday, November 26, 2004

Zarqawi network appeals for help in first signals of defeat

Zarqawi network appeals for help in first signals of
defeat



SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, November 26, 2004
BAGHDAD �? Sunni insurgents backing Abu Mussib Al
Zarqawi have expressed alarm at the prospect of a
defeat by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

An audio tape said to be from Al Zarqawi charged
Muslim clerics with letting down the insurgency
"because of your silence."

On Wednesday, Al Zarqawi, with a $25 million bounty on
his head, was the target of a major manhunt in the
Sunni Triangle, Middle East Newsline reported. Iraqi
military sources said Al Zarqawi was said to have been
seen in an area south of Fallujah.

Islamic sources said that for the first time in more
than a year the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Al
Zarqawi appears to have lost control over many of its
insurgents in the Sunni Triangle.

The sources said Iraqi and U.S. assaults on major
insurgency strongholds in such cities as Baghdad,
Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi and Samara have resulted in
heavy insurgency casualties and a break in the command
and control structure.

Over the last few days, Al Zarqawi supporters have
appealed for help from Al Qaida and related groups.
The sources said Al Qaida's allies, including the
Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call, have sought to
increase recruitment of Muslim volunteers to fight the
coalition.

The Internet has also reflected the growing concern
that Islamic insurgents would be routed in Iraq. A
message posted on an Islamic website appealed for help
from Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan, Chechnya,
Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority.

The message, posted by a purported insurgency
supporter who used the name Abu Ahmed Al Baghdadi,
acknowledged that the Sunni insurgency has been harmed
by the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah. Al Baghdadi
said insurgents have lost their haven in Fallujah, but
asserted that Al Zarqawi has acquired a broader base
for operations and recruitment.

For his part, Al Zarqawi has also expressed concern
over the U.S. military operation against Fallujah,
Mosul and other insurgency strongholds.

On Wednesday, an audio tape posted on an Islamic
website and purportedly from Al Zarqawi accused Muslim
clerics of failing to support the insurgency in Iraq.

"You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and
handed us over to the enemy," the message said. "You
have stopped supporting the holy warriors. Hundreds of
thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered
at the hands of the infidels because of your silence."

In early November, Al Baghdadi posted a plan for the
Tawhid group to take over Iraq. Islamic sources said
Al Baghdadi was believed to be pseudonym used by a
major Islamic operative.

Al Zarqawi accused unnamed clerics and scholars of
preventing Muslims from joining the Sunni insurgency
in Iraq. He said Muslim clerics abandoned the
insurgents to the United States.

"Are your hearts not shaken by the scenes of your
brothers being surrounded and hurt by your enemy?" Al
Zarqawi asked.

"How long will you continue to abandon the nation to
the tyrants of the east and of the west, who are
inflicting the worst suffering, cutting the throats of
the holy warriors, the best children of the nation,
and taking its riches?"





Copyright © 2004 East West Services, Inc.



Bin Laden's brother-in-law speaks

Bin Laden's brother-in-law speaks
Former confidant details life with terrorist leader
From Nic Robertson and Henry Schuster
CNN




JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- Osama bin Laden's
brother-in-law, and former best friend, says he's not
surprised the terrorist leader has been difficult to
capture.

"Who is going to capture him and where?" Jamal Khalifa
said.

Khalifa spoke to CNN in an exclusive interview about
bin Laden and their past, which he said took the two
men from university to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan
before they parted company.

"For 10 years, the Russians did not capture even one
leader of the Afghan mujahedeen with the full forces
everywhere. So I think it is a little bit difficult,"
he said.

These days, Khalifa runs a fish restaurant just
outside the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah.

"Ten years we are together," said Khalifa. "When we
were in the university and after that. Always we are
together. We live in one house."

Bin Laden and Khalifa met at Jeddah's King Abdulaziz
University in the late 1970s and became close friends,
nearly inseparable, Khalifa said.

They also shared a teacher, Abdullah Azzam, a
Palestinian cleric who later joined bin Laden as
founders of al Qaeda. Azzam's teachings helped
influence bin Laden and Khalifa to go to Afghanistan
and join the jihad against the Soviet forces that had
invaded that country in 1979.

It was a sign of bin Laden's respect and affection for
Khalifa that he arranged for Khalifa to marry his
sister. But Khalifa thought a degree of caution might
be in order, since they were headed into a war zone.

"He is the one who suggested ... I marry his sister,"
Khalifa said. "I told him, 'Osama, we are going to die
and you are talking about marriage. So let's go first
and if I come alive, we will do it.' So, I came
alive."

Khalifa said he spent most of his time in Pakistan,
setting up an Islamic relief charity, building schools
and mosques for refugees displaced by the war in
neighboring Afghanistan.

At the same time, bin Laden was becoming a leader of
Arabs who came to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was
able to use some of his family fortune and contacts to
raise money for the jihad, and he led men into combat.

Khalifa said that he was troubled at the time that bin
Laden was creating his own fighting force from the
men, who were known as the Afghan Arabs. "I saw him
starting to group the Arabs in one place and start to
let them go and fight by themselves."

Khalifa said he didn't realize that he was witnessing
the beginnings of al Qaeda. But he said that what he
saw he didn't like. He had a visit from three men,
including Abu Ubaidah and Abu Hafs, who later became
al Qaeda's first two military commanders.

They asked him a series of questions. Only later, he
said, did he understand he was being screened about
becoming a member of al Qaeda. This was in the late
1980s.

