The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 09/18/2005 - 09/25/2005

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Stand Up to the Anti-Military Crowd!



The continuation of the "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy" Tour!!! Move America Forward is leading a bus tour across the nation from California to Washington, D.C. to rally Americans to stand united behind our troops and their mission. The bus tour began in San Francisco on Monday, September 19th and will end in Washington D.C. at a giant pro-troop rally on Sunday, September 25th. Once we get to Washington, D.C., we'll join forces with other organizations for the Support The Troops And Their Mission Weekend - CLICK HERE
Trip reports from our stops so far - including pictures - CAN BE FOUND ONLINE - CLICK HERE
If you cannot make it to one of our rally-stops or the D.C. Pro-Troop Rally on Sunday, you can still help support our troops and this important event by CONTRIBUTING ONLINE - CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE for ITINERARY & SCHEDULE

Cindy Sheehan Exploiting the Hurricane Disaster: "George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power."
CINDY SHEEHAN ON HURRICANE KATRINA & ATTACKS ON OUR TROOPS

Also... some more press stories on the trip.

DENVER ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS:

DENVER POST:

OAKLAND TRIBUNE:

OMAHA'S TV-7 (ABC AFFILIATE):

Even a mention in the liberal San Francisco Chronicle:

Al-Qaeda operative nabbed

Authorities in Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland said on Friday they had arrested a senior al-Qaeda operative allegedly in the region to organise attacks on local leaders and foreigners.

Somaliland's Interior Minister Ishmael Aden told AFP that police had arrested "an internationally known" Afghan-trained leader of Osama bin Laden's network along with a second a-Qaeda member after a shootout in an overnight raid in the capital Hargeisa.

"We have captured two members of al-Qaeda and about four others fled the area," Aden said. "Their leader, who was among those we arrested, is an internationally known fighter for al-Qaeda who has been in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

He and other officials declined to name either suspect for security reasons, but Aden said he planned to call a news conference on Saturday to announce details of the operation.

Haven for extremists

Aden said three police officers were wounded in the firefight at the group's hideout in central Hargeisa and that authorities had recovered a large cache of weapons and communications equipment during the raid.

"They came to harm or kill the leaders of Somaliland, the international expatriates working here and to the disrupt the democratic elections in Somaliland," Aden said, referring to polls scheduled for September 29.

Somaliland, in northwestern Somalia, unilaterally declared independence from the rest of the country after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the Horn of Africa nation into anarchy.

It is not internationally recognized but seen widely as an island of relative stability in the lawless country which western intelligence agencies fear has become a haven for extremists, including al-Qaeda members.

'Able Danger' Will Get Second Hearing

The Defense Department on Friday reversed its earlier decision to bar key witnesses from testifying about just how much information the U.S. government had on the Sept. 11 hijackers before they led the attacks that killed 3,000 people.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has therefore scheduled a second hearing for next week on the formerly secret Pentagon intelligence unit called "Able Danger".

Former members of Able Danger say the group identified Sept. 11 hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, more than a year before the attacks. Although those Able Danger analysts say they told the Sept. 11 commission about their findings, former members of the panel have so far dismissed the claim.

The Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement Friday that the Pentagon now will allow five witnesses to testify. Among those are Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott and defense contractor John Smith.

Shaffer said in written testimony last week that the Pentagon blocked him from offering information on Able Danger and its identification of Atta � the lead hijacker.

PAKISTANI ANTI-TERROR OFFICIALS BELIEVE BIN LADEN HOLED UP IN AFGHANISTAN WITH LESS THAN 10 MEN

Fri Sep 23 2005 14:01:11 ET

The Pakistani military officers battling al Qaeda along the border with Afghanistan who have the latest first-hand information about Osama bin Laden believe he is hiding with a small cadre in Afghanistan and is no longer an effective leader for the terrorist group.� Steve Kroft's report from Pakistan will be broadcast on the 38th season premiere of 60 MINUTES Sunday, Sept. 25 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS television Network.

"I think now [bin Laden] is being protected or assisted by a very short number, which keeps his profile very low,� the counter-terrorism head of Pakistan�s Intelligence Service, ISI, tells Kroft.�� [He is someplace along the border, probably in Afghanistan] is what my assessment says,� opines the brigadier who goes by the name "Ali" and whose true identity is known by only a few government officials.

Ali tells Kroft his forces have diminished bin Laden/s power by capturing 594 al-Qaeda members and crippling the group's communications, including infiltrating their courier network.� "We have been able to effectively break the communications network from top to bottom. We do not allow these people to communicate with each other," says Ali.

The information gleaned from the captives and given to coalition officials has helped to prevent planned terror attacks against financial buildings in the U.S., planes and buildings at London's Heathrow airport and has assisted in the capture of al-Qaeda operatives in Great Britain.� "The mere fact that there has not been a replication of 9/11 speaks volumes of what we shared with the world," boasts Ali.

Finding bin Laden doesn't matter at this point, believes Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, in charge of Pakistan's anti-terrorism operations along the Afghanistan border.� "If [bin Laden] is hiding in a hole, neither the electronic nor the human intelligence can find him," he tells Kroft.� "Is it all that important to find him? If he's taken out tomorrow, his ideology is not going to come to an end.� I don't think that it's important�if he is captured�.This is my personal view," says Hussain.

Kroft also spoke to the Pakistani leader, �Gen. Pervez Musharraf.� "These troops are not certainly on the trail of one man and that's all they are doing," notes Musharraf.� "We are fighting terrorism wherever it is. If Osama happens to be there incidentally, he will be killed or captured," he tells Kroft.

Developing...

Hurricane RITA Public Advisory

BULLETIN
HURRICANE RITA ADVISORY NUMBER 26
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
10 PM CDT FRI SEP 23 2005

...EYE OF MAJOR HURRICANE RITA JUST A FEW HOURS FROM LANDFALL NEAR
THE TEXAS/LOUISIANA BORDER...
...STRONG WINDS AND HEAVY RAINS BATTERING SOUTHERN LOUISIANA AND
SOUTHEASTERN TEXAS...

A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM SARGENT TEXAS TO MORGAN
CITY LOUISIANA. A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE
CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24
HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD HAVE
ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE SOUTHEASTERN
COAST OF LOUISIANA EAST OF MORGAN CITY TO THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL
RIVER... INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE
PONTCHARTRAIN... AND FROM SOUTH OF SARGENT TEXAS TO PORT ARANSAS
TEXAS. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM
CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24
HOURS.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 10 PM CDT...0300Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR
LATITUDE 29.1 NORTH... LONGITUDE 93.2 WEST OR ABOUT 55 MILES... 90
KM... SOUTHEAST OF SABINE PASS ALONG THE GULF COAST AT THE
TEXAS/LOUISIANA BORDER.

RITA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH... 19 KM/HR. THIS
GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE UNTIL LANDFALL. A GRADUAL
TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED ON SATURDAY.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 120 MPH...195 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. RITA IS A DANGEROUS CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE ON THE
SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS EXPECTED PRIOR
TO LANDFALL. GRADUAL WEAKENING IS EXPECTED AFTER RITA MOVES
INLAND.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES...140 KM...
FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP
TO 205 MILES...335 KM. A WIND GUST TO 74 MPH WAS RECENTLY REPORTED
AT LAKE CHARLES LOUISIANA.

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 931 MB...27.49 INCHES.

