Capitalism is the greatest system that people have ever invented, because it takes advantage of bad traits, as well as our good traits, and turns them into productivity.

But the essence of capitalism, which the right-wing never understands -- it always baffles me -- is, you got to have some rules. Imagine a hockey game with no rules.

If President Bush carries the same states in 2004 that he won in 2000, he will win seven more electoral votes.

That change, a result of a population shift to Republican-friendly states in the South and West in the last several years, means the Republicans have a slight margin of error in 2004 while the Democrats will have to scramble just to pull even. . . .

The Republican electoral cushion by no means guarantees Mr. Bush a victory. After all, Mr. Gore outpolled him by nearly 550,000 votes in 2000. More important, voting patterns may not repeat themselves. And notable demographic shifts are occurring within the states.

Because of those shifts, both sides predict that 15 states may be up for grabs: Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine and Florida. . . .

It is clear the electoral change has hurt the Democrats more than Republicans. The population losses came in states that Mr. Gore won and usually vote Democratic: New York and Pennsylvania each lost two electoral votes, while Michigan, Illinois, Connecticut and Wisconsin all lost one. The one bright spot for Democrats was California, which gained a vote.

NEW YORK, Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a quiet confidant of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, says the U.S. went "off a cliff in Iraq." In the December 15 issue (on newsstands Monday, Dec. 8), Gingrich talks about the shortcomings of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, saying that "Americans can't win in Iraq. Only Iraqis can win in Iraq."

Gingrich, a member of the influential Defense Policy Board, argues that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element, report National Security Correspondent John Barry and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas. While he says he's not speaking for the board, it is rare that one of its members voices a dissenting view in public. "The Army's reaction to Vietnam was not to think about it," he says. Rather than absorb the lessons of counterinsurgency, Gingrich says, the Army adopted "a deliberate strategy of amnesia because people don't want to ever do it again." The Army rebuilt a superb fighting force for waging a conventional war. "I am very proud of what [Operation Iraqi Freedom commander Gen.] Tommy Franks did-up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then we go off a cliff."

The real key in Iraq, he says, "is not how many enemy do I kill. The real key is how many allies do I grow," he says. "And that is a very important metric that they just don't get." He contends that the civilian-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is fairly isolated and powerless, hunkered down inside its bunker in Baghdad. The military has the money and the daily contact with the locals. But it's using the same tactics in a guerrilla struggle that led to defeat in Vietnam.

Gingrich faults the Americans for not quickly establishing a legitimate Iraqi government, however imperfect. "The idea that we are going to have a corruption-free, pristine, League of Women Voters government in Iraq on Tuesday is beyond naivete," he scoffs. "It is a self-destructive fantasy."

The former speaker indicates it would be a huge mistake for American troops to leave Iraq by next November's election, a rumor that has been circulating in the Pentagon. The only "exit strategy," says Gingrich, "is victory." But not by brute American force. "We are not the enforcers. We are the reinforcers," says Gingrich. "The distinction between these two words is central to the next year in Iraq."

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — Six weeks after organizers of an international donors conference in Madrid said that more than $3 billion in grants had been pledged to help Iraq with immediate needs, a new World Bank tally verifies grants of only $685 million for 2004.

The vast gap seems to have occurred largely for two reasons: some countries, like Japan, changed the nature of their commitment after the conference from immediate aid to slower, long-term help; and some that had left their intentions unclear were incorrectly assumed to be giving immediate aid.

Many experts also say that donation pledges often do not materialize in the end, or come in the harder-to-tally form of credits for the purchase of commodities.

The grant money for immediate needs was part of a total $13 billion that organizers said was raised at the conference. . . .

The largest portion of the loans pledged in Iraq were from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But aid experts say the monetary fund loans, at least, will not be available until Iraq's debt restructuring is worked out.

On Friday, President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James A. Baker III to lead the effort to renegotiate Iraq's debt, estimated at $100 billion to $120 billion. Iraq also owes $100 billion in reparations. . . .

In the case of Japan, a promise of large upfront cash grants shifted to the possibility of spending the money over several years. "The Japanese were looking at $1.5 billion in Madrid, but now they've decided to leave it unspecified as to which year the money is coming," an administration official said.

Saudi Arabia pledged $1.5 billion in Madrid but left unclear what form it would take; it turned out that half was to be in credits to import goods from Saudi Arabia.

Some countries similarly changed plans because of growing concerns about the political stability and the security of Iraq; some say they will donate money once the trust fund is set up; some, intent on seeing a greater United Nations role in Iraq, are reluctant to make grants during the American-led occupation.

"The problem with cash is that you don't know where it's going to end up," said an official with a donor country. "Who gets to draw this money down? The only contracts awarded for Iraq so far have been awarded by the Pentagon."

