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Chief Chambers Interviewed By WDBX FM Radio
Teresa Chambers
tcchambers@honestchief.com
www.honestchief.com
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~shouldn't THIS be a major story in the US press?
China overtakes US as world's leading consumer By Emad Mekay
The report also examines China's growing influence on the US economy, which has become heavily dependent on Chinese capital to underwrite its fast-growing debt. If China ever decides to divert this capital surplus elsewhere, either to internal investment or to the development of oil, gas, and mineral resources elsewhere in the world, the US economy will be in trouble, the report says.
China's record-high domestic savings and huge trade surplus with the US are just two of the most visible manifestations of its economic strength. It is now China, along with Japan, that is buying the US treasury securities that enables the US to run the largest fiscal deficit in history. "China's eclipse of the US as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," Brown said.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GB18Ad01.html
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How the ADF protects its master
A senior air force officer summarily removed from his post has been denied a full investigation into the decision because it "could embarrass" the former chief of defence and the air force, internal defence documents reveal.
The documents suggest that the Australian Defence Force has a policy of not taking action that would damage the reputation of former top brass.
They also reveal that the policy was articulated by the air force chief, Air Marshal Angus Houston.
The case has involved the highest levels of Government and Defence, including the Prime Minister's office and the Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/17/1108609352230.html
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Arms inspector undermines torture denials
Fresh doubt has been cast on the Federal Government's claims that no Australians were involved in interrogations of Iraqi prisoners. The former head of weapons inspections in Iraq
was to tell ABC's Lateline last night that he was "almost positive" Australians were engaged in areas where interrogations "might have been going on".
The Government has been forced to defend itself against accusations by the Opposition that it lied about the role Australians played in Iraq and the dealings they had with Iraqi prisoners, following the claims of a former defence intelligence officer, Rob Barton, that he was personally involved in interrogations.
The Defence Minister, Robert Hill, and the Prime Minister, John Howard, said last year in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal that no Australians were involved in interrogations.
The Government now says there is a difference between interviewing prisoners - which Australian were permitted to do - and interrogating them, which they were not.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/17/1108609349039.html
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Empty words draw some vacant looks
Australia's former embassy in Baghdad might have no people in it but it was not vacant, a Foreign Affairs and Trade departmental official insisted yesterday.
The most Doug Chester was prepared to accept was that the building was "unoccupied".
The semantics - which began this week when the Government insisted it had not misled Parliament in saying no Australian "interrogated" Iraqi prisoners because they were only "interviewing" them - continued in the Senate estimates hearings.
It was prompted by questions from Labor senators about the building of the new embassy in Baghdad, which was targeted by a truck bomb last month.
After the bombing, diplomatic staff were evacuated to temporary premises at Camp Victory, the US military base, while the 120-member security detachment stayed behind in their barracks adjacent to the old embassy.
Foreign Affairs and Trade officials revealed yesterday the cost of building the new embassy - in Baghdad's high-security green zone - had risen from $3.5 million to $13 million.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/17/1108609349032.html
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Iraqi Died While Hung From Wrists
By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer
- An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press. The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that the death had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances under which the man died were not disclosed at the time. The prisoner died in a position known as "Palestinian hanging," the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8109.htm
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Sword Play
By Chris Floyd
02/18/05 "Moscow Times" - - 'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."This was the essence of Operation Gladio, a decades-long covert campaign of terrorism and deceit directed by the intelligence services of the West -- against their own populations. Hundreds of innocent people were killed or maimed in terrorist attacks -- on train stations, supermarkets, cafes and offices -- which were then blamed on "leftist subversives" or other political opponents. The purpose, as stated above in sworn testimony by Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra, was to demonize designated enemies and frighten the public into supporting ever-increasing powers for government leaders -- and their elitist cronies.First revealed by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in 1991, Gladio (from the Latin for "sword") is still protected to this day by its founding patrons, the CIA and MI6. Yet parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have shaken out a few fragments of the truth over the years. These have been gathered in a new book, "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe," by Daniele Ganser, as Lila Rajiva reports on CommonDreams.org
.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8110.htm
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In death, Hariri unites the Lebanese against Syria
Never has a Lebanese government been so shunned by its people. Never have the Syrians faced such united opposition from the people they claim to "protect'' with their 15,000 troops and their intelligence services.
Rafik Hariri’s family angrily turned down the offer of a state funeral from their pro-Syrian Lebanese President. Instead, the funeral of the murdered former prime minister yesterday turned into an independent march in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians who were fighting to the death in the civil war walked together in shared mourning and friendship.
There was not a gun in sight. Not a shot was heard. Down to the Martyr’s Square - the old front line which divided this country for 15 years of war - they walked, shouting: "Syria Out, Out, Out." Young women of both faiths, old men and youths and turbanned Muslim clerics, even some of Hariri’s old political enemies, gathered round the great Sunni Muslim mosque which Hariri himself had built. The badly burned body of the billionaire tycoon who reconstructed much of Beirut, murdered along with six bodyguards and his medical attendant on Monday in a car bomb attack, was carried through the streets of west Beirut in an ambulance. It arrived in the square to the sound of Muslim prayer calls and Christian church bells.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=611774
http://www.selvesandothers.org/article8685.html
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There will be no Middle East peace without justice
At no point yesterday did anyone mention occupation. Like sex, it had to be censored out
So, the Palestinians will end their occupation of Israel. No more will Palestinian tanks smash their way into Haifa and Tel Aviv. No more will Palestinian F-18s bomb Israeli population centres. No more will Palestinian Apache helicopters carry out "targeted killings" - ie: murders - of Israeli military leaders.
The Palestinians have promised to end all "acts of violence" against Israelis while Israel has promised to end all "military activity" against Palestinians. So that’s it, then. Peace in our time.