'Osama, you are doing something wrong'
"I am the first one who stood up in front of Osama and
told him, 'Osama, you are doing something wrong. You
are going to the wrong direction,'" said Khalifa, who
said he did not approve of the worldwide jihad that
bin Laden and his advisers were planning.

Sheik Azzam, their mentor, was murdered under
still-mysterious circumstances shortly afterward, and
bin Laden became the uncontested leader of al Qaeda.

"He is a wealthy man, he has very good connections,
and many people really love Osama," Khalifa said.

He said he parted company with bin Laden in the late
1980s, but they remained in touch. He last saw him in
early 1992 during a family visit to Sudan.

The bin Laden Khalifa saw on video most recently aired
on Arabic-language news channels looks like a man who
has aged a great deal, he said.

On that tape, bin Laden once again took responsibility
for the attacks of September 11, 2001. Khalifa
believes that to be the case, but he says his
brother-in-law was the leader of the attacks, but not
the organizer.

"He cannot organize anything. I am the one who is
leading. I am the one who is leading him in the
prayer. I am the one who is leading if we go for
outing, for picnic, for riding horses," Khalifa said
with a laugh.

Khalifa has become more outspoken in his criticism of
bin Laden. Last year, after a wave of terrorist
attacks in Saudi Arabia, he published an open letter
to bin Laden in a Saudi paper, asking him to renounce
the terrorism being committed in his name.

"Please come out, tell those people to stop," Khalifa
wrote in the letter. "You are the one who can tell
that, and you are the one who can stop it."

He never got a response from the man who was once his
best friend. But there have been more attacks.

Khalifa has been the target of an extraordinary amount
of scrutiny because of his background.

In the Philippines, where he went from Afghanistan,
officials charged in a 1994 report that he was using
businesses and prominent Islamic charities as fronts
to funnel money to terrorists. Much of the
investigation was done after Khalifa had left the
country.

No charges were filed, Col. Boogie Mendoza of the
Philippine National Police, said, because at the time
the Philippines had no anti-terrorism laws. Currently,
Khalifa does not face any charges in the Philippines.
In fact, Mendoza said, if Khalifa returned to Manila,
he would likely be put under surveillance but not be
arrested.

Khalifa next traveled to San Francisco, California. He
was arrested there by the U.S. government after it
learned he was wanted in Jordan, where he had been
convicted in absentia on a charge of plotting to
overthrow the government. After being deported to
Jordan, he was retried and acquitted.

Although Khalifa is named as a defendant in a
multibillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the families of
9/11 victims, he contends there is no evidence to link
him to the attacks.

On September 11, Khalifa was on a business trip in
Southeast Asia. After he returned to Saudi Arabia, he
was jailed for several months. He said he still
doesn't know why he was arrested.

"They came and said, 'You are clear and you can go
now.' That's it. So I don't know what is going on," he
said.

Nawaf Obaid, a national security consultant for the
Saudi government, said officials there now believe
Khalifa "does not pose any security threat to any
government and that he has broken all ties that have
linked him to his charitable groups when he was
operating out of the Philippines."











Iraqi official: Troops found chemical lab during sweep of Fallujah

Iraqi official: Troops found chemical lab during sweep
of Fallujah
By Associated Press, 11/25/2004 09:51

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Iraqi troops searching suspected
terrorist hideouts in Fallujah discovered a laboratory
with manuals on how to manufacture explosives and
toxins including anthrax, Iraq's national security
adviser said Thursday.

Qassem Dawoud said the lab was found in the
southwestern district of Fallujah, where pockets of
insurgents are still holding out following the Nov. 8
assault by American and Iraqi forces.

''We also found in the laboratory manuals and
instructions spelling out procedures for making
explosives,'' he said. ''They also spoke about making
anthrax.''

Dawoud showed pictures of a shelf containing what he
said were various chemicals.


=====
Listen to J.R. on Talk Show America, a political conservative talk show that webcasts Mon-Fri 4-6 PM EST live on the IBC Radio Network www.ibcrn.com or 24/7 @ www.talkshowamerica.com (Recorded)

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Is Declaration of Independence unconstitutional?

School district sued for censoring founding documents, state constitutions

Posted: November 23, 2004
11:38 p.m. Eastern




� 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

In a season typified by lawsuits against manger scenes, crosses and even the words "Merry Christmas," a California case is taking the "separation of church and state" one step further � dealing with whether it's unconstitutional to read the Declaration of Independence in public school.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit Monday against the Cupertino Union School District for prohibiting a teacher from providing supplemental handouts to students about American history because the historical documents contain some references to God and religion.

"Throwing aside all common sense, the district has chosen to censor men such as George Washington and documents like the Declaration of Independence," said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. "The district's actions conflict with American beliefs and are completely unconstitutional."


Patricia Vidmar, principal of the Stevens Creek School, reportedly ordered the teacher, Stephen Williams, to submit his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to her for advance approval. Aside from Williams, a Christian, no other teachers were subject to the advance-screening requirement, says the ADF.

Just what documents did Williams submit that were deemed unfit for the school's students?

"Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, the diaries of George Washington and John Adams, the writings of William Penn, and various state constitutions," said the public-interest law firm representing Willliams.

"Less than 5 percent of all of Mr. Williams' supplemental handouts distributed throughout the school year contain references to God and Christianity," McCaleb said. "The district is simply attempting to cleanse all references to the Christian religion from our nation's history, and they are singling out Mr. Williams for discriminatory treatment. Their actions are unacceptable under both California and federal law."

