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December 11, 2005

Matthew Waxman: Does He Also Have the Goods on Rumsfeld and Cheney?

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Matthew Waxman has fought at the Pentagon for the last two years -- unsuccessfully but heroically -- to get the Department to stop condoning any form of prisoner handling that approximated "torture or inhumane treatment."

Waxman has been arguing for the spirit and law of the Geneva Conventions. He has fought for the same language for which Senator John McCain has been valiantly fighting. He has been trying to make "real" the kind of hard-to-believe assurances and promises by Condoleezza Rice this last week in Europe that America does not torture its detainees or condone it elsewhere.

But now, according to the New York Times, this champion of conscience hired to undo the damage done by Abu Ghraib is being transferred out of the Pentagon and over to the State Department -- which despite John Bolton -- is assembling an impressive team.

The problem is that Rumsfeld is at Defense, and the Pentagon has about 15 times the budget of the State Department.

From the Times:

The Pentagon's chief adviser on detainee issues is leaving to take a high-level policy job at the State Department, administration officials said on Saturday.

The adviser, Matthew C. Waxman, will become the principal deputy director of the department's policy planning staff, said administration officials who were granted anonymity because Mr. Waxman's new job had not been officially announced.

Since filling a position created nearly two years ago to help correct the damage caused by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, Mr. Waxman has repeatedly clashed with top aides to Vice President Dick Cheney and senior Pentagon officials. These have included Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, and William J. Haynes II, the department's general counsel, who have pushed to limit the rights of terror suspects and other detainees.

Several weeks ago, David S. Addington, who was then Mr. Cheney's counsel, assailed Mr. Waxman during a briefing, objecting to his insistence that a new set of Pentagon standards for handling terror suspects adopt language from the Geneva Conventions barring cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment.

I'm hoping that Matthew Waxman finds the courage to find a way to share what he knows about the detainee abuse issue and how some of the practices that have made their way into our system were promulgated and condoned by senior officials. This information would dovetail nicely with material already shared by former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson.

But in the mean time, let me send BARBARA BUSH a friendly note.

Mrs. Bush, please take note of who is naughty and nice.

Matthew Waxman has been nice -- and has helped your son's administration even though it has given him virtually no support in doing so.

In contrast, David Addington, Stephen Cambone, and William Haynes really deserve our whole-hearted derision for the nefarious practices that they have promoted in their respective roles.

Mrs. Bush, if you are working to oust a few people at the White House in January and February, please add these three to the list -- and when visiting your son and daughter-in-law, make sure you have Matthew Waxman over to the White House for a drink, and make sure Addington sees you.

-- Steve Clemons

Posted December 11, 2005

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Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005

What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald

By VIVECA NOVAK

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It was in the midst of another Washington scandal, almost a decade ago, that I got to know Bob Luskin. He represented Mark Middleton, a minor figure in the Democratic campaign-finance scandals of 1996. Luskin kept Middleton out of the spotlight and never told me much. Still, there is the occasional source with whom one becomes friendly, and eventually Luskin was in that group.

We'd occasionally meet for a drink--he didn't like having lunch--at Café Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. "Well," he said, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer." I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin's liberal sympathies were no secret, and here he was representing the man known to many Democrats as the other side's Evil Genius.

I began spending a little more time than usual with Luskin as I tried to keep track of the investigation. But how it all bought me a ticket to testify under oath to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald still floors me.

The week of Oct. 24, 2005, was Indictment Week--that Friday, the grand jury's term would expire, and it was expected that Fitzgerald would finish up his probe by then so he wouldn't have to start working with a new grand jury. It seemed clear that Scooter Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was in deep trouble, but Rove's status was uncertain. Sometime during that week, Luskin, who was talking at length with Fitzgerald, phoned me and said he had disclosed to Fitzgerald the content of a conversation he and I had had at Café Deluxe more than a year earlier and that Fitzgerald might want to talk to me.

Luskin clearly thought that was going to help Rove, perhaps by explaining why Rove hadn't told Fitzgerald or the grand jury of his conversation with my colleague Matt Cooper about former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife until well into the inquiry. I knew what Matt had been through--the unwanted celebrity, the speculation unrelated to fact, the dissection of his life and career. I didn't face the prospect of prison, since Luskin clearly wanted me to tell Fitzgerald about the incident and thus Luskin was not a source I had to protect, but no journalist wants to be part of the story.

I clung to Luskin's word might, but the next week he told me Fitzgerald did indeed want to talk to me, but informally, not under oath. I hired a lawyer, Hank Schuelke, but I didn't tell anyone at TIME. Unrealistically, I hoped this would turn out to be an insignificant twist in the investigation and also figured that if people at TIME knew about it, it would be difficult to contain the information, and reporters would pounce on it--as I would have.