A Martian - even a well-educated Martian - would have gathered that this was the message, supposing he dropped in on the fantasy world of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday. The Palestinians had been committing "violence", the Israelis carrying out "innocent" operations. Palestinian "violence" or "terror and violence" - the latter a more popular phrase since it carried the stigma of 11 September 2001 - was now at an end. Mahmoud Abbas - who told a close Lebanese friend this year that he wore a suit and tie so that he would look "different" to Yasser Arafat - went along with all this. Just which people were occupying the homes of which other people remained a mystery.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=609177
http://www.selvesandothers.org/article8380.html
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US robot troops to go into battle
The Pentagon is spending $161 billion on a program to build heavily-armed robots for the battlefield in the hope that future wars will be fought without the loss of its soldiers' lives.
The scheme, known as Future Combat Systems, is the largest military contract in American history and will help to drive the defence budget up by almost 20 per cent in five years' time.
Much of the cash will be spent computerising the military, but the ultimate aim is to take members of the armed forces out of harm's way. They would be replaced by robots capable of hunting and killing America's enemies.
Gordon Johnson, of the US joint forces research centre, told The New York Times: "The American military will have these kinds of robots. It's not a question of 'if', it's a question of 'when'."
The American military is already planning units of about 2000 men and 150 robots, among them land-based "infantry" devices and drone aircraft.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/US-robot-troops-to-go-into-battle/2005/02/17/1108609330610.html
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China beats US as greediest consumer
The hardwood trees of Indonesia's Papua province are being felled and smuggled to China in a billion-dollar-a-year trade that threatens one of the last significant tropical forests in South-East Asia and the Pacific, two environmental groups alleged yesterday.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency and the Indonesian group Telapak said logging syndicates were paying bribes of about $US200,000 ($254,000) per ship to get logs out of the country.
Indonesia bans the export of unprocessed lumber and in December 2002 signed an agreement with China to fight the illegal trade in forest products. Yet about 300,000 cubic metres of the prime hardwood, called merbau, leaves Papua for China every month, the activists alleged.
The charges come as China overtakes the US as the focus of the world's raw materials trade, surpassing the US in consumption of grain, meat, coal, steel and many industrial products such as television sets, refrigerators and mobile phones. Only when it comes to oil does the US consume more.
China's eclipse of the United States as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," said the environmentalist Lester Brown, of Washington's Earth Policy Institute, in a survey published this week.
"China is no longer just a developing country. It is an emerging economic superpower, one that is writing economic history."
The institute's report said China's "voracious appetite for materials was driving up not only commodity prices but ocean shipping rates as well".
The sudden dependency on imported raw materials has taken Chinese leaders and industry chiefs on global investment expeditions. Countries with sometimes dubious regimes such as Sudan and Gabon are being courted as oil suppliers.
Chinese banks are channelling $US6 billion into Russia to help President Vladimir Putin's renationalisation of the oil industry, in return for guaranteed oil supplies.
On a tour of South America last year, China's President, Hu Jintao, announced deals worth $US30 billion. Argentina, an important source of meat and soya beans, was declared a strategic partner, on a par with Australia, which was accorded the same status by Beijing last year.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/China-beats-US-as-greediest-consumer/2005/02/17/1108609349898.html
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U.S. Patriot Act can eye Canucks
VICTORIA (CP) - The United States is willing to review a British Columbia report that concludes the U.S. Patriot Act has the power to eyeball private information about Canadians, Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said Friday.
The U.S., like Canada, is concerned about protecting the privacy rights of its citizens, but when it comes to fighting terrorists law enforcers need tools to get the job done, he said.
Cellucci made the comments following Friday's release of a report by B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis who concluded private information about Canadians could be viewed by U.S. authorities despite Canadian attempts to thwart the probes.
"We live in an age of terror," said Cellucci in a telephone interview from Vancouver.
We have to make sure law enforcement can protect us while at the same time protect privacy rights," he said.
Loukidelis said the long arm of the Patriot Act allows U.S. authorities to access the personal information of Canadians if it ends up in the United States or if it is held by U.S. companies in Canada.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/10/29/692305-cp.html#up
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Explosion outside mosque in southern Baghdad kills about 30, injures dozens
BAGHDAD (AP) - An explosion during Friday prayers outside a Shiite mosque in southern Baghdad has killed about 30 and injured dozens, a National Guard officer said.
There were unconfirmed reports of a second blast in the same area. The blast occurred in Baghdad's Dora neighbourhood near the al-Khadimain mosque, 1st Lt. Ahmad Ali said. Shiites are celebrating the Islamic holy month of Muharram and Saturday is Ashoura, the 10th day of Muharram and the holiest day of the year for them. The day marks the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad, in a 7th century battle for leadership of the Islamic world
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/18/934956-ap.html
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Accidental U.S. military deaths in Iraq have jumped during big troop rotation
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. troops in Iraq have suffered a rash of fatal vehicle accidents and other non-combat deaths in recent weeks, even as the number killed in insurgent attacks has declined.
Although details of recent accidents have not been made public, some officials believe the jump in their number can be explained in part by turbulence from the troop rotation that is now approaching its peak, with tens of thousands of troops arriving and like numbers going home.
The sheer volume of soldiers on the ground and high volume of vehicular traffic may reflect a higher rate of individual accidents or non-battle injuries," said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York Army National Guard, which is commanding a mixed Guard/regular Army task force responsible for an area of north-central Iraq.
There currently are about 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the U.S. military command in Baghdad. That is the highest number of the entire war, including the initial invasion.