California's Education Code does allow "references to religion or references to or the use of religious literature � when such references or uses do not constitute instruction in religious principles � and when such references or uses are incidental to or illustrative of matters properly included in the course of study."

The case, Stephen J. Williams v. Cupertino Union School District, et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland Division.



Petition: Get ACLU Off Taxpayers Dole

Legal group awarded 1/2 million tax dollars for ridding courthouse of 10 Commandments

Posted: November 25, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern



By Ron Strom




� 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
A new online petition asks Congress to change a specific civil-rights statute in hopes of preventing the American Civil Liberties Union from collecting attorney fees from taxpayers of local governments the organization takes to court.

The effort � spearheaded by Craig McCarthy of CourtZero.org, a site dedicated to stemming judicial activism � seeks to change 42 U.S.C., Section 1988, of the United States Code. The statute now allows judges to award attorney fees to plaintiffs in civil-rights cases brought against local governments, thereby putting the taxpayers on the hook and oftentimes funneling public money to the ACLU. McCarthy wants the law changed so cases involving the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment would not apply.


When the ACLU takes a city to court claiming a Christmas display violates the Establishment Clause, for example, if the municipality loses, the city's taxpayers would not have to pay ACLU attorneys. Ending the financial incentive, McCarthy says, would cause the ACLU to decrease their anti-religion litigation.

"Asking the ACLU directly to cease their destructive behavior is unlikely to have much impact," McCarthy told WND, "but cutting off public funding of their activities would be both doable and effective."

McCarthy gave some examples of the effect of the current law, citing the case of Los Angeles County, which was threatened by the ACLU over its seal, which contained a small cross. Many law firms offered to defend the county against the ACLU for free in that instance, but the county didn't accept the offer. McCarthy says it's because the real expense for the county would be in paying the ACLU's attorney fees if it were to ultimately lose the case.

"Even if they get free attorneys, if they lose, the county's on the hook," he explained.

McCarthy also mentioned the Ten Commandments case in Alabama involving Judge Roy Moore, saying taxpayers there were ordered to pay the ACLU "at least half a million dollars."

Though he says he understands the reasons for the fees, he thinks the Establishment Clause cases have gotten out of hand.

"I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater," McCarthy said, "but I think it would resonate with most people. The Establishment Clause cases have gotten silly. We've been doing this for 30 years about everything � it's like the ACLU is going from town to town" looking for things to sue over.

"If you want to litigate Establishment Clause cases, have at it," he said, "but it shouldn't be taxpayer-supported anymore."

The online petition states, in part: "The ACLU has declared war on the Boy Scouts of America, the military of the United States, Christmas displays, public buildings that display the Ten Commandments, and many other American traditions. �

"The vast majority of taxpayers do not want to be forced to pay the ACLU to sue their neighbors and friends in the ACLU's efforts to strip America of all signs of faith. �

"We, The People, call upon our elected representatives to amend U.S.C., Section 1988, so that fees are not awarded to the ACLU or any other plaintiff in Establishment Clause cases. We wish for the Free Expression Clause to implicate at least the same financial incentives as attacks upon faith currently have."

The Establishment Clause of the Constitution says, " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. �"

Stop ACLU before going to court

Attorney Mathew Staver says he understands McCarthy's point but believes there's a better way to go about it. Staver is president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit religious-liberties law firm.

"What Congress ought to do is pass a statute that cuts back the standing of the ability to bring Establishment Clause claims," Staver said, which would limit who could file such a suit.

He says currently anyone who is "offended" by what they see, a Ten Commandments display, for example, can bring suit.

"You can't do that in any other area of litigation," Staver said. "You've got to have a personal, direct injury. �

"They need to get to the root of it, and the root of it is not whether the ACLU can get attorneys' fees," he told WND. "The root of it is who can bring these lawsuits."

Staver noted that the Supreme Court ruled against atheist Michael Newdow in the Pledge of Allegiance case because he didn't have "standing" or authority to actually bring the suit.

He said he's opposed to eliminating the provision for attorney fees for Establishment Clause cases.

Instead, he said, "you ought to stop them before they can get to the courtroom."

The attorney said there are some discussions on the federal level about limiting the standing on Establishment Clause cases.

Destroying the cross

The American Legion Department of California earlier this year passed a resolution also calling on Congress to eliminate the financial incentives for the ACLU in Establishment Clause cases.

It asks Congress to "amend 42 U.S.C., Section 1988, to expressly preclude the courts from awarding attorney fees under that statute, in lawsuits brought to remove or destroy religious symbols."

According to a report in the Record Gazette or Banning, Calif., the resolution was sparked by the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the ACLU's claim that the solitary cross at what is now officially the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial violates the First Amendment and must be taken down.

Robert Castillo is a member of the veterans group and was part of the D-Day Normandy operation of World War II.

"I can't believe that Congress is allowing judges to give the ACLU thousands of dollars to sue to get rid of a cross at a veterans memorial when we are sending kids to war again to defend our freedom against terrorists," Castillo told the paper.

"The ACLU has gone too far. There are 9,000 crosses and Stars of David at Normandy. My buddies are buried there. If the ACLU can destroy the cross at the Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial, then they can destroy the crosses at Normandy, or Riverside Veterans Memorial Cemetery, or Arlington National."

