The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 06/12/2005 - 06/19/2005

Saturday, June 18, 2005

House Passes Bill to Cut Dues to United Nations

In a vote of 221-184, the House Friday approved a measure designed to withhold half of U.S. dues to the United Nations unless the world body changes the way it operates.

Senator makes partial apology for remarks

Trying to quell an ongoing furor, Sen. Dick Durbin partially apologized Friday for remarks he made on the Senate floor this week comparing American treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to the tactics of murderous regimes.

"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood," Durbin, D-Ill., said in a written release. "I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

Durbin has been on the receiving end of an onslaught of criticism from the White House, from Republican colleagues in the Senate, from conservative media stars such as Rush Limbaugh and from voters.

That criticism was sparked by a lengthy floor speech Durbin delivered late Tuesday in which he took the administration to task for its mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Durbin read aloud from an FBI agent's detailed e-mail complaining about the "torture techniques" visited upon one al-Qaida prisoner.

See video of Durbin's remarks

Dick Durbin has lost his mind and compared American interrogators and Gitmo military staff to Nazis, Soviet gulag operators and genocidal maniac Pol Pot on Tuesday.

You can watch the video HERE. (.wmv)

You can watch the video HERE. (.MPG)

U.S., Iraq Forces Battle Insurgents

U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces battled insurgents on two fronts Saturday in a restive western province, killing about 50 militants in a dusty frontier town in the military's latest campaign to stop foreign fighters infiltrating from neighboring Syria.

The military also announced Saturday that two U.S. soldiers were killed and one was wounded during a small-arms skirmish with insurgents late Friday while transporting a detainee near Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. A civilian and the detainee also were killed, and five Iraqi police officers were wounded. At least 1,718 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Operation Spear, or Romhe in Arabic, was in its second day in Karabilah, about 200 miles west of Baghdad, in Anbar province. Karabilah, which is along the Syrian border, long has been considered an insurgent hotbed.

"The goal is not to seize territory," said Marine Col. Stephen Davis, a commander from New Rochelle, N.Y. "This is about going in and finding the insurgents. This is not a walk-through-the-river exercise."

Three U.S. troops have been wounded since the operation began Friday, Davis said. The campaign involves about 1,000 Marines and Iraqi forces backed by battle tanks. About 100 insurgents have been captured, the military said.

"Approximately 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began," Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.

A second campaign of about the same size, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday - this one targeting the marshy shores of a remote lake north of Baghdad. About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops, backed by fighter jets and tanks, were participating.

Al-Qaida No. 2 Blasts U.S. in New Video

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader released a new video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television Friday, in which he disparaged the U.S. concept of reform in the Middle East and said armed jihad is the only way to bring change in the Arab world.

The message by Ayman al-Zawahri, - his first video since February - appeared to be an attempt by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network to co-opt the rising wave of reform movements in the Middle East. "The removal of the Crusader and Jewish invaders won't occur by peaceful demonstrations," he said in a brief clip shown on the pan-Arab network. "Reform and expelling the invaders from the countries of Islam won't happen except through fighting for God's sake."
The Egyptian was shown in the video sitting before a plain backdrop with an automatic weapon leaned next to him. He wore a white turban and black and white robes. At one point, he glanced to the left at something off-camera.

He outlined what he called a true program for reform - based on the rule of Islamic law, the end of U.S. and Western domination, and the freedom of the Muslim nation to run its own affairs.

"We cannot imagine any reform while our countries are occupied by the Crusader forces," he said. "We cannot imagine any reform while our governments are being ruled from the American embassies in our countries."

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera aired three short segments of the video, without saying how long the full message was. Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said the station received the tape Friday, but would not provide details.

Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, the Pakistan bureau chief of Al-Jazeera said they didn't receive al-Zawahri's tape in Islamabad.

In one of the aired clips, al-Zawahri called on Palestinian militant groups to end a cease-fire with Israel and stay out of upcoming legislative elections in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Separately, an Internet statement in the name of the al-Qaida in Iraq group denied Friday that members of the terror network had been arrested this week in Spain and the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The statement's authenticity could not be verified but it appeared on an Islamic Web site known to carry messages from militant groups.

U.S. forces in Iraq said Thursday they had arrested the leader of the Mosul branch of al-Qaida in Iraq, Mohammed Khalaf. On Wednesday, the Spanish government said it had arrested 11 people who allegedly recruited for al-Qaida in Iraq.

"We have become used to the lies of the crusaders and their followers," said the statement. "Every now and then, they arrest a Muslim and they say: 'We captured an aide to Sheik al-Zarqawi.' The West liked the idea, so Spain claimed that it had arrested a group of al-Zarqawi aides."

"Recently in Mosul, the enemies of God claimed that they had arrested a senior official and an aide to al-Zarqawi. How many aides have they arrested so far?" the statement asked mockingly.

Al-Zawahri is an Egyptian-trained doctor who served time in prison in Egypt for Islamic militancy. After his release, he moved to Afghanistan where he merged his militant faction with bin Laden's in the late 1990s.

In February, Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape purporting to show al-Zawahri denouncing U.S. calls for reform in the Middle East and urging the West to respect the Islamic world.

Michael Schiavo Shopping His Book

Less than three months after his instructions to starve his wife to death were carried out by court order, Michael Schiavo is seeking a book deal.

Schiavo is in Manhattan, reports the New York Post - "shopping his book proposal among publishers." "The timing couldn't be better," the Post notes, with news of his wife's autopsy on the front page of every newspaper this week.

Schiavo's book agent, David Vigliano, told the paper: "I think this is a seminal right to die with dignity story."

Schiavo's story, however, may not be over just yet.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday he may ask prosecutors to probe questions about Michael's conduct on the night of his wife's collapse 15 years ago, which left her mentally disabled.

Jeb: Prosecutor Will Probe Terri Schiavo's Collapse, 911 Call

Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged gap in time from when her husband found her to when he called 911.

In a letter faxed to Pinellas-Pasco County State Attorney Bernie McCabe, Bush said Michael Schiavo testified in a 1992 medical malpractice trial that he found his wife collapsed at 5 a.m. on Feb. 25, 1990, and he said in a 2003 television interview that he found her about 4:30 a.m. He called 911 at 5:40 a.m.



"Between 40 and 70 minutes elapsed before the call was made, and I am aware of no explanation for the delay," Bush wrote. "In light of this new information, I urge you to take a fresh look at this case without any preconceptions as to the outcome."

McCabe was out of state Friday and couldn't immediately be reached for comment, but Bush said McCabe has agreed to his request.

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment from The Associated Press. But on Wednesday he said his client didn't wait to call for help. He said his client has conceded that he confuses dates and times.

Felos has said that if Michael Schiavo had not called 911 immediately, as Bush and others allege, Terri Schiavo would have died that day.

"There is no hour gap or other gap to the point Michael heard Terri fall and called 911," Felos said. "We've seen the baseless allegations in this case fall by the wayside one by one. ... That's what I would call it, a baseless claim to perpetuate a controversy that in fact doesn't exist."

Friday, June 17, 2005

Ducking the Durbin Slander

From this morning's Washington Times:

"Several Democrats ducked the furor yesterday.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, declined to comment, saying she had not heard Mr. Durbin's speech. When a reporter read the passage to her, she declined again.
The offices of Democratic Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut did not answer calls for comment."

What's John Corzine think of Durbin's slander? Do the voters of New Jersey --Corzine is running for governor there right now-- get to know if Corzine agrees with Durbin's assessment or supports Durbin's continuation as #2.

Every member of the military and their families and every voter who admires the military should be watching very closely as the Democratic Party and MSM say and do nothing about Dick Durbin's smear. You can't be a supporter of the military and allow the #2 Democrat in the Senate to put the Nazi/Stalin/Pol Pot brand on the troops, which is exactly what Durbin did. And his feeble attempt t a rewrite of what he said will not work. John Podhoretz has exactly the right take.

As predicted yesterday, the voices of MSM are silent. Not one editorial word from the big newspapers, although the Los Angeles Times runs a David Gelernter piece that calls Durbin's slander an "astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance." Kinsley's crowd did find time to write at length on the war yesterday, and on yesterday's call for a timetable for troop withdrawal, but could not find the space for even a mention of Durbin's slander in that editorial. My guess is that no one at the paper can understand what all the fuss is about.

Bush Critic Contradicts 'Downing Street Memo' Charge

A former diplomat who has criticized President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq Thursday appeared to contradict one of the main charges leveled by the "Downing Street Memo" -- a British document suggesting that the Bush administration knew Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction but went to war with Iraq anyway.

But on Thursday, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson admitted that "we all believed" Saddam had WMD.

"I believe the threat to the United States posed by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction -- which we all believed he had -- could have been dealt with using something less violent than the invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq," Wilson said in a response to a question from Cybercast News Service following a Democrat-sponsored hearing on the matter.

Wilson's comment, that "we all believed" Saddam had WMD, appeared to contradict the memo itself and whether "intelligence and facts" would need to be "fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq if the general consensus was that Saddam possessed WMD.