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Ex-journalism adviser in Iraq says U.S. officials put coverage on themselves
WASHINGTON (AP) - A journalist who helped Iraq form a new broadcast network in 2003 testified Monday that U.S. occupation officials were more interested in airing their own activities than stories essential to Iraqis.
Don North, who served as a U.S. government adviser to the Iraqi Media Network, said the network became an irrelevant mouthpiece for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority.
The network was given "a laundry list of CPA activities" to cover instead of stories on security, the lack of electricity and jobs, said North, an independent journalist who has reported for National Public Radio and NBC.
North testified at a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a party organization. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, head of the panel, said Democrats had asked Republican-led Senate committees to conduct hearings on U.S. waste and missteps in Iraq but the Republican chairmen refused.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/14/930893-ap.html
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Cultural divide in Iraq sets the Kurdish north apart from the Arab south
Persian pop songs blasting from shops compete with Kurdish music from passing cars. Hotel bars and restaurants are packed on the weekends, when people take strolls through peaceful streets.
Kurdish cities like this one in northern Iraq have been largely immune to the kind of violence and mayhem that much of the country has suffered since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003
History and language differences add to Kurdistan's contrast with the rest of Iraq, differences that will become ever more important when a new transitional government takes power, dominated by the largely secular and independence-minded Kurds and the religious, majority Shiites.
A Shiite Muslim clergy-backed slate won 48 per cent of the votes and 140 of the 275 National Assembly seats, according to results of the Jan. 30 elections released Sunday. A Kurdish ticket got 26 per cent and 75 seats, while a secular Shiite party won 40 seats. Nine parties divided the remaining 20 seats.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/14/930894-ap.html
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Turkish businessman taken hostage in Iraq two months ago released
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Kidnappers have released a wealthy Turkish businessman after holding him hostage in Iraq for two months, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Kahraman Sadikoglu, president of the Istanbul-based Tuzla Shipyard, was released late Monday, and flown to Baghdad after spending the evening at a British base in southern Iraq, a Foreign Ministry official said. He was scheduled to return to Turkey later Tuesday through Jordan.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/15/931339-ap.html
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Those close to abducted Italian journalist have mixed feelings at video
ROME (AP) - Family and friends felt horror Wednesday at seeing a video of an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq pleading for her life - and relief that she was still alive.
The video provided the first images of Giuliana Sgrena, 56, a reporter for the communist daily Il Manifesto, since her kidnapping in Baghdad on Feb. 4.
The video, delivered anonymously to Associated Press Television News, showed Sgrena pleading for Italy to withdraw its troops from Iraq. It was released hours before the Senate approved extending Italy's 3,000-member military mission in Iraq through June. The measure now goes to the lower house for final approval.
The centre-right coalition of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a strong supporter of the U.S.-led Iraq campaign, has a comfortable majority in Parliament.
"On the one hand, I'm happy because at least I've seen that my daughter is still alive," the hostage's father, Franco Sgrena, said from his home in northern Italy. "On the other, I'm worried because I don't think (Italian officials) want to withdraw the troops to save my daughter.
"I know that my daughter's appeal is worth nothing," he said. "I'm worried because she seemed quite desperate."
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/16/932601-ap.html
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Terror suspect free on $50K bail
MONTREAL (CP) - A suspected terrorist granted bail after 21 months' detention on allegations he's a sleeper agent for the al-Qaida network still faces the possibility of being deported to his native Morocco.
Adil Charkaoui will return to court next week as the government argues the validity of the security certificate against him. A review of the detention order against him is also scheduled for the coming weeks.
Hearings are expected to extend into April.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Law/2005/02/17/933959-cp.html
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Pentagon official: China big issue facing Bush
WASHINGTON (AP) - China's future course in the world is among the four most important issues the U.S. administration is considering as it develops a new national security strategy, a top Pentagon official said Thursday.
Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defence for policy, singled out China as among "important powers in the world," whose strategic choices will influence U.S. national security.
The three other key issues the administration is assessing are the spread of weapons of mass destruction, "terrorist extremism" and the risks posed by failed or failing states, Feith said in a speech to members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a private think-tank.
The Pentagon under U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has not focused much publicly on China during the last four years, other than during a period of severely strained relations in 2001 following the collision of a U.S. navy spy plane with a Chinese fighter off China's coast.
Rumsfeld has not visited China during his four years as defence secretary, although his aides have said he is considering going to Beijing this year
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/17/934307-ap.html
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Suspects flew to Australia
LEBANON is hunting six people who flew from Beirut for Australia, leaving traces of explosives on aircraft seats, hours after a powerful bomb killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri."Six people left for Australia from Beirut airport a few hours after the attack and traces of TNT powder were recovered from the seats used by some of them," Justice Minister Adnan Addum said.
"These people have links with fundamentalist circles. I can't say more because of the demands of the investigation," he added.
One hitherto unknown Islamist group claimed it carried out Monday's bombing, saying it was in revenge for Mr Hariri's links with Saudi Arabia where security forces have killed members of extremist groups. It gave no proof of its involvement.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12297570%255E1702,00.html
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1000 children feared dead
AID workers in Afghanistan fear up to 1000 children may have died from cold and malnutrition during severe winter weather affecting the west of the war-shattered country."Several hundred to a thousand would be a low estimate of the number of children that could have died," Paul Hicks, program director western region Afghanistan for Catholic Relief Services, said.
Western Ghor province has been hit hard by snowstorms in Afghanistan's worst winter for more than a decade, and most of the province remains out of reach of humanitarian aid and blanketed by snow.
Afghan and UN officials said yesterday the cold snap had claimed at least 267 lives in Afghanistan in the past month, many of them children.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12295419%255E1702,00.html
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Israel to cease demolitions
ISRAEL has ordered a halt to the demolition of the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers after an internal review found the policy, widely condemned by rights groups, had little deterrent effect and stoked hatred.Israel has taken a number of steps to ease conditions for the Palestinians since a ceasefire was agreed with new leader Mahmud Abbas at a landmark summit in Egypt 10 days ago aimed at putting a lid on more than four years of deadly violence.
