News for March14, 2006

Highlights:
Hijackers called Saudi Arabia/Syria before 9/11
Poll: NYers think Hil will run for prez; won't back her (AP)
70% say Dems have no plan for Iraq
Finding answers to Iraq’s WMD (Boston Globe, owned by NYTimes)
Communist Goals (1963) from the Congressional Record: The liberals have achieved most of them.
Dubai Results: Dollar falls, Arab banks move assets, Businesses/employees to suffer
Texas Law Linked to Drop in Abortions, Rise in Birth Rates Among Teens (Reuters)
Liberals Call for Billions in Defense Cuts (strong on defense?)
Judge tosses DeLay case subpoenas
U.S. Casualties in Iraq Continue to Drop Sharply
The Poor Get Richer
Reid Donor Broke Campaign Finance Laws
Some Sunni Arabs turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq (ap)
Al-Qaeda rebels are losing (London Daily Telegraph)


Roe v Wade for Men
By James Taranto
"Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men's rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child," the Associated Press reports from New York:
The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit--nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men--to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter.
The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.
These guys do have a point: The law regarding "reproductive rights" is so skewed toward the distaff that the Supreme Court has even held a woman has the constitutional right to abort her husband's child without so much as telling him.

Hijackers called Saudi Arabia/Syria before 9/11
By James Taranto
"The Sept. 11 hijackers made dozens of telephone calls to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the months before the attacks, according to a classified report from the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel," the Chicago Tribune reports:
According to the report, 206 international telephone calls were known to have been made by the leaders of the hijacking plot after they arrived in the United States--including 29 to Germany, 32 to Saudi Arabia and 66 to Syria.
These are calls between al Qaeda terrorists and their associates, in which one side of the call is in the U.S. and the other is in another country--that is, just the kind of call the National Security Agency listened to under the terrorist surveillance program. Had such a program existed in 2001, it might have prevented 9/11--but if some journalists and Democrats are scandalized now, imagine how they would have howled in outrage if 9/11 hadn't happened.

17-year-old with words of wisdom
Bradley Lehman of Hockessin, Del., weighs in with a letter to the editor of Wilmington's News Journal:
Because I am 17 years old, some people might say that I am not mature enough to understand many issues. However, let me just say that I get more laughs reading the opinion page than I ever have from the comics.
Delawareans seem to be fixated on bashing President Bush and proposing new conspiracy theories whenever they seem convenient.
President Bush did not cause Hurricane Katrina or the complications afterwards. New Orleans was built below sea level so they should have seen it coming and made preparations themselves.
If Dick Cheney shoots someone by accident on his own time, it is none of your business and neither he nor the president has any obligation to tell you about it.
Finally, it seems unreasonable to me that Bush was able to graduate from Yale University, be elected governor of Texas, and earn the respect and confidence of enough of his peers in the Republican Party to be nominated as their presidential candidate if he is indeed as dim-witted as you say.
I am willing to wager that the majority of Delawareans who get their information from this sorry excuse for a newspaper have barely enough brainpower to govern their own lives, let alone governing a nation of almost 300 million.

Poll: NYers think Hil will run for prez; won't back her
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, N.Y. — Six in 10 New York voters believe Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is planning to run for president in 2008, but only about a third of her home-state voters say they would back her if she did so, a statewide poll reported Thursday.
Almost half of New York voters, including three of every 10 Democrats, said they would not vote for her for president, according to the poll from Siena College's Research Institute.
The Siena findings mirror those reported by Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion in a January poll that found 59 percent of New York voters said they expect Clinton to run for president, but 62 percent said it was unlikely she could win.
Joseph Caruso, Siena's polling director, did note the former first lady's favorable rating in New York had slipped to 55 percent, down from 60 percent in January.

70% say Dems have no plan for Iraq
Byron York
How many times have you heard Democrats describe George W. Bush as “arrogant”?
Too many to count. And truth be told, a number of unhappy Republicans are using the A-word themselves when referring to the president these days.
But if you want to see arrogance — lots and lots of it — you need look no further than the Democratic Party’s plan to win the House and Senate this November.
Simply put, Democrats believe they can ask voters to give them control of the legislative branch without revealing any sort of policy or plan to deal with the most pressing issue before the country today: the war in Iraq.
And Bush is arrogant?
Not only do Democrats not have a plan, they’re proud of not having a plan.
Last December, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sat down with a group of reporters and editors of The Washington Post. The journalists asked what Democrats would do about Iraq were they to win power in 2006.
“Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq,” the Post reported. “There is no one Democratic voice ... and there is no one Democratic position,” Pelosi said.”
It was dramatic proof of the party’s disarray on the war, but the Post gave the story the most charitable headline possible: “Pelosi Hails Democrats’ Diverse War Stances.”
A better choice would have been: “Pelosi: Dems Have No Clue On Iraq.”
Now, three months later, Pelosi’s party is no closer to having a clue. And unfortunately for them, the voters know it.
Just look at the results of the latest Post poll, released this week. In the survey, the paper asked, “Do you think the Democrats in Congress do or do not have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq?”
Seventy percent of those polled said the Democrats do not have a clear plan, versus 24 percent who said they do.