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 15 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS...
LOCALLY UP TO 20 FEET AT HEAD OF BAYS AND NEARBY RIVERS...WITH
LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE EXPECTED NEAR AND TO
THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL. TIDES ARE CURRENTLY
RUNNING ABOUT 2 FEET ABOVE NORMAL ALONG THE LOUISIANA...MISSISSIPPI
AND ALABAMA COASTS IN THE AREAS AFFECTED BY KATRINA. TIDES IN THOSE
AREAS WILL INCREASE TO 4 TO 6 FEET AND BE ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE
WAVES... AND RESIDENTS THERE COULD EXPERIENCE COASTAL FLOODING.
LARGE SWELLS GENERATED BY RITA WILL LIKELY AFFECT MOST PORTIONS OF
THE GULF COAST.

SINCE RITA IS EXPECTED TO SLOW DOWN DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS...
RAINFALL TOTALS OF 10 TO 15 INCHES ARE EXPECTED OVER EASTERN TEXAS
AND WESTERN LOUISIANA. MAXIMUM RAINFALL TOTALS IN EXCESS OF 25
INCHES COULD OCCUR OVER LOCALIZED AREAS. RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 3 TO
5 INCHES WITH ISOLATED HEAVIER TOTALS ARE POSSIBLE OVER
SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW ORLEANS.

ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE TONIGHT...SATURDAY...AND SATURDAY
NIGHT OVER FAR EASTERN TEXAS...LOUISIANA...SOUTHERN ARKANSAS...AND
MISSISSIPPI.

REPEATING THE 10 PM CDT POSITION...29.1 N... 93.2 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS...120 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 931 MB.

INTERMEDIATE ADVISORIES WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE
CENTER AT MIDNIGHT CDT AND 2 AM CDT FOLLOWED BY THE NEXT COMPLETE
ADVISORY AT 4 AM CDT.

FORECASTER KNABB

More levees fail in New Orleans; water pours in

Our worst fears came true,� National Guardsman says

Hurricane Rita�s wind-driven storm surge topped one of New Orleans� battered levees Friday and poked holes in another, sending water gushing into already-devastated neighborhoods just days after they had been pumped dry.

An initial surge of water cascaded over a patched levee protecting the impoverished Ninth Ward, flooding the abandoned neighborhood with at least 6 feet of water.

�Our worst fears came true,� said Maj. Barry Guidry, a National Guardsman on duty at the broken levee.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Bus carrying elderly evacuees burns; 24 dead


Fire engulfs vehicle carrying elderly from Houston area nursing home

The flight from the danger posed by Hurricane Rita turned deadly early Friday as a bus filled with elderly evacuees from the Houston area burst into flames on traffic-packed Interstate 45, leaving as many as 24 people dead, according to local officials.

"Deputies were unable to get everyone off the bus," Dallas County Sheriff's Department spokesman Don Peritz said. He said he believed 24 people were killed, but that number could change.

Separately, the Dallas County Fire Marshal's office told NBC News that 24 were killed in the tragedy.

The bus was carrying 43 people who had been traveling since Thursday from a nursing home or managed care facility near Houston, Peritz said.

Early indications were that the bus caught fire because of mechanical problems, possibly overheated brakes, then passengers' oxygen tanks started exploding, he said.

The fire reduced the vehicle to a blackened, burned-out shell with large blue tarps covering many seats, surrounded by about 20 police cars and ambulances.

Tina Jones, a nurse from Ennis, was driving behind the bus when she saw it start to smoke and pull to the side of the road.

"I saw the smoke and then there was an explosions," said Jones, who pulled over and helped treat some passengers who suffered cuts and bruises. She said she saw at least six bodies.

"I'll probably go home and have a good cry," she said.

The deadly accident forced authorities to briefly shut the freeway, a main evacuation route from Houston, and created a 17-mile backup. Interstate 45 stretches more than 250 miles from Galveston through Houston to Dallas. The crash site is roughly 17 miles southeast of downtown Dallas.

Gov. Rick Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said traffic on I-45 would be diverted at Ennis, about 30 miles southeast of Dallas.

Authorities also were taking the unusual step of moving the wreckage and continuing the investigation in a remote location so the interstate could reopen for evacuees, Peritz said.

"You have thousands of people who are in their vehicles trying to escape," he said.

Iraq War smackdown:Donahue vs. O'Reilly

TV talk-show legends in shoutfest over Cindy Sheehan, Bush policies

Former television talk-show host Phil Donahue became involved in a heated shouting match last night with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly over continued U.S. involvement in Iraq.

However, much of America was not able to see the verbal wrestling match, as breaking news of the landing of a crippled JetBlue flight in Los Angeles pre-empted a portion of "The O'Reilly Factor" during its live feed.

During the program, Donahue, well-known for his liberal political stances, rallied behind Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has become an activist against American involvement in Middle East wars after her son, Casey, was killed in Iraq.

"Cindy Sheehan is one tough mother and nothing you say or anyone else is gonna slow her down," Donahue said.

The segment turned into a finger-pointing, shouting match when Donahue accused O'Reilly of backing a war to which he wouldn't send his own children:


Donahue: "You wouldn't send your children to this war, Bill."
O'Reilly: "My nephew just enlisted in the Army. You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about! He's a patriot, so don't denigrate his service or I'll boot you right off the set. That boy made a decision to serve his country! Do not denigrate him or you're outta here!" ...

Donahue: "You are part of a loud group of people who want to prove they're tough and send other people's kids to war to make the case."

O'Reilly: "You have no clue about how to fight a war on terror or how to defend your country. You are clueless, so is Ms. Sheehan. And for Ms. Sheehan to say the insurgents have a right to kill Americans, and you're shaking her hand? You ought to just walk away."

Donahue: "How many more men and women are you going to send to have their arms and legs blown off so that you can be tough and point at people in a kind of cowardly way?"

Donahue also stated Iraq was not a terrorist state with Saddam Hussein as dictator.

"Saddam was a bastard, but he was our bastard," said Donahue.

O'Reilly insisted the U.S. is in a war on terror, and the cause was noble, loudly telling Donahue, "And if you don't understand geopolitics, if you don't understand Iraq would be a terrorist state if we pulled outta there, then you don't know anything."

"It's a mistake," responded Donahue. "It was poorly planned and poorly executed but Bill O'Reilly wants to send more kids to fight and die."

Because the segment was not seen during its initial broadcast, "The O'Reilly Factor" plans on rebroadcasting it this evening.

Video of the exchange can be viewed here.
A complete transcript is available here.

AOL poll: President slays mayor on storm

With close to 600,000 participants, public rips Nagin response as 'poor'

As debate continues to rage over government response to Hurricane Katrina, the public clearly thinks New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin � not President Bush � is the one to blame, according to a new online poll by America Online.

With more than 589,000 responses in today's unscientific survey, 65 percent of participants rate Nagin's handling of the Katrina disaster as "poor."

Only 10 percent of AOL users said Nagin's response was "excellent," 13 percent called it "good," and 12 percent termed it "fair."

When asked who has done a better job during the crisis, 67 percent named President Bush, and only 33 percent chose Nagin.

AOL calls Nagin "a compelling figure at the center of the storm � literally and figuratively," and says it decided to do its poll now because "there seemed to be critical mass: he reversed his controversial decision to reopen parts of his city; he's offering yet more criticism of federal officials; and he's bracing for another possible strike from a hurricane."

A WorldNetDaily poll from Sept. 12 asked, "What's your opinion of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin?"

With close to 6,000 responses, over 40 percent said he was "obviously not qualified or competent to hold such an important position;" 22 percent called him "the quintessence of a public hazard responsible for many hurricane-related deaths;" and 14 percent said "he's everything New Orleans deserves, since citizens voted him in."