The decision to halt house demolitions was taken by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz after a report ordered by outgoing chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon found that the demolitions were counter-productive.
"The minister of defence decided to accept the recommendation of the chief of staff to change the policy and stop exercising the legal right to demolish terrorists' houses as a means of deterrence," a statement said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12294667%255E1702,00.html
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Car bomb rattles Thailand
THAILAND is grappling with an alarming escalation of violence in the Muslim-majority south after an unprecedented car bomb killed six people last night, just hours after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra left the region.The bomb also injured 44 people, up to five critically, when it detonated inside a pickup truck parked next to a busy hotel in Sungai Kolok, a town on the Malaysian border.
"One of the injured died this morning at Sungai Kolok hospital," taking the toll to six, a police officer in the town said.
The attack was the deadliest single bombing in a campaign of violence that has gripped the Muslim-dominated deep south for the past 13 months and claimed about 600 lives.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12294410%255E1702,00.html
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Fresh documents from U.S. Army acquired by ACLU paint devastating picture of continued abuse by U.S. forces
Detainee coerced into dropping charges of abuse before release
RAW STORY
The following embargo has been broken by some outlets in other countries; as such RAW STORY is releasing this release sent today from the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU told us earlier today that the embargo would be lifted if other outlets broke the embargo.
The documents related to this abuse will be available within the next few hours on their website, and a link will be posted on the Raw Story front page.
It should be noted that the abuse reported here came after the scandal at Abu Ghraib.
All told, the documents number more than a thousand pages.
U.S. Soldiers Posed in Photos of Mock Executions of Detainees; More Cases of Abuse Revealed in Newly Released Documents
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASEFebruary 18, 2005, 12:01 AM
NEW YORK–The American Civil Liberties Union today released files obtained from the Army revealing previously undisclosed allegations of abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the documents are reports that a detainee who was beaten and seriously injured was forced to drop his claims in order to be released from custody.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=95
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Democrats still struggling to unite on Iraq
WASHINGTON - All during the 2004 presidential campaign, Democrats tried to find their voice on the war in Iraq (news - web sites) without much success. But even with President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election and Iraq's recent vote now over, the nation's opposition party still can't unite behind a single stance.
Some Democrats, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, have called for a quick reduction of troops in Iraq and a near-total withdrawal within a year. Others, such as Rep. Ike Skelton (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, are pressing Bush to spell out an exit strategy. Still others, such as vanquished Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), are seeking to beef up the military, saying that the war against terrorism isn't going away.
"In the long haul," Kerry said in an interview, "we are living in a dangerous world and I think we need to be prepared to manage this in a more effective way."
Nothing better illustrates the party's mixed message on the war than its current leadership. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, has been a staunch war critic from the start. Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), the new Senate Democratic leader from Nevada, supported the war. The new Democratic Party chairman, Howard Dean (news - web sites), rose to national prominence as the anti-war presidential candidate, but last week, as he accepted his new post, the only policy question he ducked was one on Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&u=/krwashbureau/20050217/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_usiraq_democrats_wa&printer=1
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Top Army recruiter: Draft wouldn't help
LOUISVILLE, Ky. --A military draft would not improve the quality of soldier over the current all-volunteer force, the head of Army recruiting said Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, said volunteer soldiers want to be a part of the military, making them "as wonderful a soldier as one can imagine."
"I think what we have today far surpasses a draft," he told a Rotary Club audience.
Rochelle, 54, oversees 7,000 Army recruiters worldwide and has a $250 million advertising budget with a goal of bringing in 80,000 new soldiers this year. It's a daunting task, he said.
A good economy and a falling unemployment rate mean fewer people are looking for jobs. "Recruiting is a challenge in the best of times," he said. "We're competing with industry."
Nevertheless, the Army expects to meet its recruiting goals for 2005, he said, noting the targeted recruiting age range -- those between 17 and 24 -- are "joiners" willing to serve
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/17/top_army_recruiter_draft_wouldnt_help?mode=PF
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Ari Fleischer Tells E&P He Spoke to Gannon/Guckert's Boss
NEW YORK Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was so concerned about Talon News reporter James Guckert's potential ties to the Republican Party that he stopped calling on him at press briefings for about a week in 2003, Fleischer told E&P today."I found out that he worked for a GOP site, and I didn't think it was my place to call on him because he worked for something that was related to the party," Fleischer said in a phone interview. "He had the editor call me and made the case that they were not related to the Republican Party. He said they used the GOP name for marketing purposes only."He said he resumed calling on Guckert, who used the alias Jeff Gannon, after Bobby Eberle, owner of both GOPUSA and Talon News, "assured me that they were not part of the Republican Party." Eberle is a Texas Republican activist and served as a delegate to the 2000 Republican National Convention. Fleischer has not previously commented on the Gannon/Guckert affair. "I don't think that party organizations should have people in that room acting as reporters," Fleischer said, explaining his initial concerns. "They are advocates, not reporters, and a line should be drawn." But, after speaking with Eberle and looking at Talon News, he was convinced that GOPUSA.com and Talon News were not official party sites."It looked like a conservative news organization," Fleischer said. "If I thought that they were part of the party, I would not have [resumed] calling on them."Fleischer served as Bush press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003. Guckert, who has become a center of controversy after it was learned he had used an alias at the White House and had ties to several male escort sites, resigned his Talon News post last week.
http://199.249.170.220/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000807754
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An Honest Police Chief
Chief Chambers Interviewed By WDBX FM Radio
Teresa Chambers
tcchambers@honestchief.com
www.honestchief.com
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~shouldn't THIS be a major story in the US press?
