reality-based educator

This "bombing memo" matter is going to continue to boil for a while, and the UK Attorney General is apparently intent on prosecuting two bureaucrats for leaking the contents of the memo.

Eventually, the memo will be made public, and it will add yet another few news cycles of attention to this matter and potentially implicate all of those who said that Bush said no such thing.

Obsession with secrecy and covering up mistakes is characteristic of the Bush administration, which now seems to be paying a high price for this undemocratic behavior.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 7:03 PM 0 comments

Refusing to bow to growing public pressure to produce an exit strategy in Iraq, President Bush today pugnaciously declared that his focus is on winning, not leaving.

"We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory," he said in this morning's speech at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Or, as he put it even more succinctly yesterday in El Paso : "We want to win."

Bush's speech -- combined with a new, rosy, slogan-filled White House document entitled " Victory in Iraq " -- kicks off a bold public-relations campaign to recast the debate about the war.

But there are several reasons to suspect that it might not work:

* It doesn't answer the most compelling question in contemporary American politics: When are the troops coming home?

* It doesn't even include any objective ways of measuring progress towards an eventual U.S. pullout.

* It is at heart a restatement, rather than a reappraisal, of a strategy that according to the polls the American public has overwhelmingly rejected.

* The White House did not address, not to mention refute, the argument that the continued presence of American troops is making things worse, rather than better.

* And nothing Bush said is likely to change the fact that he has a big credibility problem with most Americans.

Bush's speech, delivered to an enthusiastic, captive audience of Navy midshipmen, was the first in a series that Bush will be making between now and the December 15th elections in Iraq.

This is what Bush had to say about when troops come home: "As the Iraqi forces gain experience and the political progress advances, we will be able to decrease our troop levels in Iraq without losing our capability to defeat the terrorists.

"These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington."

The new White House document put it this way: "We expect but cannot guarantee that our force posture will change."

Bush did cover a little new ground today. For the first time, he defined the insurgency as consisting of three constituent parts: "The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists.

"The rejectionists are by far the largest group. These are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein. And they reject an Iraq in which they're no longer the dominant group. . . .

"The second group that makes up the enemy in Iraq is smaller but more determined. It contains former regime loyalists who held positions of power under Saddam Hussein, people who still harbor dreams of returning to power. . . .

"The third group is the smallest but the most lethal: the terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida."

But even in this, his most sophisticated analysis of the enemy, Bush did not mention the important role that resistance to an occupation plays in Iraq.

Bush ramped up the rhetorical attack against those who are calling for him to establish some objective goals and timetables in Iraq, accusing them of wanting to set an artificial deadline.

"Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a message across the world that America is weak and an unreliable ally," he said.

"Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends.

"And setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would vindicate the terrorist tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder and invite new attacks on America.

"To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander in chief."

There were several straw-man arguments. For instance:

"Some critics continue to assert that we have no plan in Iraq except to, quote, 'Stay the course.'

"If by 'Stay the course,' they mean, 'We will not allow the terrorists to break our will,' they're right.

"If by 'Stay the course,' they mean, 'We will not permit Al Qaida to turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven for terrorism and a launching pad for attacks on America,' they're right, as well.

"If by 'Stay the course,' they mean that we're not learning from our experiences or adjusting our tactics to meet the challenges on the ground, then they're flat wrong."

My understanding is that by "stay the course" at least some of his critics mean remaining obstinately and indefinitely in a quagmire, where our presence just makes things worse.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 6:47 PM 0 comments

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.

...

Many of the claims of killings and abductions have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities.

American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.

But they also say it is difficult, in an already murky guerrilla war, to determine exactly who is responsible. The American officials insisted on anonymity because they were working closely with the Iraqi government and did not want to criticize it publicly.

The widespread conviction among Sunnis that the Shiite-led government is bent on waging a campaign of terror against them is sending waves of fear through the community, just as Iraqi and American officials are trying to coax the Sunnis to take part in nationwide elections on Dec. 15.

Sunnis believe that the security forces are carrying out sectarian reprisals, in part to combat the insurgency, but also in revenge for years of repression at the hands of Saddam Hussein's government.

Ayad Allawi, a prominent Iraqi politician who is close to the Sunni community, charged in an interview published Sunday in The London Observer that the Iraqi government - and the Ministry of Interior in particular - was condoning torture and running death squads.

The allegations raise the possibility of the war being fought here by a set of far messier rules, as the Americans push more responsibility for fighting it onto the Iraqis. One worry, expressed repeatedly by Americans and Iraqis here, is that an abrupt pullout of American troops could clear the way for a sectarian war.