The New Orleans mayor, a Democrat, is now forever linked to images of flooded school buses � vehicles not deployed by him despite being part of the city's plan for evacuation in case of a disaster.

Just three days after Katrina struck the Crescent City, Nagin referred to the buses during an interview with radio station WWL, stating:

I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.
I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their a--es moving to New Orleans."

This past Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Nagin again addressed the issue of buses, noting, "Sure, there was lots of buses out there. But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available."


Hundreds of scathing comments from AOL users have been posted in connection with the poll, including:

"Mayor Nagin should be arrested for neglect. He should be charged the same as the couple who allowed the elderly folks die in the rest home in New Orleans. He had a plan for evacuation and failed to follow it! It's not the president's job to go rushing into a state and take over. He is ultimately responsible for the deaths of hundreds."

"First, [Nagin] leaves 300 school buses in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool to rot, and then asks Bush for buses. Second, he sets up the Superdome for evacuees, but has no water, food, or police there. People are raped, murdered, and doctors shot at while he and the police chief do nothing. Third, he tells people to come back to parts of New Orleans, even with health officials and FEMA telling him it's not safe. Now he has to evacuate again. What a moron! No wonder he blames everyone else."

"The mayor is an idiot, playing the race card. He needs to be removed from office and banished as an American! 'Send the Greyhound buses,' when he had buses. Mayor Nagin, you killed those people, you sent them to death. God will judge you if you are not killed first by the people who elected you!"

"How in the hell could the mayor think it was OK to let residents back into the city? What will they do and what will the kids do? Apparently he has no clue what is involved with restoring power and such back to a city that has been overwhelmed with mass destruction."

"First he complained that the feds weren't responding fast enough. Now he complains that they have overstepped their boundaries. He's all about blaming someone else. While school buses sat unused, he sat in his hotel room. Nice leadership."

"Mayor Nagin has been quick to blame so many others, but before the hurricane hit and he called for the evacuations, that is when he should have used every school and city bus to help those who wanted to leave the city get out. He knew that most of his citizens were poor black people who didn't have a way out. That said, he could probably save some credibility if he would ask ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani for his help and guidance."

"Mayor Nagin is no doubt well intentioned, but he lacks the administrative expertise required to manage the crisis that he has been confronted with, he is totally over his head on this one."

Ex-Guantanamo prisoners fight on

More than a dozen prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the -"battlefield" to fight Americans, it was disclosed yesterday.

The terrorists, freed in the belief that "they posed a very low threat", have either been killed, captured or wounded in attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Others are thought to be still organising attacks with the Taliban or al Qa'eda.

More than 170 prisoners have been returned from the top security jail in Cuba to their home countries without any condition imposed and another 80 placed under some form of restrictions.

Matthew Waxman, the US deputy assistant defence secretary, said that significant improvements had been made for the 500 remaining "enemy combatants" behind bars.

Others are thought to be still organising attacks with the Taliban or al Qa'eda.

More than 170 prisoners have been returned from the top security jail in Cuba to their home countries without any condition imposed and another 80 placed under some form of restrictions.

Matthew Waxman, the US deputy assistant defence secretary, said that significant improvements had been made for the 500 remaining "enemy combatants" behind bars.

Hurricane Track Turns to the Right

Hurricane Rita is throwing a bit of a curve.
The huge storm has made a sharper-than-expected turn to the right. It's now on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston, Texas, a direct hit.

Forecasters predict it will come ashore late Friday or early Saturday somewhere along a 350-mile stretch of the Texas and Louisiana coast. The area is marked by Port Arthur, Texas, near the midpoint.

At last report, Rita was about 350 miles southeast of Galveston and was moving at near ten miles-per-hour. Its winds were near 145 miles-per-hour, 30 miles-per-hour weaker than earlier today.

Rita's course is taking it toward the country's biggest concentration of oil refineries, and closer to New Orleans, which is still devastated by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is under a tropical storm warning.

Gas Supplies Short as Nearly 2 Million Flee Hurricane Rita


Hundreds of thousands of people across the Houston metropolitan area struggled to make their way inland in a vast, bumper-to-bumper exodus Thursday as Hurricane Rita closed in on the nation's fourth-largest city with winds howling at 150 mph.

Drivers ran out of gas in 14-hour traffic jams or looked in vain for a place to stay as hotels hundreds of miles in from the coast filled up. Others got tired of waiting in traffic and turned around and went home.

An estimated 1.8 million residents or more in Texas and Louisiana were under orders to evacuate to avoid a deadly repeat of Katrina.

"Whatever happens is going to happen and we are going to have a monumental task ahead of us once the storm passes," Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said. "Galveston is going to suffer, and we are going to need to get it back in order as soon as possible."

The storm weakened Thursday morning from a top-of-the-scale Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4 as it swirled across the Gulf of Mexico, and forecasters said it could lose more steam by the time it comes ashore late Friday or early Saturday.

And in the afternoon, Rita made a sharper-than-expected turn to the right, and it appeared that Houston and nearby Galveston might escape a direct hit. Instead, it looked as if Rita might come ashore near Port Arthur, Texas, or Lake Charles, La., at least 60 miles up the coast.

But it could still be a dangerous storm - one aimed at a section of coastline with the nation's biggest concentration of oil refineries.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, Rita's outer bands brought the first measurable rain to the city since Katrina, raising fears that the patched-up levees could give way and cause a new round of flooding.

Highways leading inland out of Houston, a metropolitan area of 4 million people, were clogged up to 100 miles north of the city. Service stations reported running out of gasoline, and police officers carried gas to motorists who ran out. Texas authorities also asked the Pentagon for help in getting gasoline to drivers stuck in traffic, and sent gasoline tankers to take up positions along evacuation routes to help.

To speed the evacuation, Gov. Rick Perry halted all southbound traffic into Houston along Interstate 45 and took the unprecedented step of opening all eight lanes to northbound traffic out of the city for 125 miles. I-45 is the primary evacuation route north from Houston and nearby Galveston.

Trazanna Moreno tried to leave Houston for the 225-mile trip to Dallas on U.S. 90 but turned back after getting stuck in traffic.

"We ended up going six miles in two hours and 45 minutes," said Moreno, whose neighborhood is not expected to flood. "It could be that if we ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere that we'd be in a worse position in a car dealing with hurricane-force winds than we would in our house."

With traffic at a dead halt, fathers and sons got out of their cars and played catch on freeway medians. Others stood next to their cars, videotaping the scene, or walked between vehicles, chatting with people along the way. Tow trucks tried to wend their way along the shoulders, pulling stalled cars out of the way.

Hotels filled up all the way to the Oklahoma and Arkansas line.

John Decker, 47, decided to board up his home and hunker down because he could not find a hotel room.

"I've been calling since yesterday morning all the way up to about 1 this morning. No vacancies anywhere," he said. "I checked all the way from here to Del Rio to Eagle Pass. I called as far as Lufkin, San Marcos, San Angelo. The only place I didn't call was El Paso. By the time you reach El Paso, it's almost time to turn back."

At 2 p.m. EDT, Rita was centered about 435 miles southeast of Galveston and was moving at near 9 mph. It winds were near 150 mph, down from 175 mph earlier in the day. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore somewhere along a 400-mile stretch of the Texas and Louisiana coast that includes the Houston-Galveston area near the midpoint.

Forecasters warned of the possibility of a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet, battering waves, and rain of up to 15 inches along the Texas and western Louisiana coast. Three to five inches of rain were possible over New Orleans, where engineers raced to fortify the city's Katrina-damaged levees and pumps.