Fitzgerald and I met in my lawyer's office on Nov. 10 for about two hours. Schuelke had told him I would discuss only my interactions with Luskin that were relevant to the conversation in question. No fishing expeditions, no questions about my other reporting or sources in the case. He agreed, telling my lawyer that he wanted to "remove the chicken bone without disturbing the body."

He asked how often Luskin and I met during the period from fall 2003 to fall 2004 (about five times), when, where and so forth. I had calendar entries that helped but weren't entirely reliable. Did I take notes at those meetings? No. Luskin was more likely to speak freely if he didn't see me committing his words to paper. Did Luskin ever talk to me about whether Rove was a source for Matt on the subject of Wilson's wife?

That was the "chicken bone" Fitzgerald had referred to, the conversation Luskin had told him about that got me dragged into the probe. Here's what happened. Toward the end of one of our meetings, I remember Luskin looking at me and saying something to the effect of "Karl doesn't have a Cooper problem. He was not a source for Matt." I responded instinctively, thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, "Are you sure about that? That's not what I hear around TIME." He looked surprised and very serious. "There's nothing in the phone logs," he said. In the course of the investigation, the logs of all Rove's calls around the July 2003 time period--when two stories, including Matt's, were published mentioning that Plame was Wilson's wife--had been combed, and Luskin was telling me there were no references to Matt. (Cooper called via the White House switchboard, which may be why there is no record.)

I was taken aback that he seemed so surprised. I had been pushing back against what I thought was his attempt to lead me astray. I hadn't believed that I was disclosing anything he didn't already know. Maybe this was a feint. Maybe his client was lying to him. But at any rate, I immediately felt uncomfortable. I hadn't intended to tip Luskin off to anything. I was supposed to be the information gatherer. It's true that reporters and sources often trade information, but that's not what this was about. If I could have a do-over, I would have kept my mouth shut; since I didn't, I wish I had told my bureau chief about the exchange. Luskin walked me to my car and said something like, "Thank you. This is important."

Fitzgerald wanted to know when this conversation occurred. At that point I had found calendar entries showing that Luskin and I had met in January and in May. Since I couldn't remember exactly how the conversation had developed, I wasn't sure. I guessed it was more likely May.

As my meeting with Fitzgerald wrapped up, I asked what would happen next. He said he would consider whether he needed to interview me again under oath, but that if he did, he wouldn't require me to appear before the grand jury. I hoped that would be the end of it. But on Friday, Nov. 18--when I was on deadline, writing, ironically, about Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's newly discovered role in the investigation--my lawyer called and told me Fitzgerald did indeed want me under oath. I realized that I now needed to share this information with Jay Carney, our Washington bureau chief. On Sunday, Nov. 20, I drove over to his house to tell him. He then called Jim Kelly, the managing editor. Nobody was happy about it, least of all me.

A new meeting with Fitzgerald was arranged for Dec. 8. Leaks about my role began appearing in the papers, some of them closer to the mark than others. They all made me feel physically ill. Fitzgerald had asked that I check a couple of dates in my calendar for meetings with Luskin. One of them, March 1, 2004, checked out. I hadn't found that one in my first search because I had erroneously entered it as occurring at 5 a.m., not 5 p.m.

When Fitzgerald and I met last Thursday, along with another lawyer from his team, my attorney, a lawyer from Time Inc. and the court reporter, he was more focused. The problem with the new March date was that now I was even more confused--previously I had to try to remember if the key conversation had occurred in January or May, and I thought it was more likely May. But March was close enough to May that I really didn't know. "I don't remember" is an answer that prosecutors are used to hearing, but I was mortified about how little I could recall of what occurred when.

This meeting lasted about an hour and a half. As before, Fitzgerald was extremely pleasant, very professional, and he stuck to his pledge not to wander with his questions. Does what I remembered--or more often, didn't remember--of my interactions with Luskin matter? Will it make the difference between whether Rove gets indicted or not? I have no idea. I didn't find out until this fall that, according to Luskin, my remark led him to do an intensive search for evidence that Rove and Matt had talked. That's how Luskin says he found the e-mail Rove wrote to Stephen Hadley at the National Security Council right after his conversation with Matt, saying that Matt had called about welfare reform but then switched to the subject of Iraq's alleged attempt to buy uranium yellowcake in Niger. According to Luskin, he turned the e-mail over to Fitzgerald when he found it, leading Rove to acknowledge before the grand jury in October 2004 that he had indeed spoken with Cooper.

One final note: Luskin is unhappy that I decided to write about our conversation, but I feel that he violated any understanding to keep our talk confidential by unilaterally going to Fitzgerald and telling him what was said. And, of course, anyone who testifies under oath for a grand jury (my sworn statement will be presented to the grand jury by Fitzgerald) is free to discuss that testimony afterward.