It was Iraqi soldiers who won peace after mosque explosion
By RALPH PETERS
BAGHDAD
AMONG the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.
t's routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless.
What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war?
* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
* Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army.
AS a result of its nationwide success, the Iraqi army gained tremendously in confidence. Its morale soared. After all the lies and exaggerations splashed in your direction, the truth is that we're seeing a new, competent, patriotic military emerge. The media may cling to its image of earlier failures, but last week was a great Iraqi success.

Delusions, Desperation and Democrats
Politics/Alan Burkhart
March 7, 2006
Over the last several weeks I have watched in awe as a dominant force in American and world politics has attempted to destroy itself. The Democrat Party, once a juggernaut of seemingly endless power, wealth and influence has become a laughing stock. Liberals around the world must be scratching their heads and wondering what could have happened to the Party of the Almighty Jackass. What has happened is that through their own actions they have exposed themselves better than any conservative commentator could have hoped to do.
Let’s review recent events…
The ports issue has demonstrated just how ignorant of our nation the Democrats (and a lot of Republicans) actually are. There stood Hillary and Chucky on their soapbox, blathering on and on about how no country with ties to terrorism should operate a port in America. I wonder how hard the Saudis were laughing at Hillary, given that they operate port terminals in a half-dozen states? Ahem… terrorist ties? Someone give Hillary a hanky so she can wipe the egg off her face.
Democrats were jumping for joy when it looked like the Abramoff scandal might take down a few Republicans. Until, that is, they discovered that Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton might also get their political noses bloodied. Sometimes it’s better to just keep your mouth shut. Sure, there are some corrupt Republicans in Washington. A few. Very few. And there are absolutely honest Democrats, too. A few. Very few.
With congressional elections fast approaching, the Dems are desperately seeking any inroad they can find to gain a few seats in the House and Senate. Their problem is that they haven’t had a fresh idea in 40 years. Competent, America-loving and God-fearing people are fleeing the Democrat Party in droves. The vast majority of the party’s voting base now consists of the lunatic fringe element of the far left and lifelong, uneducated welfare recipients who still swallow the Big Lie that they can’t make it on their own. That’s not going to win many elections – assuming that Republicans get off their butts and vote.
A prime example of Democrat desperation is the non-scandal of Dick Cheney’s hunting accident. The Dems and their partners in the Antique Media made the most of it, calling for investigations and insinuating that Cheney might have been drinking when the accident occurred. Police conducted an appropriate investigation and found it to be nothing more than a simple accident and closed the case. The air in Washington was thick with disappointment.
And let’s not forget the nutty conspiracy theories floating around regarding 9-11. The last time I checked, the dominant delusion was that George W. Bush arranged for explosives to be placed inside the Twin towers to bring them down. The airliners that hit the towers and the Pentagon were nothing more than diversions. It’s all about oil, see… and Bush needed an excuse to go conquer the Middle East to make money for his buddies in Big Oil. People like these may have God wondering why He didn’t just stick with the dinosaurs.

Finding answers to Iraq’s WMD
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Sunday, March 12, 2006
The time is right for another look at whether Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction. There have been just too many recent reports, impossible to brush off, that they were transferred to Syria shortly before the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The place to start is the 2 million documents captured by U.S. forces in Iraq along with more than 2,500 hours of audiotapes of Saddam Hussein’s meetings with underlings.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has introduced a bill to release the material and may hold hearings this spring.
Twelve hours of tapes and 28 al-Qaeda documents captured in Afghanistan have been made public, and Hoekstra has been given 40 documents from the Iraqi pile by John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, that Hoekstra must keep secret. This is far from adequate.
Hoekstra says he has an open mind. His staff tried to check claims by former Iraqi Air Force Gen. Georges Sada that chemical or biological weapons were flown to Syria in 56 flights, but was unable to confirm it.
The suspicions do not rest on Sada alone. A former deputy undersecretary of defense, John A. Shaw, who was responsible for keeping track of Iraq’s weapons programs, says special Russian troops in civilian clothes handled the transfer of Saddam’s WMDs to Syria. An Israeli general, Moshe Yaalon, has made a similar claim. The general in charge of Pentagon spy satellites has admitted observing large truck convoys from Iraq to Syria before the war began.
Yet most of the 2 million documents have not been explored or even translated. It’s almost as if the CIA and the Pentagon don’t want to know what they contain.
The CIA’s clandestine war against the White House means the agency cannot be trusted for an honest account of what’s in this material. Hoekstra’s committee, and Congress, should make sure that an independent body with no ax to grind checks the documents and releases every last one that can be made public safely, except perhaps for the mess-kit repair orders and laundry invoices, no matter who might be embarrassed or how long it takes.
Washington isn’t Baghdad. Saddam’s secrets need not be protected, especially not at the expense of this administration’s credibility.