China overtakes US as world's leading consumer By Emad Mekay
The report also examines China's growing influence on the US economy, which has become heavily dependent on Chinese capital to underwrite its fast-growing debt. If China ever decides to divert this capital surplus elsewhere, either to internal investment or to the development of oil, gas, and mineral resources elsewhere in the world, the US economy will be in trouble, the report says.
China's record-high domestic savings and huge trade surplus with the US are just two of the most visible manifestations of its economic strength. It is now China, along with Japan, that is buying the US treasury securities that enables the US to run the largest fiscal deficit in history. "China's eclipse of the US as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," Brown said.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GB18Ad01.html
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How the ADF protects its master
A senior air force officer summarily removed from his post has been denied a full investigation into the decision because it "could embarrass" the former chief of defence and the air force, internal defence documents reveal.
The documents suggest that the Australian Defence Force has a policy of not taking action that would damage the reputation of former top brass.
They also reveal that the policy was articulated by the air force chief, Air Marshal Angus Houston.
The case has involved the highest levels of Government and Defence, including the Prime Minister's office and the Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/17/1108609352230.html
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Arms inspector undermines torture denials
Fresh doubt has been cast on the Federal Government's claims that no Australians were involved in interrogations of Iraqi prisoners. The former head of weapons inspections in Iraq
was to tell ABC's Lateline last night that he was "almost positive" Australians were engaged in areas where interrogations "might have been going on".
The Government has been forced to defend itself against accusations by the Opposition that it lied about the role Australians played in Iraq and the dealings they had with Iraqi prisoners, following the claims of a former defence intelligence officer, Rob Barton, that he was personally involved in interrogations.
The Defence Minister, Robert Hill, and the Prime Minister, John Howard, said last year in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal that no Australians were involved in interrogations.
The Government now says there is a difference between interviewing prisoners - which Australian were permitted to do - and interrogating them, which they were not.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/17/1108609349039.html
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Empty words draw some vacant looks
Australia's former embassy in Baghdad might have no people in it but it was not vacant, a Foreign Affairs and Trade departmental official insisted yesterday.
The most Doug Chester was prepared to accept was that the building was "unoccupied".
The semantics - which began this week when the Government insisted it had not misled Parliament in saying no Australian "interrogated" Iraqi prisoners because they were only "interviewing" them - continued in the Senate estimates hearings.
It was prompted by questions from Labor senators about the building of the new embassy in Baghdad, which was targeted by a truck bomb last month.
After the bombing, diplomatic staff were evacuated to temporary premises at Camp Victory, the US military base, while the 120-member security detachment stayed behind in their barracks adjacent to the old embassy.
Foreign Affairs and Trade officials revealed yesterday the cost of building the new embassy - in Baghdad's high-security green zone - had risen from $3.5 million to $13 million.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/02/17/1108609349032.html
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Iraqi Died While Hung From Wrists
By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer
- An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press. The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. The U.S. military said back then that the death had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances under which the man died were not disclosed at the time. The prisoner died in a position known as "Palestinian hanging," the documents reviewed by The AP show. It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8109.htm
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Sword Play
By Chris Floyd
02/18/05 "Moscow Times" - - 'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."This was the essence of Operation Gladio, a decades-long covert campaign of terrorism and deceit directed by the intelligence services of the West -- against their own populations. Hundreds of innocent people were killed or maimed in terrorist attacks -- on train stations, supermarkets, cafes and offices -- which were then blamed on "leftist subversives" or other political opponents. The purpose, as stated above in sworn testimony by Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra, was to demonize designated enemies and frighten the public into supporting ever-increasing powers for government leaders -- and their elitist cronies.First revealed by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in 1991, Gladio (from the Latin for "sword") is still protected to this day by its founding patrons, the CIA and MI6. Yet parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have shaken out a few fragments of the truth over the years. These have been gathered in a new book, "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe," by Daniele Ganser, as Lila Rajiva reports on CommonDreams.org
.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8110.htm
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In death, Hariri unites the Lebanese against Syria
Never has a Lebanese government been so shunned by its people. Never have the Syrians faced such united opposition from the people they claim to "protect'' with their 15,000 troops and their intelligence services.
Rafik Hariri’s family angrily turned down the offer of a state funeral from their pro-Syrian Lebanese President. Instead, the funeral of the murdered former prime minister yesterday turned into an independent march in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians who were fighting to the death in the civil war walked together in shared mourning and friendship.
There was not a gun in sight. Not a shot was heard. Down to the Martyr’s Square - the old front line which divided this country for 15 years of war - they walked, shouting: "Syria Out, Out, Out." Young women of both faiths, old men and youths and turbanned Muslim clerics, even some of Hariri’s old political enemies, gathered round the great Sunni Muslim mosque which Hariri himself had built. The badly burned body of the billionaire tycoon who reconstructed much of Beirut, murdered along with six bodyguards and his medical attendant on Monday in a car bomb attack, was carried through the streets of west Beirut in an ambulance. It arrived in the square to the sound of Muslim prayer calls and Christian church bells.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=611774
http://www.selvesandothers.org/article8685.html
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There will be no Middle East peace without justice
At no point yesterday did anyone mention occupation. Like sex, it had to be censored out
So, the Palestinians will end their occupation of Israel. No more will Palestinian tanks smash their way into Haifa and Tel Aviv. No more will Palestinian F-18s bomb Israeli population centres. No more will Palestinian Apache helicopters carry out "targeted killings" - ie: murders - of Israeli military leaders.
The Palestinians have promised to end all "acts of violence" against Israelis while Israel has promised to end all "military activity" against Palestinians. So that’s it, then. Peace in our time.
