Pre-debate, the TIME Poll found women split evenly, 44% Kerry, 43% Bush.

Females now support Kerry over Bush by 12 points, 50%-38%...Bush is now up 16 points among males, 51% Bush, 35% Kerry.

R.D. writes: Dr. Mankiw, your thoughts on today's job figures? Is the economy truly expanding and growing as the President claims it is? The job numbers still seem a bit weak, why? Thanks a lot

Greg Mankiw: Hi R.D. - Today's jobs figures confirm that the economy is continuing to grow and add jobs .... Yes, the economy is certainly expanding and growing. Over the past year, GDP has grown at a 4.8 percent annual rate, one of the fastest rates in nearly twenty years. Private forecasters see continued solid growth in the remainder of 2004 and in 2005."

The United States economy added 96,000 jobs in September ... a weaker total than expected and a development that Senator John Kerry will surely try to exploit when he debates President Bush on domestic policy tonight. The figures showed that the employment rate held steady in September at 5.4 percent, with 8 million people unemployed, but the increase in jobs fell short of Wall Street's expectations of 148,000 ..."

"Anyone who declares a winner in this debate is a predictable partisan. They both did beautiful."

"... we're four days away from a democratic election, the first one in history in Afghanistan. We've got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them women. ... We've made enormous progress in Afghanistan, in exactly the right direction ..."

Dick Cheney, vice-presidential debate, 10-5-04

"I'm Laura Bush, and I'm delivering this week's radio address to kick off a world-wide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the al-Qaida terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan ... That regime is now in retreat across much of the country, and the people of Afghanistan -- especially women -- are rejoicing."

First Lady Laura Bush, weekly radio address, 11-17-01

I had an inspiration about where Osama bin Laden might be hiding. But when I visited the women's detention center in Kabul, there was no sign of him.

I did meet Ellaha, a bold 19-year-old prisoner who startled me by greeting me in English. ... She had been attending college as a refugee in Iran when her family pulled her out, alarmed that education might corrupt a young lady's morals.

Her family returned to Afghanistan, and she found work in a U.S. construction company, where her bosses were so impressed that they began arranging a scholarship for her to go to Canada to study. That horrified her family because the patriarchs had decided that she would marry her cousin.

... "When it was almost time for me to go to Canada, and I was asking about flights," she added, "they tied me up and locked me in a room. It was in my uncle's house. My father said, 'O.K., beat her.' I'd never been beaten like that in all my life. My uncle and cousins were all beating me. ... They broke my head, and I was bleeding."

Ms. Ellaha's younger sister, who had been pledged to another cousin, was facing the same treatment. After a week of being tied up, the two sisters agreed to marry their cousins.

... The two sisters [escaped by moving] into a cheap guesthouse as they prepared to flee Afghanistan. But their family learned where they were hiding, and the police came to arrest them. On what charge?

"It's because their lives were in danger," said Rana, the head of the detention center. Ms. Ellaha agrees that her family was pretty close to killing her. The sister is apparently back home, but I was not allowed to interview her.

... The entire jail is a kaleidoscope of woe. It's been two years since President Bush declared that in Afghanistan, "Today, women are free." But that's news to the inmates.

... Inequality is so deeply embedded in this society that there are no easy solutions. In a new opinion poll in Afghanistan, 87 percent of those surveyed said women needed to ask their husbands' permission to vote. There was little difference in the answers of men and women.

The best route to change is new schools, new clinics and more economic opportunity -- and those steps are just what the lack of security is blocking in much of southern Afghanistan ... Mr. Bush urgently needs to bolster security in rural areas in the south, so reconstruction projects can go ahead there. The liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban was crucial, but only a first step.

"The international community should be supporting Africa's own solutions to its problems, as we are in Sudan."

AMSTERDAM — A top justice official was left red-faced on Thursday after it emerged he had put his computer out with the trash. A taxi driver found the PC, got it working and accessed "extremely sensitive" information about criminal investigations in Amsterdam.

[snip]

The taxi driver took the computer to television crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who is going to feature the unusual find on his television programme on SBS 6 at 8.30pm on Thursday.

[snip]

The OM [prosecutor's office] tried to dampen the news by claiming the information on the laptop was at least 18 months old. But a spokesperson admitted the incident was "very stupid."