Communist Goals (1963) from the Congressional Record: The liberals have achieved most of them.
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm

Mafia's Role in Ports Also Raises Concerns
Associated Press ^ Saturday March 11, 5:59 pm ET David B. Caruso,
NEW YORK (AP) -- Justice Department lawyers warned eight months ago that a nefarious element had infiltrated important East Coast ports, but they weren't talking about terrorists or Arab shipping companies.
They were talking about the mafia.
In a civil suit filed in July, prosecutors accused the International Longshoremen's Association, the 65,000-member union that supplies labor to ports from Florida to Maine, of being a "vehicle for organized crime" on the waterfront.
Packed with tales of corruption, embezzling and extortion, the complaint accused union executives of being associates of the Genovese and Gambino crime families.
The U.S. attorney's office asked a judge to seize control of the union, remove its officers and "put an end to the conspiracy among union officials, organized crime figures and others that has plagued some of the nation's most important ports for decades."
The allegations, assailed by the union as unjust and untrue, are inching toward trial amid heightened concern over port security.

Dollar falls, Arab banks move assets, Businesses/employees to suffer
Foreign wires
Middle Eastern anger over the decision by the US to block a Dubai company from buying five of its ports hit the dollar yesterday as a number of central banks said they were considering switching reserves into euros.
The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, said it was looking to move one-tenth of its dollar reserves into euros, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US move as "discrimination".
Separately, Syria responded to US sanctions against two of its banks by confirming plans to use euros instead of dollars for its external transactions.
The remarks combined to knock the dollar, which fell against the euro, pound and yen yesterday as analysts warned other central banks might follow suit.
The decision Thursday by Dubai-based DP World to complete its takeover of the U.K.'s P&O while transferring or selling the U.S. operations may placate opponents on Capitol Hill, but it's likely to worry major American exporters such as Boeing (Research), GE (Research) and other companies that see growing opportunity in the oil and money-rich Gulf.
"Our members are very concerned about what the failure of this deal means," says Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a Washington trade association that represents large U.S. multi-nationals. "They haven't wanted to be visible but they're very concerned about the signals the U.S. is sending out."
Indeed, The Hill, a Washington newspaper that covers Congress, reported that Dubai's royal family is "furious at the hostility both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have shown toward the deal."
And with Boeing hoping to land a major order for its new 787 Dreamliner with Dubai-based airline Emirates down the road, the stakes are high. Elsewhere in the region, the UAE's Etihad Airways has already ordered more than $1 billion worth of 777s, and Egyptair and Royal Jordanian are longtime Boeing buyers.
"These are important customers for us in an important, growing market," says Boeing spokesman John Dern. "We are with these customers all the time. We haven't seen any impact at this point, and have no indication there will be an impact." Dern wouldn't say whether Boeing execs have specifically discussed the ports controversy with potential customers, but he notes that "we're certainly monitoring the situation."
Reinsch adds he that the doesn't think opponents of the deal on Capitol Hill gave much thought to the possibility that blocking the deal could boomerang and end up hurting U.S. companies. "It's the law of unintended consequences," he says.
According to a Gulf News poll, 64 per cent of readers say the DP World affair "changed their opinion for the worst" about investing in the United States. A number of businessmen told the newspaper yesterday that Arab investors would think about other destinations.
The whole affair served as a lesson for other Arab companies who may have thought of investing in what has proved to be a hostile US atmosphere. All the free trade talk proved to be just empty rhetoric. Another irony is that the Democrats, the supporters of globalisation, were the key opponents of the deal. There must have been something else behind the sudden change of heart.