One Sunni group taking testimony from families in Baghdad said it had documented the death or disappearance of 700 Sunni civilians in the past four months.

An investigator for the human rights organization said it had not been able to determine the number of executions carried out by the Iraqi security forces. So far, the investigator said, the evidence was anecdotal, but substantial.

"There is no question that bodies are turning up," said the investigator, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns. "Quite a few have been handcuffed and shot in the back of the head."

BAGHDAD — Shiite Muslim militia members have infiltrated Iraq's police force and are carrying out sectarian killings under the color of law, according to documents and scores of interviews.

The abuses raise the specter of organized retaliation to attacks by Sunni-led insurgents that have killed thousands of Shiites, who endured decades of subjugation under Saddam Hussein.

And they undermine the U.S. effort to stabilize the nation, and train and equip Iraq's security forces — the Bush administration's key prerequisites for the eventual withdrawal of American troops.

In recent months, hundreds of bodies have been discovered in rivers, garbage dumps, sewage treatment facilities and alongside roads and in desert ravines. Many of them are thought to be victims of Sunni insurgents, who are known to target Shiite civilians and Iraqi security forces, and even Sunni Arabs believed to be collaborating with U.S. forces or the Iraqi government. But increasingly, the Shiite militias operating within the national police force are also suspected of committing atrocities.

The Baghdad morgue reports that dozens of bodies arrive at the same time on a weekly basis, including scores of corpses with wrists bound by police handcuffs.

Over several months, the Muslim Scholars Assn., a Sunni organization, has compiled a library of grisly autopsy photos, lists of hundreds of missing and dead Sunnis and electronic recordings of testimonies by people who say they witnessed abuses by police officers affiliated with Shiite militias.

U.S. officials have long been concerned about extrajudicial killings in Iraq, but until recently they have refrained from calling violent elements within the police force "death squads" — a loaded term that conjures up the U.S.-backed paramilitaries that killed thousands of civilians during the Latin American civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s.

But U.S. military advisors in Iraq say the term is apt, and the Interior Ministry's inspector general concurs that extrajudicial killings are being carried out by ministry forces.

"There are such groups operating — yes, this is correct," said Interior Ministry Inspector General Nori Nori.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 6:51 AM 3 comments

This is Wall Street's version of comfort food: Corporate earnings keep rising at a double-digit pace while workers are lucky to get even low-single-digit wage increases.

For the last few years, those trends have been dependable and soothing for many stock market bulls — if not for the average worker. It's a world in which share prices are underpinned by healthy earnings while inflation risks are muted because employee pay isn't in danger of an upward spiral.

The story continued in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. With nearly all of the companies in the blue-chip Standard & Poor's 500 index now having reported their earnings for the period, the year-over-year growth rate was once again in double digits.

By S&P's reckoning, operating earnings for the S&P 500 companies rose 11.5% in the quarter. It was the 14th straight quarter of double-digit growth, the data firm says.

Because profit growth rate calculations can vary depending on the definition of operating results (i.e., earnings before one-time gains or losses), the results look even better by some yardsticks. Boston-based Thomson Financial, another data cruncher, estimates that S&P 500 profit rose 16% in the latest quarter.

In any case, the double-digit growth pace has gone on a lot longer than many analysts expected. For 2005 overall, S&P expects blue-chip earnings to be up 13.4%. And it predicts an 11.5% rise next year.

As for the workers whose toil is producing these handsome results, wages and salaries for all private-industry employees rose 2.2% in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, according to the government's employment cost index. That was down from a 2.6% increase in the year ended September 2004.

Add in benefits such as healthcare coverage, and total employment costs were up 3% in the most recent 12 months, compared with 3.7% in the previous period, government data show.

Now, there are many ways to measure compensation, and "average" pay gains can be as misleading as "average" earnings growth. For example, it's logical to assume that employees of energy companies have a lot more to look forward to, pay-wise, than employees of auto companies, given the profit trends in those two industries.

But few on Wall Street would dispute that corporate earnings have been fattened in recent years in large part because the rewards of the economic expansion — and spectacular gains in worker productivity — have primarily flowed to companies' bottom lines, not into employees' pockets.

"It's accurate to say that most of the productivity dividend has not gone to labor," said Ken Goldstein, an economist for the Conference Board, a business-sponsored research organization.

Historically, companies have reaped most of the financial benefits of economic growth at the beginning of expansions, when workers are in relative excess supply and thus have less leverage to demand higher pay.

As expansions wear on, however, and the labor supply tightens, the pendulum is supposed to swing toward workers: They make more, at the expense of corporate earnings. Labor is, of course, the largest single expense for most companies.

