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CORRUPTION UPDATES 96 July 28, 2007: Draft Edition The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story. |
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FBI director contradicts Gonzales on wiretaps
Friday, July 27, 2007
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/27/MNG6FR7VK01.DTL
(07-27) 04:00 PDT Washington -- FBI Director Robert Mueller contradicted the sworn testimony of his boss, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on Thursday by telling Congress that a prominent warrantless surveillance program was the subject of a dramatic legal debate within the Bush administration.
Mueller's testimony appears to mark the first public confirmation from a Bush administration official that the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program was at issue in an unusual nighttime visit by Gonzales to the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was under sedation and recovering from surgery.
Mueller's remarks to the House Judiciary Committee about the contentious meeting differed from testimony earlier in the week from Gonzales, who told a Senate panel that a legal disagreement aired at the hospital did not concern the National Security Agency program. Details of the program, kept secret for four years, were confirmed by President Bush in December 2005, provoking widespread controversy on Capitol Hill.
"The discussion was on a national -- an NSA program that has been much discussed, yes," Mueller said in response to a question from Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas.
Mueller told another lawmaker that he had serious reservations about the warrantless wiretaps.
His testimony presents a new problem for Gonzales, whose credibility has come under attack from Democrats and some Republicans who say the beleaguered attorney general deceived them on myriad topics, ranging from the National Security Agency program to events surrounding the firings last year of nine U.S. attorneys.
Complicating the administration's predicament, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., issued subpoenas Thursday to White House adviser Karl Rove and one of his deputies, Scott Jennings, demanding their testimony by Thursday as part of the panel's long-running investigation into the U.S. attorney firings and the alleged politicization of Justice Department career personnel jobs.
Gonzales is under fire in particular for testimony in February 2006 that there had been "no serious disagreement" about the wiretapping program. Since then, Gonzales and his aides have said he was referring only to the monitoring of international communications that had been confirmed by Bush, and not to other, undisclosed "intelligence activities" that attracted controversy within the administration.
"The disagreement that occurred in March 2004 concerned the legal basis for intelligence activities that have not been publicly disclosed and that remain highly classified," Roehrkasse said.
But other officials, including Mueller and several Democratic lawmakers who were briefed on the National Security Agency's activities, have now said the Terrorist Surveillance Program, or a part of it, was at the heart of the dispute.
Mueller declined at the hearing to discuss Gonzales' statements on the topic. "I really can't comment on what Judge Gonzales was thinking or saying," he said. "I can tell you what I understood at the time."
Mueller's testimony is particularly striking in light of his opposition to Gonzales' view of the matter at issue during the 2004 legal dispute. Then-acting Attorney General James Comey sought Mueller's help in ensuring that an FBI security detail did not evict Comey from Ashcroft's hospital room during the joint visit by Gonzales, then White House counsel, and Andrew Card, then the White House chief of staff.
Mueller was not present during the hospital visit but testified Thursday that Ashcroft briefed him on the conversation. He repeatedly said he agreed with Comey's version of events, which included testimony that Mueller, Ashcroft, Comey and others were prepared to quit if the program went ahead without changes to render it legal.
Signaling that Democrats intend to keep pursuing the issue, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote to Mueller after Thursday's hearing requesting notes about the 2004 hospital incident. Mueller testified that he kept records because the episode was "out of the ordinary."
The request by four senators for appointment of a special prosecutor was sent to Solicitor General Paul Clement, who has taken charge of all matters relating to the U.S. attorney firings and related controversies because Gonzales and numerous other aides are recused.
Leahy also raised the possibility this week of asking Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine to open a perjury investigation of Gonzales if the attorney general declines to correct testimony that he considers inaccurate.
Noose of Lies Tightening around Gonzales' Neck
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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Saudis’ Role in Iraq Frustrates U.S. Officials
NYT, July 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/world/middleeast/27saudi.html?ref=
This article was reported by Helene Cooper, Mark Mazzetti and Jim Rutenberg, and written by Ms. Cooper.
WASHINGTON, July 26 ...Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.
One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”
Senior Bush administration officials said the American concerns would be raised next week when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates make a rare joint visit to Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
Officials in Washington have long resisted blaming Saudi Arabia for the chaos and sectarian strife in Iraq, choosing instead to pin blame on Iran and Syria. Even now, military officials rarely talk publicly about the role of Saudi fighters among the insurgents in Iraq.
In agreeing to interviews in advance of the joint trip to Saudi Arabia, the officials were nevertheless clearly intent on sending a pointed signal to a top American ally. They expressed deep frustration that more private American appeals to the Saudis had failed to produce a change in course.
The Bush administration’s frustration with the Saudi government has increased in recent months because it appears that Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to undermine the Maliki government and to pursue a different course in Iraq from what the administration has charted. Saudi Arabia has also stymied a number of other American foreign policy initiatives, including a hoped-for Saudi embrace of Israel.