McCarthy says he hopes to get some signatures on the petition and then begin "shopping it around" Capitol Hill for sponsorship.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Iraqi archbishop: Media misinforming 'There is no organized resistance,' much in country 'positive'

Posted: November 20, 2004



� 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Contending there is no substantial organized resistance among the people, an Iraqi archbishop charged the Western media with issuing "misinformation" about his country by focusing only on terrorism carried out largely by foreigners.

Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk said in an interview with AsiaNews that it's "not all death and destruction" in Iraq, with many anticipating elections as an opportunity for a new beginning.

"Much is positive in Iraq today," he said. "Universities are operating, schools are open, people go out onto the streets normally."


When there is a kidnapping or homicide, the news gets out quickly and "causes fear among the people," Sako told AsiaNews.

But the archbishop insisted "there is no organized resistance" among Iraqis.

"Those who commit such violence are resisting against Iraqis who want to build their country," he said. "Iraqis instead are resisting against terrorism and are not carrying out attacks, which instead are the work of foreign infiltrators."

Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians and Sudanese have entered Iraq to fight against coalition forces, he said.

"Prime Minister Allawi has said this as well," Sako pointed out. "And clearly, there are also Iraqi collaborators who, for money, help the terrorist hide."

The elections in January are an opportunity for a new start, a "new Iraq," he told AsiaNews, but the "Western newspapers and broadcasters are simply peddling propaganda and misinformation."

"Why is there so much noise and debate coming out from the West when before, under Saddam, there were no free elections, but no one said a thing?" Sako asked.

Absent Europe

The archbishop said Europe has been conspicuously missing from Iraq.

"Europe is absent, it's not out there; the United States is on its own," he told AsiaNews.

Europe "must help the Iraqi government to control its borders to prevent the entry of foreign terrorists," he said, but "also provide economic help to encourage a new form of culture which is open to coexistence, the acceptance of others, respect for the human person and for other cultures."

Sako warned Europe "must understand that there is no time to waste on marginal or selfish interests: The entire world needs peace."

Europe must act "because Europeans know the Middle East better than the Americans, they are culturally closer to Arabs, they are very familiar with the Palestinian problem and the situation in the Middle East."

"The Middle East needs help to rediscover peace and usher the Muslim countries into contemporary society, with its foundation of democracy and freedom," he told AsiaNews.

Sako warned that if "the Iraqi model fails, it will be a disaster for everyone. These terrorist groups will gain strength around the world."

He urged Western Christians to pray "not only for their fellow Christians, but for all Iraqis."

Even "a hardened heart can be touched by God," he said.

Asked about attacks on Christian churches, Sako said true Muslims have condemned them and emphasized that "Christians can be a tool for balance in Iraqi society and want to build a new and open Iraq which respects everyone's rights."




U.S. Marine kills wounded insurgent ( Please Help This Marine By Signing the Below Petition !)

View Current Signatures - Sign the Petition


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To: U.S. Congress
Friday November 12 2004

U.S.Marines were fired upon by snipers and insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades from a mosque and an adjacent building. The Marines returned fire with tank shells and machine guns.

They eventually stormed the mosque, killing 10 insurgents and wounding five others, and showing a cache of rifles and grenades for journalists.

The Marines told the pool reporter that the wounded insurgents would be left behind for others to pick up and move to the rear for treatment. But Saturday, another squad of Marines found that the mosque had been reoccupied by insurgents and attacked it again.

Four of the insurgents appeared to have been shot again in Saturday's fighting, and one of them appeared to be dead, according to the pool report. In the video, a Marine was seen noticing that one of the insurgents appeared to be breathing.

A Marine approached one of the men in the mosque saying, "He's [expletive] faking he's dead. He's faking he's [expletive] dead."

The Marine raised his rifle and fired into the insurgents head, at which point a companion said, "Well, he's dead now."

The camera then shows two Americans pointing weapons at another Iraqi insurgent lying motionless. But one of the Marines step back as the insurgent stretches out his hand, motioning that he is alive. The other Marine stands his ground, but neither of them fires.

When told by the pool reporter that the men were among those wounded in Friday's firefight, the Marine who fired the shot said, "I didn't know, sir. I didn't know."

"You can hear the tension in those Marines' voices. One is saying, 'He's faking it. He's faking it,'" Heyman said. "In a combat infantry soldier's training, he is always taught that his enemy is at his most dangerous when he is severely wounded."

A Marine in the same unit had been killed just a day earlier when he tended to the booby-trapped dead body of an insurgent.

NBC reported that the Marine seen shooting the Iraqi insurgent had himself been shot in the face the day before, but quickly returned to duty.

About a block away, a Marine was killed and five others wounded by a booby-trapped body they found in a house after a shootout with insurgents.

Amnesty International has noted reports that insurgents have used mosques as fighting positions, and have used white flags to lure Marines into ambushes.

The Marine who shot the insurgent has been withdrawn from the battlefield pending the results of an investigation, the U.S. military said.

These terrorists do not follow the rules of war. These terrorists kill innocent women by disemboweling them, cut of the heads of innocent truck drivers, detonate car bombs in crowds full of innocent people, and fly planes into buildings filled with innocent Americans.