"What's different this time is it's taking longer for the pendulum to swing back," Goldstein said.

Based on the U.S. unemployment rate, which was 5% in October, down from 6% two years ago, workers arguably should feel more confident about demanding better wages. And in some occupations, especially technical ones in manufacturing, there's no doubt they can.

Overall, though, compensation data suggest employees don't believe that they have much leeway with the boss.

And that's usually how most companies finally agree to share more of their profit with workers, says Milton Ezrati, an economic strategist at investment firm Lord, Abbett & Co. in Jersey City, N.J.: "It's not largesse; it's because of pressure" from employees who are ready to find a better job, he says.

Yet even with the unemployment rate falling for the last two years, there are legitimate reasons workers may not feel confident about their prospects. General Motors Corp.'s announcement last week of 30,000 job cuts was hardly a morale booster. And many people rightly believe that they're now competing with other workers worldwide, not just within the U.S.

The fear is that "if you argue too loud that 'I need more money,' you're going to get a pink slip," Goldstein said. "Whether it's true or not, that perception is out there."

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 7:02 PM 0 comments

ANGERED by negative portrayals of the Iraq conflict, actor Bruce Willis is to make a pro-war film in which US soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy.

It will be based on the exploits of the heavily decorated members of Deuce Four, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, which has spent the past year battling insurgents in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

Willis attended Deuce Four's homecoming ball this month in Seattle, Washington, where the soldiers are on leave, along with Stephen Eads, the producer of Willis's films Armageddon and The Sixth Sense.

The 50-year-old actor said he was in talks about a film of "these guys who do what they are asked to for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom". Unlike many Hollywood stars, Willis supports the war and recently offered a $US1million ($1.35million) bounty for the capture of any of al-Qa'ida's most-wanted leaders such as Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its commander in Iraq. Willis visited the war zone with his rock and blues band, the Accelerators, in 2003.

"I am baffled to understand why the things I saw happening in Iraq are not being reported," he told MSNBC, the US news channel.

BAGHDAD -- Five months after the fall of Baghdad, I went to Iraq with Colin Powell. It was the first visit by a secretary of state in half a century, and although he moved under heavy security, there was an optimistic, forward-looking feel to the trip.

Much has changed about Iraq in the intervening two years. And visits by America's secretary of state -- first Powell, then Condoleezza Rice -- have proved to be a microcosm of America's intervention here.

On our first trip, in mid-September 2003, the State Department entourage and diplomatic press corps stayed for two full nights at the legendary al Rashid Hotel, the high-rise once heavily bugged by Saddam Hussein's security goons. Iraqi vendors in the hotel arcade sold military paraphernalia and souvenirs from the old regime. Medals that Hussein once bestowed on his troops went for 10 bucks -- or less, if you bargained enough.

Back then, we could tool around the Iraqi capital. With a New York Times colleague, I walked through the concrete barriers down the lonely lane that linked the protected Green Zone to the rest of Baghdad. U.S. troops stationed along the route didn't stop us.

...

We also wandered freely around Hussein's favorite Republican Palace, the headquarters for the new U.S.-led occupation government. We marveled at the marble halls. We stopped to gawk at Hussein's gilded throne in a hall festooned with frescoes of giant missiles blasting into the sky.

Back then, Powell would leave the Green Zone -- surrounded by a security "bubble" -- for meetings with Shiite, Kurd and Sunni government officials, and then dinner with a prominent Shiite cleric.

...

My second trip to Baghdad, on July 30, 2004, some 15 months after the fall of the city, was a secret. This time, the press corps traveling with Powell couldn't report it until after we'd landed.

We traveled from the airport to the Green Zone in Black Hawk helicopters, with U.S. troops perched in open windows on both sides manning machine guns that fire as many as 4,000 rounds per minute.

The route was so dangerous that we were all given flak jackets and helmets for the short trip.

This time, we didn't stay even one night. The al Rashid had come under rocket fire in October 2003, when then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was visiting. The attack had killed one American soldier and wounded 15 other people.

The hotel was off-limits even for journalists traveling with Powell. When I pressed the case, a diplomat offered to escort me through a new barricade between the convention center and the hotel, which was just across the street. Unfortunately, she didn't have clearance for the hotel. I didn't get in.

This time, Powell's bubble -- and ours -- was much smaller. America's top diplomat didn't leave the Green Zone and U.S. security wouldn't let the press out, either. I did manage to travel inside the four-square-mile zone with then-Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih to his residence.