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Time Reporter May Have Tipped Rove's Lawyer to Leak

By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, December 12, 2005; A04

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A Time magazine reporter testified in the CIA leak case that she alerted Karl Rove's lawyer in early 2004 that the top Bush adviser had leaked information to her colleague about Valerie Plame, according to a first-person account published yesterday in Time.

The reporter, Viveca Novak, did not initially tell her bosses at Time that she may have tipped off Rove's lawyer or that the special prosecutor in the CIA leak was interested in the details of her conversation with Robert D. Luskin, Rove's lawyer. As a result, she and Time editors agreed she would take a leave of absence while they contemplate her future at the magazine.

The casual chat between Novak and Luskin, which took place in the first half of 2004, is now central to Rove's efforts to avoid indictment in the more than two-year-old case. Novak's account in this week's issue of Time does little to explain how a conversation over drinks between Rove's lawyer and a reporter chasing the story could help clear the senior Bush adviser. In addition to raising new questions about the role of journalists in the Plame affair, Novak's testimony provides fresh and significant insight into Rove's campaign to avoid charges in a case that threatens the man President Bush once called the "architect" of his reelection.

Rove is believed to be under investigation for providing false statements about his role in the public disclosure of Plame's CIA employment.

Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald -- who charged I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, with lying and obstructing justice -- recently presented evidence to a new grand jury. Sources close to the case said that one of the biggest pieces of unfinished business is whether to indict Rove -- and that a decision could come as early as this month.

The sources, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they have been urged by Fitzgerald not to discuss the case, said Luskin told the prosecutor about the conversation with Novak a few days before Libby was indicted on Oct. 28.

It was only part of what the sources described as a furious, last-minute effort by Luskin to convince the prosecutor that Rove was guilty of nothing more than a bad memory -- and certainly not of trying to cover up his role in the Plame case. Of the information presented by Luskin that day, the Novak conversation is the only piece known to require additional investigation. Now that Fitzgerald has deposed Luskin and Novak, some close to the case think Rove's fate could soon be known.

Novak, according to her first-person account, testified Thursday that in early 2004 she met with Luskin. She told him Time reporters were buzzing that Rove was one of the sources who told Matthew Cooper, a reporter at the magazine, in July 2003 that Plame worked at the CIA.

This became a big deal once Fitzgerald started investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally disclosed Plame's CIA identity as part of a broader White House effort to discredit allegations made by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that Bush had hyped intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

According to Novak's account, she mentioned to Luskin only the speculation about the identity of Cooper's confidential source because she felt Luskin was "spinning" her. She and Luskin met for drinks occasionally after work at Cafe Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, and at one of those meetings, she said, Luskin insisted to her that Rove faced no legal exposure in the investigation. She said she pushed back, saying to the attorney, "Are you sure about that?" and remarked that she had heard from Time colleagues that Rove was Cooper's source for a story he did on Plame in July 2003. "He looked surprised and very serious," Novak wrote in the Time article.

It is not clear why this matters. Novak wrote that Luskin told her the tip set in motion a cycle of events that led Rove and his lawyers to search phone logs and other material to determine whether Rove had talked to Cooper -- and eventually prompted Rove to change his testimony. But another lawyer in the case said Luskin had a different strategy in mind when alerting Fitzgerald to the conversation.

Until he testified for a second time in October 2004, Rove maintained he did not recall talking to Cooper. Shortly before testifying, Luskin found an e-mail written by Rove to then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley in July 2003 in which Rove mentioned the conversation with Cooper. Rove then testified that the e-mail jarred his memory, a lawyer close to the case said.

It appears the timing of the Luskin-Novak conversation is crucial to Rove's defense. Novak said she does not recall the precise date but said she talked with Luskin in January, March and May 2004. She wrote that she believed the talk probably took place in May.

A lawyer close to the case said Luskin has contended the conversation happened before Rove's first appearance before the grand jury in February 2004, when he testified he did not recall discussing Plame with Cooper. Luskin refused to comment. A spokesman for Rove's defense said in a statement that Rove is cooperating and that private discussions with the prosecutor will not be discussed publicly.

One possible explanation of why the date is so important is that Luskin could contend it would have been foolish for Rove to try to cover up his role when he knew -- because of Novak's disclosure to Luskin -- that a number of people knew he had talked to Cooper and that it probably would soon become public.

Novak is not related to Robert D. Novak, the conservative columnist who was the first person to disclose Plame's CIA employment in a July 2003 column.

Viveca Novak's standing at Time is in doubt as a result of the episode. She waited to alert her editors for nearly a month after it appeared she might become a part of the leak investigation story -- rather than a writer helping to cover it, according to the dates provided in her account.

She said she hoped she would not have to go before the grand jury. She hired a lawyer and opted not to tell her editors in hopes that she would not become a figure in the story and the subject of news accounts. But on the day she was writing a story about Washington Post reporter and Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward being deposed in the investigation, she learned Fitzgerald wanted to interview her under oath.

Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said yesterday he and Novak agreed in conversations Saturday evening that she needed to "take a deep breath," and that Kelly needed time to deliberate about her performance and future. "Clearly, there was a failure to keep her bureau chief posted about this," he said. "It's fair to say I am disturbed by that."

Kelly added, "there was no struggle" and the two agreed to temporarily part ways. "I take very seriously what's happened, and Viveca takes it very seriously, too," he said.

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No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election

By Dennis Loo, Ph.D., Cal Poly Pomona

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"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." (Through the Looking Glass)

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In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe all of the following extremely improbable or outright impossible things...

SEE THE COMPLETE REPORT...

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Bush Advisor To Reporter: Katrina “Has Fallen So Far Off The Radar Screen, You Can’t Find It”

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On September 15, President Bush stood in Jackson Square in New Orleans and made a promise:

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And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.

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It hasn’t worked out that way. Here’s Washington Post reporter Mike Allen today on Meet the Press:

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I’m going to tell you something to amaze you; it amazed me yesterday. The last time the president was in the hurricane region was October 11, two months ago. The president stood in New Orleans and said it was going to be one of the largest reconstruction efforts in the history of the world. You go to the White house home page, there’s Barney camp, there’s Social Security, there’s Renewing Iraq. Where’s renewing New Orleans? A presidential advisor told me that issue has fallen so far off the radar screen, you can’t find it.

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The New York Times says the neglect is threatening the future of the city:

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We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

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Why does this president seem more interested in rebuilding Iraq than rebuilding America?

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Posted by Judd December 11, 2005 11:41 am

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SUN-SENTINEL INVESTIGATION

FEMA reimbursements mainly benefit higher income groups

By Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz and John Maines
Staff Writers

December 11, 2005

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A Hollywood surgeon got FEMA money for Hurricane Wilma for a generator.

A Plantation lawyer received $274 more from the agency than he paid for his generator.

Yet, a Fort Lauderdale teen with serious medical problems had to insert catheters by candlelight when the Oct. 24 storm knocked out power. His family couldn't afford a generator.

A FEMA program to reimburse applicants for generators and storm cleanup items has benefited middle- and upper-income Floridians the most and so far cost taxpayers more than $332 million for the past two hurricane seasons, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found in a continuing investigation of disaster aid.

For Wilma alone, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had spent $84 million as of last Monday on generators for 101,028 people in 13 Florida counties, including Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. Another $6 million paid for chain saws for 27,394 applicants.

"I see people making $200,000 a year putting in for a rebate for a generator," Davie Fire Chief Don DiPetrillo said last month, as the town scrambled to open a shelter for people left homeless by Wilma. "This is just not a good use of public resources."

By agreement with the state, which pays 25 percent of the cost, FEMA reimburses for generators, chain saws, dehumidifiers, air purifiers and wet/dry vacuums purchased for home use after a disaster.

For the four Florida hurricanes in 2004, the reimbursements amounted to $242 million. Eighty percent of the money went to applicants in middle- and upper-income areas, including 45 residents of the moneyed island of Palm Beach and 221 people in a posh Orlando suburb with sprawling estates on lakes and fairways.

FEMA imposes no income restrictions."You could make $100,000 a year and still live paycheck to paycheck," said Randy Bartell, community assistance consultant with Florida's Division of Emergency Management.

FEMA leaves it up to states to choose what will be reimbursed in each disaster. States can elect to exclude certain items or limit eligibility, for instance, reimbursing for generators only for the medically needy, for instance. Other states have imposed limits, but Florida's policy remains one of the most generous of the hurricane-vulnerable states."It's absolutely disgusting," said David Bronstein, an insurance fraud lawyer in Plantation.

Bronstein put in a claim for a generator he bought when his Davie home lost electricity from Wilma. He said he "makes six figures" and could "certainly afford my own."

"My thought was, `Well, if I'm eligible, I'll take it because I certainly pay enough in taxes,'" he said.

Bronstein was surprised that he qualified but even more surprised when his government check arrived for $836, the maximum amount. He paid $562, including tax.

"I profited from the hurricane," he said. "It's crazy."

Dr. Arthur Palamara of Hollywood, a vascular surgeon and candidate for the state House of Representatives, got an $836 check from FEMA for a generator he bought a week after Wilma, and he now is debating whether to cash it.

"My sons are giving me a hard time, saying, `You don't really deserve the money,'" said Palamara, who lives in a home assessed at $1.1 million. "My wife says we pay taxes. It's not like we're doing anything illegal or dishonest."

Still, Palamara, a former vice president of the Florida Medical Association, wonders whether it's "morally correct."

"There are people probably who need this money more than I do," he said.

When Wilma knocked out power to Debbie Springston's Fort Lauderdale home, she begged FEMA for a generator for her 18-year-old son, Marcus, who was born with heart and kidney ailments.