The U.S. mainland has not been hit by two Category 4 storms in the same year since 1915. Katrina came ashore Aug. 29 as a Category 4.

An estimated 1.3 million people in Galveston, the Corpus Christi area, Beaumont, low-lying parts of Houston, and mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders. And about 500,000 in southwestern Louisiana were told to get out as well.

Oil refineries and chemical plants in and around Houston began shutting down, and hundreds of workers were evacuated from offshore oil rigs.

The Texas governor recalled Texas National Guardsmen and other emergency personnel and equipment from Louisiana to get ready for Rita.

President Bush: Bill Clinton Soft on Terror

President Bush fired back at ex-president Clinton on Thursday, saying his weak response to repeated terrorist attacks on U.S. interests during the 1990s encouraged al Qaida to launch the 9/11 attacks.

"The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole," Bush noted, after getting an update on the war on terror at the Pentagon.

"The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves and so they attacked us," the president added, in quotes picked up by United Press International.

Four of the six terrorist attacks cited by Bush took place on Clinton's watch, with the first two coming during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Bush's decision to invoke Clinton's poor record on terrorism comes just five days after the ex-president slammed him for attacking Iraq without just cause.

"The administration . . . decided to launch this invasion virtually alone and before the U.N. inspections were completed - with no real urgency, no evidence that there was any weapons of mass destruction there," Clinton complained to ABC's "This Week."

"I did not favor what was done," he added.

Gov. Blanco's Approval Rating in Free Fall

The bottom has fallen out of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's poll numbers, with her approval rating tumbling sharply in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

While President Bush's approval rating has fallen by two or three points in most polls, Survey USA found that Gov. Blanco's favorability rating has dropped by a whopping nine points among Louisianans, from 50 to 41 percent since the last survey in August.

Gov. Blanco's negative numbers have shot up by an even higher margin - 13 points. In August, 43 percent disapproved of the way she was doing her job. Now, 56 percent give her a thumbs down.

Meanwhile, the same survey found that in Mississippi, which was also devastated by Katrina, Gov. Haley Barbour's approval rating is way up - to 58 percent. It was 43 percent just four weeks ago - a 15 point improvement for Barbour.

Gov. Blanco's sagging poll numbers may be behind her latest effort to deflect blame for mishandling the Katrina crisis.

On Thursday she endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton's call for an independent commission to investigate the disaster.

In a letter to President Bush Blanco urged:

"I am hopeful that you will join with me and others who have called for an independent commission to investigate this tragedy. . . .

"Only an independent, nonpartisan commission investigation that commands full support from the executive and legislative branches will accomplish what we need - a thorough, comprehensive review which is only concerned with getting to the truth."

9/11 Families Ask Bush to Withdraw Myers

The 9/11 Families for a Secure America issued the following press release:

The members of 9/11 Families for a Secure America are appalled by President Bush's nomination of Julie Myers to head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Ms Myers is completely unqualified to lead the agency that is supposed to keep illegal aliens and the unknown terrorists among them from entering the United States.

With this nomination Mr. Bush continues his record of appointing unqualified individuals to positions of importance in America's immigration bureaucracy.

The purpose of our immigration laws is to prevent dangerous aliens from entering our country. Failure of our government to enforce immigration laws played a large role in permitting 19 Arab terrorists to murder our loved ones on September 11, 2001.

The 9/11 attacks should have enlightened Mr. Bush on the need to staff our immigration agency only with people who have demonstrated the ability and willingness to enforce immigration law.

If President Bush is serious about securing our borders and keeping the American people safe from terrorists, 911 Families for a Secure America has the perfect candidate, a person of absolute integrity with three decades of experience in immigration law enforcement.

His knowledge is recognized by Members of Congress, who have often invited him to testify before congressional hearings. He has also written many articles on the issues of secure borders and secure identity documents.

Mr. Cutler spent thirty years with ICE's predecessor agency, the INS, retiring as Senior Special Agent. In that capacity he worked with members of other law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Customs and local and state police as well as law enforcement organizations of other countries including Israel, Canada, Great Britain and Japan.

He conducted investigations of aliens involved in major drug trafficking organizations which ultimately resulted in the seizure of their assets as well as their arrest and successful prosecutions for a wide variety of criminal violations.

9/11 FSA calls on President Bush to fulfill the promise he made on the ruins of the World Trade Center when he said: "I hear you." Hear us now and appoint someone who is truly competent to lead ICE and help prevent more 9/11 terrorism.

Julie Myers, 36, To Head Immigration and Customs

Thursday, September 22, 2005

U.S. Reports Progress Against Insurgents

U.S.-Iraqi military operations over the past two months have made it harder for foreign insurgents to enter Iraq or establish safe havens in the Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday.


Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch also said that while cities such as Baghdad and Ramadi average more than 25 attacks by insurgents a day, such violence is declining in the rest of Iraq � where 60 percent of the population lives.


"There are indeed areas of Iraq that are relatively safe and secure, and the people in those provinces are working their way toward to a peaceful and democratic society," Lynch told reporters in the Green Zone, the highly fortified home of the U.S. Embassy and Iraq's parliament in Baghdad.


He also said the U.S.-led coalition was making progress in killing or capturing insurgent leaders and is getting tips from Iraqi civilians about insurgent hideouts and weapons stockpiles.


Lynch said information is even coming from the troubled Sunni Triangle, which includes the large provinces of Baghdad, Nineveh, Anbar and Salahuddin in central and northwestern Iraq. He said that based on a tip, U.S. and Iraqi officials destroyed buildings in Haditha, a city in Anbar where insurgents were making and hiding weapons.


Coalition offensives like the one in the northern city of Tal Afar this month have made significant progress in restoring Iraq's control over its borders, and are "denying the terrorists any safe havens in Iraq," Lynch said.


However, after insurgents were routed from Tal Afar, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Sunni Arab leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, declared all-out war on Iraq's majority Shiites.


Lynch said Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Sudan are the main sources of foreign fighters for the insurgency, with most coming from Syria.

13-5: Roberts Nomination Sent to Full Senate

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved John Roberts' nomination as the next Supreme Court chief justice, virtually assuring the conservative judge confirmation by the Senate next week.

Three Democrats joined the committee's 10 majority Republicans in a 13-5 vote to advance the nomination to the full Senate.

Five Democrats _ Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Joseph Biden of Delaware, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Charles Schumer of New York and Dick Durbin of Illinois _ opposed Roberts.

At times, the arguments over whether Roberts is an appropriate successor to the late William H. Rehnquist merged with senators' worries about whom President Bush will choose to be his next nominee to the court, as the replacement for the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor.

The Senate's 44 Democrats seem to be split on whether they can, or should, mount even symbolic opposition to Roberts. His confirmation as the 109th Supreme Court justice is assured because most of the Senate's 55 Republicans are supporting him and Democrats have decided not to filibuster his nomination.

But Democrats who oppose his nomination said they can't take the risk that Roberts will prove a conservative ideologue on the court.

Feinstein told a packed Judiciary Committee hearing room that her vote was decided after Roberts refused to fully answer questions from her and other Democrats in his confirmation hearing last week.

"I knew as little about what Judge Roberts really thought about issues after the hearings as I did before the hearing. This makes it very hard for me," said Feinstein, an abortion rights supporter.

"I cannot in good conscience cast a 'yea' vote," she said. "I will cast a 'no' vote."

Biden said his vote was a close call, but Roberts "does not appear to share the same expansive view of fundamental rights of previous nominees I have supported. I'm unwilling to take the constitutional risk at this moment in the court's history."