We drove down palm-fringed boulevards with ornate villas once home to Hussein's aides, generals and family, and now inhabited by Iraq's new leaders, U.S. contractors and Iraqi squatters. We passed a busy open-air bazaar where gregarious Iraqi vendors hawked trinkets, carpets, T-shirts and techno-gadgets. Complete with parkland, monuments and ministries, the Green Zone is a city within a city. It was only a brief outing, but when I got back, the State Department's security team still read me the riot act for breaking out of the bubble.

Most of the time, the news media waited at the domed and well-guarded convention center as Powell met with Iraqi leaders who had assumed power from the U.S.-led occupation government a month earlier. But there was no connection with ordinary Iraqis or the real Baghdad.

...

My latest trip to Iraq, on Nov. 11, 31 months after the fall of the capital, was kept secret even from some of the people on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's plane. The dozen members of the traveling press were summoned to the State Department the day before we left on a trip to the Middle East and sworn to secrecy after a briefing about the additional stop.

We could tell an editor and a family member, but we were asked not to mention it to anyone else, particularly our bureaus in the Iraqi capital -- and not on the phone or by e-mail to anyone, at all, anywhere. If word got out, the trip would be canceled. A leak had forced the postponement of a similar trip in the spring.

The road between the airport and the Green Zone was officially considered safer, but we still flew in armed Black Hawks moving in diversionary patterns through the sky.

On this latest trip to Baghdad, the bubble shrank even more. No roaming the Green Zone. Not even a stop at the convention center. The press corps, including veteran war correspondents, was sequestered in Hussein's old palace for most of the seven-hour stay. We were discouraged from wandering the palace and were provided escorts to go to the bathroom.

Our one venture out was a short hop to the nearby prime minister's office, also in the Green Zone. All we saw were new barricades trimmed with razor wire, concrete blast walls, roadblocks and time-consuming identity checks. No Iraqis. No vendors. In October 2004, the bazaar had been attacked, one of two almost simultaneous suicide bombings inside the Green Zone that together killed 10, including four Americans.

...

For the first time, we pulled out after dark. As we flew from the Green Zone, the Black Hawk gunners wore night vision scopes, which look like little binoculars on eyeglasses, so they could spot suspicious activity through the night. The pilot of the C-17 military transport that flew us out of Iraq did not turn on the interior lights until we had reached a safe altitude -- and were well out of Baghdad airspace.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 6:23 PM 0 comments

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Rep. Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators.

Cunningham, 63, entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.

Cunningham answered ''yes, Your Honor'' when asked by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns if he had accepted bribes from someone in exchange for his performance of official duties.

Later, at a news conference, he wiped away tears as he announced his resignation.

''I can't undo what I have done but I can atone,'' he said.

Cunningham, an eight-term Republican congressman, had already announced in July that he would not seek re-election next year.

House Ethics rules say that any lawmaker convicted of a felony no longer should vote or participate in committee work. Under Republican caucus rules, Cunningham also would have lost his chairmanship of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism and human intelligence.

The former Vietnam War flying ace was known on Capitol Hill for his interest in defense issues and his occasional temperamental outbursts.

After the hearing, Cunningham was taken away for fingerprinting and released on his own recognizance until a Feb. 27 sentencing hearing. He could receive up to 10 years in prison.

He also agreed to forfeit to the government his Rancho Santa Fe home, more than $1.8 million in cash and antiques and rugs.

In a statement, prosecutors said Cunningham admitted to receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes paid to him by several conspirators through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations.

''He did the worst thing an elected official can do -- he enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there,'' U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said. The statement did not identify the conspirators.

The case began when authorities started investigating whether Cunningham and his wife, Nancy, used the proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale to defense contractor Mitchell Wade to buy the $2.55 million mansion in Rancho Santa Fe. Wade put the Del Mar house back on the market and sold it after nearly a year for $975,000 -- a loss of $700,000.

He drew little notice outside his San Diego-area district before the San Diego Union-Tribune reported last June that he'd sold the home to Wade.

Cunningham's pleas came amid a series of GOP scandals. Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas had to step down as majority leader after he was indicted in a campaign finance case; a stock sale by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being looked at by regulators; and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was indicted in the CIA leak case.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 4:49 PM 0 comments

WASHINGTON - President Bush will hear no evil on the Iraq war - even when the bad news comes from military brass and top government officials, a new report says.

Bush "remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq," according to The New Yorker magazine.

The article, echoing a Daily News story yesterday, says Bush and his inner circle are so determined to follow their own plan that generals fear saying what's wrong in Iraq - and senior advisers are snubbed if they have bad news.