Al Gore, the former vice president who narrowly lost the presidency in 2000, has decided to endorse the presidential campaign of Howard Dean, a move that Democrats said would provide a huge boost to Dr. Dean's candidacy.

Mr. Gore is expected to announce his endorsement of Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont and one of nine Democrats running for president this year, at events in Harlem and Iowa on Tuesday, according to Democrats familiar with the decision.

"This is huge," said Donna Brazile, who was Mr. Gore's campaign manager in 2000. "It gives Dean what Dean has been missing most: Stature. Gore is a major league insider, somebody with enormous credibility that Democrats respect, who can rally the grass roots, and who's been speaking very strongly in the last few months about the direction he wants to take the country in." . . .

Mr. Gore's decision, while a boost to Dr. Dean, was a devastating blow to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was Mr. Gore's running mate in 2000. "It probably wipes Lieberman out of the race," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the Democratic candidates. "It's going to clear the deck."

Former vice president Al Gore plans to endorse Howard Dean for president Tuesday, according to Democratic sources, giving the insurgent candidate the kind of establishment backing his campaign has been lacking.

Gore plans to announce his support for the former Vermont governor at a Tuesday morning rally in New York's Harlem, then fly to Iowa with Dean for what was billed in an e-mail sent to Iowa supporters Monday as an event that would "change the face of the Dean campaign." Dean will then fly to New Hampshire to participate in Tuesday night's debate with the other Democratic candidates.

Gore's decision to back a candidate who was once a dark horse in the race for the Democratic nomination represents a significant boost for Dean and a setback to all the other major candidates now trying to slow his momentum. It was an especially bitter blow to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who was Gore's vice presidential running mate in 2000.

"This is huge," said Donna Brazile, Gore's 2000 campaign manager. "This gives Dean the credibility he's been lacking, from someone from the inside of the party. This will give Dean a tremendous boost in locking down the nomination."

Establishment Democrats have been slow to join Dean's campaign, with many privately worried that he could lead the party to a significant defeat against President Bush in 2004. Gore's willingness to embrace him give Dean a counter to that concern.

"It dispels all this talk among people inside Washington that he can't win, that he's another George McGovern, that will lose the House and lose the Senate," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which endorsed Dean last month.

Re: Gore might endorse Dean (4.00 / 2)

Damn you Al Gore!

I have a 15 page paper to finish by 8 AM tomorrow! How dare you distract me with all of this happiness?! . . .

by Sauceman on Mon Dec 8th, 2003 at 22:45:48 UTC

Re: Gore might endorse Dean (none / 0)

hahaha! i feel your pain too! i have a paper due on Country of Origin Labelling of agriculture products and can't concentrate! (PS. Bush people hate these laws and want them gone)

by ihlin on Mon Dec 8th, 2003 at 22:47:44 UTC

Re: Gore might endorse Dean (none / 0)

Yeah, I've gotten so distracted my final exams are sure to suffer as well.

Must...disconnect...internet...

by kafkaesq on Mon Dec 8th, 2003 at 22:58:27 UTC

Re: Gore might endorse Dean (none / 0)

Just remember. 3 years ago at about this time, no one could study for much gloomier reasons. So at least you've got positive energy bringing you down.

by emptywheel on Mon Dec 8th, 2003 at 23:19:29 UTC

The United States will not allow companies from countries that did not support the war in Iraq to bid on $18.6 billion in prime reconstruction contracts funded by U.S. taxpayers, effectively excluding firms from Russia, Germany, France and Canada from a large portion of the biggest nation-rebuilding effort since World War II.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said it was necessary "for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States" to limit the competition. His Dec. 5 policy memo was posted yesterday on the Web site of the Project Management Office, a new Pentagon-run group overseeing the award of U.S.-funded reconstruction contracts.

U.S. officials hinted last month that they wanted to limit the competitors to U.S. allies in the war against Iraq, but said they needed to review existing trade agreements and procurement policies to see if that was possible. Some agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, already are prohibited from awarding contracts to non-U.S. firms.

Firms from the excluded countries will be allowed to compete for subcontracts on the U.S.-funded projects, though officials also are encouraging prime contractors to hire Iraqi firms as subcontractors and have said they will consider such involvement in selecting the winning bids. The policy would not apply to $13 billion in international pledges made at a donor conference in Madrid in October. Little of that money has been collected, however.

The memo lists 63 countries whose companies are eligible to compete for 26 prime reconstruction contracts that the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies plan to award by Feb. 3. That list includes Australia and Britain, major members of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, as well as others such as Azerbaijan, Palau, Rwanda and Colombia. . . .

Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, asked about the decision during a candidates' debate last night, said, "I can't think of anything dumber or more insulting or more inviting to the disdain of countries and potential failure of our policy."

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the policy a "totally gratuitous slap" that "does nothing to protect our security interests and everything to alienate countries we need with us in Iraq."