Fourth Significant Quake Shakes Calif.

Just hours after a moderate earthquake shook most of Southern California, a strong quake struck off the state's northern coast to become the fourth significant shaker to jolt California this week.
Neither quake Thursday caused serious damage. One person was injured.

A 6.6-magnitude temblor hit about 125 miles off the coast of Eureka around 11:30 p.m., rattling the ocean floor. In the afternoon, a 4.9-magnitude quake struck east of Los Angeles, startling people and knocking items off shelves and desks.

"All of a sudden it just started rocking," said John Napolitano, 45, a campus police officer at Crafton Hills College. "I just sat there and rode it out."

Four significant quakes have hit California this week: A magnitude-5.2 quake shook Riverside County on Sunday, and a magnitude-7.2 quake trembled Tuesday under the ocean 90 miles off Northern California.

Stephanie Hanna, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey, said Thursday night's quake was likely an aftershock from Tuesday's shaker.

The early afternoon quake was centered near Yucaipa in San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. About 25 aftershocks followed in a little over an hour, the strongest estimated at magnitude 3.5.

First Woman Gets Silver Star Since WW II

23-year-old sergeant with the Kentucky National Guard on Thursday became the first female soldier to receive the Silver Star - the nation's third-highest medal for valor - since World War II.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, who is from Nashville, Tenn., but serves in a Kentucky unit, received the award for gallantry during a March 20 insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action. According to military accounts of the firefight, insurgents attacked the convoy as it traveled south of Baghdad, launching their assault from trenches alongside the road using rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Hester and her unit moved through enemy fire to the trenches, attacking them with grenades before entering and clearing them.
She killed at least three insurgents with her M4 rifle, according to her award citation. In the entire battle, 26 or 27 insurgents were killed and several more were captured, according to various accounts. Several Americans were also wounded in the firefight.

"Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members. Sgt. Hester's bravery is in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism," her award citation reads.

"I'm honored to even be considered, much less awarded, the medal," Hester told the American Forces Press Service, a military-run information service. "It really doesn't have anything to do with being a female. It's about the duties I performed that day as a soldier."

Hester, a native of Bowling Green, Ky., joined the Kentucky Army National Guard in April 2001 and moved to Nashville in 2003, according to a biography provided by the Army. She works as a retail store manager. Her unit deployed to Iraq in November 2004 and remains in the Baghdad area, escorting convoys and assisting the Iraqi Highway Patrol.

Also receiving the Silver Star for that action was Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein of Henryville, Ind., and Spc. Jason Mike of Radcliff, Ky. Five other members of their unit received other medals for the action, including another woman, Spc. Ashley Pullen of Edmonton, Ky.

U.S. Launches Major Anti-terror Operation in West Iraq

The U.S. military launched a major combat operation Friday with 1,000 Marines and Iraqi soldiers in the hunt for insurgents and foreign fighters in a volatile western province straddling Syria.

Operation Spear started in the pre-dawn hours in Anbar province to hunt for insurgents and foreign fighters, the military said. The area, which straddles the Syrian border, is where U.S. forces said it killed about 40 militants in airstrikes in Karabilah on June 11. The operation came one day after Air Force Brig. Gen. Don Alston called the Syrian border the "worst problem" in terms of stemming the influx of foreign fighters to Iraq. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.

During the airstrikes, Marine aircraft fired seven precision-guided missiles at insurgents armed with AK-47 assault rifles, medium machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. No U.S. troops or civilians were injured.

ACLU Trying to Thwart Military Recruiters

Nancy Carroll didn't know schools were giving military recruiters her family's contact information until a recruiter called her 17-year-old granddaughter.

That didn't sit well with Carroll, who believes recruiters unfairly target minority students. So she joined activists across the country who are urging families to notify schools that they don't want their children's contact information given out. "People of color who go into the military are put on the front line," said the 67-year-old Carroll, who is black.

A provision of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to provide military recruiters with student phone numbers and addresses or risk losing millions in federal education funding. Parents or students 18 and over can "opt out" by submitting a written request to keep the information private.

But critics say schools do not always convey that message. In New Mexico, the American Civil Liberties Union chapter sued the Albuquerque Public School District last month, charging it does not adequately inform parents of the opt-out provision.

Some critics oppose the federal law on privacy grounds, but others say it provides an unfair opportunity for the military to sway young minds - especially in economically depressed communities.

"They're not going to all the schools. They're going to the schools where they figure the kids will have less chance to go to college," said U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. "It's an insidious kind of draft, quite frankly."

Carroll, who is raising three grandchildren in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia, agrees that the practice is unfair. "I wouldn't want them to join" the military, she said of her grandchildren.

But Pentagon officials say the military deserves the same access to students that schools give to colleges and employers.

"In the past, it was all too common for a school district to make student directory information readily available to vendors, prospective employers and post-secondary institutions while intentionally excluding the services," Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

ADL to Durbin: Apologize

The Anti-Defamation League blasted Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin on Thursday, demanding that he apologize for comparing U.S. troops at Guantanamo Bay to "Nazis."

"Whatever your views on the treatment of detainees and alleged excesses at the Guantanamo Bay facility, it is inappropriate and insensitive to suggest that actions by American troops in any way resemble actions taken by Nazis in their treatment of prisoners," ADL chief Abraham Foxman wrote in a letter addressed to Durbin. "Suggesting some kind of equivalence between their interrogation tactics demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the horrors that Hitler and his regime actually perpetrated," Foxman added. "We urge you to repudiate your remarks and apologize to the American people for distorting an important issue with an inappropriate comparison to Nazi tactics," the ADL chief said.

Earlier on Thursday, Sen. Durbin said he was standing by his remarks, insisting instead: "This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions."

Last week the ADL called on powerful House Democrat Charlie Rangel to apologize, after Rangel compared the Iraq war to the Holocaust.

Rather than comply, Rangel charged that Mr. Foxman had a history of targeting African-Americans like himself.

Federal judge upholds U.S. 'gay marriage' ban

Says government's desire to promote procreation is valid reason for law

Deciding one of the few lawsuits arguing the case for gay marriage in federal court, a California judge on Thursday ruled that a 1996 law recognizing only unions between a man and a woman as valid does not violate the U.S. Constitution.
But U.S. District Judge Gary Taylor also declined to rule on whether a state ban on same-sex marriage violates the civil rights of a gay Southern California couple while a separate legal challenge to California's laws works its way through the state courts.

"The question of the constitutionality of California's statutory prohibition on same-sex marriage is novel and of sufficient importance that the California courts ought to address it first," he wrote.

Taylor's ruling came in a case brought by Christopher Hammer and Arthur Smelt, a Mission Viejo couple, who filed it last year as an alternative to the case advanced in the state courts by the city of San Francisco and a dozen same-sex couples. A state trial judge ruled in March that California's marriage laws run afoul of the state Constitution and the case is now on appeal.

In upholding the Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, Taylor said that even though the law "has a disproportionate effect on homosexual individuals," the government's desire to promote procreation is a valid reason for infringing on the rights of gay couples.

"The Court finds it is a legitimate interest to encourage the stability and legitimacy of what may reasonably be viewed as the optimal union for procreating and rearing children by both biological parents," Taylor wrote, echoing the arguments often advanced by groups opposed to same-sex marriage.

Byron Babione, a lawyer for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, said Taylor's statement was a victory for advocates who want to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples.

"This court has defended the rights of voters to express what we know about marriage: that it is, was and always will be a union between a man and a woman," Babione said. "Marriage isn't right because it's traditional, it's traditional because it's right."

PETA employees arrested for animal cruelty

Allegedly tossed dead dogs, cats in shopping center dumpster

Click here to view this video report.

Two Hampton Roads employees of Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged in Ahoskie, N.C., with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping center garbage bin, police said Thursday.

Investigators staked out the bin after discovering that dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for the past four weeks, Ahoskie police said in a prepared statement.

Police found 18 dead animals in the trash bin and 13 more in a van registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties in North Carolina, police said. The two were picking up animals to be brought back to PETA headquarters for euthanization, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said Thursday.

Neither police nor PETA offered any theory on why the animals might have been dumped.

Local officials and veterinarians said they were told that PETA would find homes for the animals, not euthanize them. PETA has scheduled a news conference for Friday afternoon to discuss the charges.

Police charged Andrew Benjamin Cook, 24, of Virginia Beach, and Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, of Norfolk,each with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty and eight misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals. They were released on bond and an initial court date was set for Friday in Winton.

Hinkle has been suspended, but Cook continues to work PETA, Newkirk said. Hinkle has worked for more than two years as one of its community animal project employees in North Carolina, PETA spokeswoman Colleen O'Brien said. Cook, who joined a couple of months ago, was being trained.

Newkirk said she doubted Hinkle had ever been cruel to an animal and said if the animals were placed in the bin, "We will be appalled."

PETA euthanizes animals by lethal injection, which it considers more humane than gassing groups of animals, as poor counties are forced to do, O'Brien said.