A Martian - even a well-educated Martian - would have gathered that this was the message, supposing he dropped in on the fantasy world of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday. The Palestinians had been committing "violence", the Israelis carrying out "innocent" operations. Palestinian "violence" or "terror and violence" - the latter a more popular phrase since it carried the stigma of 11 September 2001 - was now at an end. Mahmoud Abbas - who told a close Lebanese friend this year that he wore a suit and tie so that he would look "different" to Yasser Arafat - went along with all this. Just which people were occupying the homes of which other people remained a mystery.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=609177
http://www.selvesandothers.org/article8380.html
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US robot troops to go into battle
The Pentagon is spending $161 billion on a program to build heavily-armed robots for the battlefield in the hope that future wars will be fought without the loss of its soldiers' lives.
The scheme, known as Future Combat Systems, is the largest military contract in American history and will help to drive the defence budget up by almost 20 per cent in five years' time.
Much of the cash will be spent computerising the military, but the ultimate aim is to take members of the armed forces out of harm's way. They would be replaced by robots capable of hunting and killing America's enemies.
Gordon Johnson, of the US joint forces research centre, told The New York Times: "The American military will have these kinds of robots. It's not a question of 'if', it's a question of 'when'."
The American military is already planning units of about 2000 men and 150 robots, among them land-based "infantry" devices and drone aircraft.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/US-robot-troops-to-go-into-battle/2005/02/17/1108609330610.html
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China beats US as greediest consumer
The hardwood trees of Indonesia's Papua province are being felled and smuggled to China in a billion-dollar-a-year trade that threatens one of the last significant tropical forests in South-East Asia and the Pacific, two environmental groups alleged yesterday.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency and the Indonesian group Telapak said logging syndicates were paying bribes of about $US200,000 ($254,000) per ship to get logs out of the country.
Indonesia bans the export of unprocessed lumber and in December 2002 signed an agreement with China to fight the illegal trade in forest products. Yet about 300,000 cubic metres of the prime hardwood, called merbau, leaves Papua for China every month, the activists alleged.
The charges come as China overtakes the US as the focus of the world's raw materials trade, surpassing the US in consumption of grain, meat, coal, steel and many industrial products such as television sets, refrigerators and mobile phones. Only when it comes to oil does the US consume more.
China's eclipse of the United States as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," said the environmentalist Lester Brown, of Washington's Earth Policy Institute, in a survey published this week.
"China is no longer just a developing country. It is an emerging economic superpower, one that is writing economic history."
The institute's report said China's "voracious appetite for materials was driving up not only commodity prices but ocean shipping rates as well".
The sudden dependency on imported raw materials has taken Chinese leaders and industry chiefs on global investment expeditions. Countries with sometimes dubious regimes such as Sudan and Gabon are being courted as oil suppliers.
Chinese banks are channelling $US6 billion into Russia to help President Vladimir Putin's renationalisation of the oil industry, in return for guaranteed oil supplies.
On a tour of South America last year, China's President, Hu Jintao, announced deals worth $US30 billion. Argentina, an important source of meat and soya beans, was declared a strategic partner, on a par with Australia, which was accorded the same status by Beijing last year.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/China-beats-US-as-greediest-consumer/2005/02/17/1108609349898.html
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U.S. Patriot Act can eye Canucks
VICTORIA (CP) - The United States is willing to review a British Columbia report that concludes the U.S. Patriot Act has the power to eyeball private information about Canadians, Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said Friday.
The U.S., like Canada, is concerned about protecting the privacy rights of its citizens, but when it comes to fighting terrorists law enforcers need tools to get the job done, he said.
Cellucci made the comments following Friday's release of a report by B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis who concluded private information about Canadians could be viewed by U.S. authorities despite Canadian attempts to thwart the probes.
"We live in an age of terror," said Cellucci in a telephone interview from Vancouver.
We have to make sure law enforcement can protect us while at the same time protect privacy rights," he said.
Loukidelis said the long arm of the Patriot Act allows U.S. authorities to access the personal information of Canadians if it ends up in the United States or if it is held by U.S. companies in Canada.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/10/29/692305-cp.html#up
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Explosion outside mosque in southern Baghdad kills about 30, injures dozens
BAGHDAD (AP) - An explosion during Friday prayers outside a Shiite mosque in southern Baghdad has killed about 30 and injured dozens, a National Guard officer said.
There were unconfirmed reports of a second blast in the same area. The blast occurred in Baghdad's Dora neighbourhood near the al-Khadimain mosque, 1st Lt. Ahmad Ali said. Shiites are celebrating the Islamic holy month of Muharram and Saturday is Ashoura, the 10th day of Muharram and the holiest day of the year for them. The day marks the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad, in a 7th century battle for leadership of the Islamic world
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/18/934956-ap.html
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Accidental U.S. military deaths in Iraq have jumped during big troop rotation
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. troops in Iraq have suffered a rash of fatal vehicle accidents and other non-combat deaths in recent weeks, even as the number killed in insurgent attacks has declined.
Although details of recent accidents have not been made public, some officials believe the jump in their number can be explained in part by turbulence from the troop rotation that is now approaching its peak, with tens of thousands of troops arriving and like numbers going home.
The sheer volume of soldiers on the ground and high volume of vehicular traffic may reflect a higher rate of individual accidents or non-battle injuries," said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York Army National Guard, which is commanding a mixed Guard/regular Army task force responsible for an area of north-central Iraq.
There currently are about 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the U.S. military command in Baghdad. That is the highest number of the entire war, including the initial invasion.