Steven L. Schooner, co-director of the government procurement law program at the George Washington University law school, said the decision also sets a bad precedent. "It's an extraordinary step when you tell your trading partners that, because of their position on a difficult policy issue, you won't do business with their firms," he said. "From a public procurement standpoint, this is."

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 — President Bush found himself in the awkward position on Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq's debts, just a day after the Pentagon said it was excluding those countries and others from $18 billion in American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects.

White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon's directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq.

Many countries excluded from the list, including close allies like Canada, reacted angrily on Wednesday to the Pentagon action. They were incensed, in part, by the Pentagon's explanation in a memorandum that the restrictions were required "for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States."

The Russian defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, when asked about the Pentagon decision, responded by ruling out any debt write-off for Iraq.

The Canadian deputy prime minister, John Manley, suggested crisply that "it would be difficult" to add to the $190 million already given for reconstruction in Iraq.

White House officials said Mr. Bush and his aides had been surprised by both the timing and the blunt wording of the Pentagon's declaration. But they said the White House had signed off on the policy, after a committee of deputies from a number of departments and the National Security Council agreed that the most lucrative contracts must be reserved for political or military supporters.

Those officials apparently did not realize that the memorandum, signed by Paul D. Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, would appear on a Defense Department Web site hours before Mr. Bush was scheduled to ask world leaders to receive James A. Baker III, the former treasury secretary and secretary of state, who is heading up the effort to wipe out Iraq's debt. Mr. Baker met with the president on Wednesday.

Several of Mr. Bush's aides said they feared that the memorandum would undercut White House efforts to repair relations with allies who had opposed the invasion of Iraq. . . .

Several of Mr. Bush's aides wondered why the administration had not simply adopted a policy of giving preference to prime contracts to members of the coalition, without barring any countries outright.

"What we did was toss away our leverage," one senior American diplomat said. "We could have put together a policy that said, `The more you help, the more contracts you may be able to gain.' " Instead, the official said, "we found a new way to alienate them."

A senior official at the State Department was asked during an internal meeting on Wednesday how he expected the move to affect the responses of Russia, France and Germany to the American request. He responded, "Go ask Jim Baker," according another senior official, who said of Mr. Baker, "He's the one who's going to be carrying the water, and he's going to be the one who finds out."

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 — The Supreme Court's decision to uphold most of last year's campaign finance law quashed any final hopes politicians and their parties had about returning to the days when unlimited contributions flowed freely into their hands.

The decision affirmed the core provisions of the largest overhaul of the campaign finance system in the last 30 years, locking in place rules that have been in effect since last November. It upheld the ban on the "soft money" that national political parties collected from corporations, labor unions and anyone wealthy enough to write a large check. And it restricted political advertising around election time.

What's left is a system in which regulated contributions known as "hard money" are the official coin of the realm for those who play in federal politics. Candidates can collect up to $2,000 per donor in each election and parties can raise $25,000 per donor each year.

Practically speaking, those who have skillfully found ways to raise such contributions in large amounts will hold the largest sword in next year's elections. At the top of the list is President Bush, who has established a vast network of business executives and other loyal Republicans and has amassed roughly $110 million so far this year. Among the Democratic candidates, Howard Dean has far surpassed his party's rivals by building an Internet-based network of contributors who have so far given more than $25 million.

The decision is toughest on the Democratic National Committee and its counterparts in the House and Senate, which have counted on soft money to make up as much as half their contributions and have had to rethink their fund-raising strategies since the law was passed.

Had the court overturned the ban, one Democratic party official said, the party had been poised to begin soliciting prospects immediately to collect soft money. Now, both parties will have to operate on a steady diet of hard money contributions, which Republicans have been far more adept at soliciting.

National Republican committees out-raised their Democratic counterparts 2 to 1 through the third quarter, campaign finance records show.

US plans to create a new Iraqi army have suffered a setback after hundreds of recruits resigned.

The army's first 700-man battalion lost 300 troops who were within weeks of being deployed, Pentagon officials say.

The battalion is the only one trained so far for what is eventually hopted to be a 40,000-strong force.

The US-led coalition in Iraq has played down the incident, saying it was just a dispute over pay and many more men were ready to join up.

However the BBC's Nick Childs at the Pentagon says the resignations will make for red faces in Washington.

James Baker sets off to negotiate Iraqi debt forgiveness with our estranged allies. And at that very moment the deputy secretary of defense releases a "Determination and Findings" on reconstruction contracts that not only excludes those allies from bidding, but does so with highly offensive language. What's going on?

Maybe I'm giving Paul Wolfowitz too much credit, but I don't think this was mere incompetence. I think the administration's hard-liners are deliberately sabotaging reconciliation. . . .