"PETA has provided euthanasia services to various counties in (North Carolina) to prevent animals from being shot behind a shed or gassed in windowless metal boxes, both practices that were carried out until PETA volunteered to provide a painless death, free of charge," Newkirk said.

But veterinarian Patrick Proctor said that authorities found a female cat and her two "very adoptable" kittens among the dead animals. He said they were taken from Ahoskie Animal Hospital.

"These were just kittens we were trying to find homes for," he said. "PETA said they would do that, but these cats never made it out of the county."

PETA had taken 50 animals from Proctor's practice over the past two years, he said.

PETA also has taken animals from veterinarian James Brown in Northampton County.

"When they started taking them, they said they would try to find homes for them," Brown said, adding that no one checked on the animals afterward.

Barry Anderson, Bertie County's animal control officer, identified nearly all of the dumped dogs as ones that Cook and Hinkle picked up just a few hours earlier Wednesday, said Detective Sgt. Ed Pittman of the Bertie County Sheriff's Office.

Anderson also said that the PETA representatives "told him they were picking up the dogs to take them back to Norfolk where they would find them good homes," Pittman said.

(Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

D.C. buzzword: 'Impeachment'

Democrats urge official inquiry to see if Bush intentionally misled Congress

Amid new questions about President Bush's drive to topple Saddam Hussein, several House Democrats urged lawmakers on Thursday to conduct an official inquiry to determine whether the president intentionally misled Congress.


At a public forum where the word "impeachment" loomed large, Exhibit A was the so-called Downing Street memo, a prewar document leaked from inside the British government to The Sunday Times of London a month and a half ago. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, organized the event.


Recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair's national security team, the memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.


"The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," one of the participants was quoted as saying at the meeting, which took place just after British officials returned from Washington.


The president "may have deliberately deceived the United States to get us into a war," Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said. "Was the president of the United States a fool or a knave?"


The Democratic congressmen were relegated to a tiny room in the bottom of the Capitol and the Republicans who run the House scheduled 11 major votes to coincide with the afternoon event.


"We have not been told the truth," Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Baghdad a year ago, told the Democrats. "If this administration doesn't have anything to hide, they should be down here testifying."


The White House refuses to respond to a May 5 letter from 122 congressional Democrats about whether there was a coordinated effort to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy, as the Downing Street memo says.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan says Conyers "is simply trying to rehash old debates."


Conyers and a half-dozen other members of Congress were stopped at the White House gate later Thursday when they hand-delivered petitions signed by 560,000 Americans who want Bush to provide a detailed response to the Downing Street memo. When Conyers couldn't get in, an anti-war demonstrator shouted, "Send Bush out!" Eventually, White House aides retrieved the petitions at the gate and took them into the West Wing.


"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said earlier at the event on Capitol Hill.


Misleading Congress is an impeachable offense, a point that Rangel underscored by saying he's already been through two impeachments. He referred to the impeachment of President Clinton for an affair with a White House intern and of President Nixon for Watergate, even though Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment.


Conyers pointed to statements by Bush in the run-up to invasion that war would be a last resort. "The veracity of those statements has � to put it mildly � come into question," he said.


Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson said, "We are having this discussion today because we failed to have it three years ago when we went to war."


"It used to be said that democracies were difficult to mobilize for war precisely because of the debate required," Wilson said, going on to say the lack of debate in this case allowed the war to happen.


Wilson wrote a 2003 newspaper opinion piece criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. After the piece appeared someone in the Bush administration leaked the identity of Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, exposing her cover.


Wilson has said he believes the leak was retaliation for his critical comments. The Justice Department is investigating.


John Bonifaz, a lawyer and co-founder of a new group called AfterDowningStreet.org, said the lack of interest by congressional Republicans in the Downing Street memo is like Congress during Nixon's presidency saying "we don't want" the Watergate tapes.

Did Bush mislead nation to war?

In live Net poll, MSNBC readers say yes by 94%


Did President Bush mislead the nation to war?

In a live, unscientific Internet poll, MSNBC readers are overwhelmingly saying yes.

With more than 6,000 votes recorded, the survey shows a lopsided 94 percent believe Bush misled the American people, with only 6 percent saying no.


The live poll is a companion to an Associated Press story about a call from Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, for an official inquiry on the topic.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel was among Democratic House members who participated in a forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq.

"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," said Rangel, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. John Conyers and other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee organized the forum to investigate implications in a British document known as the "Downing Street memo." The memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.

Conyers pointed to statements by Bush in the run-up to invasion that war would be a last resort. "The veracity of those statements has � to put it mildly � come into question," he said.

University embarrassed by Bush economist

Distances itself from retired professor claiming 9-11 conspiracy

Texas A&M is distancing itself from a professor emeritus, and former Bush economist, who calls the official story of the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9-11 "bogus."

As WorldNetDaily reported, Morgan Reynolds, who served as chief economist for the Department of Labor during President Bush's first term, says it's more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the two skyscrapers and adjacent Building No. 7.


Texas A&M President Robert M. Gates said in a statement that Reynolds' views are in his capacity as a private citizen and do no reflect the views of the university.

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001," Gates said. "To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale."


Ground-level view of the Twin Towers prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Gates pointed out that Reynolds is retired and holds the title of professor emeritus, "an honorary title bestowed upon select tenured faculty who have retired with 10 or more years of service."

Countering some news reports, Gates said that while some faculty emeriti have office space on the campus, Reynolds does not.

Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas told UPI: "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9-11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling."

Reynolds added, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

Cause of brain injury not revealed by autopsy

Read the Florida medical examiner's report for yourself

An autopsy of Terry Schiavo was unable to determine to any "reasonable medical certainty" what caused the 41-year-old Florida woman to fall into a vegetative state. According to the below report issued today by the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner, there was no evidence that Schiavo, whose medical plight triggered a national debate, had ever been abused. Opponents of Schiavo's husband Michael, who successfully fought to have Terry removed from life support, claimed that the woman had been severely injured at her husband's hands. But while Michael Schiavo contended that his wife's eating disorder likely caused her to go into cardiac arrest, the autopsy does not support that claim. The blind Schiavo, whose brain was about half its normal size at the time of her March 31 demise, died of dehydration (and not starvation) 13 days after her feeding tube was removed. She had been in what some doctors termed a "persistent vegetative state" since February 1990. (9 pages)

Gov. Bush wants more information on collapse

Might investigate allegations husband waited over 1 hour to call 911

Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday he might ask a state attorney to investigate allegations that Terri Schiavo's husband waited more than an hour to call 911 after her 1990 collapse.

Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, have previously said their son-in-law waited more than an hour to make the call. An autopsy report released Wednesday didn't address the allegation.

"There's some doubt about when she did collapse and how long it took ... for the 911 call to be made," Bush said. "Which I think is worthy of some investigation. I don't know what form it would take."

Bush said he might ask Bernie McCabe, state attorney for Pinellas-Pasco, to look into the issue, but that would have to wait until McCabe returned from vacation.

Bush said the medical examiner shouldn't determine if there was a gap.

"This is really out of his realm," Bush added. "It's not a medical examiner's job to determine why there would be a gap if there was one."

Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, didn't return a phone message Thursday.

Terri Schiavo died March 31 from dehydration after her feeding tube was disconnected despite unsuccessful efforts by Bush to keep her alive.

The battle between her husband and parents over whether she should be allowed to die also engulfed the courts, Congress, the White House and divided the country.

The autopsy supported Michael Schiavo's contention that his wife was in a persistent vegetative state and revealed no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed.

It's not known why Terri Schiavo's heart stopped, causing her collapse, but oxygen was cut off from her brain and left her with severe damage. The autopsy showed that she suffered irreversible brain-damage and even blindness, and her brain had shrunk to half the normal size for a 41-year-old woman.

Autopsy suggests Schiavo cognizant

'It's possible Terri was aware of everything being done to her'

Challenging the assumptions of many analysts and news reports, an attorney who specializes in medical ethics cases points out the autopsy report of Terri Schiavo indicates the brain-injured woman might have been cognizant of her surroundings as her family insisted.

Jerri Lynn Ward of Austin, Texas, notes the report released Wednesday in the high-profile case states: "The frontal temporal and temporal poles and insular-cortex demonstrated relative preservation."

"What this tells us is that her cortex retained function and that her brain was more normal in the area that controls higher-level thinking," said Ward, who has weighed in on the case in her weblog and in an interview with "Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily RadioActive" show.


The autopsy results on the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman were made public more than two months after her death ended a decade-long legal battle that brought in Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Congress and President Bush.

Schiavo died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, said they were willing to care for their daughter, insisting she had a strong will to live.

Experts supporting Michael Schiavo -- contending Terri Schiavo's brain cortex essentially was missing and filled with fluid -- concluded she was in a persistent vegetative state. The Schindlers, arguing that their daughter recognized and responded to family members, produced neurologists who diagnosed her as "minimally conscious."

Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner Jon Thogmartin, speaking at a news conference Wednesday, said the damage to Terri Schiavo's brain was "irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

But Ward, pointing to the autopsy report, notes the brain's frontal lobe plays a part in impulse control, judgment, language, memory, motor function, problem solving, sexual behavior, socialization and spontaneity.

"It is very possible that she remained cognizant of sounds and other things without being able to communicate," Ward said. "It's possible Terri was aware of everything being done to her -- yet could do little to make people aware that she was there."

Ward pointed out that major damage to Schiavo's brain was shown to be toward the back -- the areas that affect motor skills.

So the question remains, says Ward, was Terri Schiavo still a thinking, aware human being?

In fact, neuropathologist Stephen Nelson, whose assessment is included in the report, conceded there is no way of determining through an autopsy whether a person was in a persistent vegetative state.

A national disability rights group that filed three amicus briefs in the case, Not Dead Yet, said the "real elephant in the living room," is whether or not we can really know how conscious anyone labeled PVS really is.

Several studies have revealed high misdiagnosis rates, the group noted, with conscious people being mistakenly regarded as totally and irrevocably unaware.

The autopsy report's documentation of significant brain atrophy and the assessement that the damage is "irreversible" is not the same as saying she had no cognitive ability, the group pointed out.

"It's always seemed to us that PVS isn't really a diagnosis; it's a value judgment masquerading as a diagnosis," said Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet. "When it comes to the hard science, no qualified pathologist went on the record saying she couldn't think or couldn't experience her own death through dehydration."

Diane Coleman, the group's president and founder, agreed.

"The core issues remain the same," she said. "Protection of the life and dignity of people under guardianship, and a high standard of proof in removing food and water from a person who can not express their own wishes. These are issues of great concern to the disability community -- evidenced by the 26 national disability groups that spoke out in favor of saving Terri Schiavo's life over the past few years."

Abuse not ruled out

Ward also challenges analysts who insist there was no abuse, pointing out the report does not rule out that possibility.

The autopsy report says, rather, that the medical examiner could not detect any evidence.

Ward said the evidence does not rule out that Terri Schiavo's condition could have been triggered by a blow to the solar plexis -- known as commotio cordis -- or by nontraumatic asphyxia, which could be produced by a pillow or hand to the face.

Either could have caused her to lose consciousness without leaving any evidence.

"This report does not rule out abuse," Ward said in an interview with Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily Radioactive. "It certainly does not exonerate any of the people who were so eager to hasten her death."

Conversely, the report found no evidence to support the theory espoused by Michael Schiavo and his attorneys for 15 years, that the collapse in February 1990 was caused by an eating disorder.

That assertion was the basis of malpractice suits in 1992 that resulted in a settlements totaling more than $1 million.

The autopsy report said no one had ever witnessed Schiavo bingeing and purging, and family members said she had a big meal the evening prior to her collapse and was not in a position to covertly purge the meal.

Because of that, the report said, her potassium level was "an unreliable measure of her pre-arrest potassium. Thus the main piece of evidence supporting a diagnosis of Bulimia Nevosa is suspect or, at least, can be explained by her clinical condition at the time of the blood draw."

The Schindler family issued a statement on the autopsy report yesterday, saying it confirms that "Terri was not terminal, that Terri had no living will, that Terri had a strong heart and that Terri was brutally dehydrated to death."

The family statement also pointed out the report ruled out bulimia and heart attack as causes for Terri's condition.

The Schindlers' attorney, David Gibbs, questioned the finding of no abuse and said the report leaves many questions unanswered. He said the 70 minutes between her collapse and the time her husband called medics for help are "very, very troubling."

Thogmartin said Schiavo was tested thoroughly in the hours after her collapse for signs of abuse and trauma, and nothing was found. But he pointed out that his investigation was unable to determine what caused the collapse.

The Empire Journal, a Web publication that produced numerous investigations of the Schiavo case, noted Thogmartin indicated he based his autopsy findings on medical reports and records provided by Gary Fox, one of two medical malpractice attorneys for Michael Schiavo.

The medical examiner specifically stated that he could not have completed the autopsy without these reports. Thogmartin also said "a lot of records have been destroyed" and that the case would remain open because of the missing documents in the hope that someone might come forward with them.

Fox and attorney Gordon Woodworth had represented Michael Schiavo in bringing medical malpractice actions against a general practitioner and gynecologist who had been treating Terri Schiavo prior to her collapse.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Durbin 'More Concerned' With 'Comfort of Terrorists' than Soldiers, Group Says

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who recently compared the Guantanamo Bay prison facility to Nazis and Soviet gulags, "seems to be more concerned about the welfare and comfort of terrorists than" the well-being of U.S. soldiers, a pro-family group said Thursday. "Senator Durbin owes America an apology. His comments do nothing to help the morale of our hard working and dedicated troops," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a statement. Perkins added that his experiences as a U.S. Marine taught him that "life is tough and often unfair," but he said, "Durbin's comments are a harsh and over the top criticism of people he does not know and of a situation he has not personally experienced." Perkins added that although Durbin does not agree with the efforts of U.S. troops in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "to demean them and their efforts in such a way to liken them to Nazis and Soviet gulags is a grossly unfair and hurtful remark.""

LA SHAKE ON THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT

Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver

Durbin refuses to apologize for Guantanamo Bay comments

Senator Dick Durbin says he won't apologize for comments comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Nazis and Soviet gulags.

News of the Democrat's comparison created a buzz around the Internet today, fueled by sound bites of yesterday's Senate floor speech on radio talk shows. By this afternoon, Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna asked Durbin to apologize.

Durbin says the Bush administration should apologize for abandoning the Geneva Conventions.

Human-rights activist groups and some lawmakers -- mostly Democrats -- want Bush to close the prison.

But administration officials say some of the people who have been detained at Guantanamo later return to fight against the United States.

U.S. massing troops near Syria?

A United Arab Emirates daily, citing unnamed sources, reported Wednesday the United States was massing troops on the Syrian-Iraqi border.

The pro-government al-Bayan daily quoted unidentified Arab officials as saying that Egypt and Saudi Arabia "have reliable information from Damascus of U.S. military mobilization on the Syrian-Iraqi border."

The sources also told the paper the U.S. forces have repeatedly crossed the Iraqi border with the "pretext of chasing infiltrators and Iraqi insurgents."

They said that Egypt and Saudi Arabia will express their "grave concern over the growing U.S. administration's threats against Syria" during U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the Middle East that starts at the end of the week.

Senior Zarqawi aide nabbed

U.S. forces captured a man known as Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi's (search) "most trusted operations agent in all of Iraq," a U.S. general in Iraq said Thursday.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Donald Alston told reporters Thursday that Mohammed Khalif Shaiker (search), also known as Abu Talha or the emir of Mosul, was nabbed on Tuesday. The arrest was a major blow to the insurgency in the northern city of Mosul (search), Alston said.

"This is a major defeat for the Al Qaeda organization in Iraq," he said, referring to the group led by Zarqawi and allied to Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda (search) network. "Numerous reports indicated he wore a suicide vest 24 hours a day and stated that he would never surrender. Instead, Talha gave up without a fight."

Shaiker was captured on Tuesday in a quiet neighborhood of Iraq's third largest city, the Alston said. He said Shaiker put up little resistance in surrendering to coalition forces and supporting Iraqi security forces, and is fully cooperating with officials.

"He is a key lieutenant in the Al Qaeda � that has been established," Lt. Gen. James T. Conway said during a Pentagon briefing in Washington on Thursday. "We think it will be significant. He has been in charge of the [insurgency] operation up there [in Mosul] for a long time."

The general said tips from local Iraqis people and months of constant pressure had lead to the big get. U.S. and Iraqi security forces have announced the arrest of several senior associates of Zarqawi in recent weeks.

A statement released by U.S. Central Command said multiple intelligence sources led coalition forces to Shaiker's location. Military officials said Thursday that Shaiker was at an associate's house, where he was staying. According to his former associates, Shaiker never stayed more than one night at any one residence, and always wore a suicide vest, saying he would never surrender.

Zarqawi's group has been wreaking havoc in Iraq in an attempt to derail democratic progress in the country and has claimed responsibility for several of the deadliest bombings over the past 18 months.

Last December, U.S. forces in Mosul announced the capture of one of Shaiker's deputies, Abdul Aziz Sa'dun Ahmed Hamduni (search), also known as Abu Ahmed, and the next day seized another deputy.

The United States has put a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi's capture or death.

Ambassador: Bin Laden Not in Afghanistan

Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar are not believed to be in Afghanistan anymore, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday, raising fresh questions as to the whereabouts of the elusive terror mastermind.

Zalmay Khalilzad, tapped by President Bush to be the next U.S. envoy to Iraq, did not reveal where the two might be hiding or whether his comment was based on new intelligence. "Mullah Omar is not in Afghanistan. I do not believe that Osama is in Afghanistan," Khalilzad said. His comments at a news conference in Kabul came a day after a purported Taliban commander said the pair were alive and well.
American officials have long said they believed bin Laden was hiding in rugged mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Khalilzad did not address whether bin Laden may be in the mountainous region - but on the Pakistan side.

Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said during a visit to Australia this week that he also doesn't "have a clear idea" where bin Laden is hiding.

Asked about bin Laden's whereabouts at a briefing Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said: "Who knows? ... I think there are other people who believe that (bin Laden is not in Afghanistan.) But we've talked a lot about this. When we've got him, we've got him."

Khalilzad defended the failure to catch bin Laden, saying, "It is not an easy job to find one person ... in a vast region. It requires timely intelligence."

"A lot of progress" has been made in fighting al-Qaida since Sept. 11, 2001, Khalilzad said, adding that it was no longer clear how much control bin Laden still has over the terror network.

"Significant numbers of the leaders of al-Qaida have been captured. Their network has been disrupted ... the financial network has also been disrupted," he said. "Sooner or later I believe firmly that he (bin Laden) will be caught."

On Wednesday, Pakistan's Geo television broadcast an interview with a man it identified as Taliban military commander Mullah Akhtar Usmani, who said bin Laden was "absolutely fine." He would not specify where bin Laden was hiding.

The man - whose identity was impossible to verify because a black turban shielded his face - said the Taliban are still organized and its senior leaders hold regular consultations. "Our discipline is strong. We have regular meetings. We make programs," he said.

He said Omar does not attend the meetings, but "decisions come from his side."

Gen. Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said the interview, which was recorded last week, was "not serious" and wouldn't help the rebels.

"He was just saying the same thing as usual," Azimi said. "This doesn't make any difference in terms of improving their military or political situation."

Khalilzad also said he feared the rebels are likely to ramp up efforts to subvert the Sept. 18 polls - the next key step toward democracy. "As we get closer to the elections, they are likely to intensify their efforts to ... derail the elections," he said.

"We have a good plan in place to deal with" the threat, he said, but didn't elaborate.

President Hamid Karzai's administration has warned that Taliban-led rebels and al-Qaida militants have launched a campaign of violence to undermine the polls, and there has been a major increase in attacks since winter ended in March.

In the latest violence, a policeman was killed while trying to defuse a mine planted on a road, while a teacher was shot dead and two boys were killed when a vehicle in which they were riding in drove over a land mine, officials said.

Meanwhile in central Uruzgan province, Afghan security forces captured a regional Taliban chief blamed for a spate of attacks on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces, army commander Gen. Muslim Amid said. He added the man would be handed over to coalition forces for interrogation.

Mass. Gov. Romney to Back Plan to Ban Gay Marriage

Gov. Mitt Romney said Thursday he will support a proposed constitutional amendment banning both same-sex marriages and civil unions in Massachusetts, the only state where gay marriage is now legal.

The proposed amendment, which was announced Thursday by opponents of gay marriage, will take the form of a citizen's initiative. That means the state attorney general's office must sign off on the proposal's language, supporters must collect enough signatures and one-quarter of lawmakers in the Legislature must vote to approve it. If it passes those hurdles, it could appear on the statewide ballot for a vote as soon as November 2008.
"Governor Romney believes that voters should be given a straightforward amendment to decide the definition of marriage and not one that muddies the water by creating civil unions that would be equivalent of marriage in all respects but name," said Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom.

Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley and the bishops of the state's other three Roman Catholic dioceses pledged support for signature-gathering efforts.

"We encourage all Catholics to exercise their civil right to participate in the signature drive for the new initiative petition," they said in a statement.

The initiative is separate from a proposed amendment now pending before the Legislature that would ban gay marriages but legalize Vermont-style civil unions. That amendment, which already has passed the Legislature once, must pass by majority vote in identical form again this year in order to appear on a state ballot in November 2006.

Romney had supported that earlier amendment as well, but he said at the time the only reason he did so was because it would ban gay marriage.

"If the question is, 'Do you support gay marriage or civil unions?' I'd say neither," Romney said last year. "If they said you have to have one or the other, that Massachusetts is going to have one or the other, then I'd rather have civil unions than gay marriage. But I'd rather have neither."

Massachusetts' highest court ruled in November 2003 that the state constitution guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. The nation's first state-sanctioned, same-sex weddings began taking place May 17, 2004, and since then, thousands of couples have tied the knot.

Saudi Expert: Al-Qaida Plans 'Catastrophic' Attack

Al-Qaida is far from being neutralized and is planning its next "catastrophic" attack, according to a top expert on the terrorist organization.

Dr. Saad al-Faqih, who heads the Saudi opposition group Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, was asked in an interview in London if there is any credence to reports of al-Qaida's "demise." His response was chilling: "Nobody knows how al-Qaida really works. Consider, for instance, that the time lapse between the Africa embassy bombings and 9/11 was more than three years. Therefore the fact that no major attack has taken place since 9/11 is not altogether very surprising.

"Al-Qaida is an extremely resilient organization and it will most likely surprise everybody by how, when and where it executes its next catastrophic attack."

Asked when a weapons of mass destruction attack is likely to take place, Dr. al-Faqih said: "It could happen at any time."

The al-Qaida expert told interviewer Mahan Abedin � an editor with the Jamestown Foundation's publication Terrorism Monitor - that the terrorist organization's operations in Saudi Arabia have been severely damaged by government offensives.

"But of course al-Qaida is an ideology and its potency cannot be reduced to the number of men in its ranks," he cautioned.

"Moreover, the invasion and occupation of Iraq gave al-Qaida a huge boost and the Saudi government has indirectly admitted that at least 2,500 Saudis are fighting in Iraq."

Al-Faqih said that for the first time, the Saudi government has begun to talk about the problem of Saudis returning to the kingdom after fighting against the Americans in Iraq.

"A classified interior ministry report claims that at least 200 have returned and are currently plotting attacks inside the Kingdom.

"An attack on the royals will likely be carried out by returnees from Iraq."

But al-Faqih acknowledged that al-Qaida's activities in Saudi Arabia have turned many Saudis against the organization.

"Al-Qaida has lost ground militarily, politically and ideologically. Attacking civilians proved to be a major blunder and it remains to be seen whether they can fully recover from it.

"Also, by attacking the security forces they lost a lot of sympathy inside these organizations."

The feeling in Saudi society today is no longer particularly sympathetic toward al-Qaida, according to al-Faqih.

"The situation was very different two or three years ago, when ordinary people were willing to give the jihadis shelter and other forms of support."

Al-Faqih also predicted that 'al-Qaida in Iraq' leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would likely be killed soon � and said that ordinary Saudis view their government's support for the occupation of Iraq as "treason.�

Dems 'Demand the Truth' on Downing Street 'Memo'

Congressional liberals and anti-war activists Thursday plan to "demand the truth" regarding the Downing Street "Memo," the British government document that says the Bush administration cooked the books on pre-war intelligence from Iraq. But the president's defenders point to other documents or remarks that they say contradict the British memo.

Runaway Bride Signs Book/Movie Deal

Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks made a deal with a company that is pitching a movie about her life to networks - annoying officials who spent thousands of dollars searching for her.

ReganMedia, a New York multimedia company, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for a story in Thursday's papers it has acquired all media rights to the "life stories" of Wilbanks and her fiance, John Mason.

The company did not say whether any money had changed hands.

"I am looking forward to developing the scripted project with Wilbanks and Mason," company president Judith Regan said in a statement. "Theirs is an unexpected and compelling story of love and forgiveness that has certainly taught me a thing or two."

The 32-year-old bride-to-be disappeared from her Duluth home on April 26, four days before her wedding in a high-profile ceremony with 600 guests and 28 attendants.

She took a bus to Las Vegas and then Albuquerque, N.M., and claimed she was abducted and sexually assaulted, but later recanted, saying she fled because of unspecified personal issues.

Wilbanks pleaded no contest earlier this month to making a false statement and was sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service. She also was ordered to continue mental health treatment and pay the sheriff's office $2,550.

Duluth spent nearly $43,000 to search for her. Wilbanks has repaid $13,249.

"It's disturbing to me on a personal basis that she's willing to profit from this, but there's nothing I can do about it legally," said Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who pursued charges against Wilbanks.

Two Views of Schiavo Autopsy

"The autopsy results released yesterday should embarrass all the opportunistic politicians and agenda-driven agitators who meddled in Terri Schiavo's right-to-die case," a New York Times editorial said on Thursday. But an attorney for the Schindler family said the autopsy did not address the central question: Can we simply throw disabled people away?

Boost for New Iraqi Army as Australian Hostage Freed

Australia has played an important role in training the new Iraqi army, and Iraqi soldiers returned the compliment Wednesday by rescuing an Australian hostage terrorists had threatened to kill.

Iraqi forces rescued engineer Douglas Wood and an Iraqi hostage, Saed Rasul, "while conducting a planned cordon-and-search operation for a weapons cache" in a northwestern Baghdad neighborhood, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Three suspected terrorists were captured after an exchange of fire during which no injuries were sustained.

Iran 'misled UN on nuclear work'

United Nations nuclear monitors say Iran has admitted to misleading them over its experiments with plutonium.