Nixon +16%
Carter +26%
Reagan +39%
Bush I +67%
Clinton +82%
Bush II -16%

Among 944 likely voters, the Kerry-Edwards ticket led Bush-Cheney 50 percent to 46 percent. The Oct. 4-6 survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Eric Schlichting, a suburban Chicago inventory manager who tends to vote Republican, said Iraq is troubling him.

"Up until the last 18 months, I was leaning toward Bush, but the more that happens the worse it gets," Schlichting said. "He sticks to his guns, but his aim is so far off that sticking to his guns is not paying off."

We note that your response to the Committee’s decision of last week included the statement, "During my entire career I have worked to advance my party’s legislative agenda." Your actions that are addressed in this letter, as well as those addressed in the Committee’s decision of last week and in prior Committee actions, are all ones that, in a broad sense, were directed to the advancement of your legislative agenda. Those actions are also ones that your peers who sit on this Committee determined, after careful consideration, went beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct.

As you are aware, it does not suffice for any House Member to assert that his or her actions violated no law, or violated no specific prohibition or requirement of the House Rules. The House Code of Official Conduct broadly requires that every House Member, officer and employee "conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House." It is particularly important that members of the House leadership, who are the most publicly visible Members, adhere to this requirement scrupulously. The fact that a violation results from the overaggressive pursuit of one’s legislative agenda simply does not constitute a mitigating factor.

Debbie Dammann, from nearby Loves Park, was in heaven. She said Keyes was striding down the same path as President Bush.

"They stand for Christian leadership and putting down the disgusting rights of queers. It's going to be a great day when they shoot that down," Dammann said.

Without any public explanation, President George W. Bush last week increased the estimate of Al Qaeda leaders who have been killed or captured after receiving a revised U.S. intelligence analysis delivered the day before his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, NEWSWEEK has learned.

In his nationally televised speech to the convention last Thursday night, Bush for the first time claimed that “more than three quarters of Al Qaeda’s key members and associates have been detained or killed.”

For the past year, the president and senior administration officials have repeatedly used a lower figure to measure the U.S. government’s progress in the war on terror. Bush in his State of the Union speech last January asserted that “nearly two thirds” of Al Qaeda’s “known leaders” had been captured or killed.

[edit]

White House and U.S. intelligence officials declined to provide any back-up data for how they developed the new number—or even to explain the methodology that was used, which they said was classified. The absence of any explanation, as well as the timing, prompted some counterterrorism experts to deride the figure as “meaningless” and predict the revision could fuel allegations that the administration is massaging terrorism data for political purposes.

If the intelligence community knows anything, it ought to know the number of al-Qaeda leaders it knows about.

The New York Times: "U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's"

The Washington Post: "U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons"

The Wall Street Journal: "Report Disputes U.S. Assertions On Iraqi Weapons"

The LA Times: "Iraq's Illicit Weapons Gone Since Early '90s, CIA Says"

The Chicago Tribune: "Report on Iraq arms undercuts president"

The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Inspector: Iraq had no stockpiles"

The USA Today: "Final report: Iraq had no WMDs"

The Boston Globe: "Probe finds no illicit Iraq arms"

The Miami Herald: "Inspector: No proof Iraq had weapons"

The Dallas Morning News: "Report: Iraq's WMDs gone by '96"

The Washington Times: "Saddam worked secretly on WMDs"

The House ethics committee rebuked Majority Leader Tom DeLay for the second time in a week for questionable conduct, sternly warning the Texas Republican to temper his behavior.

The committee late Wednesday admonished DeLay for creating an appearance of giving donors special access on pending energy legislation and using the Federal Aviation Administration to intervene in a Texas political dispute.

[edit]

The panel told DeLay that he created an appearance of favoritism when he mingled at a 2003 golf outing with executives of Westar Energy of Kansas.

[edit]

DeLay also raised "serious concerns'' by contacting the Federal Aviation Administration in 2003 to chase down a Texas Democrat's private plane. State Democratic legislators were fleeing Texas to prevent Republican state lawmakers from passing a DeLay-engineered redistricting plan.

Every time she walks down the dirt path that snakes toward the woods, Zenab Abdallah's heart races with fear. In August, she was gang-raped by pro-government Arab militias in her village of Yassin.