Mr. Wolfowitz's official rationale for the contract policy is astonishingly cynical: "Limiting competition for prime contracts will encourage the expansion of international cooperation in Iraq and in future efforts" — future efforts? — and "should encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members." Translation: we can bribe other nations to send troops.

But I doubt whether even Mr. Wolfowitz believes that. The last year, from the failure to get U.N. approval for the war to the retreat over the steel tariff, has been one long lesson in the limits of U.S. economic leverage. Mr. Wolfowitz knows as well as the rest of us that allies who could really provide useful help won't be swayed by a few lucrative contracts.

If the contracts don't provide useful leverage, however, why torpedo a potential reconciliation between America and its allies? Perhaps because Mr. Wolfowitz's faction doesn't want such a reconciliation.

These are tough times for the architects of the "Bush doctrine" of unilateralism and preventive war. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their fellow Project for a New American Century alumni viewed Iraq as a pilot project, one that would validate their views and clear the way for further regime changes. (Hence Mr. Wolfowitz's line about "future efforts.")

Instead, the venture has turned sour — and many insiders see Mr. Baker's mission as part of an effort by veterans of the first Bush administration to extricate George W. Bush from the hard-liners' clutches. If the mission collapses amid acrimony over contracts, that's a good thing from the hard-liners' point of view. . . .

In short, this week's diplomatic debacle probably reflects an internal power struggle, with hawks using the contracts issue as a way to prevent Republican grown-ups from regaining control of U.S. foreign policy. And initial indications are that the ploy is working — that the hawks have, once again, managed to tap into Mr. Bush's fondness for moralistic, good-versus-evil formulations. "It's very simple," Mr. Bush said yesterday. "Our people risk their lives. . . . Friendly coalition folks risk their lives. . . . The contracting is going to reflect that."

In the end the Bush doctrine — based on delusions of grandeur about America's ability to dominate the world through force — will collapse. What we've just learned is how hard and dirty the doctrine's proponents will fight against the inevitable.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 — A Pentagon investigation has found evidence that a subsidiary of the politically connected Halliburton Company overcharged the government by as much as $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq under huge no-bid reconstruction contracts, senior military officials said Thursday.

The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services that seemed to be inflated by $67 million, the officials said. The Pentagon rejected that proposal, they said.

The problems involving Halliburton, where Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive, were described in a preliminary report by auditors, the officials said. The Pentagon contracts were awarded without competitive bidding and have a potential value of $15.6 billion; recent estimates by the Army have put the current value of the Halliburton contracts at about $5 billion.

Halliburton denied overcharging and called the inquiry a "routine audit." Dave Lesar, the company's chairman, president and chief executive, said in an e-mail statement, "We welcome a thorough review of any and all of our government contracts."

Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's budget chief, said, "Contractor improprieties and/or contract mischarging on department contracts will neither be condoned nor allowed to continue."

Halliburton, which had more than $12.5 billion in revenues in 2002, has emerged as a symbol for many people who opposed the war in Iraq and who claimed that the interests of such companies with close political ties were given too much consideration by the administration.

Criticism intensified when Halliburton received the no-bid contract to provide billions of dollars in services in Iraq. Administration officials counter that few companies have the resources and expertise to carry out the work needed.

Military officials said the Pentagon was negotiating with K.B.R. over how to resolve the fuel charges. But Michael Thibault, deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, said in a telephone interview that a draft report by the agency had recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers seek reimbursement.

The officials said Halliburton did not appear to have profited from overcharging for fuel, but had instead paid a subcontractor too much for the gasoline in the first place.

Halliburton has also said that one reason it needed to charge a high price for fuel was that it must be delivered in a combat zone. Several K.B.R. workers have been killed or wounded in attacks by Iraqis. . . .

The two Halliburton contracts are by far the largest awarded by the Pentagon in Iraq. Some Democrats have criticized the awarding of contracts to the Halliburton subsidiary, saying they might appear to be a political payoff to a company well connected with Republicans. . . .

The Army awarded the logistics contract to Halliburton in 2001, on a competitive basis, but its size has swelled since the Iraq war, with additional work awarded to Halliburton without competition. The second contract, for oil reconstruction projects, was formally awarded in March on a "sole source" basis, but the decision to give the project to Halliburton was made in late 2002 by senior administration officials who were part of a secret task force planning for postwar Iraq.

The only presidential candidate with a truly coherent position on President Bush's Iraq policy is President Bush. He supported it before the war started, he supports it now and he thinks or pretends to think it's working well.

Among the Democrats, Howard Dean's position is almost coherent. He opposed the war before it started, and he believes it has not turned out well. There is a tiny question of why Dean bothers to have a "seven-point plan" for Iraq instead of just one point: Bring the troops home. After all, Iraq is less of a threat to international order and its own citizens than when Saddam Hussein was in power. If it wasn't worth American lives to improve the situation then, why is it worth more lives now?