Texas Law Linked to Drop in Abortions, Rise in Birth Rates Among Teens
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 09 - Since a parental notification law was enacted in Texas, teen abortion rates in the state have fallen by as much as 20%, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine for March 9. In a subgroup of older teens, the law was linked to an increase in birth rates.
In 2000, Texas started enforcing a law that requires physicians to notify the parents of any minor who is contemplating abortion at least 48 hours before the procedure. Similar laws have been enacted in 35 states.
The study compared abortion and birth rates in 1998 to1999 with those in 2000 to 2002.
The enforcement of the notification law was associated with an 11% drop in abortion rates among 15-year-olds, a 20% drop among 16-year-olds, and a 16% reduction among 17-year-olds relative to the rates seen in 18-year-olds.
Among minors who were 17.50 to 17.74 years of age at the time of conception, the law was tied to a 4% rise in birth rates relative to their peers who were 18.00 to 18.24 years of age. Also, compared with 18-year-olds, subjects 17.50 to 17.74 years of age were 34% more likely to have second trimester abortion.

Tehran elite turning on extremist presidency
By John R. Bradley
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
TEHRAN -- Iran's clerical and business establishments, deeply concerned by what they see as reckless spending and needlessly aggressive foreign policies, are increasingly turning against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Within this context, many see the president's long-running confrontation with the United States and Europe over Tehran's nuclear program as an attempt to demonize the West and distract the Iranian public from pressing domestic problems.
A relatively small group of extremists "at the top of the government around the president" are seeking to benefit from a crisis with the West, because "that way they will be able once again to blame the West for all of their problems," said Mousa Ghaninejad, the editor of Iran's best-selling economics daily newspaper, Dunya Al-Eqtisad.
Millions of low-income Iranians voted for the new president last year, motivated by his firm stand against corruption and pledges to give financial priority to their needs.

FRIST DARES DEMS: MORE CENSURE TALK
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to push Democrats for a vote of censure against President Bush!
After facing down Senator Russ Feingold's censure bill on Monday and seeing Democrats of all ranks fold, Frist thinks it's time to call Democrats on their antics.
"He pushed them to the mat today, and they blinked," said one Frist associate. "He dared them to vote, and Democrat Leader Harry Reid looked like he was going to be sick as he said 'No.'''
Frist is going to continue to dare Democrats to vote on censuring the President.
"When it comes to intercepting phone calls from Tora Bora to Topeka, Frist thinks Senate Democrats have made a huge blunder, and he will lead the charge to make Democrats put up or shut up on censure," the top insider claimed.

Liberals Call for Billions in Defense Cuts
by Bobby Eberle
Despite some tough talk coming from a select few Democrats on Capitol Hill regarding defense and the war on terror, it appears that liberals are still liberals, and no amount of spin will change that fact. The latest evidence is a program sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus which calls for $60 billion in cuts to the defense budget. And this is the party that wants to be seen as strong on defense?
According to a report in The Hill, the proposal would take money away from defense and shift it to “humanitarian assistance, social programs, energy conservation, homeland security and deficit reduction.”
“I think it’s time for Congress and the House to talk about the huge amount of tax dollars going for weapons systems designed to fight a Cold War that doesn’t exist,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the 62-member Democratic group. “I don’t think people realize the billions of dollars that are being wasted.”
The first thought that popped into my head was that some Democrats who are trying to change the perception of their party are cringing at this proposal. The Hill story touched on this idea as well, stating:
Some political observers fear that publicizing a Democratic proposal to cut military spending could open Democrats up to criticism that they are weak on security issues. But Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the other co-chairwoman of the caucus, argued that the defense spending is not crucial to national defense, noting that a panel of military experts had vetted the Democrats’ plan.
Ok, let’s think about this… defense spending is NOT crucial to national defense??? Can someone please explain that one to me. Perhaps I should contact this panel of military experts who vetted the plan!
Leave it to the liberal left to consistently reaffirm to the American people that they are out of touch with the priorities of our country in the post 9-11 era.