One scheduling update, on Wednesday, the President -- we announced that he was going to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. That event was scheduled for a focus on medical liability with President Bush. That has been postponed, but we will still be going to Wilkes-Barre. The President will give a significant speech on our nation's two highest priorities: the war on terrorism and the economy. The President will talk about the clear choices and real differences facing the American people on these big issues.

My opponent and I have a very different view on how to grow our economy. Let me start with taxes. I have a record of reducing them; he has a record of raising them.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: He voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes 98 times.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: That's a lot. (Laughter.) He voted for higher taxes on Social Security benefits.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: In 1997, he voted for the formula that helped cause the increase in Medicare premiums.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

People on the Hill had been talking about how House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is looking different these days. Something about his eyes.

Turns out he has had plastic surgery to touch them up a bit. The Hammer has "joined the nip-and-tuck club," Roll Call reports, and everyone says he looks great.

"I had my eyes checked by my ophthalmologist," he told the paper's "Heard on the Hill" column. His upper lids had become so heavy, as apparently they are prone to do with age, that they were "blocking my vision."

"It’s important to look at all of our developments in Iraq within the broader context of the global war on terror. And after 9/11, it became clear that we had to do several things ... we had to go after the terrorists wherever we might find them, that we also had to go after state sponsors of terror, those who might provide sanctuary or safe harbor for terror.

"... The concern about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been for years listed [as a] state sponsor of terror, that he had established relationships with Abu Nadil, who operated out of Baghdad ... and he had established relationship with Al Qaeda ..."

"The senator’s got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11."

"In making the case for war against Iraq, Vice President Cheney has continued to suggest that an Iraqi intelligence agent met with a Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker five months before the attacks, even as the story was falling apart under scrutiny by the FBI, CIA and the foreign government that first made the allegation."

The Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2003

"the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

President Bush, in biting criticism of his Democratic challenger, said Wednesday that Sen. John Kerry has "a strategy of defeat" for Iraq and an economic program that would imperil America at home.

[edit]

Of Kerry, Bush said, "My opponent's endless back-and-forth on Iraq is part of a larger misunderstanding. In the war on terror, Senator Kerry is proposing policies and doctrines that would weaken America and make the world more dangerous."

The government's most definitive account of Iraq's arms programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The officials said that the 1,000-page report by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speech that Iraq had posed "a gathering threat."

You also have a situation where you talk about credibility. It's awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you voted for the war and then you declared wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. You voted for the war and then you voted against supporting the troops when they needed the equipment, the fuel, the spare parts and the ammunition and the body armor.

We will purchase ammunition for our weapons, and fuel and spare parts for airplanes and helicopters and vehicles. We will replace equipment lost or damaged in combat. We'll acquire vital new equipment, such as armored humvees and body armor and communications gear. Our service men and women are carrying out their missions with skill and honor, and they deserve the finest equipment and best weapons we can provide.

"There was no systematic improvement of people's security and no progress on ending impunity," he said. "In September, on security, ... there were still breaches of the cease-fire from both sides, attacks and counterattacks, revenge and retaliation. ... (and) the government still fails to bring the perpetrators of atrocities to justice."

A handful of the fighters interviewed under scrutiny of their field commanders and Sudanese military officers variously said they were part of civil patrols, known as mujahedeen — holy warriors — or part of the regular military.

"Kerry did not have access to the same intelligence," former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a foreign policy adviser to the Democrat, said on ABC's "This Week" program. Mr. Holbrooke said the president had the advantage of 'unique intelligence,' which he said was significant since the Congress was not made fully aware that all administration experts did not believe the tubes were intended to produce a nuclear weapon.

Spokesman Joe Lockhart made the same point on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"Let me make one correction on what the president said during the debate, and this is something that's widely known in Washington," said Mr. Lockhart. "United States senators don't have access to the same intelligence that the president does."

... I think that the fundamental corruption (and political vulnerability) of the Bush family involves money: how they and their friends acquire it.

... Halliburton is where Bush greed and Bush political hypocrisy meet felicitously for the Kerry campaign. Remember the "axis of evil" -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea? In August, French TV 5 aired a documentary exposé of corrupt Islamic religious "foundations" that really operate as for-profit cartels. Nothing shocking there, but in their reporting, the producers stumbled across a Halliburton installation of storage tanks on the Iranian island of Kish, a "free-trade zone" in the Persian Gulf.