It is my opinion that NOTHING should happen to this American Marine. He should be returned to his unit or be given an honorable discharge. We don't need our young men and women taking an extra second to decide if its right to shoot an enemy terrorist when that could mean that one of our soldiers could lose their life. The lives of our soldiers should be the single most important factor in this war against terrorism. The rights of terrorists can come second.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned



View Current Signatures

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Scott Peterson Convicted of Murdering Wife and Baby

Friday, Nov. 12, 2004
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. � Scott Peterson was convicted Friday of murdering his pregnant wife and dumping her body into San Francisco Bay in what prosecutors in the made-for-cable-TV case portrayed as a cold-blooded attempt to escape marriage and fatherhood for the bachelor life.

Peterson, 32, could get the death penalty. He was convicted of one count of first-degree murder for killing his wife, Laci, and one count of second-degree murder in the death of the son she was carrying.

Family members intensely waited in the courtroom, and hundreds of onlookers gathered outside to hear word of the verdict.

The verdict came after a five-month trial that was an endless source of fascination to tabloids, magazines and cable networks with its story of an attractive, radiant young couple awaiting the birth of their first child, a cheating husband, and a slaying for which prosecutors had no eyewitnesses, no weapon, not even a cause of death.

The verdict followed a tumultuous seven days of deliberations in which two jurors were removed for unspecified reasons and the judge twice told the panel to start over.

The jury of six men and six women were told to return Nov. 22 to begin hearing testimony on whether Peterson should die by lethal injection or get life in prison without parole.

Mrs. Peterson, a 27-year-old substitute teacher, was eight months' pregnant when she vanished around Christmas Eve 2002. Four months later, her headless body and the remains of her fetus were discovered along the shoreline about 90 miles from the couple's Modesto home, not far from where her husband claims he was fishing alone the day of her disappearance.

Peterson was soon arrested in the San Diego area, more than 400 miles from home, carrying nearly $15,000, his hair and goatee bleached blond.

Police never were able to establish exactly when, how or where Mrs. Peterson died.

At trial, prosecutors presented 174 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence, from wiretapped phone calls to videotaped police interrogations, depicting Peterson as liar and a philanderer who was sweet-talking his girlfriend, massage therapist Amber Frey, at the same time he was trying to show the world he was pining for his missing wife.

'Didn't Want to Be Tied to This Kid'

Prosecutor Rick Distaso told the jury that the former fertilizer salesman could not stand the thought of being trapped in a "dull, boring, married life with kids," and either strangled or smothered his wife and dumped her weighted-down body overboard from his fishing boat.

"He wants to live the rich, successful, freewheeling bachelor life. He can't do that when he's paying child support, alimony and everything else," Distaso said. "He didn't want to be tied to this kid the rest of his life. He didn't want to be tied to Laci for the rest of his life. So he killed her."

The jury heard how Peterson had bought a two-day ocean-fishing license days before Mrs. Peterson disappeared, yet claimed his fishing trip was a last-minute substitution for golf because of blustery weather. Prosecutors also offered evidence suggesting he used a bag of cement mix to make concrete anchors to sink his wife's body into the bay.

Peterson never took the stand. His lawyers argued that he was the victim of a frame-up. They suggested that someone else - perhaps homeless people, sex offenders or suspicious-looking characters spotted in the neighborhood - abducted her while she walked the dog, then killed her and dumped the body in the water after learning of Peterson's fishing-trip alibi.

Peterson's lawyers also offered evidence that the fetus might have died days or weeks after Mrs. Peterson's disappearance, when Peterson was being watched closely by the police and the media.

And they explained his lies and inconsistent statements about his affair and his activities around the time of her disappearance as the mutterings of a man in the midst of a breakdown over his missing wife.

Defense: He's Just a 'Jerk and a Liar'

Defense attorney Mark Geragos acknowledged the jurors probably hated Peterson, and pleaded with them not to convict him simply because the prosecution had made him look like a "jerk and a liar."

Geragos also noted the lingering questions about how Mrs. Peterson died. "Maybe the logical explanation for the fact that we have no evidence of her struggling in that house, dying in that house is because it didn't happen in that house," he said.

In addition, Geragos said police found that someone had used a computer in the Petersons' home on the morning she vanished, after authorities contend she was already dead, to search Web sites for a scarf and a sunflower-motif umbrella stand. He suggested the user was Mrs. Peterson.

The story proved irresistible to the cable networks, which almost every night brought in experts to pick apart the two sides' legal strategies and expound on some of the soap-opera aspects of the case, which included hours of secretly taped calls in which Peterson spun out elaborate tales to Frey.

Frey herself testified, saying that Peterson told her during their affair that he had "lost his wife." But she said that in all their recorded conversations, he repeatedly professed his love for his wife and never said anything to incriminate himself in her slaying.

In January, the case was moved from Modesto to Redwood City after defense attorneys argued Peterson had been demonized in his hometown to the point that he couldn't get a fair trial.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

The Majority of Americans Have Spoken ... LOUD and CLEAR !

J.R.'s Take
06 Nov 2004

On November 2 of 2004 52 % of the American people sent
several messages loud and clear by re-electing
President Bush as the leader of our nation !

Message # 1: To the liberal British Press, mainly the
Guardian, stay out of our elections, we do not need
you to try to influence who becomes President. We
have minds of our own and we will decide ! Butt Out !

Message # 2: To Europe, We do not care if 70 % of you
would choose Kerry. We will decide who we choose. If
you like Kerry so much why don't you elect him to head
the EU or something like that, or maybe President of
France. Otherwise mind your own business !