Of course, the Saudi government has hardly masked its intention to prop up Sunni groups in Iraq and has for the past two years explicitly told senior Bush administration officials of the need to counterbalance the influence Iran has there. Last fall, King Abdullah warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulled its troops out of Iraq, American and Arab diplomats said.
Several officials interviewed for this article said they believed that Saudi Arabia’s direct support to Sunni tribesmen increased this year as the Saudis lost faith in the Maliki government and felt they must bolster Sunni groups in the eventuality of a widespread civil war.
Saudi Arabia months ago made a pitch to enlist other Persian Gulf countries to take a direct role in supporting Sunni tribal groups in Iraq, said one former American ambassador with close ties to officials in the Middle East. The former ambassador, Edward W. Gnehm, who has served in Kuwait and Jordan, said that during a recent trip to the region he was told that Saudi Arabia had pressed other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — which includes Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — to give financial support to Sunnis in Iraq. The Saudis made this effort last December, Mr. Gnehm said.
The closest the administration has come to public criticism was an Op-Ed page article about Iraq in The New York Times last week by Mr. Khalilzad, now the United States ambassador to the United Nations. “Several of Iraq’s neighbors — not only Syria and Iran but also some friends of the United States — are pursuing destabilizing policies,” Mr. Khalilzad wrote. Administration officials said Mr. Khalilzad was referring specifically to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia has grown increasingly concerned about the rising influence of Iran in the region.
A spokesman at the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not return telephone calls on Thursday. But one adviser to the royal family said that Saudi officials were aware of the American accusations. “As you know by now, we in Saudi Arabia have been active in having a united Arab front to, first, avoid further inter-Arab conflict, and at the same time building consensus to move toward a peace settlement between the Arabs and Israel,” he said. “How others judge our motives is their problem.”
The American officials in Iraq also say that the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and that about 40 percent of all foreign fighters are Saudi. Officials said that while most of the foreign fighters came to Iraq to become suicide bombers, others arrived as bomb makers, snipers, logisticians and financiers.
The Bush administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has deteriorated steadily since the United States invasion of Iraq, culminating in April when, bitingly, King Abdullah, during a speech before Arab heads of state in Riyadh, condemned the American invasion of Iraq as “an illegal foreign occupation.”
The administration “thinks the Saudis are no longer behaving the role of the good vassal,” said Steve Clemons, senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The Saudis, in turn, “see weakness, they see a void, and they’re going to fill the void and call their own shots.”
Bush Wars Push Saudi Arabia out of American Axis
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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11 Revolutionary Guards Die in Iran Clashes
July 11, 2007
The Associated Press
The New York Times
http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2007&m=07&d=22&a=11
TEHRAN, Iran -- An armed group killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard in clashes in the country's lawless southeast, state-run television reported Saturday.
The report said the Revolutionary Guards clashed with drug traffickers Thursday in a mountainous area near Iran's borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and killed four of them.
A Sunni Muslim militant group called Jundallah, or God's Brigade, has been active in the area and was blamed for past attacks on Iranian troops. In February, Iran hanged a member of the group who was convicted of a bombing that killed 11 guardsmen in Zahedan, the capital of southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province.
Iran, which is locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program, has in the past accused the U.S. and Britain of backing militant and ethnic opposition groups in an effort to destabilize the country. The United States and Britain have denied the accusations.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Is America Backing Suicide Bombers in Iran?
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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New Violence at Reopened Pakistan Mosque
By SADAQAT JAN
Associated Press Writer
12:12 PM PDT, July 27, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suspected suicide bomber killed 13 people at a hotel near Islamabad's Red Mosque on Friday as the government reopened the religious complex for the first time since a bloody army raid ousted Islamic militants from the site.
Hundreds of students clashed with security forces outside the mosque and occupied it for several hours before being dispersed. They denounced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and demanded the return of a pro-Taliban cleric who was detained during the siege earlier this month.
Kamal Shah, another top Interior Ministry official, said initial reports suggested it was a suicide attack targeting police. Authorities recovered human remains that led them to suspect the bombing had been carried out by a suicide attacker...
Cheema said the government had received intelligence information about a possible suicide bombing in Aabpara, the market area where the hotel is located. "There will be an inquiry for the security lapse," he said.
The bombing came soon after police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who called for hard-line cleric Abdul Aziz lead the prayers at the mosque.
The demonstrators threw stones at an armored personnel carrier and dozens of police in riot gear on a road outside the mosque. After the demonstrators disregarded calls to disperse peacefully, police fired tear gas, scattering the crowd.
"Musharraf is a dog! He is worse than a dog! He should resign!" students shouted.
Over mosque loudspeakers, protesters vowed to "take revenge for the blood of martyrs."