I asked Wendy Hall, of Halliburton public relations, how such a venture squared with the U.S. embargo on Iran. She tersely replied by e-mail that "Halliburton's business in Iran is clearly permissible under U.S. law."

The Treasury Department says this is true in a hair-splitting legal sense -- the Iran operation apparently functions behind a Cayman Islands-based front called Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., which has neither employees nor building. But this surely spits on the spirit of the embargo. And it gives the lie to Bush's assertion that his war against "evil" is uncompromising.

Any use by a president of the option of a "preemptive strike" must be done "in a way...that passes the global test where...you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.

No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

Oddly, not everything that Bayefsky says about Kerry is negative. For example, at one point, she writes: "Kerry...should be commended for...his...honest...approach...to build[ing] a community of peaceful, democratic nations."

... It's good to see that members of the House and the Senate, which rejected [FMA] in July, are gradually catching up with corporate America, which has been recognizing a growing number of gays and lesbians in the workplace for more than two decades.

... the Village Voice, the nation's first alternative weekly, was also the first employer in America to offer health insurance to its employees' domestic partners in 1982. That benefit, offered by a small, progressive employer in the Northeast has ballooned into what today includes 40% of the Fortune 500 companies. It includes oil giants Shell Oil and BP, the Big Three auto makers, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Coca-Cola and so on.

Bottom-line, business decision-making explains it: Respected employees perform better and stay longer and these benefits cost very little.

Corporations have added domestic-partner benefits even though the Internal Revenue Service considers them taxable income to the employee. This means that both federal-income and payroll taxes are levied on health-insurance premiums paid to cover a domestic partner. The same is true for income tax levied in all but three states. While this doesn't raise insurmountable costs, it does place an administrative burden on companies that need to set up one payroll system for married heterosexual couples and another for partnered gay couples.

The proposed Federal Marriage Amendment could label any benefit that employers extend to same-sex couples -- from group health insurance to family leave to bereavement leave -- as unconstitutional.

... One unexpected consequence of the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts is that small businesses are actually more competitive. Now that gay partners who marry meet the definition of "spouse," smaller employers no longer have to wrangle with insurers and struggle to make benefits available to their employees that large self-insured companies have always done with ease. The result is that smaller firms are better positioned to compete for talent against larger firms that can entice gay employees with fully comparable benefits plans.

... A proposed change to the federal Constitution -- if it were to reach the states -- would cause a nationwide disruption to workplace productivity and to corporate America's efforts to build successful teams that honor and respect human diversity.

Despite widespread agreement that abusive tax shelters are costing the federal government billions of dollars a year, House Republicans are working to eliminate or dilute provisions in a new corporate tax bill aimed at cracking down on illegal shelters.

[edit]

One crucial Senate provision, for example, would greatly increase penalties on people who spin complex transactions that serve no other purpose except to avoid taxes.

Supporters of the Senate bill say it would address a glaring weakness of the system: even when a court finds that a tax deal is abusive, it rarely imposes penalties beyond making a company or a person pay back taxes.

[edit]

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides the revenue estimates on proposed tax bills, estimated that just one of the disputed provisions would raise about $15 billion over the next 10 years.

But House Republicans oppose that measure. Representative Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said two weeks ago that the provision was unnecessary and would have a chilling effect on legitimate business deals.

Senate Republican leaders are retooling a proposal to change GOP conference rules to ensure more party discipline, and will put the idea up to a vote next month.

[edit]

Several GOP centrists have expressed concern that the majority leader would use the new powers to keep them off key committees, stacking panels with party loyalists and increasing partisanship in the Senate.

"I'm against them," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who routinely bucks party leaders and votes with Democrats on prominent issues. "The status quo is fine, and we’re not the House of Representatives."

This should give Kerry a lot of momentum. Thank God the election isn't until Nov. 2.

"no question that the very large number of people who watch the debates and the fact that they learn from the debates ... makes them an extremely important piece of the general election process."

COLMES: Would you like to convert these people all to Christianity?

COULTER: The ones that we killed, yes.

COLMES: So no one should be Muslim. They should all be Christian?

COULTER: That would be a good start, yes.

COLMES: So, in other words, you wouldn't respect their religious beliefs? You would just want them all to be Christian.