"I tried to tell" the President about problems in Iraq, one former senior official told the magazine. "And he couldn't hear it."

The News quoted another Bush confidant yesterday saying that Team Bush has an "unyielding belief in the wisdom of what they're doing" in Iraq and elsewhere, and that "they're talking to people who could help them, but they're not listening."

New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh said that Bush is motivated in part by religious fervor and that he believes the war must be judged on a time line of decades, not years. "He's a utopian, you could say, in a world where maybe he doesn't have all the facts and all the information he needs and isn't able to change," Hersh said on CNN yesterday.

"I'll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they're not sure how you get to this guy."

Hersh said such tunnel vision helps explain why the Bush administration went ballistic when Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a Vietnam War hero, recently declared the war is tanking and it's time to bring the troops home.

"The generals know him and like him," Hersh said. "His message to the White House was much more worrisome than maybe to the average person in the public. [White House officials] know that generals are privately telling him things that they're not saying to them."

The administration is looking for options to bring some troops home. The Pentagon is expected to cut forces from the current level of about 160,000 to about 138,000 after next month's elections in Iraq. And under "optimistic" scenarios, forces would be cut to around 100,000 by late 2006.

Hersh, however, reports that keeping fewer boots on the ground may be designed only to provide political cover and that a bigger air war may follow.

"The war is not going to slow down," Hersh told CNN. "We're going to increase the pace of air operations. There's going to be more bombing in direct support of Iraqi units."

A White House spokesman said he hadn't seen Hersh's story and could not comment.

The reports of Bush's determination regarding Iraq come as he's preparing to launch a major new publicity push on the war, starting with a speech Wednesday at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Also, Bush's ambassador to Iraq warned yesterday that pulling out of the country early would be disastrous. "Terrorists could take over part of this country and expand from here," Zalmay Khalilzad told Newsweek. "And given the resources of Iraq, given the technical expertise of its people, it will make Afghanistan look like child's play."

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 6:44 AM 0 comments

A second Time magazine reporter has agreed to cooperate in the CIA leak case and will testify about her discussions with Karl Rove's attorney, a sign that prosecutors are still exploring charges against the White House aide.

Viveca Novak, a reporter in Time's Washington bureau, is cooperating with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity in 2003, the magazine reported in its Dec. 5 issue.

Novak specifically has been asked to testify under oath about conversations she had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin starting in May 2004, the magazine reported.

Novak, part of a team tracking the CIA case for Time, has written or contributed to articles in which Luskin characterized the nature of what was said between Rove and Matthew Cooper, the first Time reporter who testified in the case.

Cooper appeared before the grand jury in July after Time surrendered his notes and e-mail detailing a conversation with Rove. Cooper agreed to talk and avoid jail after disclosing that his source — now confirmed to be Rove — released him from his confidentiality agreement.

A grand jury indicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on perjury and obstruction charges on Oct. 28. Fitzgerald said in court papers earlier this month that he will present additional evidence to another grand jury.

Rove has remained under investigation for his involvement in leaking the identity of Plame, whose husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, is a critic of the Bush administration.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 5:54 PM 0 comments

The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said.

Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.

Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), now facing separate campaign finance charges in his home state of Texas, is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress involved with Indian affairs, one of Abramoff's key areas of interest, are also said to be among them.

Prosecutions and plea deals have become more likely, the lawyers said, now that Abramoff's former partner -- public relations executive Michael Scanlon -- has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and to testify about gifts that he and his K Street colleagues showered on lawmakers, allegedly in exchange for official favors.

An attorney for DeLay, whose wife worked for a lobbying firm that received client referrals from Abramoff, said there was no connection between her work and congressional business. A spokesman for Doolittle, whose wife received payments from Abramoff's lobbying firm, also said there was no connection with her husband's position. Burns's office has said his actions were consistent with his support for improving conditions for Indian tribes.

Ney is the congressman whose name has surfaced most prominently in the Abramoff investigation. His spokesman and attorney have said for weeks that Ney has not been told he is a target of the inquiry, even while acknowledging that his office has received a grand jury subpoena and that his activities were mentioned in Scanlon's plea agreement.

But the sources said that during the third week of October prosecutors told Ney and his former chief of staff, Neil Volz, that they were preparing a bribery case based in part on activities that occurred in October 2000. Abramoff and another business partner, Adam Kidan, were also told that they are targets in that case, the sources said.

...