Message # 3: To Osama and Al Qaeda: Your threats will
not deter us. We are not weak, but strong with
resolve to defeat you and your ilk. Your threats will
not make us run and vote for who you want to be
President. We are not Spain. Eventually we will
capture or kill you, we have patience too.

Message # 4: To the UN: Stop trying to influence our
election process. You are a bunch of spineless
jellyfish who want every leader and citizen of the
world to answer to you. We will NOT TOLERATE IT in
this country, I can assure you of that. We have
spoken and we choose to re-elect a strong, decisive,
and moral leader. President Bush is that leader. If
you think Kerry is such a great choice then appoint
him as secretary General of the UN, and then move to
the Hague. Get out of New York. We are sick of
funding you !

Message # 5: To the leftist liberal sniveling whiners,
You know who you are. The majority of America has
spoken, did you hear us? We are tired of you trying
to denigrate our country with your liberal, immoral
agenda. We will not allow you to drag our country's
moral values through the mud any longer. We do not
support abortion or partial birth abortion. We do not
support gay marriage. We believe in god and aren't
and will not be afraid to say so. We salute the flag
and are proud to recite the pledge of allegiance with
the words "Under God" in it ! We support our
President and our brave men and women in the military,
we not only support the troops, WE SUPPORT THE CAUSE !
We don't need anti American film makers and Hollywood
elites telling us what we should be and not be
supporting. Maybe Kerry can become a movie director,
or movie star. He certainly had the experience of
directing and starring in his own movie when he was in
Vietnam. Maybe he should submit it to the Cannes Film
Festival, after all, his daughter could show up
displaying her breasts through a see through dress
again, that ought to get a few votes for the film.
Hey they picked Farsenheit 9/11 didn't they?

Message # 6: To the Main Stream News Media, we are
tired of your left wing agenda. We are tired of your
distortions, half truths and outright lies. You have
proved yourselves both unreliable and despicable. You
have exposed your bias on several occasions and also
your true mission. We are tired of you attacking the
President and dishonoring our troops and our country,
by reporting only the bad news on the war on terror
and not the good things that our brave men and women
are accomplishing there. We are beginning to seek
alternative sources of news and we will continue to do
so.

Message # 7: To all of you who stated that you would
move to another country if President Bush was elected.
Many of you restating what you said in 2000. We have
two words for you, MOVE ALREADY !

Signed,
We, the majority of the People of the United States of
America !

God Bless America, our Military, and our Commander in
Chief, President George W. Bush

J.R.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Iraq chemical arms feared taken

Iraq chemical arms feared taken

Site looted, but experts unsure what was there

Charles J. Hanley
Associated Press
Oct. 31, 2004 12:00 AM

Looters unleashed last year by the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq overran a sprawling desert complex where a
bunker sealed by U.N. monitors held old chemical
weapons, according to a U.S. arms inspectors report.

Charles Duelfer's arms teams say that all U.N.-sealed
structures at the Muthanna site were broken into. If
the site's "Bunker 2" was breached and looted, it
would be the second recent case of restricted weapons
at risk of falling into militants' hands.

Officials are unsure whether this latest episode
points to a threat of chemical attack, as it isn't
known whether usable chemical warheads were in the
bunker or what may have been taken and by whom.

"Clearly, there's a potential concern, but we're
unable to estimate the relative level of it because we
don't know the condition of the things inside the
bunker," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N.
arms inspection agency in New York, whose specialists
have been barred from Iraq since the invasion.

Chief arms hunter Duelfer said by e-mail Friday from
Iraq that he was unaware of "anything of importance"
looted from the chemical-weapons complex. The report
his Iraq Survey Group issued on Oct. 6 said, however,
that it couldn't vouch for the fate of old munitions
at Muthanna.

One chemical-weapons expert said that even old,
weakened nerve agents, in this case sarin, could be a
threat to unprotected civilians.

The weapons involved would be pre-1991 artillery
rockets filled with sarin, or their damaged remnants,
weapons that were openly declared by Iraq and were
under U.N. control until security fell apart with the
U.S. attack. They are not concealed arms of the kind
President Bush claimed Iraq had but which were never
found.

In its Oct. 6 report, summarizing a fruitless search
for banned weapons in Iraq, Duelfer's group disclosed
that widespread looting occurred at Muthanna, 35 miles
northwest of Baghdad, after of the fall of the Iraqi
capital in April 2003.

A little-noted annex of the 985-page report said that
every U.N.-sealed location at the desert installation
had been breached in the spree, and "materials and
equipment were removed."

Bunker 2 at Muthanna State Establishment, once Iraq's
central chemical-weapons production site, was put
under U.N. inspectors' control in early 1991 after it
was heavily damaged by a U.S. precision bomb in the
first Gulf War. At the time, Iraq said 2,500
sarin-filled artillery rockets had been stored there.

The U.N. teams sealed up the bunker with brick and
reinforced concrete, rather than immediately attempt
the risky job of clearing weapons or remnants from
under a collapsed roof and neutralizing them.



The looting at Muthanna, a 35-square-mile complex in
the heart of the embattled "Sunni Triangle," is the
latest example of how sensitive Iraqi sites,
previously under U.N. oversight, were exposed to
potential plundering by militants or random looters in
Iraq's wartime chaos.

Last Monday, U.N. officials confirmed that almost 380
tons of sophisticated explosives, also under U.N.
seal, had disappeared from a military-industrial site
south of Baghdad, a location left unsecured by U.S.
troops advancing to Baghdad in April 2003.