COULTER: The point is, I mean, I suppose if I were a Muslim, I might say, "Oh, they are not practicing true Islam." What we must convert them to is true Islam, but the point is, a conversion must take place. They think they are practicing religion when they fly planes into our skyscrapers and kill thousands of people, and to act like this isn't a problem of religion -- whether it is true Islam or not -- is just sticking your head in the sand.

COLMES: But you're talking about a group of extremists who misuse Islam and aren't practicing true Islam. But would you like to convert all of these countries to Christianity. Should they all become Christian nations? Because that's what your...

COULTER: Yes, that would be terrific.

COLMES: ... remarks suggest.

COULTER: That would be terrific, yes.

COLMES: Really?

COULTER: Yes.

COLMES: So we should just -- they should all be Christians. You don't respect the fact that there are this many Muslims in the world, and the world would be a lot better if they were all Christians instead of Muslims?

(CROSSTALK)

COULTER: To be honest, I didn't really care, until they started flying planes into our buildings...

How closely are you following the 2004 presidential race: very closely, somewhat closely, not too closely, or not closely at all? (likely voters)

Very closely: 55%
Somewhat closely: 36%
Not too closely: 6%
Not closely at all: 3%

I'd like you to rate the chances that you will vote in the presidential election in November: Are you absolutely certain to vote, will you probably vote, are the chances 50-50, or less than that? (likely voters)

Absolutely certain to vote: 100%

"Today, still increasing numbers of the population of Darfur are exposed, without any protection from their government, to hunger, fear and violence," Annan said.

"The numbers affected by the conflict are growing and their suffering is being prolonged by inaction," he said. "In a significant proportion of the territory the security conditions have worsened."

To alleviate the current crisis in Darfur, the United States should encourage an international response that reflects the lessons learned in curbing the regime's previous repression of the south. Unless massive international pressure is mobilized to threaten what the regime values most--its ability to maintain itself in power and its vested economic interests, particularly its fledgling oil industry--then the Sudanese regime will continue to hinder humanitarian aid efforts, cover up the atrocities of its militia surrogates, and crush resistance through the deliberate starvation and expulsion of non-Arab groups.

Each day the world is confronted by new reports of atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. President Bush, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month, referred to the situation as "genocide," and he and Secretary General Kofi Annan pledged support for sanctions against the Sudanese government and a Security Council resolution to expand the African Union force on the ground there. But I am afraid that moral condemnation, trade penalties and military efforts by African countries are simply not going to be enough to stop the killing - not nearly enough.

I know, because I've seen it all happen before.

Aside from spending $248,742 buying a house and $150,225 on a golf trip to Scotland aboard a private jet, Abramoff also spent "$500 to help finance a memorial dinner two years ago in honor of the Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi," who was killed in February 2002.

A senior U.S. official in Iraq said in an interview last week that the new goal for 135,000 officers may not be reached for two more years under the best of circumstances. Officials point, among other things, to a lack of qualified personnel and appropriate training facilities.

There's 100,000 troops trained: police, guard, special units, border patrol. There's going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year.

[Pentagon] documents show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as "untrained," and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its new goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

Six Army battalions have had "initial training," while 57 National Guard battalions, 896 soldiers in each, are still being recruited or "awaiting equipment." Just eight Guard battalions have reached "initial (operating) capability," and the Pentagon acknowledged the Guard's performance has been "uneven."

Training has yet to begin for the 4,800-man civil intervention force, which will help counter a deadly insurgency. And none of the 18,000 border enforcement guards have received any centralised training to date, despite earlier claims they had, according to Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

They estimated that 22,700 Iraqi personnel have received enough basic training to make them "minimally effective at their tasks," in contrast to the 100,000 figure cited by Bush.

My opponent looked at the same intelligence I looked at and declared in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.

[edit]

The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at, the very same intelligence. And when I stood up there and spoke to the Congress, I was speaking off the same intelligence he looked at to make his decisions to support the authorization of force.

[edit]

You know, we looked at the same intelligence and came to the same conclusion: that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.

And I don't hold it against him that he said grave threat. I'm not going to go around the country saying he didn't tell the truth, when he looked at the same intelligence I did.

From April 2001 to September 2002, the agency wrote at least 15 reports on the tubes. Many were sent only to high-level policy makers, including President Bush, and did not circulate to other intelligence agencies...

Several senior C.I.A. officials insisted that those reports did describe at least in general terms the intelligence debate. "You don't go into all that detail but you do try to evince it when you write your current product," one agency official said.