It's downhill from Dean. Joe Lieberman probably comes next. He was a strong supporter of removing Hussein by force -- a position consistent with his general worldview -- and yet was prescient in warning, before the war started, about some of the problems everyone points to now. Then come Dick Gephardt, John Edwards and John Kerry. They all supported the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war -- a position with the whiff of strategy about it, given each man's record or lack of it on such issues -- and they all are highly critical of what that resolution has wrought. Trailing the parade is Wesley Clark. His claim to fame is that he supported the use of ground troops in the Balkans. He squandered the non-officeholder's luxury of voting in hindsight on the Iraq resolution by not having his story straight. Meanwhile, he is highly critical of the war as it played out.

The slow souring of the American adventure in Iraq is a promising and legitimate issue for the Democrats. And they will benefit from it no matter what they say. But what they say about Iraq is a problem for the contenders who supported Bush's decision to go to war. Do they now think that support was a mistake?

If they say yes, supporting the war was a mistake, they are declaring that in a test case of the most important decision a president must make -- when to go to war -- they got it wrong. And if they try to explain their way out of this by talking about how the Bush administration "deceived the American people," they sound like George Romney, who was laughed out of the 1968 presidential race for saying he had been "brainwashed" into supporting the war in Vietnam.

On the other hand, if they say, "No, I don't regret my support for this war," the question naturally arises: Well, if everything you're complaining about doesn't change your mind about the war itself, why are you making such an unholy fuss? Apparently, if you had been president, we'd be in the same mess.

Like mice frustrated in a maze, the candidates seek escape routes out of this logical trap. Sometimes they say that the current mess is not the result of the decision to go to war. It is the result of Bush's inept leadership during the war and/or the postwar occupation. He should have waited longer for diplomacy to work. He should have insisted on the participation of other big countries. He should have been better prepared for the challenges of rebuilding. He should not have been blindsided by continued opposition after the official fighting stopped.

But the resolution these gentlemen supported gave warmaking authority to George W. Bush, not to some idealized, all-wise president such as themselves. The resolution did not say, "This authorization to start a war is valid only when used in conjunction with at least two other countries large enough to spot on a medium-sized world map." Nor did it tell Bush to wait until . . . until . . . until when? The resolution gave George W. Bush the authority to decide when the waiting for friends to join in or the foe to back down had gone on long enough. If Bush bungled this authority, entrusting him with it was a big mistake.

Anyway, critics of the war resolution predicted a lot of what has gone wrong. Critics also predicted a lot that never happened -- a general Middle East cataclysm, nuclear bombs over Israel, poison gas in New York, quadruple-bladed disposable razors and so on. But no one can claim to have been totally surprised by what did happen. Or at least no one can claim this and believe that saying so rescues his or her reputation for straight talk, clear thinking, foreign-policy expertise or political savvy.

Another dead-end line of argument is that the war resolution never was intended to lead to war. Goodness, no. War was the last thing anyone had in mind when voting to authorize a war. The idea was to give Bush enough leverage to work out an acceptable deal and thus avert an actual war. And then Bush ruined everything by going and having a war after all. Who'd have thunk it?

Unfortunately, a democracy cannot bluff. You cannot have a public debate and vote on whether to pretend to be willing to go to war. When it comes to warmaking, the United States is not a democracy: Like all presidents, Bush assumes (and is generally -- though incorrectly -- conceded) the right to decide for war all by himself. But a senator who votes for war must pretend, at least, that this vote matters. You can't get out of a vote you regret by saying, look, it's all a joke anyway.

A year ago, everyone was saying: Let's get practical. Only a Democrat who supports the war against Iraq will have any hope of defeating Bush. The idea was: Get Iraq off the table and make room for domestic issues. Maybe this is still the right idea. But many Democrats now want Iraq as an issue. And the only Democratic candidate who can use it effectively is the one who decided not to be practical.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 14 - Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi leader, was captured in a raid on a farm house near Tikrit on Saturday night, American military officials confirmed today.

The officials said they had used DNA tests to confirm his identity.

"We got him," American administrator L. Paul Bremer III said at a news conference here.

Coalition troops discovered Mr. Hussein hiding in a hole below the farm house, located in the town of Adwar, 10 miles from Tikrit.

Military officials said that Mr. Hussein had put up no resistance and that not one shot had been fired in the operation.

American officials hailed the discovery of Mr. Hussein as a major tactical victory in their fight to wipe out the vestiges of the old government. . . .

At a news conference today announcing Mr. Hussein's capture, American officials aired a video showing a bearded and scruffy-haired Mr. Hussein being examined by a doctor.

Mr. Hussein was in a six-to-eight-foot-deep "spider hole" that had been camouflaged with bricks and dirt, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said at the news conference. The video showed an air vent and fan installed in the hole to allow Mr. Hussein to remain hidden for an extended period.