The students had forced a government-appointed cleric assigned to lead prayers to retreat, and a cleric from a seminary associated with the mosque eventually led the prayers.
Police later retook control of the mosque, said Zafar Iqbal, the city police chief. Some protesters resisted and about 50 people were arrested.
Friday's reopening was meant to help cool anger over the siege, which triggered a flare-up in militant attacks on security forces across Pakistan. Public skepticism still runs high over the government's accounting of how many people died in the siege, with many still claiming a large number of children and religious students were among the dead. The government says the overwhelming majority were militants.
Friday's crowd shouted support for the mosque's former deputy cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who led the siege until he was shot and killed by security forces after refusing to surrender. Ghazi was the public face of a vigilante, Islamic anti-vice campaign that had challenged the government's writ in the Pakistani capital.
"Ghazi, your blood will lead to a revolution," the protesters chanted.
In a speech at the mosque's main entrance, Liaqat Baloch, deputy leader of a coalition of hard-line religious parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, condemned Musharraf as a "killer" and declared there would be an Islamic revolution in Pakistan.
"Maulana Abdul Aziz is still the prayer leader of the mosque. The blood of martyrs will bear fruit. This struggle will reach its destination of an Islamic revolution. Musharraf is a killer of the constitution. He's a killer of male and female students. The entire world will see him hang," Baloch said.
Pakistan's Geo television showed scenes of pandemonium inside the mosque, with dozens of young men in traditional Islamic clothing and prayers caps shouting angrily and punching the air with their hands.
Officials were pushed and shoved by men in the crowd. One man picked up shoes left outside the mosque door and hurled them at news crews recording the scene.
American Dictator Provokes Widespread Resistance:
Blood Running in the Streets of Pakistan
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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Somalia: 10,000 Flee Fighting in Capital
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 24, 2007
World Briefing | Africa
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/world/africa/24briefs-somalia.html?pagewanted=print
About 10,000 people fled Mogadishu last week alone, and the exodus continues, the United Nations said. Since Ethiopian forces drove out an Islamist government in December, the city has been plagued by roadside bombs, attacks on government installations, assassination attempts and gun battles that often catch civilians in the cross-fire. About a fifth of the city’s two million residents fled in the spring. “It is really a horrible place to be,” said one resident, Said Dahir Haji Igal. “I have no option but to flee for the safety of my children.”
American Sponsored Invasion of Somalia sparks chaos
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ’48 War Catastrophe for Arabs
By ISABEL KERSHNER
NYT, July 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/world/middleeast/23mideast.html?pagewanted=print
JERUSALEM, July 22 — Israel’s Education Ministry announced Sunday that it had approved a textbook for use in the state’s Arab schools that for the first time described Israel’s 1948 war of independence as a “catastrophe” for the Arab population.
The action, addressing longstanding concerns of the country’s Arab population, immediately prompted criticism from right-wing Jewish politicians and calls for the education minister’s dismissal.
The book also reflects the Jewish version of the establishment of the state, as have previous books for the Arab curriculum, including the fact that the Arab parties rejected the 1947 United Nations partition plan for Palestine while the Jews were willing to accept it. About 700,000 Arabs who lived in what is now Israel left during 1948 and 1949. About 20 percent of the current population of just over seven million are Arabs.
Ms. Fenig, who is the national supervisor of homeland, society and citizenship studies, said, “Pedagogically, it is not right to hide facts and ignore Arab sensitivities if we want to live together and build something in common.”
Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the rightist National Religious Party and a member of Parliament, called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to fire Ms. Tamir, saying her decision was “anti-Zionist and goes against the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state.”
Most Arab and Jewish children study separately, in Arabic or Hebrew-language schools. Some Hebrew textbooks have over the years come to broach once-taboo subjects surrounding the establishment of the state, and the curriculum for Arab schools has also been slowly changing to take Arabic culture more into account.
But the Hebrew version of the third-grade book does not include the Palestinian version of the events of 1948. Ms. Fenig said that while the Arabic translation was adjusted to address Arab sensitivities and culture, Jewish third graders were considered too young to cope with the conflicting narratives.
The debate on Sunday took place as clashes between Israelis and Palestinians continued.
Deepening the constitutional crisis in the Palestinian territories, the Palestinian caretaker government of Salam Fayyad on Sunday failed for the second time to win a vote of confidence from the Palestinian Legislative Council, or the parliament, for lack of a quorum. Mr. Fayyad heads a government made up mostly of independents, appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, which governs from the West Bank. Hamas, which took over Gaza last month, does not recognize its legitimacy.
Only 33 of the 132 members of the parliament turned up for the session. About 45 members, most from Hamas, are detained in Israeli prisons. Other Hamas members and members from Fatah have both boycotted sessions in recent weeks, each for their own reasons.Arabs in Israel Live under Jim Crow Arparthiad
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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Putin rebukes 'colonial' Britain
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed a UK request for Andrei Lugovoi's extradition as the remnant of a "colonial mindset".