But several Congressional and intelligence officials with access to the 15 assessments said not one of them informed senior policy makers of the Energy Department's dissent. They described a series of reports, some with ominous titles, that failed to convey either the existence or the substance of the intensifying debate.

[edit]

A National Intelligence Estimate is a classified document that is supposed to reflect the combined judgment of the entire intelligence community. The last such estimate had been done in 2000.

Most estimates take months to complete. But this one had to be done in days, in time for an October vote on a war resolution. There was little time for review or reflection, and no time for Jaeic, the joint committee, to reconcile deep analytical differences

[edit]

Nevertheless, the estimate's authors seized on the Energy Department's position to avoid the entire tubes debate, with written dissents relegated to a 10-page annex. The estimate would instead emphasize that the C.I.A. and the Energy Department both agreed that Mr. Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. Only the closest reader would see that each agency was basing its assessment in large measure on evidence the other considered suspect.

On Oct. 2, nine days before the Senate vote on the war resolution, the new National Intelligence Estimate was delivered to the Intelligence Committee. The most significant change from past estimates dealt with nuclear weapons; the new one agreed with Mr. Cheney that Iraq was in aggressive pursuit of the atomic bomb.

[edit]

According to the committee, the passages on the tubes, which adopted much of the C.I.A. analysis, were misleading and riddled with factual errors.

The Army is getting a grudging response — or none at all — from hundreds of former soldiers it ordered back into uniform for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, although none has been declared AWOL.

Army officials said Friday that 622 people, about one-third of the 1,765 Individual Ready Reserve members who were supposed to report for duty by Sept. 28, failed to show up. Some requested more time. Others wanted to be excused entirely. Some have not responded at all.

From Abramoff to Scanlon, Dec. 17, 2001, 3:51 p.m.

Just spoke with Chris (Petras, a former employee of the Saginaw Chippewa tribe) ... Chris said they are voting on the project today!! Can you smell money?!?!?!


From Scanlon to Abramoff, Dec. 17, 2001, 4:11 p.m.

Did we win it (the project)?


From Abramoff to Scanlon, Dec. 17, 2001, 4:56 p.m.

The f'ing troglodytes didn't vote on you today. Dammit.


From Scanlon to Abramoff, Dec. 17, 2001, 7:16 p.m.

What's a troglodyte?


From Abramoff to Scanlon, Dec. 18, 2001, 7:12 a.m.

What am I a dictionary? :) it's a lower form of existence basically.

RICE: But George, the tubes were alongside a lot of other evidence about experts being kept together, about balancing equipment being brought in, about how these procurement efforts were being funded.

When you're a policy-maker, you're sitting there looking at assessments that say that Saddam Hussein is reconstituting his nuclear weapons program. That's the key judgment. Secondly, that he can have a nuclear weapon likely by the end of the decade if something is not done about his program.

Those are assessments that cannot be ignored...

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's not precisely what I'm asking. Do you accept today that these tubes were likely for rockets, not nuclear weapons?

RICE: George, as I understand it, people are still debating this. And I'm sure they will continue to debate it.

If the world wants to stop this continued genocide, Washington and the United Nations need to squeeze Sudan much harder. The nice-guy approach is clearly not working.

THE WORLD has finally awakened to the horrors of genocidal destruction in the Darfur region of western Sudan, but an effective response is nowhere in sight.

[edit]

By default, international response has taken the form of increasing humanitarian assistance and supporting the deployment of an expanded African Union force with a robust mandate of civilian protection. Both efforts are failing. Despite heroic efforts by some humanitarian organizations, there is far too little aid on the ground, and it has arrived not simply too late, but in the midst of the region's paralyzing rainy season.

American warnings that Darfur is heading for an apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe have been widely exaggerated by administration officials, it is alleged by international aid workers in Sudan. Washington's desire for a regime change in Khartoum has biased their reports, it is claimed.

[edit]

Concern about USAID's role as an honest broker in Darfur have been mounting for months, with diplomats as well as aid workers puzzled over its pronouncements and one European diplomat accusing it of 'plucking figures from the air'.

Under the Bush administration, the work of USAID has become increasingly politicised. But over Sudan, in particular, two of its most senior officials have long held strong personal views. Both Natsios, a former vice-president of the Christian charity World Vision, and Winter have long been hostile to the Sudanese government.