"The captive has been talkative and is being cooperative," General Sanchez said. Coalition troops captured two other Iraqis in the raid and seized two AK-47 assault rifles, a pistol and $750,000 in $100 bills General Sanchez said.

When Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event.

When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” The local police, at the Secret Service’s behest, set up a “designated free-speech zone” on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush’s speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president’s path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, “As far as I’m concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.”

At Neel’s trial, police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine “people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views” in a so-called free speech area. Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service “come in and do a site survey, and say, ‘Here’s a place where the people can be, and we’d like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.’” Pennsylvania district judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, “I believe this is America. Whatever happened to ‘I don’t agree with you, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it’?” . . .

The Justice Department is now prosecuting Brett Bursey, who was arrested for holding a “No War for Oil” sign at a Bush visit to Columbia, S.C. Local police, acting under Secret Service orders, established a “free speech zone” half a mile from where Bush would speak. Bursey was standing amid hundreds of people carrying signs praising the president. Police told Bursey to remove himself to the “free speech zone.”

Bursey refused and was arrested. Bursey said that he asked the policeman if “it was the content of my sign, and he said, ‘Yes, sir, it’s the content of your sign that’s the problem.’” Bursey stated that he had already moved 200 yards from where Bush was supposed to speak. Bursey later complained, “The problem was, the restricted area kept moving. It was wherever I happened to be standing.”

Bursey was charged with trespassing. Five months later, the charge was dropped because South Carolina law prohibits arresting people for trespassing on public property. But the Justice Department—in the person of U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr.—quickly jumped in, charging Bursey with violating a rarely enforced federal law regarding “entering a restricted area around the President of the United States.” If convicted, Bursey faces a six-month trip up the river and a $5000 fine. Federal magistrate Bristow Marchant denied Bursey’s request for a jury trial because his violation is categorized as a “petty offense.” Some observers believe that the feds are seeking to set a precedent in a conservative state such as South Carolina that could then be used against protesters nationwide. . . .

The feds have offered some bizarre rationales for hog-tying protesters. Secret Service agent Brian Marr explained to National Public Radio, “These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or non-support that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way.” Except for having their constitutional rights shredded.

Marr’s comments are a mockery of this country’s rich heritage of vigorous protests. Somehow, all of a sudden, after George W. Bush became president people became so stupid that federal agents had to cage them to prevent them from walking out in front of speeding vehicles.

The ACLU, along with several other organizations, is suing the Secret Service for what it charges is a pattern-and-practice of suppressing protesters at Bush events in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and elsewhere. The ACLU’s Witold Walczak said of the protesters, “The individuals we are talking about didn’t pose a security threat; they posed a political threat.”

The Secret Service is duty-bound to protect the president. But it is ludicrous to presume that would-be terrorists are lunkheaded enough to carry anti-Bush signs when carrying pro-Bush signs would give them much closer access. And even a policy of removing all people carrying signs—as has happened in some demonstrations—is pointless, since potential attackers would simply avoid carrying signs. Presuming that terrorists are as unimaginative and predictable as the average federal bureaucrat is not a recipe for presidential longevity. . . .

Attempts to suppress protesters become more disturbing in light of the Homeland Security Department’s recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists. In a May 2003 terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who “expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.” If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of “suspected terrorists.” . . .

One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the port of Oakland, injuring a number of people. When the police attack sparked a geyser of media criticism, Mike van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center told the Oakland Tribune, “You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that’s being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.” Van Winkle justified classifying protesters like terrorists: “I’ve heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact, and shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn’t just bombs going off and killing people.” . . .

Is the administration seeking to stifle domestic criticism? Absolutely. Is it carrying out a war on dissent? Probably not—yet. But the trend lines in federal attacks on freedom of speech should raise grave concerns to anyone worried about the First Amendment or about how a future liberal Democratic president such as Hillary Clinton might exploit the precedents that Bush is setting.

Well, here I am! working off my 86th Year

I'm on overtime. I occasionally walk into the wall. All too often I don't know "where was I." I'm getting so thin that I have only one side. I gave up driving the car, I have and use a walking stick, My dog is old, more than somewhat, and I have pinned a name tag on the lady of this house. The same lady that sat me down in front of this machine from hell, and said "Now G.C, write all your friends a nice cheerful Christmas letter.

She should have known better. Well, let's give it a whirl.

We are a nation at war, this Christmas. And who are the soldiers? ------- 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 year old kids who joined the army to get off the street and learn a trade or money to pay for an education ------ or 35 year olds trying to earn a few extra bucks to make the house payment and put shoes on the kids. No one else would think of volunteering to be shot at for God and Country and the Oil cartels for less than a living wage, which is what they earn, --- or even for twice a living wage.