Missing The Boom
Economy: With rising incomes, soaring wealth, bigger and better homes, plenty of jobs and low inflation, we may be living in the most prosperous time ever. Yet chances are you don't believe it one bit.
The economy isn't perfect, of course. But it's a long way from bad — a long, long way. We ponder this as a new employment report comes out, showing 243,000 new payroll jobs in February even as the number of people re-entering the labor market swelled by nearly 350,000.
So before the data are spun beyond recognition by others, let's recount the good news: Since May 2003, when President Bush's tax cuts became law, the U.S. has created 4.7 million jobs. Payrolls have now expanded for 30 straight months. The jobless rate, though up a tick at 4.8%, is still near its five-year low.
Worker pay is also on the increase. Average weekly earnings rose 3.5% last month from a year earlier — the best gain in more than four years.
Last summer, we all were fretting about the economic impacts of higher interest rates, surging energy prices and Hurricane Katrina. But over the last year, including the hurricane season, monthly job gains have averaged 197,000 — more than enough to sop up the 130,000 to 150,000 monthly growth in the U.S. labor force.
Based on the continued job growth and powerful gains in retail spending, most analysts now expect GDP to jump at least 4.5% in the first quarter and 3% for all of 2006 — even as the Federal Reserve continues to tighten credit.
In spite of all the great news, Americans remain strangely downbeat. A Gallup Poll taken earlier this year found just 38% who viewed the economy as "excellent" or "good" — down from 46% at the start of the last recession.
Why the gloom? Much of it, no doubt, stems from misreporting by the media. Against the backdrop of surging payrolls, for example, we keep seeing story after story, in print and on TV, about job "losses."
A recent study by the Media Research Center bears this out. It looked at TV news coverage of jobs in 2005 — 151 stories in all — carried on all three major networks.
This, mind you, was a year that saw the creation of 2 million new jobs, the addition of $350 billion to gross domestic product and an increase of $2 trillion in the value of household financial assets.Yet more than half of the networks' job reports focused on losses, not gains — a picture that wasn't just distorted, but wrong.
Americans deserve better. In fact, they may already know better. The same polls, including ours, in which Americans indicate they are down on the economy in general also show they are upbeat about their own financial situation.

Judge tosses DeLay case subpoenas
By R.G.RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — A state appeals court today threw out more than 30 subpoenas requested by Travis County prosecutors building a criminal case against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, saying the investigation should have stopped in December when a district judge halted proceedings in his court.
District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been issuing the subpoenas ever since Senior District Judge Pat Priest dismissed all or part of three indictments against DeLay, R-Sugar Land. Earle appealed Priest's ruling, and the judge stayed the case pending a ruling by the Third Court of Appeals.
Most of the subpoenas involved political fund-raising controversies that have involved DeLay, some dating back to 1996.


Captured Iraqi intel confirms pre-war links between Saddam's regime and terrorists
ESR ^ 3/13/06 Sam Wells
The DNC's mantra that President Bush "misled the nation into war" is losing whatever clout it once had as more and more people become better informed. The massive post-invasion evidence mounts confirming that it was the mainstream media and leading Democrats -- not the Bush Administration -- who lied to the American people on the issue of pre-war ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida terrorists. We now know that during the years before 9/11/01 and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, over 8,000 terrorists were trained inside Iraq by the Iraqi military.
But don't hold your breath waiting for an apology from the New York Times, the TV networks, and the rest of the partisan establishment media. Having a cynical contempt for the intelligence and attention spans of the American people, the mainstream media hopes that the repeated lie that "Bush lied" will still be taken seriously by enough people for it to stick. After all, their motto is: perception is reality! And, although their influence is gradually waning, the establishment liberal-left media news twisters still have a great deal of influence on public opinion, especially on those who watch TV news, and they know it.
Will they get away with it? Not if enough informed individuals continue to point out the truth. The mainstream media can no longer ignore or cover up the growing body of evidence which confirms the terrorist links to Saddam.
Marine Corps counter-terrorism specialist W. Thomas Smith, Jr. points out that "those with connections to the U.S. special operations community have long known that the pre-war link between Saddam and the al-Qaida terrorist network is not only a fact, but one that had to be addressed as part of the global war on terror."
He recalls that the mainstream media ignored or glossed over the parts of the 9/11 Commission Report which admitted evidence for those links. As just one example, the report states that "[Osama] bin Laden himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995." Bin Laden asked the Iraqi official for weapons procurement assistance and permission to establish terrorist training facilities in Iraq. While the Commission's report claimed that it was not known what response was given bin Laden's requests, it leaves the issue somewhat hanging with the statement that "The ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections [between al-Qaida and Saddam's regime]." Elsewhere the 9/11 Report admits there was some evidence to indicate possible collaboration with al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists. Smith, who did read the report, writes:
"[T]here was Ansar al Islam, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group with training camps in Northern Iraq prior to 2003. This group was hoping to establish an Islamist state in Iraq. But the – again, rarely read – 9/11 Commission Report clearly states, 'There are indications that [by 2001] the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.'"
Since the invasion, materials captured, translated, and analyzed have only added further evidence. Smith reports, "Intelligence gathered since the U.S. invasion indicates that as early as the late 1990’s, Iraq's Unit 999 (a special branch of the old regime’s army) was directly involved in the training of foreign terrorists inside Iraq. Intelligence about U.S. and other Western forces was shared between operatives of the Iraqi intelligence services and al-Qaida. And foreign terrorists operating in the region (outside of Iraq) who needed medical attention or other support received it once inside Iraqi borders."