Thousands of tons of other munitions are also
unaccounted for across Iraq. The issue has become a
flashpoint in the U.S. presidential race.





WHY POLICE OFFICERS BACK W

WHY POLICE OFFICERS BACK W

By FRANK FERREYRA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



November 1, 2004 -- IN the face of one of the most
bitter presidential races this country has ever seen,
a first-ever event occurred in the nearly 90-year
history of the National Fraternal Order of Police, the
largest law-enforcement labor union in the United
States, when the entire organization unanimously
supported the endorsement of President George W. Bush.
That endorsement represents over 318,000 members and
their families. (I was privileged to have our National
Trustee Charles Caputo represent the New York State
FOP at this meeting and cast our vote. )
The obvious question is: Why the FOP has displayed
such unity in its unwavering support of the president?
Put simply, it is because under this president,
promises made are promises kept. However, the reasons
are many, easy to understand and have far-reaching
benefits to every citizen in this country.

First and foremost, the Bush administration has
repeatedly made good on its commitment to law
enforcement. Through key legislation and budget
appropriations, our nation's police officers are being
provided the necessary tools and support so vital to
performing in exemplary fashion day in and day out, in
every city, town and village in the United States.

Police officers are the very first line of defense in
any crisis situation. But post-9/11, police officers
have a new enemy to face with bravery and valor:
terrorism. So, in addition to often being first on the
scene of a health emergency, car accident or fire,
police officers now must contend with the ever-present
danger of a terrorist attack anytime, anywhere.

President Bush completely understands this scenario,
and has responded by providing federal funds for
important aspects of emergency management such as
Interoperable Communication and Emergency Operations
Centers.

Under his leadership, the administration has rolled up
its sleeves and worked hard to change the laws to
better protect America. In just four short years,
they've enacted some of the most beneficial changes to
American law enforcement in the past five decades.

One key piece of legislation, the "Law Enforcement
Officers Safety Act," allows off-duty and retired law
officers to remain armed. That puts more enforcement
professionals on the street to act in a time of
crisis. Under the previous administration, this
legislation sat stagnant in Congress. President Bush
identified it as an important law for homeland
security, and did everything in his power to make it a
reality.

President Bush also recognizes the role and importance
of law-enforcement families. He has worked with the
FOP on countless issues affecting those of us who have
lost a loved one in the line of duty and has helped
the FOP pass the most significant expansion of the
federal public-safety officer's survivors-benefit
program in a generation.

Police officers have the opportunity to be heroes any
day they go to work. Many times, that tag of "hero"
costs the ultimate price, as we saw with so many the
day America was attacked. Yet law-enforcement
professionals do not do their jobs for accolades or
recognition. They do it instinctively, without
consideration for their own safety.

President Bush recognizes that trait in the police
officers across the country. He has shown his
appreciation by continually supporting the issues that
affect the lives of each police officer their
families, and that is why we have responded in kind,
with one common voice, to support President Bush on
Election Day.



Frank Ferreyra is president of the New York State
Fraternal Order of Police, which has more than 20,000
members representing virtually every police department
in the state.







Monday, November 01, 2004

Al-Jazeera broadcasts bin Laden tape

Al-Jazeera broadcasts bin Laden tape
Neither Bush nor Kerry can protect U.S., he says

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 7:11 p.m. ET Oct. 29, 2004


Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in a videotape
broadcast Friday on Al-Jazeera television, claims full
responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the
United States and warns Americans that �?your security
is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. Your
security is in your own hands.�?

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said U.S.
intelligence analysts, who were reviewing the tape,
believed that the message was authentic and had been
produced recently.

U.S. officials told NBC News that there was no plan to
raise the terrorist threat level, currently at yellow,
or �?elevated,�? because bin Laden makes no specific
threat. He does, however, warn that the �?main reasons�?
for the Sept. 11 attacks �?are still existing to repeat
what happened before.�?

A senior official said the main message appeared to be
�?I'm still here; I�?m still standing.�?

Al-Jazeera, an Arabic-language broadcast by satellite
from Qatar, would not say how it obtained the
18-minute tape, about seven minutes of which it aired.


A senior State Department official told NBC News that
the Qatari government told the United States about the
tape within the last day. The U.S. ambassador, Chase
Untermeyer, unsuccessfully lobbied Qatari officials to
persuade Al-Jazeera not to air it, the official said.

�?We are a free people�?
In the tape, bin Laden �? wearing traditional white
robes, a turban and a tan cloak �? reads from papers at
a lectern against a plain brown background. Speaking
quietly in an even voice, he tells the American people
that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks because �?we are a
free people�? who wanted to �?regain the freedom�? of
their nation.

�?Do not play with our security, and spontaneously you
will secure yourself,�? he says, according to a
translation by NBC News.


U.S. officials told The Associated Press that one part
of their analysis would be to discern whether there
were hidden messages or clues about a possible future
attack. But they said it was too early to know that
yet.

Bush was informed of the tape aboard Air Force One
late Friday morning by national security adviser
Condoleezza Rice. �?Americans will not be intimidated
or influenced by an enemy of our country,�? he told
reporters at the airport in Toledo, Ohio. �?I�?m sure
Senator Kerry will agree with me.�?

�?I also want to say we are at war with these
terrorists,�? said Bush, who added that he was
�?confident we will prevail.�?

Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential
candidate, was informed by his senior foreign policy
adviser, Rand Beers, who was briefed by the
administration.