The UN's nuclear watchdog is expected to confirm later that Iran continued experimenting with plutonium - a key component of atomic bombs - until 1998.

Iran had previously told the body it had ended its experiments in 1993.

Correspondents say these latest inconsistencies in Iran's account will fuel suspicions about the real aims of its nuclear programme.

Iranian presidential favourite Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has told the BBC that Iran did not report all nuclear work.

"It's possible that at times, Iran has not reported its activities," Mr Rafsanjani told the BBC's Newsnight television programme.

And he accused the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of neglecting its duty to help Iran make peaceful use of nuclear technology.

Mr Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president seen as a frontrunner in Friday's presidential election, insisted his country would not abandon its nuclear programme.

But, he said, there was no risk of war with the US because Iran was not pursuing a nuclear bomb.

'Changing story'

According to a draft speech to be delivered on Thursday to the IAEA's board of governors, the agency's deputy director Pierre Goldschmidt will confirm that Tehran has changed its version of events.

Tehran has now admitted that experiments took place in 1995 and 1998 after the IAEA confronted it with its analysis of its plutonium samples, according to the draft speech obtained by Reuters news agency.

"In a letter dated 26 May, 2005, Iran confirmed the agency's understanding with regard to that chronology," the draft speech says.

It also says Iran had acquired sensitive technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons earlier than it originally stated.


Iran maintains its nuclear programme is purely for civilian use

"This is nuclear material and, yet again, when Iran's backed into a corner the story changes," a Western diplomat on the IAEA board of governors told Reuters.

Iran is seeking the closure of a two-year UN investigation into its nuclear programme, which it says is solely for peaceful civilian purposes.

The US has threatened to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions over what Washington says are plans to build a nuclear bomb.

Iraq 'progress'

In his interview with the BBC, Mr Rafsanjani said the US had recently indicated it was willing to work with Iran.

He said the US had lifted obstacles to Tehran's entry into the World Trade Organization, had given consent to carry out limited enrichment of uranium and had agreed to sell it plane parts.

Mr Rafsanjani also urged the US to "leave Iraq as soon as possible" and hand over the running of the country to Iraqis.

Iran was pleased with recent political developments in Iraq, he said, pointing to the formation of new government in Baghdad.

"We hope the situation continues to progress like this," he said. "If it does... it will be easier for the Americans to leave Iraq."

Mr Rafsanjani said Iranians who were dissatisfied with the political process in the country should be free to speak their minds.

"If they have reasonable points, we should accept them," he told the BBC. "If not, we should persuade them of our case."

McAuliffe Raps Dean on Personal Attacks

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe criticized his successor, Howard Dean, on Wednesday, saying that he should stop launching personal attacks on Republicans and "always keep it to the issues."

Asked what advice he had for Dean, McAuliffe told Fox News Radio's Tony Snow: "I just think that sometimes you have to be, obviously, careful about how you say things."

The ex-DNC chief added, "I was one of the most partisan chairman ever, but you know what? I never made it personal."

McAuliffe said his replacement was wrong to boycott the Fox News Channel, which Dean described on Monday as a "propaganda outlet" for the GOP.

"We ought to put people on Fox every day," McAuliffe told Snow.

"There are certain people in the [Democratic] party who say, 'Oh, Fox is right wing - blah, blah, blah.' My point is that there are a lot of listeners who you have right now, Tony, who have an open mind, who may consider voting for the Democrats. But if we're not on the air and on television putting our plan out there, then you're ceding the entire playing field."

McAuliffe went so far as to pledge that Hillary Clinton will appear with conservative hosts on Fox if she decides to run for president, telling Snow: "If she's the nominee of the Democratic Party, I promise you she will go on your show - she'll go everywhere. She loves to engage in the battle."

"There are many swing voters who listen and watch Fox TV, whom we and the Democrats - if we're gonna win the this national election - those voters we need," he added.

Fuhrman: Schiavo's Collapse Still a Mystery

While Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin suggested yesterday that his autopsy of Terri Schiavo had cleared up most of the questions raised by critics of the court-ordered decision to starve her to death, renowned homicide detective Mark Fuhrman insists that key aspects of the case remain in doubt.

Fuhrman, whose book on the Schiavo case, "Silent Witness," is due out on June 28, told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity yesterday that the most glaring mystery about the case remains unsolved: What was the cause of Schiavo's initial collapse on the night of Feb. 25, 1990? "With what we saw in the autopsy and Dr. Throgmartin's [comments], we still don't know [why she collapsed]," said the former LAPD detective, whose book "Murder in Greenwich" was credited with solving the mysterious killing of Connecticut teen Martha Moxley more than two decades after it happened.

In fact, said Fuhrman, Schiavo's autopsy proved only that her injuries remain "unexplained," especially in light of Throgmartin's conclusion that she did not have a heart attack.

"We [still] do not know why she collapsed, why she was in a coma, why her brain was deprived of oxygen," Fuhrman said.

That last question is key, he told Hannity. "If she didn't have a heart attack, and if her heart had no damage, then her heart wasn't the reason that she was deprived of oxygen. Something else occurred that deprived her of oxygen."

While Throgmartin said his autopsy showed that there was "no evidence" of strangulation, that claim may not be as conclusive as it sounds, the renowned detective said, explaining, "There are many ways that there would not be evidence [of strangulation], especially after 15 years."

"There are other ways of depriving someone of oxygen that are very soft. The most common is someone in their sleep with a pillow over their face," the former LAPD detective said. He noted also that a police choke hold could deprive someone of oxygen while leaving no evidence of strangulation.

Fuhrman declined to go into detail about other aspects of his Schiavo investigation, but he told Hannity that there are serious problems with the timeline on the night of Terri's collapse.

"The timeline will kill you every time," he said.

Facts Show Schiavo Was Not Blind

Although millions of Americans watched Terri Schiavo follow people and objects with her eyes as they moved about her hospital room, the doctor who conducted the autopsy reported that she was blind.


In a press conference that raised more questions than it answered, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin claimed that the "vision centers of her brain were dead," and as a result she could not see. He admitted that although he had no idea what caused Terri's condition, he was unable to find any evidence it was due to trauma.


This in the face of medical reports that showed Terri had suffered bone and other injuries sometime prior to her collapse.


According to Thogmartin's, office, his autopsy showed that Terri had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, but he could not explain what caused her collapse 15 years ago. Moreover, he noted that he had found no proof of the alleged "eating disorder" widely believed to be the cause of her collapse. He also ruled out strangulation.


He also told reporters that Terri did not appear to have suffered a heart attack and there was no evidence that she was given harmful drugs or other substances prior to her death.


Terri, he added, died from dehydration. "Her brain was profoundly atrophied," Thogmartin reported, and added that her brain weighed about half what a healthy human brain weighs. "This damage was irreversible," he said.


He said she would not have been able to eat or drink if she had been given food by mouth as her parents' requested.


"Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin told reporters.


Commenting on the autopsy report, Fr. Frank Pavone, who was with Terri Schiavo in the final hours and moments of her life and has called her death a murder, said: "No details of this autopsy change the moral evaluation of what happened to Terri. Her physical injuries and disabilities never made her less of a person. No amount of brain injury ever justifies denying a person proper humane care. That includes food and water.


"A person with a 'profoundly atrophied' brain needs profound care and love. Terri did not die from an atrophied brain. She died from an atrophy of compassion on the part of her estranged husband and those who helped him to have her deliberately killed."

Schiavo's Parents Not Swayed by Autopsy

An autopsy that found Terri Schiavo suffered from severe and irreversible brain-damage has done nothing to sway her parents' position that she deserved to live and may have gotten better with therapy.

The long-awaited report Wednesday found Schiavo's brain had shrunk to about half the normal size for a woman her age when she died March 31 after her feeding tube was disconnected. The autopsy also determined she was blind. Bob and Mary Schindler disputed the results, insisting their daughter interacted with them and tried to speak. Their attorney said the family plans to discuss the autopsy with other medical experts and may take some unspecified legal action.
"We knew all along that Terri was profoundly brain damaged," said Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler. "We simply wanted to bring her home and care for her. It all goes back to this quality of life."

The findings vindicated Schiavo's husband in his long and vitriolic battle with his in-laws that engulfed the courts, Congress and the White House and divided the country. Michael Schiavo and court-appointed doctors have said she had no hope of recovery. She died at age 41.

The autopsy also found no evidence that Terri Schiavo was strangled or otherwise abused before her sudden 1990 collapse - countering allegations by the Schindlers that she was abused by her husband.

Yet medical examiners could not say for certain what caused the collapse, long thought to have been brought on by an eating disorder.

George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the findings back up their contentions made "for years and years" that Terri Schiavo had no hope of recovery. He said Michael Schiavo plans to release autopsy photographs of her shrunken brain.

"Mr. Schiavo has received so much criticism throughout this case that I'm certain there's a part of him that was pleased to hear these results and the hard science behind them," Felos said.

The Schindlers fought their son-in-law in court over their daughter's fate for nearly seven years, battling to the end with conservatives at their side.