Sen. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, both Wisconsin Democrats, and the committee's top Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, decided to support making the conservative judge the nation's 17th chief justice.

"I will vote my hopes today and not my fears," Kohl said.

Kohl said Roberts made it clear to him that he will be a modest judge, not an activist, and will approach arguments with an open mind.

"I take him at his word that he will steer the court to serve as an appropriate check on potential abuses of presidential power," Leahy told the committee and former Sen. Fred Thompson _ Roberts' escort through the confirmation process _ who watched from the crowd.

Those statements likely are directed at the president, who is expected to soon make public his choice to replace O'Connor, who has been a swing voter on many of the Supreme Court's controversial issues.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Rita Unleashes Category 5 Fury Over Gulf

GALVESTON, Texas -- Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 165-mph monster Wednesday as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

With Rita projected to hit Texas by Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry urged residents along the state's entire coast to begin evacuating. And New Orleans braced for the possibility that the storm could swamp the misery-stricken city all over again.

Galveston, low-lying parts of Corpus Christi and Houston, and mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders as Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys and began drawing energy with terrifying efficiency from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Between 2 a.m. and 4 p.m., it went from a 115-mph Category 2 to a 165-mph Category 5.

Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale, and only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the U.S. mainland _ most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in 1992.

Government officials eager to show they had learned their lessons from the sluggish response to Katrina sent in hundreds of buses to evacuate the poor, moved out hospital and nursing home patients, dispatched truckloads of water, ice and ready-made meals, and put rescue and medical teams on standby. An Army general in Texas was told to be ready to assume control of a military task force in Rita's wake.

By Tuesday evening, Rita was centered about 580 miles east-southeast of Galveston and was moving west near 13 mph. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore along the central Texas coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi.

But with its breathtaking size _ tropical storm-force winds extending 350 miles across _ practically the entire western end of the U.S. Gulf Coast was in peril, and even a slight rightward turn could prove devastating to the fractured levees protecting New Orleans.

In the Galveston-Houston-Corpus Christi area, about 1.3 million people were under orders to get out, in addition to 20,000 or more along with the Louisiana coast. Special attention was given to hospitals and nursing homes, three weeks after scores of sick and elderly patients in the New Orleans area drowned in Katrina's floodwaters or died in the stifling heat while waiting to be rescued.

Military personnel in South Texas started moving north, too. Schools, businesses and universities were also shut down.

Galveston was a virtual ghost town by mid-afternoon Wednesday. In neighborhoods throughout the island city, the few people left were packing the last of their valuables and getting ready to head north.

Helicopters, ambulances and buses were used to evacuate 200 patients from Galveston's only hospital. And at the Edgewater Retirement Community, a six-story building near the city's seawall, 200 elderly residents were not given a choice.

Galveston, a city of 58,000 on a coastal island 8 feet above sea level, was the site of one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history: an unnamed hurricane in 1900 that killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people and practically wiped the city off the map.

The last major hurricane to strike the Houston area was Category-3 Alicia in 1983. It flooded downtown Houston, spawned 22 tornadoes and left 21 people dead.

In Houston, the state's largest city and home to the highest concentration of Katrina refugees, the area's geography makes evacuation particularly tricky. While many hurricane-prone cities are right on the coast, Houston is 60 miles inland, so a coastal suburban area of 2 million people must evacuate through a metropolitan area of 4 million people where the freeways are often clogged under the best of circumstances.

Mayor Bill White urged residents to look out for more than themselves.

"There will not be enough government vehicles to go and evacuate everybody in every area," he said. "We need neighbor caring for neighbor."

At the Galveston Community Center, where 1,500 evacuees had been put on school buses to points inland, another lesson from Katrina was put into practice: To overcome the reluctance of people to evacuate without their pets, they were allowed to bring them along in crates.

But Thomas warned late Wednesday that the city was nearly out of buses. She said those left on the island will have to find a way off or face riding out a storm that is "big enough to destroy part of the island, if not a great part of the county."

City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the storm surge could reach 50 feet. Galveston is protected by a seawall that is only 17 feet tall.

Rita approached as the death toll from Katrina passed the 1,000 mark _ to 1,036 _ in five Gulf Coast states. The body count in Louisiana alone was put at 799, most found in the receding floodwaters of New Orleans.

The Army Corps of Engineers raced to fortify the city's patched-up levees for fear the additional rain could swamp the walls and flood the city all over again. The Corps said New Orleans' levees can only handle up to 6 inches of rain and a storm surge of 10 to 12 feet.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin estimated only 400 to 500 people remained in the vulnerable east bank areas of the city. They, too, were ordered to evacuate. But only a few people lined up for the evacuation buses provided. Most of the people still in the city were believed to have their own cars.

Rita also forced some Katrina refugees to flee a hurricane for the second time in 3 1/2 weeks. More than 1,000 refugees who had been living in the civic center in Lake Charles, near the Texas state line, were being bused to shelters farther north.

Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. The hurricane season is not over until Nov. 30th .

Storm News Tracker

HURRICANE RITA ADVISORY



BULLETIN
HURRICANE RITA ADVISORY NUMBER 22
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
10 PM CDT THU SEP 22 2005

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE RITA CONTINUES
WEST-NORTHWESTWARD TOWARD THE SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA AND UPPER
TEXAS COASTS...

A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FROM PORT O'CONNOR TEXAS TO MORGAN
CITY LOUISIANA. A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS
ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO
COMPLETION.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE SOUTHEASTERN COAST OF
LOUISIANA EAST OF MORGAN CITY TO THE MOUTH OF THE PEARL RIVER
INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN....AND
FROM SOUTH OF PORT O'CONNOR TO PORT MANSFIELD TEXAS. A TROPICAL
STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

A TROPICAL STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM SOUTH OF PORT
MANSFIELD TO BROWNSVILLE TEXAS...AND FOR THE NORTHEASTERN COAST OF
MEXICO FROM RIO SAN FERNANDO NORTHWARD TO THE RIO GRANDE.
A TROPICAL STORM WATCH MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE
POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA...GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 10 PM CDT...0300Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR
LATITUDE 26.2 NORTH... LONGITUDE 90.3 WEST OR ABOUT 350 MILES...
560 KM... SOUTHEAST OF GALVESTON TEXAS AND ABOUT 310 MILES... 495
KM...SOUTHEAST OF CAMERON LOUISIANA.

RITA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 10 MPH...17 KM/HR. A
GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24
HOURS. ON THIS TRACK...THE CORE OF RITA WILL BE APPROACHING THE
SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA AND UPPER TEXAS COASTS LATE FRIDAY.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 140 MPH...220 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. RITA IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON
THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN STRENGTH ARE
EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 80 MILES...130 KM...
FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP
TO 205 MILES...335 KM. ANY TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS IN THE NEW
ORLEANS AREA ARE EXPECTED TO BE CONFINED TO A FEW SQUALLS
ASSOCIATED WITH QUICKLY MOVING RAINBANDS.

THE LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE
HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT WAS 917 MB...27.08 INCHES.

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 15 TO 20 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE
LEVELS...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE
EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL.
TIDES ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING ABOUT 2 FEET ABOVE NORMAL ALONG THE
LOUISIANA...MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA COASTS IN THE AREAS AFFECTED BY
KATRINA. TIDES IN THOSE AREAS WILL INCREASE TO 3 TO 5 FEET AND BE
ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE WAVES...AND RESIDENTS THERE COULD EXPERIENCE
COASTAL FLOODING.