"FEMA said, `Go buy a generator' and they'll reimburse us for it, but we didn't have money," she said.

Springston does not work, and the hurricane left her construction worker husband nemployed. "There was no pay coming in," she said.

Marcus uses catheters several times a day to remove bodily wastes. With no electricity, he performed the task using light from a battery-operated lamp and, when that failed, some small candles. "I could barely see," he said.

After a week, the family moved to a motel paid for by their homeowner's insurance.

"The government needs to get their priorities right," Marcus Springston said.

Dolores Morris, 63, of Hollywood, who suffers from lupus, pulmonary hypertension and diabetes, also lost power in Wilma. The part-time hospital computer programmer needs electricity to run a machine that feeds her oxygen. She also needs refrigeration for her insulin. Her husband, Robert, is a disabled Florida Power & Light Co. worker.

When the couple told FEMA they couldn't afford a generator, a worker suggested she go to a hospital if she ran out of oxygen. Dolores Morris said she conserved the supply she had in portable tanks and tried "not to get upset" so she wouldn't breathe too much.

"I don't think FEMA is set up for the poor person," she said.

FEMA did not respond to requests for comment.

Federal law says disaster aid is for people unable to meet disaster-related expenses "or needs through other means." Generators are part of a miscellaneous category under which states determine items covered each time a disaster is declared.

Florida's goal is to keep people in their homes and out of public shelters. Generators help people stay comfortable and keep food cold, and chain saws are needed to cut up debris blocking access to homes, said Frank Koutnik, deputy state coordinating officer for recovery in the state Division of Emergency Management.

"You've got to show this is why I needed this chain saw, and you've got to be able to document that you were without power to be eligible for the generator," he said.

But the way the program is set up puts the poor at a disadvantage, the Sun-Sentinel found.

Other types of FEMA aid help mostly low-income applicants. Money for home repairs or damaged belongings, for example, is available to those who are unable to repay a loan from the Small Business Administration and have no insurance to cover the losses.

Under those programs, FEMA sends a check without the applicant paying up front. But cleanup items and generators, which can cost $500 or more, are prohibitive for people who don't have the money or credit to buy the items and wait for government reimbursement.

Koutnik said those unable to afford the purchases "would have to know a friend" who could help or make other arrangements. "The system is strictly set up as a reimbursement process," he said.

FEMA reviews claims "on a case-by-case basis" and reimburses up to the $836 for generators, according to the agency. Applicants who paid less than the maximum are reimbursed their actual cost, said spokesman Jim Homstad.

But 10 people told the Sun-Sentinel that FEMA reimbursed them for more than they paid.

FEMA officials did not respond to questions about the extent of overpayments or what people should do with the excess money.

The state's cost of the program for last year's four hurricanes topped $60 million. So far for Wilma, Florida is responsible for $22 million.

In Virginia, after the total tab hit just $8 million for Hurricane Isabel in 2003, officials ended the reimbursements.

"We were concerned that people who had the economic means to buy their own generator or buy their own chain saw would use that money simply because they could," said Marc LaFountain, spokesman for Virginia's department of emergency management. "We're simply trying to get the aid dollars where they're most needed and where they're going to do the most good."

Virginia officials also thought the policy sent "the wrong message," LaFountain said. "We want people to be prepared ahead of time."

North Carolina does not pay for chain saws, and only people with serious medical needs are eligible for reimbursement for generators, said Phil Myers, chief of operations for the state's division of emergency management.

Florida officials have not considered limiting their policy, Koutnik said.

"As far as we can tell, it has [worked]," he said.

A run on generators

In the weeks after Wilma, South Floridians flooded home improvement stores, some carrying a list of the items FEMA paid for and the reimbursement amounts, which were publicized by the media.

At Davie Boulevard and U.S. 441, Dave Fraser sold generators out of a semitrailer truck with a banner that read "FEMA Grants Available." Fraser said he sold about 200 in two days -- before Fort Lauderdale police forced him out Nov. 2 because he didn't have an occupational license.

Outside Burkhard's Tractor & Equipment Inc. in Davie, almost two weeks after the storm, police directed crowds lining up to buy generators and chain saws. More than half the customers had heard about the FEMA reimbursement, owner Richard Burkhard said.

"[Some said], `I don't have a need for the saw, but if I can get reimbursed, I'm buying,'" he said. "I don't see anything wrong with that. It's there. You might as well take advantage."

In Richard Goldman's Coral Springs neighborhood, "People are treating it as one hell of a joke," Goldman said, adding that he is still waiting for a FEMA inspector to examine damage to his home. "It's a gift from FEMA."

In the upscale Idlewyld neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale, builder William Massey planned to file a claim for a generator he used to chill his wine collection. "I'll seek it because it's there," he said.

Some employees of the Sun-Sentinel also submitted claims and were reimbursed for generators or chain saws.