The autopsy counters a widely seen videotape the Schindlers released of Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile. She moaned and laughed. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.

Schiavo's parents said that showed she was aware of her surroundings, but doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness.

"There's nothing in her autopsy report that is inconsistent with a persistent vegetative state," said Dr. Stephen J. Nelson, a medical examiner who assisted in the neurological portion of the autopsy.

The cause of death was dehydration from removal of the feeding tube, but the underlying reason for her brain damage was officially listed as "undetermined."

The autopsy included 274 external and internal body images and an exhaustive review of Schiavo's medical records, police reports and social services agency records.

Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Dr. Jon Thogmartin said that the autopsy produced no conclusion on what triggered the temporary heart stoppage that caused her collapse and brain damage. He said there was no evidence of drug use, though he cautioned that Schiavo was not tested in 1990 for every conceivable substance that could have been in her blood.

He said there was no proof she suffered from an eating disorder such as bulimia, which can disrupt the body chemistry with lethal effect. The main piece of evidence cited for an eating disorder - the low levels of potassium in her blood in 1990 - could have been caused by the emergency treatment she received at the time, Thogmartin said.

While she had lost more than 100 pounds since high school, Schiavo never confessed to an eating disorder, she did not take diet pills and no one had witnessed her purging food, the medical examiner said.

He discounted the possibility that she had overdosed on caffeine from drinking large amounts of tea in an effort to keep her weight down.

In addition, the autopsy found no traces of morphine in her system at her death, although she had been given two doses in the days before she died. The Schindlers had contended that morphine might have been used to speed their daughter's death.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the autopsy did nothing to change President Bush's position that Schiavo's feeding tube should not have been disconnected. He had signed a bill, rushed through by Congress in March, that was a last-ditch effort to restore her feeding tube.

Experts said that the autopsy demonstrates how difficult it is for people to recover from severe brain damage.

"People should understand that sometimes, for known or unknown reasons, individuals sustain massive brain injury that for which healing is not possible," said Dr. Karen Weidenheim, the chief of neuropathology at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "Everything that could have been done was done for this lady for 15 years, and this case is very tragic."

Experts: Iraq insurgency reduced threat to West

Once war winds down, terrorist expected to turn attention to Europe, U.S.

International terrorism experts say the situation in Iraq has diverted the attention of Islamic extremists away from the West. But they believe the threat to the West will resume, once violence in Iraq subsides.

International terrorism experts say terror networks are focusing on their fight in Iraq, temporarily reducing the dangers faced by Western countries that have been targets in the past. But Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, speaking recently to journalists at Rome's foreign press club, say this will change once the situation in Iraq is resolved.

"I think we need to need to concern ourselves with a return of the terrorists who went to Iraq," he said. "Once the Iraqi situation has calmed down, they will tend to return to Europe, as occurred with Bosnia, at the end of the Balkan wars."

Mr. Pisanu added that the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader of insurgents in Iraq, is more interested in fighting the West in that country than in Europe or in the United States.

Retired U.S. army colonel and international terrorism expert Vittorfranco Pisano agrees with the Italian Interior minister. He says the American and allied intervention in Iraq has definitely concentrated resistance efforts against the United States in particular and westerners in general.

"The focus is elsewhere right now," he said. "The focus is on Iraq. This has caused a diversion in terms of the emphasis that Islamic extremists attribute to targets."

Western countries massively stepped up security measures following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States. Interior Minister Pisanu says those measures are still in place in Italy and preparations are being made for when terrorists active in Iraq come back.

"Prevention measures were tightened significantly throughout Europe," he said. "In Italy, 1,300 sensitive targets are under surveillance and clearly this also discourages potential terrorists."

Dozens of terror suspects have been arrested in Italy, since the terror attacks on the United States. Seventy-five people suspected of illegal activities linked to terrorism have been arrested during the past year. But most have either been released, acquitted during trial or convicted of only minor crimes, such as falsifying documents. One expert noted that of 500 people arrested for terrorism in the European Union, only a couple of dozen have been convicted.

Interior Minister Pisanu notes that magistrates face problems because the legal systems in democratic states were not designed to handle the issues presented by modern terrorism.

"Our juridical culture, our democratic system has not yet adapted to the characteristics of this threat and are therefore finding it difficult to respond with the needed effectiveness," he said.

Italy's legal system introduced the charge of "subversive association," aimed at international terrorism, shortly after the U.S. terror attacks. But magistrates have yet to convict anyone of this crime. Experts, such as Colonel Pisano, say the matter is not simple because there is no agreement on what constitutes terrorism.

"There is no definition available either at the universal level, global level or at the regional level, which reflects the real nature of terrorism," he said. "Substantially terrorism is a form of unconventional conflict characterized by the three elements. The first of these is criminal violence, the second is political or political-religious motivation, and the third is made up of clandestine structures and dynamics."

Terrorism experts say Italy has been mainly used as a logistics base, where cells based mostly in the north of the country are active in recruitment and manufacturing false papers.

Police wiretaps have intercepted what are said to be discussions of terror plans between members of Islamic cells based in Italy and elsewhere. But Colonel Pisano says Italy has not been a prime terror target because it is viewed more as a base of operations for terror cells.

"Italy is an excellent quarter or bridge in terms of linking the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa with Europe and the western world itself. It has been a matter of convenience to exploit Italy from this standpoint, instead of actually conducting terrorist attacks as such," he said.

Italian intelligence information, made public last year, said the country has been used as a departure point for suicide attackers, linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network, active against allied forces in Iraq.

Schiavo findings don't justify 'cruel death'

Religious leaders say 'disabilities never made her less of a person'

The autopsy report concluding Terri Schiavo suffered no trauma prior to her collapse under disputed circumstances in 1990 has no bearing on the moral evaluation of the high-profile "right-to-die" case, stated clerics and leaders of faith-based groups responding to the findings.

The Pinellas-Pasco medical examiner in Florida yesterday concluded Schiavo's brain was about half of its expected size.

"This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons," said Jon Thogmartin at a news conference.

But Fr. Frank Pavone, a Catholic priest who was with Terri Schiavo in the final moments of her life and has called her death a murder, said her "physical injuries and disabilities never made her less of a person."


"No amount of brain injury ever justifies denying a person proper humane care," Pavone said. "That includes food and water."

Pavone said a person with a "profoundly atrophied" brain needs profound care and love.

"Terri did not die from an atrophied brain," the priest said. "She died from an atrophy of compassion on the part of her estranged husband and those who helped him to have her deliberately killed."

Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, concurred, saying the autopsy results provide some answers concerning her physical condition "but in no way do these findings justify the cruel death by dehydration that was imposed on a living human being."

Brown said that while the medical examiner reported that Terri Schiavo would not have been able to recover, he did not indicate her injuries would have killed her.

"The fact remains that Terri was not dying, did not have a terminal condition and could have continued to survive with proper nutrition and hydration," Brown said.

"There are those who will use this autopsy report to claim that the death by dehydration imposed on Terri Schiavo was compassionate or merciful," she continued. "Others would say such a life is not worth living. Such thinking is misguided and absolutely wrong. Those decisions are not ours to make."

Wendy Wright, senior policy director with Concerned Women for America, noted the autopsy report, amid all of its details, simply confirmed "removal of [Terri Schiavo's] feeding tube resulted in her death."

"There is no medical condition or disability that should ever be championed as a justifiable reason to deny water to a human being," Wright said. "Every human life has worth and a purpose apart from its 'merit' to society that must be vigorously defended and upheld, not crushed."

Schiavo died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo.

Her death ended a bitter legal battle between Michael Schiavo, who said his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Both Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers found doctors to support their views.

Testimony in a 1992 civil trial indicated that her heart stopped probably because of a severe chemical imbalance brought on by an eating disorder. The Schindlers, though, do not believe she had an eating disorder and have accused Michael Schiavo of abusing his wife, a charge he vehemently denies.

Unanswered questions

George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, said the report confirms what he argued in court.

"The courts have found that there was no abuse of Terri, no evidence of abuse, and that's what the medical examiner found," Felos said.

But the Schindlers' attorney David Gibbs questioned the finding of no abuse and said the report leaves many questions unanswered.

Gibbs said it's troubling that Terri Schiavo collapsed at 4:30 a.m. Feb. 25, 1990, but her husband did not call for help until 5:40 a.m.

Medics did not arive until 5:52 a.m.

"Those 70 minutes are very, very troubling," Gibbs told reporters Wednesday. "Clearly, when you have a brain that is not getting blood, these are emergency moments and every second is precious. 4:30 to 5:40 is a significant time period."

Medical Examiner John Thogmartin said, however, Schiavo was tested thoroughly in the hours after her collapse for signs of abuse and trauma, and nothing was found.

But he pointed out that his investigation was unable to determine what caused Schiavo's collapse.

Nevertheless, he found no evidence for the theory presented in court that the collapse was triggered by an electrolyte imbalance caused by an eating disorder.

The report said no one had ever witnessed Schiavo bingeing and purging, and family members said she had a big meal the evening prior to her collapse and was not in a position to covertly purge the meal.