There are two kinds of patriots in this country. Those who have loved ones in Iraq and those who are going no place but believe that we can not afford to lose this war. All that is required to solve this problem is to reinstitute the draft and double the size of the army. Ask those who have the most ot gain in victory to share the cost in deaths amputations and wounds. And you will redefine Patriotism ---- And a way to end this madness will be found immediately.

Not a nice Christmas letter --- I guess I've been around too long. How many children or grandchildren of the 535 members of congress are serving in this war??? --------- and the pig got up and slowly walked away.

Give my love to Mable

GC

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military announced yesterday that Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, was allocated $222 million more last week for work in Iraq, at the same time as a Pentagon audit found the firm may have overbilled it $61 million for gasoline used in Iraq.

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root has now clocked up $2.26 billion under its March no-bid contract with the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild Iraq's oil sector.

Corps of Engineers spokesman Bob Faletti said a new task order was made for KBR last week for the "restoration of essential infrastructure." He said this work order would be paid for by money from the Development Fund for Iraq and not from $18.6 billion in new funds Congress appropriated to rebuild Iraq. The fund is supported by the sale of Iraqi crude oil and is designated only for rebuilding that country.

Faletti said Congress had specified that new funding for Iraq should not be used for contracts that were not competitively bid, such as the deal with KBR.

For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.

"This is a very, very important part of history and we've got to tell it right," said Thomas Kean.

"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he said. "This was not something that had to happen."

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.

"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said. . . .

Kean promises major revelations in public testimony beginning next month from top officials in the FBI, CIA, Defense Department, National Security Agency and, maybe, President Bush and former President Clinton.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials.

It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities scattered throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government arrested by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the war in Iraq.

Many of the prisoners are still being held in a network of detention centers ranging from Afghanistan to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Officials described it as a prison system with its own unique hierarchy, one in which the most important captives are kept at the greatest distance from the prying eyes of the public and the media. It is a system in which the jailers have refined the arts of interrogation in order to drain the detainees of crucial information. . . .

The C.I.A. has quietly established its own detention system to handle especially important prisoners. The most important Qaeda leaders are held in small groups in undisclosed locations in friendly countries in the developing world, where they face long interrogations with no promise of ever gaining release. For example, at least two of the top Qaeda figures captured since the Sept. 11 attacks — Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh — were held for a time in a secure location in Thailand. They were later moved to another country, officials said.

C.I.A. officials refuse to say precisely how many Qaeda operatives the agency has in detention, but they say about 75 percent of the top two dozen Qaeda leaders in place at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks have been killed or captured. That suggests the agency's detention capacity is far smaller than the large system established by the Pentagon. . . .

American military officials said Wednesday that 38 of the 55 most wanted Iraqi leaders had either been killed or captured, and several hundred lower-level government officials and Baath Party operatives are also being held. While the most senior officials captured are being held at the Baghdad Airport, many of the lower-level Iraqis are now in Abu Gharib prison west of Baghdad, which was infamous as a torture den under Mr. Hussein's rule but has since been refurbished by American forces. Smaller, regional facilities have also been set up around Iraq temporarily to handle Iraqis caught up in street-level military operations intended to stem the insurgency.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the United States military is running a large detention center at Bagram Air Base, where Taliban, Qaeda and other foreign fighters caught in the country are held and questioned. Smaller, short-term detention centers have also been run in both Kandahar and Kabul.

Many of those caught in Afghanistan were eventually flown to Guantánamo, which has become the best-known prison in the global campaign against terror. Guantánamo now holds about 660 prisoners, although that number is expected to decline as some of them are turned over to their home countries.

Still, Guantánamo's inmates are among the least significant of any detainees captured since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to several American counterterrorism experts. The C.I.A. has not sent any of the highest-ranking Qaeda leaders it has captured to the base, officials said.

A final category of detainees are those Qaeda operatives who really are being held by Arab countries, like Egypt, which then provide debriefing reports to the United States.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.

Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in favor of using military force.

Nelson said he couldn't reveal who in the administration gave the briefing.

The White House directed questions about the matter to the Department of Defense. Defense officials had no comment on Nelson's claim.

Nelson said the senators were told Iraq had both biological and chemical weapons, notably anthrax, and it could deliver them to cities along the Eastern seaboard via unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones.

"They have not found anything that resembles an UAV that has that capability," Nelson said.

Nelson delivered the news during a half-hour conference call with reporters Monday afternoon. The senator, who is on a seven-nation trade mission to South America, was calling from an airport in Santiago, Chile.

"That's news," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington, D.C.-area military and intelligence think tank. "I had not heard that that was the assessment of the intelligence community. I had not heard that the Congress had been briefed on this." . . .