Tracking the money

It will be months before the final tab is in for Wilma. The government is accepting applications through Dec. 23.

FEMA officials did not provide county breakdowns of the amounts paid so far for generators and chain saws, despite repeated requests from the newspaper. Last year, people in all 67 Florida counties were reimbursed by FEMA for generators, the most popular item claimed. Some applicants also got money for fuel for their generators or chain saws.

The government, citing privacy concerns, refuses to identify aid recipients by name. The Sun-Sentinel analyzed reimbursements for generators and the other items from the 2004 hurricanes by ZIP code and matched the payments to income data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Claritas, a leading U.S. demographics research firm.

Statewide, $195 million went to areas with median family incomes above $41,520, defined by the federal government as the starting point of middle income in Florida. FEMA reimbursed applicants in the richest 15 percent of the state's ZIP codes $27.5 million.

In the Windermere area southwest of Orlando, home to business tycoons and celebrity athletes, 221 residents collected $177,411.

In Vero Beach on the east coast, where the town Web site says "America's cultural and corporate elite" close business deals "on a handshake during a round of golf," FEMA reimbursed 860 applicants of one ZIP code $609,777.

In Jupiter Farms, where many homes sit on an acre or more and some come with airstrips, half the households -- 1,875 -- got generators or chain saws paid for by the government. The cost: $1.5 million.FEMA even reimbursed residents of the island of Palm Beach, a winter playground for the world's famously rich. In the island's ZIP code, 45 applicants collected $22,839.

"I don't think people of a certain income should be reimbursed," said Palm Beach councilman William J. Brooks. "I think FEMA could spend its dollars, in that particular area, elsewhere."

Yet, after Wilma, the town itself publicized the government program.

"As a resident of a county declared for FEMA Individual Assistance, you will be considered for reimbursement of a generator purchase that was made on or after the onset of the hurricane and was required because you lost power," Palm Beach's official Web site noted Nov. 3.

The town decided to advise residents after "the rumor got around that FEMA was reimbursing up to $800 for generators," said Assistant Town Manager Sarah E. Hannah. "Not everybody on the island is filthy rich."

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Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 12:00 AM

Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

A truth-optional approach to dealing with the public

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Thomas Jefferson understood.

He said that if asked to choose between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, "I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Jefferson knew that a free and adversarial press was the people's best defense against the excesses of their government and a fundamental building block of healthy democracy.

Unfortunately, that was 40 presidents ago.

The present president has a decidedly different view of the news me-dia's role. His administration sees the press as a thing to be bought. In fact, while political manipulation of the news is hardly new, Team Bush has a long and singularly sordid record of trying to turn the media into a wholly owned public-relations subsidiary.

Now they're taking their act on the road. And get this: They're doing it under the guise of building democracy. Which is rather like stealing from the collection plate under the guise of giving to the needy.

I refer you to the recent Los Angeles Times report that the Pentagon has been secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories, written by American troops, that reflect favorably upon the U.S. mission in that country. The stories, while basically factual, are reportedly written so as to flatter U.S. forces and the Iraqi government and to omit information or perspectives either might find embarrassing. These press releases are presented to the Iraqi people as independent reports by independent reporters.

One is appalled, but hardly surprised. After nearly five years of watching these folks' truth-optional approach to dealing with the public, one is seldom surprised anymore.

This is, after all, the same Bush administration that was caught buying praise from an ethically challenged columnist — in violation of federal laws against propagandizing the public, according to a September report by the Government Accountability Office. It's the same administration that allowed into the White House press room as a reporter an Internet porn entrepreneur who wrote for a GOP Web site. The same one that issues video reports favorable to its policies to be broadcast without attribution as TV news. The same one that censors and quashes its own scientific studies when they conflict with its preferred worldview.

So this is just more of the same in a new ZIP Code.

It will be argued by the usual sycophantic Bush enablers that what's being done is justifiable. We are at war, they will say, and in war it is perfectly acceptable to propagandize the enemy.

So it is. But the flaw in that logic is this: We are not at war with Iraq. We are at war in Iraq against insurgents seeking to topple the government. At least, that's the line put forth by Team Bush. Iraq, they say, is a sovereign nation to which we are simply helping bring the joys of democracy — one of which would be a free press.

That being the case, you cannot justify telling covert lies to its people any more than you can justify telling lies to ours. You want to communicate something to them? Buy an ad. Drop leaflets. Put up posters. But don't produce a commercial and tell people it's news.

Doing so undermines both the message and the medium. It could also conceivably encourage Iraqis to question how seriously they should take — how seriously we ourselves take — this whole notion of a free and independent press.

Indeed, one can only guess how this is playing with Iraqi journalists. After all, the messages could hardly be more mixed. On the one hand, U.S. officials are offering them workshops in media ethics. On the other hand, U.S. officials are violating the most basic media ethics with blithe indifference.