PORT SECURITY AND THE LIBERAL-LEFT'S 5% MYTH
by MONTANA NEWS ASSOCIATION
Many news media reports and political leaders such as Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democrat National Committee chairman Howard Dean frequently state that the Department of Homeland Security inspects only about 5 percent of the over 10 million sea containers entering the country each year. That 5 percent figure erroneously implies that 95 percent of sea containers receive no attention or scrutiny at all from customs agents.
While partisans are creating a frenzy over this issue, the media should educate the American people about the difference between anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism operations. Anti-terrorism operations are those that are defensive in nature and visible security measures, while counter-terrorism operations are offensive in nature and usually classified. Counter-terrorism includes developing information, identifying targets and taking out those targets in covert actions. Anyone who says they can provide security that is 100% effective is either a liar or a fool.
Truth be told, it is impossible -- IMPOSSIBLE -- to check every shipping container off-loaded at US seaports. If such an endeavor were possible, the negative impact on the US -- even the world -- economy would be staggering. The cost of such an endeavor to consumers would also create adverse economic conditions in the US. Nevermind the billions of dollars that would be spent on manpower and resources in order to check every single container.
This writer's wife works as an importer of goods from the Far East -- Hong Kong, Taiwan, China -- and she complains about the cost to her company of security measures already in place the impact on business. This naturally increases the prices of goods on the retail market. Ask any politician how they plan on checking every shipping container entering the US and they best you get from them is they are working on a plan.
The truth -- which is being withheld from Americans -- is that US Customs and Border Protection screens the data and information for all of the millions of cargo containers arriving in the US each year; and closely scrutinizes and examines all shipments identified as high risk. The CBP has developed a multilayered process to target high-risk shipments and provides a fast lane for legitimate cargo. In fact, according to the CBP, examinations of sea containers are a small part of this process.
The CBP goal is not to search five percent, 10 percent, or even 50 percent of the cargo at our nation's borders and ports of entry. US Customs and Border Protection thoroughly screens and examines 100% of the shipments that pose a risk to our country and they are doing that today. The goal is to screen these shipments before they depart for the United States whenever possible. There are US CBP officers throughout the world working with foreign governments in screening shipments leaving those countries CBP receives electronic bill of lading/manifest data for approximately 98 percent of the sea containers before they arrive at US seaports. CBP uses this data to first identify the lowest risk cargo being shipped by long-established and trusted importers.
In the year 2000, nearly half a million individuals and companies imported products into the US. But 1,000 companies -- the top two-tenths of one percent -- accounted for 62 percent of the value of all imports. Some shipments for these companies are still randomly inspected, but the vast majority is released without physical inspection.

Bill Clinton's Guests Stiffing Hillary?
NewsMax.com ^ March 13, 2006 NewsMax.com
Clinton White House sleepover guests who poured money into Hillary Clinton's first Senate campaign have been a lot less generous when it comes to bankrolling her reelection race this year.
The New York Post reports that that 40 percent Bill Clinton's 1,100-plus White House guests donated to Democrats including his wife while he was still in the Oval Office.
Renting out the Lincoln bedroom netted Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign coffers a cool $620,000.
But this time around, less than 20 percent of the Clintons' guests have coughed up campaign cash for Hillary.
Hillary spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the fact that her boss could no longer rent out the Lincoln bedroom had nothing to do with the fundraising fall off, insisting, "Since so many of the people who stayed at the White House were personal friends of the Clintons, it is hardly surprising that many of them would also contribute to the [first] campaign."
So what happened to Hillary's "friends" in the intervening six years?
"FOBs are not necessarily FOHs," University of Virginia political scholar Larry Sabato told the Post, referring to friends of Bill and Hill. "Think of the two of them - who's the one who collects friends? Bill."
But even some of Bill's Hollywood friends have turned stingy when it comes to his wife's reelection.
Former "Cheers" star Ted Danson, who ponied up more than $10,000 for Hillary's first campaign, has yet to give her a cent.
White House sleepover guests Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Dennis Quaid and Will Smith are also AWOL from the list of Tinseltowners currently bankrolling Mrs. Clinton's reelection.
Others, like director Stephen Spielberg and funnyman Chevy Chase, are still standing by their man - by giving to his wife.