RITA IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 8 TO 12
INCHES...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 15 INCHES OVER
SOUTHEASTERN TEXAS AND SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA AS IT MOVES INLAND.
SINCE RITA IS EXPECTED TO SLOW DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY AFTER MAKING
LANDFALL...TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS IN EXCESS OF 25 INCHES ARE
POSSIBLE OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS OVER EASTERN TEXAS AND WESTERN
LOUISIANA. IN ADDITION...RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 3 TO 5 INCHES ARE
POSSIBLE OVER SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW
ORLEANS.

REPEATING THE 10 PM CDT POSITION...26.2 N... 90.3 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 10 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS...140 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 917 MB.

AN INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE
CENTER AT 1 AM CDT FOLLOWED BY THE NEXT COMPLETE ADVISORY AT 4 AM
CDT.

FORECASTER KNABB

N'Orleans residents refuse to go � again

Some prepared to take their chances as hurricane enters Gulf of Mexico

As Hurricane Rita lashes the Florida Keys on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, some newly returned New Orleans residents once again are ignoring an order to evacuate.

The owner of a Bourbon Street shop in the French Quarter insisted the order by Mayor Ray Nagin is premature.

"Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?" he told NBC News. "I'm not going anywhere."

After inviting residents to return to some of New Orleans lightly damaged neighborhoods � against the wishes of President Bush and federal officials � Nagin reversed course.

"Now we have conditions that have changed. We have another hurricane that is approaching us," the mayor said, warning levees were still weak.

Residents who returned to still-closed parts of the city must leave immediately, Nagin said, while others, in neighborhoods such as Algiers, should be ready to evacuate as early as Wednesday.

The city has requested 200 buses that would begin running 48 hours before landfall.

Scott Peterson, 37, who remained in his flooded neighborhood after Katrina hit, declared: "I'm staying. I don't think [Rita's] headed here."

Annie Lewis, 47, who owns property in the French Quarter, told NBC she won't go.

"It'll take a gun to my head," she said.

Hurricane Rita, projected to strengthen to a Category 3 storm as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to reach Texas or Mexico by the weekend, but it also could veer toward New Orleans.

Officials in Galveston, Texas, called for a voluntary evacuation, and Gov. Rick Perry recalled Texas National Guard forces that were assisting Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in Louisiana.

Nagin faces questions of his leadership

Weeping and cursing in frustration at one point, jauntily announcing the city's comeback at another, Ray Nagin has pursued an erratic course as mayor of this woeful city over the past three weeks.

Last week, for example, he announced plans to quickly reopen much of New Orleans without even consulting federal officials. On Monday, he was forced to backtrack as another storm approached the Gulf Coast and President Bush and other top officials warned he was rushing residents back too quickly.

Earlier this month, as New Orleans was being swallowed by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, Nagin said the death toll could reach a startling 10,000. On Monday, the Louisiana total stood at 736, and from what search crews have seen so far, the number of dead will probably not come close to Nagin's projection.

This week, Nagin missed a meeting with the top federal official in New Orleans because of a late flight, and at one point accused that official, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, of trying to make himself the federal mayor of New Orleans.

Altogether, some observers from outside New Orleans say, Nagin's handling of the crisis has created the perception of a leadership void in this city at precisely the time it requires a steady hand.

"He hasn't demonstrated a clear vision for what should be happening next in New Orleans," said Melissa Harris Lacewell, a political science professor with the University of Chicago's Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. She described him as a "kind of a passionate character in this whole story," but added, "He appears to have been pretty unprepared."

Asked Tuesday about criticism of his leadership after the hurricane, the 49-year-old Nagin laughed.

"I won't even deal with that, man," he told The Associated Press. "It's my style, and I love it." He then walked away.

His competence and his ability to work the levers of political power have also been called into question.

He was accused of inadequately protecting his city's poor and making sure they got out safely. Evacuees at the Superdome and the convention center furiously denounced Nagin, holding him responsible for the miserable conditions there.

With tens of thousands of people trapped in the city and food and water running out fast, the mayor erupted in tears during a radio interview and angrily told the federal government, "Get off your asses and let's do something."

Two weeks later, he sketched out a sunny future for the city: "I'm tired of hearing these helicopters, I want to hear some jazz. You know, I know New Orleanians. Once the beignets start cooking up again and the gumbo is in the pots and red beans and rice are served on Monday, in New Orleans, and not where they are, they're going be back."

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Undercover British troops were held at militia house in Basra

British troops who stormed a Basra jail with armoured carriers to rescue two commandos discovered that the pair had already been handed over to local militia, the Ministry of Defence said today.

Officers searched the jail in the southern Iraqi city from "top to bottom" before forcing guards to disclose the whereabouts of the men at gunpoint.

The two soldiers, who had been working undercover, were traced to a nearby house from which they were rescued in a follow-up operation.

They were said to be safe and well today but yesterday's dramatic scenes of mob violence in a city once considered to be among the more peaceful in Iraq have raised serious questions over the deterioration of relations between British forces and the local police.

MOD officials today denied reports from the Iraqi ministry that that 150 prisoners escaped during the dramatic raid on the prison which involved ten Warrior armoured vehicles and helicopter back-up.

Brigadier John Lorimer, commanding officer of the 12th Mechanised Brigade in Basra, said: "I became more concerned about the safety of the two soldiers after we received information that they had been handed over to militia elements. As a result, I took the difficult decision to order entry to the police station.

"By taking this action, we were able to confirm that the soldiers were no longer being held by the Iraqi police. An operation was then mounted to rescue them from a house in Basra.

"We will be following up with the authorities in Basra why the soldiers were not immediately handed over to the multinational forces as Iraqi law says that they should have been."

"Under the law that stands, these two British officers should have been handed back to the military authorities but in the course of the day we became increasingly worried that those in there to negotiate were having no success in getting them out."

Asked if the undercover soldiers were being held by extremists in a local house, Mr Reid replied: "They were being held by people who were not police, let me stop at that. But you would not be far wrong to draw the deduction that you did - but let�s leave those details to later."

The Defence Secretary said that the events did not alter the Government's policy of keeping British forces in Iraq

Basra riot pictures

British Tanks Spring Prisoners in Iraq

British armored vehicles broke down the walls of the central jail in this southern city Monday and freed two British soldiers, allegedly undercover commandos arrested for shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said. But London said the two men were released as a result of negotiations.

The different versions of events came on a chaotic day that raised questions about how much sovereignty Iraqi authorities really were granted when the U.S.-led Coalition Provision Authority (search) handed over power to an interim Iraqi government in the summer of 2004.

The arrests of the two British soldiers Monday appeared to have been the first real and public test of how far that sovereignty extends. There have been no known incidents of Iraqi authorities arresting U.S. soldiers operating in the Iraqi heartland.

Mohammed al-Waili (search), the governor of Basra province, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called "barbaric, savage and irresponsible"

"A British force of more than 10 tanks backed by helicopters attacked the central jail and destroyed it. This is an irresponsible act," al-Waili said, adding that the British force had spirited the prisoners away to an unknown location.

Aquil Jabbar, an Iraqi television cameraman who lives across the street from the Basra jail, said about 150 Iraqi prisoners fled as British commandos stormed inside and rescued their comrades.

FEMA AWOL in 90's Worst Disaster

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was missing in action when the Great Heat Wave of 1995 struck Chicago, killing more than 700 mostly poor, black and elderly victims who perished as city and state medical officials complained they were overwhelmed by the greatest disaster to hit the U.S. in the last 112 years.