The events in 2000 that interest investigators are connected to the purchase by Abramoff and Kidan of SunCruz Casinos, owner of a fleet of Florida gambling boats. Ney twice placed comments in the Congressional Record about SunCruz, first criticizing its former owner when Abramoff and Kidan were in difficult purchase negotiations and then, in October, praising Kidan's new management. Abramoff and Kidan are facing trial in January on charges of defrauding lenders in their purchase of the casino boats.

Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello said he thought he was just going to get a gift -- a 1987 Cadillac. What he ended up with was a confession to the headline-grabbing murder of casino magnate and Miami Subs founder Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, according to court filings.

In court records publicly released Wednesday, Moscatiello incriminated his two co-defendants in the Boulis murder case, saying they both told him they carried out the hit on the business tycoon. With police and prosecutors tight-lipped about the high-profile case, the documents provided the first glimpse into the murder investigation.

Moscatiello began talking with Fort Lauderdale police detectives within just a few hours after they arrested him Sept. 26 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder, court records show. He immediately pointed the finger at an associate, Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari, 48, and James "Pudgy" Fiorillo, 28, who worked for Ferrari.

In a taped sworn statement, Moscatiello told police that Fiorillo confided during a dinnertime conversation that he gunned down Boulis at the request of Ferrari. Fiorillo revealed his involvement in the Feb. 6, 2001, murder while Moscatiello had dinner with him two weeks after the slaying, Moscatiello told police. Fiorillo had driven to New York to deliver the Cadillac, a gift from Ferrari.

Moscatiello, 67, said Fiorillo also told him that Ferrari ordered the hit after getting a call from New York businessman Adam Kidan, according to court filings. Kidan had been fighting with Boulis for control of SunCruz Casino, a cruise ship gambling operation based out of Dania Beach.

Moscatiello told police that when he confronted Kidan about Fiorillo's claims, Kidan denied it. Moscatiello, who has admitted ties to the Gambino crime family, said he has known Kidan for years.

Court records show that when Kidan ran SunCruz, the company paid $145,000 to Moscatiello's daughter and one of Moscatiello's companies, and an additional $95,000 to a company run by Ferrari. Kidan has said he hired the Moscatiellos for food and beverage consulting and Ferrari's company to guard his vessels.

Kidan has not been charged in Boulis' killing. Beyond Fiorillo's third-hand account of what Kidan allegedly said, the court documents reviewed Wednesday by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel made no direct link between Kidan and the slaying.

Kidan's attorney, Robert LaRusso, said Wednesday night that Kidan had no involvement in the hit. Kidan told police in a March 2001 statement that he had nothing to do with Boulis' death and that the murder of the Greek business tycoon only complicated his fight for SunCruz Casino.

Kidan and one of his partners in the SunCruz deal, high-powered Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, currently are fighting federal fraud charges related to their purchase of the cruise-to-nowhere operation. They are accused of lying on financial statements and creating phony documents to persuade lenders to back their bid for SunCruz. The company has since been sold to new owners.

The Broward County State Attorney's Office stated in court documents that it does not intend to issue subpoenas to either Kidan or Abramoff in the Boulis case.

Moscatiello said that killing Boulis made no sense and he never would have approved of it. Even if there were a lengthy legal fight over SunCruz, it would still have been a profitable venture for him, he said.

"It's a company doing 147 million a year," Moscatiello said. "If you can't skim a few dollars off 147 million a year, ha-ha you shouldn't be in business."

Moscatiello said later in the conversation, "I'm not going to go down the yellow brick road for something that I would ... I would have been dead set against and never, never once in a million years would I have said, `Let's do this.' And I'm just not going to go ... I'm not going [to] do life without parole for this."

Moscatiello said he was furious once Fiorillo told him that he had been the shooter. Moscatiello said he confronted Ferrari, who later confessed that he and Fiorillo performed the hit, according to Moscatiello's sworn statement.

Attorneys for Fiorillo and Ferrari could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Prosecutors have accused Moscatiello and Ferrari of attempting to solicit a fourth man -- Dwayne Nicholson -- to carry out the murder. Nicholson told police that Ferrari asked him to "take out" Boulis, according to court documents.

Nicholson has not been charged in the case.

Boulis was ambushed as he drove his BMW in the 1900 block of Miami Road in Fort Lauderdale. A car darted in front of him and the driver slammed on the brakes, forcing him to stop. That's when a black Mustang pulled up beside him and someone inside fired several shots through the driver's window. The two cars then sped away.

Boulis drove on, making a couple turns and getting on South Federal Highway. That's when he either lost consciousness or control, slamming head-on into a tree. An hour later, Boulis died on a Broward General Medical Center operating table.

David Bogenschutz, Moscatiello's attorney, said Wednesday night that he had not seen the transcripts of his client's statements to police.