U.S. Casualties Continue to Drop Sharply
(snip)
The violence has shifted away from American troops, who are suffering 60 percent fewer casualties this month than in the past year. and more towards Iraqi security forces and civilians. Part of this is because there are simply more Iraqi police and soldiers patrolling the streets and policing the neighborhoods. Where there are about two American advisors for every hundred Iraqi security troops, these Americans are there to advise, not fight.
And the Iraqis are doing the fighting, and taking the casualties. American troops are still making raids and patrols, but there has also been a sharp decline in terrorist attacks. Some six months of sweeps and battles in western Iraq has shut down many of the Sunni terrorist sanctuaries. Indeed, many al Qaeda terrorists have fled western Iraq for towns and villages on the Iranian border. Iranians don't like to advertise the fact, but they do provide support to al Qaeda, despite al Qaeda's attacks on Shias (for being heretics.) Iran would also like to see a civil war (ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs) in Iraq. If that were to happen, Shia Arabs would be 75 percent of the Iraqi population, and likely to side with Iran on many issues.

The Poor Get Richer
CNN Money
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that income inequality in the U.S. -- after 30-plus years of steadily increasing -- may be decreasing. The bad news is why that trend is reversing. It looks like another lesson in how profoundly a globalizing economy is upending what we thought we knew. Rising income inequality has settled comfortably into America's big economic picture as a reliable--and much lamented--megatrend. Starting around the late 1960s, U.S. incomes started to become more disparate. The trend was remarkably steady. Recessions might slow it down or briefly reverse it, but mostly it just marched on.
While such a large tendency has many causes, the chief explanation centered on education and skills. The late 1960s were arguably high summer of the era in which a man with 12 years of schooling could work in a unionized factory or trade and earn a solid middle-class or even upper-middle-class income. Then began the age of the info-based economy in which higher education really started to pay. The "skill premium" began growing dramatically. The college graduate's income started beating the high school graduate's income by a wider margin every year--and income inequality began to swell. That explanation makes sense, and the data support it. But now it appears just possible--based on the latest research available--that the whole chain of causation is falling apart.

McHale: DoD Acted Quickly to Provide Post-Katrina Support
American Forces Press Service ^ Gerry Gilmore
WASHINGTON, March 13, 2006 – The Defense Department acted as rapidly as law would allow in providing assistance to civil authorities coping with Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast late last August, a senior DoD official told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee March 10.
"Our department provides military support to civil authorities as part of a comprehensive national response to prevent and protect against terrorist incidents or to recover from an attack or natural disaster," Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, testified to members of the SASC's Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.
Katrina slammed into the Gulf area on Aug. 29, killing hundreds of people and causing widespread damage in coastal parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The storm's power breeched New Orleans' levee system and caused flooding of 80 percent of the city.
"DoD's deployment in response to the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina was the largest, fastest civil-support mission in the history of the United States," McHale pointed out to committee members.
More than 72,000 active-duty and National Guard soldiers were deployed to provide assistance in Katrina-ravaged areas between Aug. 29 and Sept. 10, he said. McHale said that was more than twice the previous record deployment of military assets in response to a natural disaster since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
DoD acted on more than 90 hurricane-related requests for assistance from civil authorities in the wake of Katrina, McHale said. Many requests, he said, were approved orally by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, including one that had an estimated cost of $1 billion.
"DoD felt a sense of urgency and acted upon it," McHale said.
The Defense Department acted on more than 140 requests for assistance from civil authorities in 2005, McHale said, including responses to Hurricane Dennis, Ophelia and Rita, as well as Katrina-related assistance.

Reid Donor Broke Campaign Finance Laws
by Matt Margolis :: March 11, 2006 1:50 AM
Looks like Harry Reid has been the recipient of dirty money.
A prominent Las Vegas-based developer has admitted to illegally funneling a total of $37,000 in campaign contributions to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and indicted former congressional candidate Dario Herrera during the 2002 election cycle, the Federal Election Commission said Thursday.
[...]
FEC officials said Reid accepted $10,000 in the bundled contributions. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the senator will transfer the money to the U.S. Treasury, as ordered by the FEC.
"The senator believes that campaign finance laws should be followed to the highest letter of the law," he said.
Under federal campaign finance law, corporations are barred from making campaign contributions and donors are prohibited from making a contribution on behalf of someone else. At the time, individuals were limited to donations of $1,000 in the primary and another $1,000 in the general election.
All the Rhodes employees and spouses contributed to only the Herrera and Reid campaigns, and no employee had contributed to a political campaign in the 1998 or 2000 election cycles, the complaint said.
And we're supposed to believe Reid had no idea.