"On the first day of the heat wave, Thursday, July 13, the temperature hit 106 degrees, and the heat index � a combination of heat and humidity that measures the temperature a typical person would feel � rose above 120," reported Eric Klinenberg, author of "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago."

By Saturday � just three days into the heat wave � the Cook County Medical Examiner's office was overwhelmed. "I've never seen so many dead people in a short period of time," Chicago paramedic Tim Walsh told the Associated Press.

After the first week of the disaster, the AP reported:

"Hospitals were jammed with the sick and the morgue was overloaded with the dead, with dozens of bodies arriving in a somber procession of blue-and-white police vans. Before [the week] was over, more than 450 people, mostly elderly and sick, would become victims of the summer of '95."

As the magnitude of the disaster unfolded, President Clinton seemed dangerously oblivious.

With Chicago's poor, black and elderly dropping like flies, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported: "President Clinton seemed unperturbed, going for a mid-morning jog and then playing 18 holes of golf in a threesome that included Judge Richard Arnold of Little Rock."

After Chicago had suffered through eight deadly days of the killer heat wave, the president finally responded.

"The current heat wave has been very severe, especially in the Midwest, resulting in hundreds of deaths," Clinton told reporters on July 21. "Chicago has been the hardest hit. This heat wave is an emergency that demands a response from the federal government."

But Clinton's aid package turned out to be laughable by Hurricane Katrina's standards - $100 million to be distributed among 19 states. Illinois received a paltry $15 million.

Chicagoans were lucky to get that much. The Clinton administration had proposed cuts in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, from which the heat relief money was drawn - only to be overruled by Congress.
Clinton's vaunted Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the allegedly able direction of disaster expert James Lee Witt - was nowhere to be found. A Lexis Nexis search of more than 800 media reports on the killer heat wave turned up just a single mention of the agency.

With the city's death toll topping out at 739 - and hundreds more dead in neighboring states - Chicago's Budget Director, Diane Aigotti, told the Chicago Tribune that she didn't expect much from FEMA.

"We're putting the numbers together now, and the $2 million figure is what we're expecting as reimbursement from the feds," she explained.

Kerry Raises Campaign Cash Off Of Katrina...

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) unleashed a furious attack on the Bush administration at a Brown University speech yesterday, upbraiding the president�s response to the hurricane that recently devastated the Gulf Coastand tying it to what he sees as other flaws at the White House.

�This is the Katrina administration,� read prepared remarks posted on 2004 Democratic presidential nominee�s website, www.johnkerry.com. �Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do,� read Kerry�s script, portions of which were included in an e-mail to supporters that ended with a fundraising appeal.

In a brief interview, Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, called Kerry�s pitch for cash �repulsive.�

In a news release, she said, �John Kerry's attacks on President Bush's efforts to assist the victims and rebuild the Gulf Coast don't come as a surprise. Armchair quarterbacking on tough issues has never been a problem for Senator Kerry. The American people have pulled together during a difficult time and Democrats� efforts to politicize this tragedy are unsavory at best.�

While Kerry�s speech may play well with the Democratic base, Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at George Washington University, said the senator has a tough challenge to pin blame on Bush.

Afghans Enjoy Successful Election Day

By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2005 � The people of Afghanistan successfully voted in new leaders Sept. 18. Limited violence was reported near only a handful of voting stations, military officials said.
Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police and international military forces ensured more than 12.5 million registered voters had an opportunity to participate in the National Assembly elections in a relatively safe and secure environment.

"It's a historical day that we have today. ... It will be good for our future, and we will have a good future," Jahwedolah, an Afghan police patrolman, said.

The election results will not be known for several weeks, said Army Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76. While the results will be important, he said, the significance of the election process and how many people participated should not be overlooked.

"We believe the real winners in this process are the people of Afghanistan, who courageously took a stand against years of violence and oppression and took a major step forward toward peace and prosperity," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised the Afghan government and people for completing the elections, saying it was evidence of Afghanistan's continuing progress toward democracy.

"The extremist elements that once again attempted to disrupt the electoral process have failed, and the Afghan people, as they courageously made their ways to the polls, demonstrated their determination to proceed down a democratic path," Rice said.

The results of these elections will lead to the seating of Afghanistan's National Assembly, the final step in the process begun four years ago to create the democratic institutions of a sovereign country, Rice said, adding that the U.S. will make sure that process is seen through to the end.

"The United States is firmly committed to help Afghans build a free, secure and prosperous future and applauds the Afghan people as they advance further on their democratic journey," she said.

About 30,000 members of the Afghan National Army and 50,000 Afghan National Police officers are in uniform providing security to it's the country's people and participating in operations designed to quell any resurgence of Taliban or other terrorist organizations.

"For three decades everything has come apart and been destroyed by war. No one had the freedom to vote for the president or the National Assembly. So today is the day we vote. ... It's a very important day," Afghan citizen Said Asem explained Sept. 18 at a polling site in Parwan.

Since Afghanistan's last successful election, when the Afghan majority democratically elected President Hamid Karzai into office, the strength of the government has increased, military officials said. It will only grow stronger as it will now be fueled by legitimately elected provincial representation from across Afghanistan, they added.

(Some information in this story provided by Combined Forces Command Afghanistan.)

COALITION RAIDS NET 10 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS

BAGHDAD, Iraq � Coalition Forces captured 10 terror suspects in three separate combat operations conducted in and around the capitol city.

Shortly after 9:30 p.m. Sept. 17, Soldiers from the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment began a cordon and search of suspected safe houses to capture members of a terror cell operating in west Baghdad.

In a little more than two hours, the Soldiers seized four members of the cell who are thought to be members of a mortar team which had been carrying out attacks against Coalition Forces, Iraqi Security Forces and civilians.

All four suspects were taken into custody for questioning.

Just before midnight, Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment carried out another cordon and search in east Baghdad. Within minutes the Soldiers secured the area around the targeted house, knocked on the door, entered the house and seized the suspect they were after.

When the Soldiers searched the house, they found weapons and instructions on how to build a roadside bomb. The unit also found numerous documents and maps which could have been used to plan an attack.

An hour later, Coalition Forces detained five more terror suspects during a raid conducted in central Baghdad. The five suspects are believed to have taken part in planning and participating in terrorist activities in the Aamel district.

The suspected terrorists were taken into custody for questioning.

CITIZENS' TIPS LEAD TO LARGE WEAPONS CACHE

CAMP STRYKER, Iraq -- Thanks to a tip from local residents, Task Force Baghdad Soldiers on a dismounted patrol discovered a significant weapons cache in the Radwiniyah area Sept. 17.

Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry Regiment, 48th Brigade Combat Team, received information from local citizens about a field of buried weapons.

The Soldiers searched the area and uncovered the cache of weapons. The search was then expanded and two other caches were discovered in the immediate area.

�The relationship between the Iraqi Army, Coalition Forces and the local populace grows stronger every day,� said Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, 48th BCT commander. �This find will significantly decrease the amount of rocket and mortar attacks against the community and Coalition Forces. I am extremely proud of our Soldiers.�

Included in the weapons cache were 63 rocket-propelled grenade rounds, 23 RPG motors, 904 RPG fuses and primers, 33 68 mm rockets, 23 82 mm mortar rounds, two 60 mm mortar tubes, 12 60 mm mortar rounds, 80 mortar fuses, three mortar sights and five crates of TNT.

The cache was turned over to an explosive ordnance disposal team.

U.S. Soldiers will continue to have a strong presence in the area to assist Iraqi Security Forces in deterring terrorist acts.

One suspected terrorist was detained in connection with the cache.