"At this time and since the time from his arrest, Anthony Moscatiello is not cooperating," Bogenschutz said. "He never intends to cooperate and does not have a history of cooperating."

Moscatiello said he learned of Boulis' shooting on the night it happened when Ferrari called him to say he had heard on the news that someone had been shot and it might be Boulis. A Fort Lauderdale police detective asked Moscatiello how Ferrari would know about the shooting within just 12 minutes of the attack.

Moscatiello said he didn't know, but maybe there had been a "special" on television.

Court records show Moscatiello first talked to police in April 2002, but he never mentioned knowing anything about the hit.

Moscatiello, Ferrari and Fiorillo are in the Broward County Jail without bail on first-degree murder charges. The three, who have pleaded not guilty, are scheduled to have a Jan. 12 court appearance.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The scandal began as a curiosity. Tom Noe, a gregarious businessman and Republican Party leader in northwest Ohio, had been entrusted with $50 million in state money to invest in rare coins, with the idea of winning fat returns for the workers' compensation fund.

It seemed an oddity at most, but like a loose thread on a jacket, the more investigators pulled, the more the garment unraveled, revealing members of Ohio's Republican establishment who had been wined, dined and enriched by Noe.

Gov. Bob Taft (R), heir to the state's most famous political name, pleaded no contest in August to accepting secret freebies from Noe and others and was fined $4,000. Members of his staff admitted borrowing money from Noe or using his Florida Keys vacation home. Millions in state funds proved to be missing from Noe's accounts.

As Republicans raced to distance themselves from Noe, a federal grand jury in Toledo indicted him last month on charges that he illegally funneled $45,400 in campaign contributions to President Bush's reelection campaign. Prosecutors said he circumvented the $2,000 limit on individual contributions by getting 24 friends and associates to make the contributions, and reimbursing them.

Although Noe protests he is innocent, investigators are asking how far the growing scandal will go, and political consultants are measuring the potential fallout in a crucial Midwestern state controlled by the GOP. Historically, power has been split between the major parties in Ohio, but Republicans have won the past two presidential elections, and taken hold of both U.S. Senate seats and the state legislature in recent years. Republicans have occupied the governor's office since 1990.

The Republican brand in Ohio last week picked up another dent when six-term Rep. Robert W. Ney was identified as the recipient of favors -- including a golf trip to Scotland, meals and sports tickets -- from lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon in return for official actions. A lawyer for the central Ohio congressman denied the allegations.

Last year, the GOP caucus in the state legislature was buffeted by reports of improper fundraising and self-dealing by two consultants working for the Republican speaker of the state House.

With Ney under a cloud and Taft's approval rating diving to a historically low 15 percent in a Columbus Dispatch poll, Democrats hope to harness the scandals as part of a national campaign to paint their opponents as purveyors of arrogance and greed.

...

Ohio is the bellwether state that pushed President Bush over the top against Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in the final hours of the November 2004 vote-counting. Often studied for signals of national importance, the state is suffering from a flat economy and damage to the president's standing by the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.

If the Democrats get traction on the scandal issue in Ohio, it likely will be because of the dealings of Noe, an entrepreneur who parlayed his political ties into the chairmanships of the Ohio Turnpike Commission and the Ohio Board of Regents.

In Toledo, he chaired the Lucas County Republican Party, as did his wife, Bernadette, and contributed generously to GOP candidates at all levels. He was so anxious to honor his pledge to the Bush-Cheney campaign, prosecutors said Oct. 27 in issuing a three-count indictment, that he funneled money through friends, including local elected officials.

Noe was later named one of 19 Ohio "Pioneers," those who had raised at least $100,000 for the president's successful reelection. There is no evidence that Bush-Cheney officials knew of the alleged laundering operation, investigators said. A total of $6,000 contributed directly by the Noes to the presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee has been donated to charity, said RNC spokesman Aaron McLear.

Investigators for the Ohio Ethics Commission, highway patrol, attorney general's office and an array of other agencies have uncovered a web of business transactions they are still trying to untangle. Central to the case are two stakes of $25 million each that Noe was given by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation to invest in rare coins, artwork and other collectibles.

The money, a small fraction of a fund valued at more than $15 billion, was intended as a creative way to diversify the bureau's portfolio. After the Toledo Blade revealed Noe's coin investment contract in April, an agency spokesman said that "there is not one iota of evidence showing politics played a role."

Investigators continue to examine that issue. Taft said he was fooled by Noe and did not know of the coin stake until the Blade reported it -- a point disputed by Noe. Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles asked Taft about his staff receiving benefits, leading to the governor's disclosure of 52 gifts from an array of people -- such as golf outings, meals and hockey tickets -- that he had failed to report as required by public ethics laws.