Because of that, the report said, her potassium level was "an unreliable measure of her pre-arrest potassium. Thus the main piece of evidence supporting a diagnosis of Bulimia Nevosa is suspect or, at least, can be explained by her clinical condition at the time of the blood draw."

The report also addressed the issue of whether Schiavo was in a "persistent vegetative state," as determined by physicians presented by Michael Schiavo, or "minimally conscious," as argued by the Schindler family's appointed experts.

The brain examination, according to the autopsy report, was "consistent with a persistent vegetative state."

But Thogmartin emphasized such a diagnosis can only be made on a living patient and cannot be confirmed with certainty through an autopsy.

The medical examiner also said Schiavo died from dehydration and would not have been able to eat or drink if she had been given food by mouth as her parents' requested.

"Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin told reporters.

The Schindlers had argued, however, that their daughter could have relearned to swallow through therapy.

Democrat senator: U.S. troops 'Nazis'

Dick Durbin sparks national fury after likening treatment of terror detainees to KGB, Pol Pot

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is coming under heavy fire after saying American treatment of terror detainees at the Guantanamo Naval Base is comparable to torture at the hands of Nazis, Soviet gulags and even Cambodian mass murderer Pol Pot.

Durbin's remarks came last night on the Senate floor, as he diverted from comments on the Energy Bill to discuss allegations of prisoner abuse at the U.S. facility in Cuba. Quoting an FBI agent who was at Guantanamo, Durbin said:

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime � Pol Pot or others � that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Durbin's comments have ignited a firestorm of reaction on the Internet and talk radio.

"I think this is one of the grossest and sickest statements to be made yet," writes blogger Art Green. "This is beyond hyperbole and rhetoric. I really do not have to explain how brutal and murderous the three organizations Durbin compared our soldiers to."

"It really shows his motives and how much affection he has for our troops," he continued. "Whenever I hear Durbin say that he 'supports the troops,' I know it will be a bald face lie. How could you support someone who you think are no better than genocidal maniacs?"

During his nationally broadcast radio show today, talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said he was stunned by Durbin's remarks, and said he was embarrassed Durbin was an American and a senator.


"The Nazis gassed people," said Limbaugh. "The Nazis mass murdered people. The Nazis committed all kinds of atrocities. The Nazis would attach electrodes to genitals. The Nazis would use electrical shock. The Nazis were literally brutal. We have nothing in common with them. The Soviets and their gulags? The Soviets killed over 1.7 million people in their gulags alone. Many of their gulags were in Siberia, where it's often below zero on a daily basis. That's not Guantanamo Bay and what we did � and Pol Pot? The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? Pol Pot was a mass murderer of his own citizens. ... We deserve to lose this war. If we're going to be led by such idiocy and such ignorance as this, we deserve to lose it."


A caller to Limbaugh's show agreed with the host, saying, "I got through to Durbin's office and I called him a traitor and I don't know if I could say this on the air, but I called him a sick SOB, and I said that he should resign. This is absolutely outrageous."

Andy McKenna, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, called for an apology by Durbin, but according to broadcast reports, the senator is refusing to apologize.

Elected to the Senate in 1996, Durbin was chosen by his Democratic colleagues in December as Democratic whip, the second-highest position for the minority party.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Taliban Chief: Bin Laden Alive and Well

Osama bin Laden is alive and in good health, as is fugitive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar, a purported senior commander of the ousted militia said Wednesday in a television interview.

Pakistan's Geo television broadcast the interview with a man it identified as Taliban military commander Mullah Akhtar Usmani, a former aviation minister who said he still receives instructions from Omar.

Asked whether bin Laden is hiding in areas of Afghanistan that are under Taliban control, the man said he would not specify where the terrorist mastermind was hiding.

"Thanks be to God, he is absolutely fine," he said.

The man wore a black turban to shield his face, making it impossible to recognize him or verify his identity. He wore a gray jacket, and an AK-47 rifle was propped up next to him as he spoke in front of a red-patterned, Afghan-style rug.

Geo said the interview was recorded last week, but declined to say where.

A senior journalist at the independent station said on condition of anonymity that the interview was done near the Afghan town of Spinboldak, which is close to the Pakistani border.

The interview was conducted in broken Urdu, Pakistan's main language and the language in which Geo broadcasts most of its programs. Most senior Taliban speak Pashtu.

The man said the Taliban are still organized, and that senior Taliban leaders hold regular consultations.

"Our discipline is strong. We have regular meetings. We make programs," the man said.

He said Omar does not attend the meetings but "decisions come from his side." He did not say where those meeting take place.

A U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida, which was blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Priest Says Autopsy Does Not Change Moral Aspects of Terri's Death

A priest who was with Terri Schiavo in the final hours before her death said Wednesday the autopsy findings do not change the moral aspects of her death, which he called "a murder." Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said the details of the autopsy do not change what happened to Terri. "Her physical injuries and disabilities never made her less of a person. No amount of brain injury ever justifies denying a person proper humane care. That includes food and water," said Pavone. "A person with a 'profoundly atrophied' brain needs profound care and love. Terry did not die from an atrophied brain. She died from an atrophy of compassion on the part of her estranged husband and those who helped him to have her deliberately killed," he concluded.

Bush Complains About Do-Nothing Democrats

President Bush last night ripped the Democratic Party as do-nothing obstructionists bent on derailing his reform agenda, saying that on issue after issue, Democratic leaders in Congress 'stand for nothing except obstruction, and this is not leadership.'
At an evening congressional gala at the Washington Convention Center -- which drew $23 million for House and Senate Republican candidates and amounted to the kickoff of the 2006 political campaign season -- the president drew standing ovations from Republican faithful as he hammered Democrats for offering no solutions to the nation's most pressing problems.
'If leaders of the other party have innovative ideas, let's hear them. But if they have no ideas or policies except obstruction, they should step aside and let others lead,' Mr. Bush said to thunderous applause from more than 5,000 supporters.
The president, who has spent the past several months seeking consensus on his Social Security reform package and reaching out to Democrats with nonconfrontational rhetoric, said opposition party leaders are pursuing 'the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock, and our country and our children deserve better.'
'Political parties that choose the path of obstruction will not gain the trust of the American people,' he said at the event dubbed 'the 2005 President's Dinner.'
Mr. Bush said political parties can take one of two approaches: 'One approach is to lead, to focus on the people's business, to take on the tough problems, and that is exactly what our party is doing.
'The other approach is to simply do nothing, to delay solutions, obstruct progress, refuse to take responsibility. Members of the other party have worked with us to achieve important reforms on some issues, yet too often, their leadership prefers to block the ideas of others.'

Major quake triggers tsunami alert along Pacific Coast

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the ocean floor Tuesday night about 90 miles southwest of Crescent City, sparking a short-lived tsunami warning across Northern California's coast and prompting a partial evacuation of the coastal town.

The quake struck at 7:50 p.m., and 24 minutes later the town's tsunami sirens began blaring to warn its 7,542 residents. David Duncan wasted no time locking up the Denny's on Fifth Street in Crescent City, where he's the manager. He wanted to get out and head to higher ground. When the quake struck, the restaurant's lights, which are suspended from ceiling chains, began to sway, he said.

"It didn't bother me a bit," Duncan said. "I've lived in California for 40 years and felt plenty of earthquakes."

But the tsunami warning was a whole different story.

Duncan said when the Del Norte County Sheriff's Department issued a warning for everyone to leave town and go 20 miles north to the Oregon border, his customers took their food to go and "split."

"The police are escorting people out of the city," said Paul Rice, a clerk at Ray's Food Place. "There is a line of cars headed out toward Oregon."

Jason Cantrall, a clerk at the Shop Smart Food Warehouse, was breathless.

"I'm trying to get people out right now," he said. "There was stuff falling off the shelves. I got word to evacuate the store. The sheriff's office said they were evacuating six to seven blocks."

By 8:59 p.m. the threat of a potential tsunami had waned, and residents began returning to their homes. Del Norte County Sheriff Dean Wilson estimated about 6,000 people had been evacuated.

It had been 18 years since Crescent City had activated the municipal alarm. They have one especially for tsunamis because 11 people were killed there in 1964 when the Alaska tsunami hit. It was the only fatal tidal wave in California's history.

On Tuesday, a branch of the National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for the West Coast at 8:14 p.m. The weather service told Wilson he had between 30 and 40 minutes before the wave could hit. He wasn't taking any chances.

"Normally our evacuation plan is everything south of Ninth Street -- approximately 3,000 people," he said. "We also evacuate low-lying areas near Klamath and Smith Rivers -- about 1,000 people.

"The wave was supposed to arrive by 8:29, but there was no wave generation, so we waited 20 minutes and issued an all clear," he continued.

The tsunami- warning system has operated for decades in the Pacific Ocean, and the Hawaii center that issued Tuesday night's alert sends information to 26 nations. Experts say many of the more than 145,000 lives lost in the Dec. 26 southern Asia disaster could have been saved with even a few minutes advance notice