Monday, September 19, 2005

North Korea Pledges to Drop Nuke Programs

North Korea agreed Monday to stop building nuclear weapons and allow international inspections in exchange for energy aid, economic cooperation and security assurances, a breakthrough that marked a first step toward disarmament after two years of six-nation talks.

The chief U.S. envoy to the talks praised the development as a "win-win situation" and "good agreement for all of us." But he promptly urged Pyongyang to make good on its promises by ending operations at its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

"What is the purpose of operating it at this point?" said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. "The time to turn it off would be about now."

Despite the deal's potential to help significantly ease friction between the North and the United States after years of false starts and setbacks, Hill remained cautious.

"We have to see what comes in the days and weeks ahead," he said.

President Bush called it a positive step, but he expressed some skepticism about whether North Korea will live up to its promises.

"They have said � in principle � that they will abandon their weapons programs," Bush said. "And what we have said is, `Great. That's a wonderful step forward.' But now we've got to verify whether that happens."

"The question is, over time will all parties adhere to the agreement," Bush said.

The agreement clinched seven days of talks aimed at setting out general principles for the North's disarmament. Envoys agreed to return in early November to begin hashing out details of how that will be done.

Then, the hard work of ensuring compliance will begin, officials attending the talks said.

"Agreeing to a common document does not mean that the solution to our problems has been found," said Japan's chief envoy, Kenichiro Sasae.

Another Japanese official, who spoke on condition he not be named in order to discuss the issue more freely, noted that there was no common understanding among the participants about the nature of North Korea's nuclear program.

The head of the U.N. nuclear nonproliferation agency welcomed North Korea's decision to allow inspections, saying he hoped his experts could take the country at its word as soon as possible.

"The earlier we go back, the better," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

According to a joint statement issued at the talks' conclusion, the North "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date" to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

"The six parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the six-party talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner," the statement said.

Responding to Pyongyang's claims that it needs atomic weapons for defense, North Korea and the United States pledged to respect each other's sovereignty and right to peaceful coexistence, and also to take steps to normalize relations.

"The United States affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade (North Korea) with nuclear or conventional weapons," according to the statement, in assurances echoed by South Korea.

The talks, which began in August 2003, include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas.

Text of Joint Statement From Nuclear Talks

CLINTON TURNS ON BUSH

Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.

Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in Iraq.

The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that," said Clinton.

On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.

People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.

"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses lined up to take them out," Clinton.

He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.

"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his 1993-2001 presidency.

"But both of us came out of environments with a disproportionate number of poor people."

On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US population, himself included.

"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he said.

"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it makes any sense."

Do blacks believe levee was blown?

Washington Post columnist 'stunned' by 'reasonable' people suggesting plot

Was the levee break that precipitated the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina the result of some government conspiracy against blacks?

A Washington Post columnist says he's amazed by the large number who believe such a notion.

"I was stunned in New Orleans at how many black New Orleanians would tell me with real conviction that somehow the levee breaks had been engineered in order to save the French Quarter and the Garden District at the expense of the Lower Ninth Ward, which is almost all black," the Post's Eugene Robinson said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

These are not wild-eyed people. These are reasonable, sober people who really believe that. And that tells you something about our racial divide in New Orleans."

Robinson expressed his personal rejection of the idea, noting, " I don't for a minute think the Corps of Engineers or the city of New Orleans would be clever enough to do that at this point."

Last week, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan sparked controversy by spreading racist conspiracy theories.

"I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25-foot deep crater under the levee breach," Farrakhan said. "It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry."

New book promotes sex with children

Ph.D. 'expert' claims pederasty good for 'nurturing,' 'mentoring' young boys

A new book published by Haworth Press features multiple Ph.D. "experts" claiming that sex with children "can benefit" boys and even serve a "mentoring function."

"Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West" features "scholarly" treatises by a raft of mostly-PhD academics, all praising earlier civilizations � particularly Greece and Rome � for the role homosexuality played in those ancient cultures.

In the chapter titled "Pederasty: An Integration of Cross-Cultural, Cross-Species, and Empirical Data," Bruce Rind Ph.D. lauds the rampant child molestation that reportedly occurred in those societies, at one point citing evolution as supporting a pro-pedophilia worldview.

Rind brought unfavorable publicity to the American Psychological Association in 1999 when the organization published in its official peer-reviewed journal, APA Bulletin, a report disputing the harmfulness of child molestation. Titled "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples," the report by Rind and others claimed child sexual abuse could be harmless and beneficial.

The mainstreaming of "adult-child" or "intergenerational" sex, as it is euphemistically called by its supporters, is the next big "sexual liberation" movement on its way, says David Kupelian, WND's managing editor and author of the "The Marketing of Evil."

"Many people seem to think having sex with children is a good thing," says Kupelian, noting "a reported 100,000 websites now offer illegal child pornography, and worldwide child porn generates a reported three billion dollars in revenues every year."

In his book, which has been met with rave reviews, Kupelian rips the veil off the modern pedophile movement, which is firmly rooted in the controversial sex research of Indiana University's Alfred Kinsey.

"This is just sick and disgusting, how long will it be before a federal judge in this country will be telling us that laws preventing sex with children are unconstitutional?"...J.R.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

AIR STRIKES DESTROY TERRORIST COMPLEX

BAGHDAD, Iraq � Coalition Air Forces raided an al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist complex south of Haditha that contained a vehicle borne improvised explosive device factory and weapons caches Sept.16 at 4:24 am.

Upon departing the facility, Coalition Forces conducted air strikes against the Euphrates River Valley complex and destroyed it.

Tips from local citizens and intelligence resources confirmed the existence of the complex, which consisted of 12 buildings. Coalition Forces raided the complex, but all terrorists had fled the facility prior to their arrival. After searching the complex, Coalition Forces found that three of the buildings were used to store weapons and explosives, as well as to manufacture VBIEDs.

During the search of the complex, Coalition Forces found two weapons caches with mortars and artillery shells in one building and a significant number of RPG rounds, launchers, AK-47s and other small arms and ammunition in another building. Coalition Forces also found three VBIEDs ready for use and two vehicles that were rigged as VBIEDs but awaiting explosives.

After a search of the complex, Coalition air assets delivered precision guided munitions that destroyed three buildings and five vehicles. During the strikes, multiple large secondary explosions were observed as the VBIEDs and weapons caches were destroyed.

The complex was located south of Haditha in a remote area, and the type of munitions used and the time that the air strikes were conducted mitigated the risk to local civilians.

COALITION FORCES RAID FOREIGN FIGHTER SAFE HOUSE

BAGHDAD, Iraq � Coalition Forces raided two suspected al-Qaida in Iraq foreign fighter safe houses in the town of Ubaydi, located in northern Iraq and discovered a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device and other terror weapons Sept. 17 at 4:14 am.

Intelligence sources and tips from local citizens led Coalition Forces to the location of the foreign fighter safe houses. Upon entry into the first safe house, Coalition Forces discovered that all the foreign fighters had fled prior to their arrival. However, Coalition Forces did find weapons and a large amount of small arms ammunition and bomb-making materials. Additionally, extremist propaganda was found throughout the safe house. Upon leaving the safe house, Coalition Forces set delayed explosive charges and destroyed the terrorist material.

At the second location, one VBIED which was found outside the safe house was rigged to detonate on command. Coalition close air support assets destroyed the VBIED in place. Large multiple secondary explosions were seen from the destroyed VBIED.

Coalition Forces were departing the area when they were engaged by approximately eight terrorists and/or foreign fighters. They returned fire, killing one terrorist -- the others fled the scene.

There were no Coalition casualties.