Nelson wouldn't say what the original source of the intelligence was, but said it contradicted other intelligence reports senators had received. He said he wants to find out why there was so much disagreement about the weapons. "If that is an intelligence failure . . . we better find that out so we don't have an intelligence failure in the future."

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — In the debate over the necessity for the war in Iraq, few issues have been more contentious than whether Saddam Hussein possessed arsenals of banned weapons, as the Bush administration repeatedly said, or instead was pursuing weapons programs that might one day constitute a threat.

On Tuesday, with Mr. Hussein in American custody and polls showing support for the White House's Iraq policy rebounding, Mr. Bush suggested that he no longer saw much distinction between the possibilities.

"So what's the difference?" he responded at one point as he was pressed on the topic during an interview by Diane Sawyer of ABC News.

To critics of the war, there is a big difference. They say that the administration's statements that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons that it could use on the battlefield or turn over to terrorists added an urgency to the case for immediate military action that would have been lacking if Mr. Hussein were portrayed as just developing the banned weapons.

"This was a pre-emptive war, and the rationale was that there was an imminent threat," said Senator Bob Graham of Florida, a Democrat who has said that by elevating Iraq to the most dangerous menace facing the United States, the administration unwisely diverted resources from fighting Al Qaeda and other terrorists.

The overwhelming vote in Congress last year to authorize the use of force against Iraq would have been closer "but for the fact that the president had so explicitly said that there were weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to citizens of the United States," Mr. Graham said in an interview on Wednesday. . . .

This week, at a news conference on Monday and in the ABC interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bush's answers to questions on the subject continued a gradual shift in the way he has addressed the topic, from the immediacy of the threat to an assertion that no matter what, the world is better off without Mr. Hussein in power.

Where once Mr. Bush and his top officials asserted unambiguously that Mr. Hussein had the weapons at the ready, their statements now are often far more couched, reflecting the fact that no weapons have been found — "yet," as Mr. Bush was quick to interject during the interview.

In the interview, Mr. Bush said removing Mr. Hussein from power was justified even without the recovery of any banned weapons. As he has since his own weapons inspector, David Kay, issued an interim report in October saying he had uncovered extensive evidence of weapons programs in Iraq but no actual weapons, Mr. Bush said the existence of such programs, by violating United Nations Security Council resolutions, provided ample grounds for the war. . . .

When it came to describing the weapons program, Mr. Bush never hedged before the war. "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?" Mr. Bush asked during a speech in Cincinnati in October 2002.

In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad in April, the White House was equally explicit. "One of the reasons we went to war was because of their possession of weapons of mass destruction," Ari Fleischer, then the White House spokesman, told reporters on May 7. "And nothing has changed on that front at all."

On Wednesday Mr. McClellan, when pressed, only restated the president's belief that weapons would eventually be found. Mr. Bush, despite being asked repeatedly about the issue in different ways by Ms. Sawyer, never did say it, except to note Mr. Hussein's past use of chemical weapons. He emphasized Mr. Hussein's capture instead.

"And if he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction?" Ms. Sawyer asked the president, according to a transcript provided by ABC.

"Diane, you can keep asking the question," Mr. Bush replied. "I'm telling you — I made the right decision for America because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. But the fact that he is not there is, means America's a more secure country."

David Kay, the head of the U.S. effort to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has told administration officials he plans to leave before the Iraq Survey Group's work is completed and could depart before February, U.S. military and intelligence officials said.

The move comes as more of Kay's staff has been diverted from the weapons hunt to help search for Iraqi insurgents, and at a time when expectations remain low that any weaponry will be discovered. . . .

U.S. government officials said Kay's departure will have little practical impact on the day-to-day work of 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group. More worrisome for the administration is that his departure may foster an impression -- incorrect in their view -- that the search is effectively over. His departure leaves the administration looking for a replacement at a time when it is dogged by questions about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

In an interview Tuesday night with President Bush, ABC correspondent Diane Sawyer asked why the administration stated as a "hard fact" that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had such weapons when it appears now he only had the intent to acquire them.

"So what's the difference?" Bush responded. "The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger."

In recent weeks the U.S. search for weapons has been hampered by the insurgency in Iraq. The threat of attack has impeded the ISG's ability to move around easily. "You can't go where you want to go when you want to go," one senior administration official said.

The insurgency has forced the Pentagon to divert personnel from Kay's team to help commanders identify and question insurgents.

"They took away a lot of his folks, some critical people, the linguists and analysts," Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in an interview yesterday from Israel.

In mid-October, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld agreed to a request by Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, to make more ISG resources available to the hunt for insurgents, according to a defense official who has seen the order Rumsfeld signed. . . .

Harman said that Kay's departure would be "a big loss" because he has been "apolitical and thorough." But, she added, "I don't think it will set back the effort a lot; I'm not personally convinced there's anything there."