�?As Americans, we are absolutely united in our
determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden
and the terrorists," Kerry said as he boarded a
campaign plane in West Palm Beach, Fla. �?They�?re
barbarians, and I will stop at absolutely nothing to
hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever
they are, whatever it takes, period.�?


Change of rhetoric
NBC�?s Richard Engel reported that bin Laden spoke in a
modern style of Arabic, in contrast to the flowery
Quranic language he has used in previous messages. He
appeared to be speaking in a fashion he thought would
be better suited to this target audience, the American
people.

Although he mentions Kerry, most of bin Laden�?s
message is in regard to Bush, who faces Kerry in next
week�?s presidential election. He accuses President
Bush of �?misleading�? the American people for the three
years since the Sept. 11 attacks.


In no previous authenticated message �? audio or video
�? had bin Laden explicitly stated that he ordered the
2001 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people.

But in the new tape, he claims full responsibility.
�?We decided to destroy towers in America so they may
taste what we have tasted,�? he says, clearly referring
to the World Trade Center.

In the course of his comments, bin Laden revealed just
how patiently he awaited his opportunity to strike the
West. He said he first vowed to destroy �?the buildings
of tyrants�? after the devastating Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 1982 �? 19 years before he directed
followers to fly four jetliners into the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon and an unknown third target.

�?God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to
attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and
we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the
American-Israeli alliance toward our people in
Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind,�? he says.


At one point, bin Laden ridicules Bush for reacting
slowly to the 2001 attacks.

�?We never thought that the high commander of the U.S.
armies would leave 50,000 of his citizens in both
towers to face the horrors by themselves when they
most needed him because it seemed to distract his
attention from listening to the girl telling him about
her goat butting,�? he says, referring to Bush�?s
decision to wait more than seven minutes after being
informed of the attacks before leaving an elementary
room classroom in Florida where a student was reading
a story called �?The Pet Goat.�?

�?It appeared to him that a little girl�?s talk about
her goat and its butting was more important than the
planes and their butting of the skyscrapers. That gave
us three times the required time to carry out the
operations, thank God.�?


Bin Laden admits setbacks
U.S. officials told NBC News that in parts of the tape
not aired by Al-Jazeera, bin Laden acknowledges that
the recent Afghan elections were not a success for him
because �?they came off with minimal violence.�? And he
admits that �?aggressive Pakistani operations�? in South
Waziristan, where he is believed to be hiding, have
hurt his operations.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a Middle
East specialist and former military official at the
U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, said the tape was
surprising in that it appeared to demonstrate that bin
Laden was in good health. Bin Laden�?s condition has
been the subject of intense speculation since the
United States launched massive airstrikes in
Afghanistan in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The last authenticated contemporaneous video message
from bin Laden appeared in December 2001, when he
discussed a U.S. attack on a mosque. U.S. officials
told NBC News that all subsequent videos of bin Laden
were believed to have been recorded around the time of
the Sept. 11 attacks and broadcast much later.

The last audio message from bin Laden was on May 6,
when he offered rewards in gold for the assassination
of top U.S. and U.N. officials in Iraq. On Oct. 1, bin
Laden�?s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, issued an
audiotape calling on young Muslims to strike the
United States and its allies.


Labor Memo Suggests Bush to Win Election

Labor Memo Suggests Bush to Win Election



Oct 29, 3:53 PM (ET)

By LEIGH STROPE

WASHINGTON (AP) - Labor Department staff, analyzing
statistics from private economists, report in an
internal memo that President Bush is likely to do
"much better" in Tuesday's election than the polls are
predicting.

The Kerry campaign said the analysis was an improper
use of taxpayer money, and the Labor Department
acknowledged Friday, "Clearly, this kind of armchair
political analysis doesn't belong in government memos,
even if they are entirely internal."

The Labor Department report, obtained by The
Associated Press, includes an analysis of economic
models that suggest Bush will beat Democrat John
Kerry. Titled "In Focus: Predicting the Election
Outcome," the memo says, "Nearly every single model
has him winning."

"Some show the margin of victory being smaller than
the models' inherent margin of error, while others
report the lead as substantial. And this is without
the consideration of a third-party candidate."

Bush's win of the popular vote could be 57.5 percent,
55.7 percent or 51.2 percent, said the paper, dated
Oct. 22 and prepared by the department's Employment
and Training Administration staff for the assistant
labor secretary.

The Bush administration blamed midlevel employees for
preparing inappropriate government material.

"This appears to be an internal ETA document prepared
by midlevel ETA staff," said Labor Department
spokesman Ed Frank.

Kerry's campaign contended the Bush administration was
wasting taxpayers' money.

"If the Bush administration focused more on the
economy and less on politics, George Bush would not be
the first president in 70 years to lose jobs," said
Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer. "George Bush has
turned the government into his own taxpayer-funded
political machine."

The document also includes a Washington Post story, an
article from Monster.com and charts and briefs on the
latest economic indicators.

One factor in the election that has been "downplayed
is the president's popularity," a variable the report
says may be important. "Fortunately, there are models
(that) incorporate this concept," it says.

The economic models are not infallible, but they do
"systematically measure past data, which is a far cry
better than relying on anecdotal evidence," the paper
says. The models looked at an array of economic
indicators, including gross domestic product,
unemployment and inflation.

The analysis also discusses a futures market that lets
players bid on a probable election outcome. It also
checked Web sites of oddsmakers in America and abroad.