But then, it's a sour joke in the first place that the Bush administration purports to teach Iraqis how democracy works.

You can't teach what you don't understand.

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Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

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ALSO SEE:

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http://lnk.nu/upi.com/6y4.php

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Analysis: Confronting change in Iraq

By MARTIN SIEFF

UPI Senior News Analyst

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WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush's major policy speech on Iraq last Wednesday reflected the same personal strengths --and weaknesses -- as one of the greatest generals in U.S. history: Ulysses S. Grant.

For the president, as many U.S. Civil War historians have said of Grant, was so determined to take the offensive to the enemy and force them to react to his forces and strategy that he neglected to consider what new offensive initiatives, both tactical and strategic, they might be coming with first to derail our own.

This is an special cause for concern because, as Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told an audience there recently, the Sunni insurgents in Iraq have over the past two years proven themselves a complex, flexible and formidable foe, capable of repeated tactical innovations and fast adaptation, offensive as well as defensive.

The president, in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday, characteristically refused to acknowledge any major mistakes had been made in the planning or conduct of military operations by him and his top officials. But he nevertheless acknowledged that adjustments had had to be made to prevent the highly successful insurgent tactic through much of 2004 of quietly moving in to retake major towns and cities from which U.S. forces had just dislodged them with immense effort.

And in the first of his projected four major policy speeches on Iraq delivered to an audience of young midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., the week before, Bush won praise for making the development of far stronger, more reliable and far better trained and equipped Iraqi security forces capable of operating on their own, a U.S. strategic priority in the war.

However, in neither speech did the president address the challenge of dealing with the formidable tactical flexibility of the enemy in an ongoing way. And it is that tactical ability to adapt and change quickly that has been the insurgency's most formidable asset.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made clear in his speeches and public comments through the second half of 2003 that he did not take the insurgency seriously, did not believe it would spread and did not believe it enjoyed significant support among the 5 million Sunni Muslim minority who comprise 20 percent of the population of Iraq.

However, the insurgency has grown to encompass 20,000 active participants backed by an estimated strongly supportive pool of 200,000 sympathizers according to White and other U.S. military analysts. Even worse, it has repeatedly shown an ability to inflict serious casualties on U.S. forces by continually upgrading its own tactical capabilities.

The most important example of that has been the evolution of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which, according to the Department of Defense's own figures, have for many months now caused more than 50 percent of the U.S. military fatalities in combat in Iraq.

At first, IEDs were relatively simple and ineffective against any serious armor. They were nevertheless able through the second half of 2003 to inflict significant and escalating casualties on U.S. forces because even the most basic armored protection for patrolling and ground supply of U.S. forces had not been foreseen by the Pentagon civilian planners who pushed through the war and following occupation of Iraq with only one third or less of the number of troops that former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki publicly warned before the war would be necessary to do the job.

Eventually the necessary armored protection came, in one form or another. But the insurgents did not stand still. They moved fast to formidably improve the killing power and lethality of their IEDs. They used basic weapons technology such as shaped charges, or the simple expedient of piling two or three IEDs on top of each other to penetrate the armor of U.S. vehicles.

U.S. military planners did not sit back complacently while this was going on, and they have made continual adaptations and upgrades too. But so far the insurgents have retained their formidable and even growing ability to inflict significant levels of losses on U.S. troops. Well over 2,000 have died in Iraq so far and more than four times that number have been so severely injured they will be unable to serve on active duty ever again.

A large proportion of these more than 8,000 seriously wounded have lost limbs, suffered brain damage or incurred other injuries that will prove incapacitating for life or for many years to come. Senior army officers now privately admit the equivalent of one U.S. Army or Marine battalion is used up in Iraq in every five weeks of fighting and casualties.

The tactical race and interplay between both sides in any war is a common phenomenon. And it is also true, as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld pointed out this week, that vastly higher casualties have been suffered by victorious U.S. armies in their campaigns throughout American history.

But the difference between Iraq and, for example Iwo Jima (cited by Rumsfeld), or the U.S. Eighth Army's defeat of numerically vastly superior Chinese forces in Korea in 1950-51, is that on those occasions, it quickly became apparent that major, or even decisive, victories had been achieved, whatever the cost.

By contrast, there is no sign whatsoever in Iraq that after two-and-a-half years of fighting, the insurgency is losing its capabilities to any significant degree. On the contrary, more than twice as many insurgent attacks and incidents around the country per day are now documented compared with a year ago.

The clash of tactical adaptations between the U.S. armed forces and the insurgents in Iraq can be compared to a gigantic chess game. But a better metaphor would be the complexities of chaos theory. In chess, the capabilities of each piece are precisely defined and unchanging. The consequences of moves can clearly be predicted two or three moves in advance. None of these certainties apply in war, especially guerrilla wars.