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Ex-journalism adviser in Iraq says U.S. officials put coverage on themselves
WASHINGTON (AP) - A journalist who helped Iraq form a new broadcast network in 2003 testified Monday that U.S. occupation officials were more interested in airing their own activities than stories essential to Iraqis.
Don North, who served as a U.S. government adviser to the Iraqi Media Network, said the network became an irrelevant mouthpiece for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority.
The network was given "a laundry list of CPA activities" to cover instead of stories on security, the lack of electricity and jobs, said North, an independent journalist who has reported for National Public Radio and NBC.
North testified at a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a party organization. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, head of the panel, said Democrats had asked Republican-led Senate committees to conduct hearings on U.S. waste and missteps in Iraq but the Republican chairmen refused.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/14/930893-ap.html
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Cultural divide in Iraq sets the Kurdish north apart from the Arab south
Persian pop songs blasting from shops compete with Kurdish music from passing cars. Hotel bars and restaurants are packed on the weekends, when people take strolls through peaceful streets.
Kurdish cities like this one in northern Iraq have been largely immune to the kind of violence and mayhem that much of the country has suffered since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003
History and language differences add to Kurdistan's contrast with the rest of Iraq, differences that will become ever more important when a new transitional government takes power, dominated by the largely secular and independence-minded Kurds and the religious, majority Shiites.
A Shiite Muslim clergy-backed slate won 48 per cent of the votes and 140 of the 275 National Assembly seats, according to results of the Jan. 30 elections released Sunday. A Kurdish ticket got 26 per cent and 75 seats, while a secular Shiite party won 40 seats. Nine parties divided the remaining 20 seats.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/14/930894-ap.html
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Turkish businessman taken hostage in Iraq two months ago released
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Kidnappers have released a wealthy Turkish businessman after holding him hostage in Iraq for two months, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Kahraman Sadikoglu, president of the Istanbul-based Tuzla Shipyard, was released late Monday, and flown to Baghdad after spending the evening at a British base in southern Iraq, a Foreign Ministry official said. He was scheduled to return to Turkey later Tuesday through Jordan.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/15/931339-ap.html
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Those close to abducted Italian journalist have mixed feelings at video
ROME (AP) - Family and friends felt horror Wednesday at seeing a video of an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq pleading for her life - and relief that she was still alive.
The video provided the first images of Giuliana Sgrena, 56, a reporter for the communist daily Il Manifesto, since her kidnapping in Baghdad on Feb. 4.
The video, delivered anonymously to Associated Press Television News, showed Sgrena pleading for Italy to withdraw its troops from Iraq. It was released hours before the Senate approved extending Italy's 3,000-member military mission in Iraq through June. The measure now goes to the lower house for final approval.
The centre-right coalition of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a strong supporter of the U.S.-led Iraq campaign, has a comfortable majority in Parliament.
"On the one hand, I'm happy because at least I've seen that my daughter is still alive," the hostage's father, Franco Sgrena, said from his home in northern Italy. "On the other, I'm worried because I don't think (Italian officials) want to withdraw the troops to save my daughter.
"I know that my daughter's appeal is worth nothing," he said. "I'm worried because she seemed quite desperate."
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/16/932601-ap.html
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Terror suspect free on $50K bail
MONTREAL (CP) - A suspected terrorist granted bail after 21 months' detention on allegations he's a sleeper agent for the al-Qaida network still faces the possibility of being deported to his native Morocco.
Adil Charkaoui will return to court next week as the government argues the validity of the security certificate against him. A review of the detention order against him is also scheduled for the coming weeks.
Hearings are expected to extend into April.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Law/2005/02/17/933959-cp.html
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Pentagon official: China big issue facing Bush
WASHINGTON (AP) - China's future course in the world is among the four most important issues the U.S. administration is considering as it develops a new national security strategy, a top Pentagon official said Thursday.
Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defence for policy, singled out China as among "important powers in the world," whose strategic choices will influence U.S. national security.
The three other key issues the administration is assessing are the spread of weapons of mass destruction, "terrorist extremism" and the risks posed by failed or failing states, Feith said in a speech to members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a private think-tank.
The Pentagon under U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has not focused much publicly on China during the last four years, other than during a period of severely strained relations in 2001 following the collision of a U.S. navy spy plane with a Chinese fighter off China's coast.
Rumsfeld has not visited China during his four years as defence secretary, although his aides have said he is considering going to Beijing this year
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/17/934307-ap.html
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Suspects flew to Australia
LEBANON is hunting six people who flew from Beirut for Australia, leaving traces of explosives on aircraft seats, hours after a powerful bomb killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri."Six people left for Australia from Beirut airport a few hours after the attack and traces of TNT powder were recovered from the seats used by some of them," Justice Minister Adnan Addum said.
"These people have links with fundamentalist circles. I can't say more because of the demands of the investigation," he added.
One hitherto unknown Islamist group claimed it carried out Monday's bombing, saying it was in revenge for Mr Hariri's links with Saudi Arabia where security forces have killed members of extremist groups. It gave no proof of its involvement.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12297570%255E1702,00.html
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1000 children feared dead
AID workers in Afghanistan fear up to 1000 children may have died from cold and malnutrition during severe winter weather affecting the west of the war-shattered country."Several hundred to a thousand would be a low estimate of the number of children that could have died," Paul Hicks, program director western region Afghanistan for Catholic Relief Services, said.
Western Ghor province has been hit hard by snowstorms in Afghanistan's worst winter for more than a decade, and most of the province remains out of reach of humanitarian aid and blanketed by snow.