A tearful Taft pleaded no contest Aug. 18 to misdemeanor charges. After vowing earlier not to tolerate ethics violations in his administration, he said he had failed to live up to his own standards and public expectations.

"I am disappointed in myself," said Taft, the son and grandson of U.S. senators and the great-grandson of President William Howard Taft. "I just want to say there are no words to express the deep remorse that I feel over the embarrassment I have caused."

Two Taft aides pleaded no contest to accepting items of value from Noe. Ohio newspapers have identified two other former staff members as having received loans from Noe, who allegedly treated members of the governor's staff so often that dinners were called "The Noe Supper Club."

"It was a two-way street, back and forth, where influence was used and influence was sought," said one investigator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is continuing.

Noe's attorney has said more than $11 million is missing from the coin fund that Noe established with workers' compensation money. Attorney General Jim Petro (R), who has joined the large field of contestants for next year's open governor's race, filed a civil lawsuit accusing Noe of diverting as much as $4 million for his own use.

Ethics specialists and prosecutors working on the continuing investigation say they do not yet know whether state money was channeled to political campaigns or what Noe may have received in return for his largess.

The Bureau of Workers' Compensation, meanwhile, fired 69 investment managers this month and announced that it will shift $7.2 billion from the stock market into safer fixed-income investments. The coin investments -- the ones the bureau can find -- are being liquidated.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 12:58 PM 0 comments

WASHINGTON - Embattled White House aides have begun to believe President Bush must take the reins personally if his evaporating agenda and credibility are to be salvaged.

"We're just plodding along," admitted a senior Bush aide from deep within the West Wing bunker. "It's up to the President to turn things around now."

Even as his poll numbers tank, however, Bush is described by aides as still determined to stay the course. He resists advice from Republicans who fear disaster in next year's congressional elections, and rejects criticism from a media establishment he disdains.

"The President has always been willing to make changes," the senior aide said, "but not because someone in this town tells him to - NEVER!"

For the moment, Bush has dismissed discreetly offered advice from friends and loyalists to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and bring back longtime confidant Karen Hughes from the State Department to shore up his personal White House staff.

"He thinks that would be an admission he's screwed up, and he can't bring himself to do that," a former senior staffer lamented.

So aides have circled the wagons as Bush's woes mount, partly hoping they can sell the President on a December blitz of media interviews to help turn the tide.

"The staff basically still has an unyielding belief in the wisdom of what they're doing," a close Bush confidant said. "They're talking to people who could help them, but they're not listening."

Two sources said Bush has not only lost some confidence in his top aides, as the Daily News has previously reported, but is furious with a stream of leaks about the mood within the West Wing.

"He's asking [friends] for opinions on who he can trust and who he can't," one knowledgeable source said.

Much to Bush's relief, political mastermind Karl Rove is said to be engaged in day-to-day strategy, even though he still could be indicted in the CIA leak case. Some in the White House think Rove is a continuing drain and has also hurt Bush's recovery by not clearing the reputation of spokesman Scott McClellan, who repeatedly told reporters Rove assured him he had nothing to do with leaking covert agent Valerie Plame's name, even though it's now clear he did.

The problem for Bush, advisers admit, is that the ongoing leak probe reinforces allegations that the White House allegedly hyped prewar intelligence to justify a war most Americans no longer support.

So far Team Bush doesn't know how to separate the two issues, and compounding its woes is the fact that aides aren't talking to each other as much as they once did.

Gone from the schedule are weekly cholesterol-laden breakfasts at Rove's home where top Bush hands discussed strategy. Also missing are Sunday "message meetings" with outside thinkers like GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman, campaign pollster Matthew Dowd and superlobbyist Ed Gillespie.

A card-carrying member of the Washington GOP establishment with close ties to the White House recently encountered several senior presidential aides at a dinner and came away shaking his head at their "no problems here" mentality.

"There is just no introspection there at all," he said in exasperation. "It is everybody else's fault - the press, gutless Republicans on the Hill. They're still in denial."

Not ready to throw in the towel and declare the boss a lame duck, the Bushies are hoping two issues can help firm up their base and perhaps make inroads with centrists who voted for Bush: the anticipated confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, and a plan to reinforce the border with Mexico to help stop illegal immigration.

This week Bush will begin to press the border security issue, while Alito's Senate confirmation hearings start early next year. Aides hope those issues will draw attention away from the war and leak probe.

// posted by Reality-Based Educator @ 11:55 AM 0 comments