Tuesday, 24 July 2007, 19:05 GMT 20:05 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/6914522.stm
"They have long forgotten that it is a long time since Britain was a colonial power," he told Russian TV.
The UK expelled four diplomats after Russia refused to extradite Mr Lugovoi who denies killing ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.
The Foreign Office said it was still trying get Moscow to extradite him.
Mr Putin was being filmed meeting pro-Kremlin youth groups at the presidential residence at Zavidovo when he was asked about the diplomatic row.
He said 30 people sought by Russian law enforcement agencies "for serious and very serious crimes" were taking refuge in London and Britain did not "bat an eyelid and did not even think about extraditing them".
"They (Britain) had the same problem, though to a lesser extent, with the USA, strange as it may sound, and with France and other countries," he said.
"They do not extradite to any country people who are hiding on their territory, including people who are suspected of and charged with terrorist activities."
He added that to other countries, Britain made "exaggerated claims", including "insulting advice" to "change our constitution".
"They should get their heads examined rather than tell us to change our constitution," he said.
'Respect partners'
Mr Putin said Britain's behaviour was "clearly a remnant of a colonial mindset".
"They don't have any colonies. And Russia, thank God, has never been a colony of Great Britain," he said.
The Russian president added: "It shows they still have in their heads the ideas of the last century or the century before that.
"They should treat their partners with respect. And if they do, we will treat them with respect."
Under the European Convention on Extradition 1957, Russia has the right to refuse the extradition of a citizen, and its constitution expressly forbids it.
A Foreign Office spokesman said that the government was still seeking to persuade Moscow to hand over Mr Lugovoi.
"We continue to look for a willingness from the Russian authorities to work constructively with us to bring this crime, committed in the UK, to justice in a UK court," he said.
Gordon Brown renewed his demand for the extradition of Mr Lugovoi on Monday and described the situation as "intolerable".
Last week, four Russian embassy staff were expelled from the UK after the British extradition request was refused.
That prompted Moscow to retaliate by asking four British embassy staff to leave within 10 days.
Putin Rejects British Superiority
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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Trial of David Hicks 'a charade'
The trial of Australian national David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay was a charade that served to corrode the rule of law, Australia's top legal body has said.
Tuesday, 24 July 2007, 10:44 GMT 11:44 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/asia-pacific/6913374.stm
Law Council of Australia: http://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/
The Law Council of Australia called government support for the US military tribunal process shameful.
David Hicks was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and spent more than five years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
At a military tribunal earlier this year he admitted supporting terrorism and, under a plea deal agreed with prosecutors, was jailed for seven years.
According to the report prepared by lawyer Lex Lasry, aspects of Hicks' plea agreement appeared "an attempt to protect the credibility and interests of the US government".
The deal also meant that his tribunal became "a contrived affair played out for the benefit of the media and the public".
It was "designed to lay a veneer of due process over a political and pragmatic bargain", the report said.
Mr Lasry called the Howard government's support for the tribunal process "shameful" and said Australia's moral authority had been diminished by it.
"Ultimately there has been no benefit from this process; only a corrosion of the rule of law," he wrote.
Bush Nazi Powers reviled by Australian Bar Association
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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Texas: 274 Immigrants Arrested in Raids
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/us/21brfs-274IMMIGRANT_BRF.html?pagewanted=print
Federal agents arrested 274 illegal immigrants over five days during raids in Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The authorities took into custody 233 men, 28 women and 13 children, said an agency spokesman, Carl Rusnok. The operation, which began Monday and ended yesterday, yielded illegal immigrants, people wanted by immigration authorities and immigrants with criminal records. Of those arrested, 99 had criminal convictions, the agency said. “These operations are a critical element in removing threats to public safety,” said Nuria T. Prendes, field office director for the agency’s Office of Detention and Removal Operations.
Mexicans Belong in Mexico
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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House Backs Barring Political Spouses From Pay Campaign
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/washington/24spouse.html?pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, July 23 (AP) — Spouses would be barred from the payrolls of campaigns under a measure approved by voice vote on Monday in the House.
The bill would bar a federal candidate’s spouse from being paid by the candidate’s campaign or leadership political action committee. The ban would also apply to companies or firms in which the spouse was an officer or director. The measure would also require disclosure of payments from campaigns of PACs to other immediate members of a candidate’s family.
The longstanding practice of hiring relatives for campaign jobs “has shown the potential to foster corruption,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, the California Democrat who is chief sponsor of the measure.
In a recent report, the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington concluded that in the past six years about 60 current House members spent $5.1 million in campaign money to pay relatives, or relatives’ companies or employers.
The bill now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.
House Ends Family Gravy Train?
Only for Show: Senate will Kill it
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
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