Afghan and UN officials said yesterday the cold snap had claimed at least 267 lives in Afghanistan in the past month, many of them children.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12295419%255E1702,00.html
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Israel to cease demolitions
ISRAEL has ordered a halt to the demolition of the homes of Palestinian suicide bombers after an internal review found the policy, widely condemned by rights groups, had little deterrent effect and stoked hatred.Israel has taken a number of steps to ease conditions for the Palestinians since a ceasefire was agreed with new leader Mahmud Abbas at a landmark summit in Egypt 10 days ago aimed at putting a lid on more than four years of deadly violence.
The decision to halt house demolitions was taken by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz after a report ordered by outgoing chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon found that the demolitions were counter-productive.
"The minister of defence decided to accept the recommendation of the chief of staff to change the policy and stop exercising the legal right to demolish terrorists' houses as a means of deterrence," a statement said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12294667%255E1702,00.html
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Car bomb rattles Thailand
THAILAND is grappling with an alarming escalation of violence in the Muslim-majority south after an unprecedented car bomb killed six people last night, just hours after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra left the region.The bomb also injured 44 people, up to five critically, when it detonated inside a pickup truck parked next to a busy hotel in Sungai Kolok, a town on the Malaysian border.
"One of the injured died this morning at Sungai Kolok hospital," taking the toll to six, a police officer in the town said.
The attack was the deadliest single bombing in a campaign of violence that has gripped the Muslim-dominated deep south for the past 13 months and claimed about 600 lives.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12294410%255E1702,00.html
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Fresh documents from U.S. Army acquired by ACLU paint devastating picture of continued abuse by U.S. forces
Detainee coerced into dropping charges of abuse before release
RAW STORY
The following embargo has been broken by some outlets in other countries; as such RAW STORY is releasing this release sent today from the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU told us earlier today that the embargo would be lifted if other outlets broke the embargo.
The documents related to this abuse will be available within the next few hours on their website, and a link will be posted on the Raw Story front page.
It should be noted that the abuse reported here came after the scandal at Abu Ghraib.
All told, the documents number more than a thousand pages.
U.S. Soldiers Posed in Photos of Mock Executions of Detainees; More Cases of Abuse Revealed in Newly Released Documents
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASEFebruary 18, 2005, 12:01 AM
NEW YORK–The American Civil Liberties Union today released files obtained from the Army revealing previously undisclosed allegations of abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the documents are reports that a detainee who was beaten and seriously injured was forced to drop his claims in order to be released from custody.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=95
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Democrats still struggling to unite on Iraq
WASHINGTON - All during the 2004 presidential campaign, Democrats tried to find their voice on the war in Iraq (news - web sites) without much success. But even with President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election and Iraq's recent vote now over, the nation's opposition party still can't unite behind a single stance.
Some Democrats, led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, have called for a quick reduction of troops in Iraq and a near-total withdrawal within a year. Others, such as Rep. Ike Skelton (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, are pressing Bush to spell out an exit strategy. Still others, such as vanquished Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), are seeking to beef up the military, saying that the war against terrorism isn't going away.
"In the long haul," Kerry said in an interview, "we are living in a dangerous world and I think we need to be prepared to manage this in a more effective way."
Nothing better illustrates the party's mixed message on the war than its current leadership. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, has been a staunch war critic from the start. Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), the new Senate Democratic leader from Nevada, supported the war. The new Democratic Party chairman, Howard Dean (news - web sites), rose to national prominence as the anti-war presidential candidate, but last week, as he accepted his new post, the only policy question he ducked was one on Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&u=/krwashbureau/20050217/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_usiraq_democrats_wa&printer=1
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Top Army recruiter: Draft wouldn't help
LOUISVILLE, Ky. --A military draft would not improve the quality of soldier over the current all-volunteer force, the head of Army recruiting said Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, said volunteer soldiers want to be a part of the military, making them "as wonderful a soldier as one can imagine."
"I think what we have today far surpasses a draft," he told a Rotary Club audience.
Rochelle, 54, oversees 7,000 Army recruiters worldwide and has a $250 million advertising budget with a goal of bringing in 80,000 new soldiers this year. It's a daunting task, he said.
A good economy and a falling unemployment rate mean fewer people are looking for jobs. "Recruiting is a challenge in the best of times," he said. "We're competing with industry."
Nevertheless, the Army expects to meet its recruiting goals for 2005, he said, noting the targeted recruiting age range -- those between 17 and 24 -- are "joiners" willing to serve
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/17/top_army_recruiter_draft_wouldnt_help?mode=PF
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Ari Fleischer Tells E&P He Spoke to Gannon/Guckert's Boss
NEW YORK Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was so concerned about Talon News reporter James Guckert's potential ties to the Republican Party that he stopped calling on him at press briefings for about a week in 2003, Fleischer told E&P today."I found out that he worked for a GOP site, and I didn't think it was my place to call on him because he worked for something that was related to the party," Fleischer said in a phone interview. "He had the editor call me and made the case that they were not related to the Republican Party. He said they used the GOP name for marketing purposes only."He said he resumed calling on Guckert, who used the alias Jeff Gannon, after Bobby Eberle, owner of both GOPUSA and Talon News, "assured me that they were not part of the Republican Party." Eberle is a Texas Republican activist and served as a delegate to the 2000 Republican National Convention. Fleischer has not previously commented on the Gannon/Guckert affair. "I don't think that party organizations should have people in that room acting as reporters," Fleischer said, explaining his initial concerns. "They are advocates, not reporters, and a line should be drawn." But, after speaking with Eberle and looking at Talon News, he was convinced that GOPUSA.com and Talon News were not official party sites."It looked like a conservative news organization," Fleischer said. "If I thought that they were part of the party, I would not have [resumed] calling on them."Fleischer served as Bush press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003. Guckert, who has become a center of controversy after it was learned he had used an alias at the White House and had ties to several male escort sites, resigned his Talon News post last week.
http://199.249.170.220/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000807754
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posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 8:17 AM
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