The U.S. grand strategy in the war, once again reiterated Wednesday by the president, reflects the approach to the world of the Classical Greek philosopher Plato and his disciples -- ideas and values, such as the spread and inherent superiority in this case of democracy (a position Plato would have certainly repudiated) are unchanging, pure and must not be diluted. Physical reality must conform to the idealistic definitions imposed upon it by superior rational thought.

But the complexities of war more often reflect chaos theory, where new and unanticipated patterns that could not have been predicted emerge unexpectedly out of seeming chaos. And they also reflect the approach of Plato's arch-critic and successor, the philosopher Aristotle, who argued that defining intellectual theories must arise out of, organize and be shaped by the myriad of data points that comprise them, like building a creation out of many grains of sand.

Among uniformed military planners in the Pentagon and in Iraq itself, the messy and unpredictable tactical demands of dealing with a rapidly adapting and evolving insurgency can only be coped with through the methodology of Aristotle. But as the president made clear in his speech Wednesday, Plato still rules the shaping of grand strategy in the White House. This disconnect between realities in the field and the underlying assumptions on which high policy is based do not augur well for the future.

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© Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc.

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AND...

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http://lnk.nu/arabnews.com/6xg/

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Saturday, 10, December, 2005
(09, Dhul Qa`dah, 1426)

Bush Should Be on Trial Too

Tariq A. Al-Maeena
 
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See. I told you so! There is often a smug feeling of satisfaction when this titular phrase is used. But no self-indulgent pleasure can be derived when we speak of the regretful situation in Iraq. It defines the continuing immorality against humans and was conveyed by none other than the president of the United States of America.

Today, as more and more information on the pre-planning and thinking behind this heinous crime is filtering to the surface, our reservations three years ago on the subject of an illegal invasion and occupation are being substantiated. In a campaign based on lies, greed, and the wiles of Ariel Sharon of Israel, Bush’s military adventurism into Iraq has produced none of those lofty results that he had promised his people.

It is now documented that the planned invasion of Iraq began long before the events of Sept. 11. There have been reports from US federal agencies that the White House chose to ignore warnings on possible terrorist attacks on American soil, perhaps to bring together the impetus needed to garner world sympathy and license these “democratic lawmakers” to pursue their diabolical objectives.

To manipulate his own constituents into a state of fear, in a State of the Union address back in January 2003, Bush stated “Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent...US intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents...We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.”

And to tie Al-Qaeda in this whole scheme, some more fabrication was needed. “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al-Qaeda,” stated Bush. All these statements today have proved to be false.

A couple of months later, oil hungry Vice President Dick Cheney on “Meet the Press” stated: “We know he’s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

We all know what happened next. Following the “shock and awe” display of power boasted by Rumsfeld, there were no garlands of flowers, no rejoicing in the streets. Instead there were rising US body counts and coercion by the US military against Iraqi doctors who were brave enough to tell the world of the “other” unreported body counts, that of Iraqi civilians.

There were indiscriminate killings, and some with more intent. The bombings of Al-Jazeera offices in Baghdad and the murder of one of their correspondents were not in error. They were simply following a similar pattern of when the US bombed the Kabul offices of Al-Jazeera just before the Northern Alliance entered the city. The attempted killing of an Italian journalist, shocked at the atrocities she had witnessed firsthand at Fallujah, took place at a US military checkpoint soon after. To top it off, the Commander in Chief himself made clear to Tony Blair of the UK that he wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere.

Lame or feeble attempts by some naïve columnists cannot diminish the sinister attempts by this administration to silence the truth at any cost. So long as the simple folks back home don’t know the real story, everything shall be hunky dory.

Guantanamo, Abu Ghuraib, and scores of secret torture chambers spread out in eastern European countries marks the underhandedness of this administration. The use of outlawed weaponry and chemical warfare used against civilians in Fallujah and elsewhere is a despicable affront to humanity. There is enough hard evidence to reveal that white phosphorus was deployed as a weapon in Fallujah. US infantry officers confessed that they had used it.

White phosphorus burns people, and is both incendiary and toxic. The gas it produces attacks the mucous membranes, the eyes and the lungs. The US Army knows that its use as a weapon is illegal, but yet there were no attempts by Bush and company to forbid its use. Talk about chemical warfare against the innocent!

In a statement to the BBC recently, Peter Kaiser of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons stated, “If...the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that of course is prohibited, because...any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons.”

One eventually loses score of the numerous war crimes that have been committed as a result of this illegal and immoral invasion. Nor would one column or ten be sufficient to highlight all these crimes. Over a 100,000 innocent civilians, many who were just children, have lost their lives because of Bush’s adventurism. There is indeed no ‘pie in your face’ sense of satisfaction in all of this.

Today, as I watch the pitiful figure of Saddam Hussein in court, on trial facing charges of crimes against humanity while he was in command, I ask myself: “Shouldn’t Mr. Bush, et al, be sharing the seat next to him?”

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Copyright: Arab News