Supreme Court Smackdown!
By ADAM LIPTAK
NYTimes
HUNDREDS of law professors at the nation's finest law schools, representing the all-but-unanimous views of the legal academy, filed a series of briefs last year on one side of a Supreme Court case. On Web sites and in lecture halls, the professors spoke out about the case, which they called a crucial test for gay rights and free speech.
Marshalling their collective intellectual firepower and moral outrage, the professors, from Harvard, Yale and elsewhere, made it sound obvious: Universities should be allowed, they said, to take government money but oppose the military's policies on homosexuality by restricting military recruiting on campus.
On Monday, the best minds in the legal business struck out. The vote was 8-to-0 against them — a shutout, a rout, a humiliation. It is one thing for liberal academics to fail to persuade conservative justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. But the law professors did not produce so much as a sympathetic word from liberal justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens. (The newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., did not participate.)
And if the result was not embarrassing enough, there was also the tone of the court's unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In patient cadences, the kind you use in addressing a slightly dull child, the chief justice explained that law students would not assume that their schools supported the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy if they saw military recruiters on campus.
"High school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so," he wrote. "Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

Clinton's sleazy P.I.
Currently in jail for illegal possession of dangerous materials, disgraced Hollywood detective Anthony Pellicano is also the focus of a federal wiretapping investigation. As The Los Angeles Times reports, when police raided his office in 2002, they "hauled away computers containing ... wiretapping software and encrypted files of phone conversation transcripts." Media coverage has virgutally ignored Pellicano's Clinton connection.
In 1992, when tapes of Clinton speaking to Gennifer Flowers were made public, Pellicano claimed to be a "forensic audio expert" and dismissed them as frauds. Clinton flacks denied rumors that Clinton hired Pellicano to intimidate those who would endanger his candidacy.
Mary Matalin told a radio audience in 1997 that she received appeals from women who knew Clinton and were "threatened into silence by Mr. Pellicano," during the '92 campaign, reports NewsMax.com. Said Matalin: "I got the letters from Pellicano to these women intimidating them ... I had tapes of conversations from Pellicano to the women."
On Feb. 3, 2006, Bill Clinton bragged to New York's WCBS News Radio: "I actually liked it [the FISA law] because none of us are immune from error. And if, for example, we wiretapped a conversation of a totally innocent person, you would not want that conversation to be used in some other way, for some other reason. So I never had a problem with it."
No comment from Juanita Broaddrick.

Some Sunni Arabs turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a serious threat to the group
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Residents reported curious declarations hanging from mosque walls and market stalls recently in Ramadi, the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The fliers said Iraqi militants had turned on and were killing foreign al-Qaeda fighters, their one-time allies.
A local tribal leader and Iraq's Defense Ministry have said followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, have begun fleeing Anbar province and Ramadi, its capital, to cities and mountain ranges near the Iranian border.
“So far we have cleared 75 percent of the province and forced al-Qaeda terrorists to flee to nearby areas,” said Osama al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, which has thousands of members living along the border with Syria.
He claimed his people have captured hundreds of foreigner fighters and handed them to authorities. The drive, dubbed Operation Tribal Chivalry, is designed to secure the country's borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to prevent foreign fighters from crossing in.
After the U.S. invasion in March 2003, residents of the province – which also includes cities like Fallujah, Haditha and Qaim – became known for their violent anti-American sentiments. The province is still the most dangerous in Iraq for U.S. troops. In the past two days alone, two U.S. Marines were killed by hostile fire there.
Relations between residents and the foreign fighters started to sour, however, when the foreigners started killing Iraqis suspected of having links to the Americans or even for holding a government job.
The rift became an outright split four months ago, with a wave of assassinations and bombings that killed scores of Anbar residents. The attacks were blamed on al-Qaeda.
In late November, tribal and religious leaders, former army officers and hundreds of ordinary Iraqis met in Ramadi with U.S. military commanders for a first-ever comprehensive dialogue on what could be done to speed a U.S. withdrawal.
Afterward, gunmen began killing some of those who had met with the Americans or who had urged Sunnis in the region to vote in the U.S.-backed parliamentary elections on Dec. 15. Several top clerics and a tribal leader were killed.
The deadliest attack – a suicide bombing Jan. 5 among a line of police recruits in Ramadi – killed at least 58, including U.S. troops.
Stunned city residents turned on al-Qaeda, and al-Jadaan, of the Karabila tribe, announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help with security.

Al-Qaeda rebels are losing
London Daily Telegraph ^ March 9, 2006 PATRICK WALTERS
AL-QAEDA insurgents in Iraq have sustained significant losses and their ability to mount effective attacks is steadily diminishing, according to Australia's top soldier in the Middle East.
Brigadier Paul Symon said while Iraq was going through an "awkward period" during the transition to a new government, the US-led coalition remained confident the country would not descend into civil war.
Interviewed in Baghdad he said military operations against al-Qaeda and its affiliates were proving to be "very effective" with the organisation led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi now less agile and having to rely on much less-seasoned fighters.
"We are seeing an insurgency that is diminishing in effectiveness in its tactics and techniques. I think they have lost some of their better people," he said.